Warwick RB 23100 Gigboard

WARNING - you cannot use the Gigboard to power the Digitech Whammy EVEN THOUGH IT SHOWS ON THE BOX.

seems quiet enough.

WARNING - you cannot use the Gigboard to power the Digitech Whammy EVEN THOUGH IT SHOWS ON THE BOX.

I bought this used - the version with the cordura carry bag and pedal board. As noted earlier, this pedalboard powers and routes a small number of effect pedals (limited by the size of the board). It's a flat velcro-covered board with two parallel audio loops and four 9V ports. There are adapter cables with reversible polarity to connect pedals to the power ports, so you can work with positive or negative center polarity.

The carry case is very well made with stout zipper, exterior pocket and mesh-covered interior pocket. Very nice indeed. The board is a plastic two-piece clamshell (top and bottom) with five small screws holding it together. The plastic would probably warp if exposed to sunlight through a dashboard on a very hot day, but I don't abuse my equipment that way so it's not a problem to me. Also, since it's plastic, I wouldn't leave it in a car at 10 above zero, then drop it onto a stage. But with reasonable care, it should last a long time.

I've taken the board apart to install a new power connector, and both the power posts and audio connectors are mounted on PC cards running along the top of the unit. They look stout enough to handle normal wear and tear.

I got no manual with this, but after reading the reviews on this page I knew how it worked and set it up easily. The only thing that you need to watch is the polarity of the power connectors - easy enough. check them with a digital voltmeter if you aren't sure of the polarity.

On back of the board there are strips of foam to keep it from creeping around on the floor. The strips tend to get torn up, but can easily be replaced with generic foam tape (like the stuff used between pickup beds and camper shells).

This board has absolutely NO EFFECT on sound in my experience. None!

I use the original wall wart for power, and it has absolutely no hum or other noise. I also carry a backup wall wart which I have tested on the board and it doesn't inject noise either.

I have not used the audio ports or loops, because I run one cable from bass to effects and one cable from the last effect to the amp. I have no need for the loops. However, having opened up the board and checked the electronics, there are NO components in the signal path - just jacks and connections. The audio loops should have no effect on your sound.

This board is very handy because it gives you an easy way to attach pedals to the board and power them without running multiple power sources or wall warts. When you're done, drop the pedal board into the carry bag, coil your cables and pack them around the pedals, zip the bag shut and you're ready to go.

The main limitation is that there is a limited amount of space to mount pedals, so you're not going to use this for more than 4-6 pedals, even at the small sizes that Boss uses.

One note - many pedals don't hold to the vencro strips' adhesive well and will fall off the strips - not much you can do other than run the vencro strips over the holes for "feet" and screw the strips on.

This is not something I would use as a musician gigging 3-5 nights a week - it's simply not made for that. However, the plastic board is absolutely stout enough to last for years with your average musician practicing once weekly and playing out once or twice a month.

I would take it on any gig, but I made one modification that makes it more gig-worthy: the original power connector is a 1/8" mini-plug like the plugs used on in-ear headphones. This is NOT a good connector for the application, as it pops out of the power jack very easily. I changed the wall wart's connector to an M-size DC connector, just the same as used on most pedals. This connector has much more positive contact with the board and won't pop loose by accident. I also opened up the board and installed an M-size female connector (Radio Shack has them) to match.

I didn't make any effort to reach the company. It appears to be made in Great Britain, and it's hard to find info on it without doing an Internet search using the model number. I did find that replacement power connectors for the port-to-effect connections are available from vendors online, although you have to search to find them.

This is a very handy device for the part-time musician, and well worth buying if the price appeals to you. With reasonable care (not beating it to death) it will last for years.

This is a substantial unit. It is effectively a flight case with a completely removable lid. The lid ( which is very deep) then turns upside down and is used as a five guitar stand, similar in design to Warwicks regular guitar stand. Hinged arms lock in to place an a padded support beam added to the top. A very neat trick.

The base is a pedal board, complete with velcro and is powered. There is five 9v supplies and one 12v supply. Leads are supplied and and the polarity of the leads can be switched by reversing them. There are also two parallel effects loops on the base. The useable area for pedals measures 720mm x 320mm.

The manual is shockingly bad, so you have to work much of it out yourself, but it's really not too difficult, just remember that the total power draw from your pedals including anything powered at 12v dc cannot total more than 400mA. If it does, the board shuts down for a while and the 'OL' (overload)light illuminates. A bit scarey seeing as the manual doesn't explain this!

Well, the power supply seems stable enough and there is no hum or other noise added. The effects loops work well enough and there seems to be no detrimental degradation of tone, so for now I guess it's ok.

Now, reliability. If this case didn't have a power supply with it, I'd give it a 9 or 10. The flight case is very well built, good corners, great butterfly catches and the internal stand is very substantial and well padded.

I have my doubts about the power supply though. The whole unit does not look too robust and the quality of the supplied dc power leads are frankly shocking. I will be having some quality ones made as soon as possible.

There is no on/off switch on the power supply itself, so it's on as soon as you plug it in to the mains. The lead mine came with was fitted with a euro plug, despite there being a very conspicuous sticker on the box advertising it as "Now with UK Plug"! The lead itself is only a metre long, so that'll need remedying too.

We will see when I comment on stuff like the missing plug, short lead, on/off switch, cheapo cables etc., but for now I'm not in a position to judge this category.

I love the stand and pedal board idea, very clever and useful on stage. I think I would be more confident if it did not have the power supply integrated with it.. Its a great shape and very robust (although heavy at 23kg)and looks very cool.


Would I buy another? Maybe if it didn't have the power supply, or if the existing one was removable in some way.

All in all a good product. As good as Pedaltrain boards but a traditional design which may appeal more to some than to others.

Truly awful manual, there are many different configs for a device such as this, and some guidance should be included for best set up. The power supply leads are really inferior and have to be stuck together with gaffa tape. They are also unbearably noisy if your foot strays onto them.

G&L legacy special thru Fender Hot rod deluxe.
Well if you like mains hum, this is the board for you! This unit cost me 129 uk pounds and I think it's only worth 50 max! All components (jack sockets and the like)are really cheap and nasty. This is not a 'pro' board. Difficult to get sound quality rating as the hum is so bad. By-passing the effects loop cuts down a bit of noise, but it simply is not good enough. It's not my patch leads either as I'm using 'Planet Waves' throughout all tried and tested.

The cardboard box it came in looks as though it would offer better protection than the bag it comes in, which, if I do keep it will need extra foam padding to stop the pedals falling about.

I'm getting realy tired trying to get any decent (quiet) sound from it - I'll give it a couple more days before I ship it back!

Bought over the internet on impulse - wish I'd looked around the music stores instead!

Couldn't be much easier. Just cut the velcro into right-sized pieces and glue em to the pedals. Then just attach them onto the board, plug the power-wires in and there you go.

Don't know. Didn't get there until the problems started. More later.

Now. As you may well know the pedalboard's bag used to be really good. Well padded, lots of room and many ways to carry it (shoulder-pads, convenional handles etc). They sell the board in a cardboard box nowadays and the box has both pictures and descriptions of what is supposed to be inside it (a well padded bag with shoulder straps and all). Well, of course I thought that I would find the old version of the bag inside but NO. It has changed. It has no padding at all, it's WAY too big for the board and only has one handle. It looks like the bag Warwick has for storing microphones in. Absolute CRAP in other words. So, back to the store it goes. It's one thing to have bad quality products but if the products Warwick are selling are not what it says in the cover of the box they're selling them in seems pretty weird to me. So I'm giving it a 1 'cause I couldn't depend on what it was supposed to be.

Dunno.

I bought it because of the bag. And it wasn't what it was supposed to be. So I'll give it a 1.

Very easy to set up

I have the 220 volt mdel. Its running 9 volt power into my Fender delay and my Marshall Blues driver. Also have Cry Baby and Univibe in line. No appreciable increase in noise.

Not made to withstand daily abuse. But if I were a pro, I would spend the bucks on a much more substantial unit. This is fine for a weekend warrior like me.

NA

I can't see getting much more for this price. It comes with a great bag. Plenty of room for all my loose junk. The board provides outlets for 6 pedals. But I like running batteries in my cry baby and the univbe has a separate power supply.

I think it's pretty easy to use, since I'm not in the "loop" feature at all, just put the plug into the first pedal and going out the last one in line....so basically You can't do nothing wrong.

sorry to say, this thing sucks, if You excuse the word. NEVER try to use that thing with the power adaptor, unless You want a bad hum coming out of Your amp. I use a strat, a vox wah pedal, z-vex fuzz factory, and Boss DS-1 and DD-5 ( both with the switchbox made by pedalboard.com to get true bypass ). why didn't I order the pedalboard.com juicebox and one of their pedalboards too ? I'll have to do it now, because I found this warwick thing impossible to use.
but to be fair, let me say this: if You use Your effects with batteries or buy a power supply like the abovementioned juicebox or the voodoolab pedalpower, the sound is alright. but then You can as well put Your effects on a piece of wood or whatever....

sad to say, I give this thing 8 gigs before it breaks...look at the screws on the side...had this nice experience before with the skb board, which is quite similar, and that one I had to glue back together after some gigs.
however, the velcro holds the pedals very well.

sorry, know nothing about that.

I've been playing for ten years, live and studio in many styles. this is the second of those fancy "full powered" pedalboards I bought, and this is the last time i've been fooled. folks, if You want to work professionally and do not want to be kicked out of a band because Your eqipment makes funny noises or they find out You're gluing together Your pedalboard in the middle of soundcheck - please buy Your pedalboard and a powersupply somewhere else. check out pedalboard.com to get some quality product., of course, it's more expensive. but their products are definitely worth the extra money.
If you just need some piece of plastic with velcro on to put Your pedals on there, and playing one gig a month, then this warwick thing might be o.k. of course , it's cheap and maybe I'm too hard on it. but if a company builds a pedalboard with integrated power supply, and You can't use it - what is it good for anyway ?

This is a pedalboard meant to give power to and route effect pedals. It's a flat board (with velcro to attach pedals) with two parallel loops, five 9V supplies and one 12V supply. Therefore it shouldn't give any sound on its own.
The manual is basically useless as it fails to mention many important factors when you try to organize your pedals. There are examples on how to configure pedals and loops, but not all of them actually works! Also, the cable to connect to the external power outlet is only 1 meter long and that's way too short for most sane places you might take it. Using the board into the effect loop on my amp gave me a lot of headache before I found out that the manual gave wrong instructions. Anyway, with some thinking involved it's not difficult to use. I suggest trying to configure your pedals in all possible way before settling for one specific way. The basic use is easy, but because of bad manual and some odd solutions it gets unnecessary low rating.

The set-up I use it in is a Fender Telecaster Plus and a Blade Texas Vintage into a Line 6 Flextone. On the board I have a Boss DD3, a Boss Harmonist harmonizer and a Danelectro Dan-o-matic pedal tuner. All cables are high quality George L's.
As I said earlier it should give any sound on its own, but it does color the sound. The noise level is possible to tolerate, but I think it's possible to do some better shielding than what's done on this thing. I found out that the sound is less colored when I go from the effect loop on my amp into the pedal-chain and back into the amp's loop. When doing it this way I don't utilize the two loops on the board, but I have a place to have my pedals and they get power. I was somewhat irritated that the board-loop adds noise and sucks tone, but that's the cold hard truth. I've settled with using it as just a power supply and pedalboard. I don't rate this because it doesn't process any sound on its own.

The pedal board seem sturdy enough, but I'm not sure how long it will survive on the road because it's made of some kind of plastic. The great thing about this board is the bag that comes with it which is from Rockbag, a division of Warwick. It's a thick bag you can carry on your back or in one arm. It probably takes some beating, but remember that a bag can't replace a case. There are lots of room to store cables, sheet music etc. and even a small pocket for your cell-phone! As I said I like the bag most of all with this purchase and alone I would give it a ten, but I look at it as a whole.

I haven't dealt with the company at all so I can't say anything how helpful they are. Still, it took my local store about four weeks to get this thing in the first place, but I'm not going to rate them on account on that.

This board can basically be used by anyone who use stompboxes of some kind and want to arrange them a bit more carefully then to let them live their own lives on the floor. I play lead guitar in a modern country band and my basic sound comes from the amp, but I occasionally color my sound a bit with a couple of pedals. My pedals eat more batteries than I can feed them so I needed power supply and something to keep them in one place and basically that's what I got with this board. Still, I'm not really happy with it because the company cut corners on the loops and chassis. Another thing is that it's unnecessary big and takes up a lot more space than needed. When I put this thing next to my Line 6 Floorboard people laugh because my "foot equipment" is bigger than my backline!
If it was stolen I would probably say "oh, well" and start making a board myself. I wouldn't under any circumstances buy this again. Now I regret that I didn't try it out in the store before I bought it, but I had to special order it (as well as any other boards I would've wanted) and chose this one basically because the only thing I found that does the same thing cost over twice as much and that's a SKB board.