Pedal Jacks – Side-Mounted vs Top-Mounted
There seems to be an increasing trend by manufacturers towards top-mounted pedal jacks over side-mounted jacks. And that got me wondering… which is better?
Pedalboard real estate seems the most obvious pro for top-mounted jacks. Being able to sit pedals in large enclosures side by side does save room without sacrificing usability.
However, unless you’re using a loop switcher, standard-sized pedals generally need to be a shoe’s width apart and side-mounted jacks provide a decent buffer of space between them to avoid mis-stomping.
Standard enclosures also tend to force top-mounted jacks and the power input into very close quarters, which means not all patch and power cables will fit.
For example, my pedalboard is a Pedaltrain 2 (old photo above) which can hold 12 standard size pedals. I’m powering it with 2 Pedaltrain Volto’s to give me 12 (right-angled) power cables. Plus a bunch of Hosa low profile (pancake) right angle patch cables as well. With the pedalboard rails, it’s not really an issue where the power input of the pedal is, and the finished setup looks quite clean.
As shown, the Wampler Cranked OD with top-mounted jacks doesn’t work on my board unless I switch patch cables. The Hosa patch cable jacks are too large in diameter which prevents the power adapter from being plugged in at the same time. Now I love the Wampler Cranked OD, but it’s the only pedal I own with top-mounted jacks – I nearly skipped buying it because of the jack placement, but since it was a limited run I didn’t want to miss out. In reality, however, the Cranked OD rarely makes an appearance on my board because I have to find different cables for it. I know I could use different cables, but I switch out pedals quite often which is why the Hosa cables are so handy as they’re slimline enough to make this an easy task.
When it comes down to it, jack placement is absolutely a factor when I’m looking at pedals. Personally, I prefer side-mounted jacks with the power input on the top – probably one of the reasons why I have too many TC Electronic pedals.
Which configuration do you prefer?
Comments (7)
It is so funny how musicians are so stubborn when they have to actually make a small change
Top mounted everything is the only way to go!
If these guys who claim to be such custom pedal builders were smart, they would make both if they really cared about the customer. but they want to buy in bulk and save a few lousy dollars. than charge $200.00
The biggest joke of course is the 9 v adapter on the side of the pedal
Good thing guys like Leo Fender and Jim Marshall were true innovators and not followers!
Agree totally. Biggest joke is the 9v adapter on the side of the pedal.
@DR, for a pedal maker to make both top and side-mounted jacks it would mean they have to change the PCB layout, it’s not as easy as it seems. But I agree with you, I hate that my MXR Carbon Copy has the 9v jack on its side.
Bigfoot Engineering (UK) actually offer the option of side or top mounted jacks on a lot (but not all) of their pedals – so it seems it is possible, even if only on build to order.
I still have no choice to make. The only TOP mounted pedal I know of is the Boss Switcher Line Driver/power supply. The red one. Which some calls FACE mounted jacks. Beats me. I still find it very confusing that people uses the nomenclature TOP mounting when it’s really FRONT mounted. In all other worlds of dimension, shoes, feet, bicycle pedals it’s definitely not uncertain of what is FRONT, TOP, or left,right sides, or back of your foot, or shoe. Remember the following;
1. The opposite to TOP is BOTTOM/BELOW and not back or anything else. In all other dimensional orientations, feet, shoes, bicycle pedals and any regular box. Opposite to TOP on an effects pedal is, thus, the bottom plate with rubber feet (if any).
2. The opposite to RIGHT is LEFT, and vice versa. There, there’s consensus all over the place. No one questions this.
3. Opposite to FRONT is BACK. FRONT is in “wah pedal” terms “toe” position and BACK is “heel” position.
And then when explaining this to people that they call TOP mounted, when someone else calls it “at the back of the pedals” and showing them what to call that Boss Switcher/power supply when showing them its jacks on the TOP they goes very silent and stumped and then answers something in line of “well, erhhh…these goes to eleven” or something similar.
What’s so hard in getting this right, once and for all?
However, if push comes to shove is that I would like both, because it depends. The first pedal in the chain which takes the guitar lead, I want side mounted if possible. And it must be an angled plug because it keeps it from accidentally unplugging. It can be FRONT mounted too, with an angled plug. I’ve yet to experience any angled plug accidentally unplugging from stepping on it or walking too far with the guitar. Remember, lots of pedals has a lot of switches, jacks, midi, usb at the sides as well as on the FRONT. That has to be reachable. Too.
As I want the option to use angled plugs and straight plugs – even current cables – as much as possible ample room on the board is crucial. If I have a lot of pedals “in the middle” I’ve found it faster to unplug and do maintenance on a “pedal in the middle” if the jacks are FRONT mounted. If all pedals are side mounted you have to lift them up off from the velcro strip before you can remove the plugs.
Also, if you have just side mounted pedals, it is cumbersome to change order of it. You limit yourself to follow the signal chain with the physical placement of the pedals. If you have FRONT mounted pedals – provided the patch cables are long enough – it’s way easier to use all pedals front mounting as a patch bay of some sort, and change the chain order. Say that you don’t have to connect to the adjacent pedals because it resides next to it. This is to an advantage of when using 4 cable method, or when using multifx such as Boss GT1000 Core, Helix Stomp, Source Audio, where there is both jacks/plugs/midi at the sides as well as FRONT mounted jacks. Then those needs to be placed at the far right or left end of the pedalboard to make room for – not only – tele plugs coming in and out of it, since those can contain MIDI or USB cables too. regardless of that they are in the middle of the signal chain or at the beginning or end of it. Same for expression pedals etc. Exp pedals and wahs I definitely want FRONT mounted no matter what. Can’t stand side mounted wahs, since their sides are not at 90 degree angle, and the jacks are PCB mounted on a board that is 90 degree: accidents and solder cracks waiting to happen.
Mix of both is preferable to me, but if I had to make a choice if someone pointed a gun to my head. Front mounted all the way.
I agree about right-angle jacks. It annoys me that I can’t just buy a guitar cable with right-angle jacks on both ends; I don’t want to custom-make something to make my pedalboard and 4 cable method neater and more accident-proof.