The Pedaltrain Volto is a rechargeable pedalboard power supply. Not the world’s first, but probably the current best. Sorry for the pun.
It took a while to get to me – two months from order. They’ve only been launched recently and are selling very well in their native US, so export stocks are tight. It then got stuck with the dealer for several weeks (they dialled the wrong number to tell me it was in and complete the sale, didn’t think to email too, duh*), but all is well now.
I should say that Pedaltrain were very responsive in helping me ascertain where the supply bottleneck was too. Sincere thanks, guys.
So how is it? Well, it arrived two-thirds charged and a full charge was complete in a hour at my office desk. Installation beneath my Pedaltrain Nano jamming pedalboard was a breeze, even very late at night after a rather tedious business dinner.
I’ve chosen to install it face down as the indicator lights are bright enough to dazzle through the pedals if it’s face up. But they still show clearly as a blue glow beneath the board and the stompboxes themselves will confirm if they’re getting power too. The on/off switch is craftily camouflaged within the case legend but is very easily accessible.
I’ve played two full rehearsals with it powering five micro-pedals on my jamming board. It’s still showing two out of three power lights, so it’s clearly good for a whole, long gig.
Being a battery, there are no hum or loop issues, so it’s quiet and a good relevant selection of connectors is included. EXCELLENT. The sheer simplicity of building this pedalboard contrasts starkly with the complexity of hounding out noise in my larger boards, let alone the 25-year quest that is my large rack!
So now I finally have a comprehensive but tiny self-powered pedalboard that sounds great and sets up as quickly as a single stompbox, whether at a jam where three’s no turnaround time, or at a gig when there is a little more. Happy, back to playing!
(*they have been otherwise very good so I’m not outing them here)
