I Got the Opportunity to Build My First Wet/Dry/Wet Guitar Pedalboard

I was lucky enough to be allowed to make this cool rig this week! It’s made to work well with one amp, but great with two. And if you’re a certified mad lad, you can even run it with three amps!

Allow me to explain:

When a signal has effects on it, it’s called “wet” – and when it doesn’t, it’s called “dry”. However, sometimes (like here), only some effects, like chorus, delay and reverb, are categorised as making the signal wet. And whether effects like overdrive and compression are on, the signal is categories as dry.

The board has four jacks in its side panel:

• Guitar in
• Dry signal out
• Wet out L
• Wet out R

Rigs that have those three outputs are called wet/dry/wet rigs.

The first part of the signal is TC Electronics Polytune 3 > Xotic SP Compressor > Van Weelden Royal Overdrive (🤤). This is the “dry” signal, and it’s split (with a JHS Buffered Splitter under the board), and sent to the dry out and into the Musicom Labs Parallelizer II. Via the latter, the Eventide Tricerachorus, Boss SDE-3000D and Strymon Cloudburst are run in stereo parallell – before the signal goes Fulltone Supa-Trem2 > Lehle Little Dual 2.¹

After the Lehle, the signal goes to the wet outputs on the side of the board.

The Boss delay requires its own power supply – but with a cheeky splitter beneath the board, both this and the Strymon Zuma powering the rest of the pedals, get power from one IEC plug on the side of the board.

I did add some cable management and stuff – but in general, I don’t like the Instagram friendly practice of custom fitting everything, as I want the board to be easy to adjust and work with. Here you can also see the splitters and different power supplies:

I try to do things “nice, but still pragmatic”. So, I want to make it less messy, while still making it workable. My favourite way to fasten things under the board is via the pedal’s (or whatever) own bottom plate screws or similar. I’ll then screw it out, and screw it back in through the board. But when this isn’t possible, I really like using cable ties, actually – especially when you can’t see them up top. They’re light, cheap, flexible, and stable – albeit unromantic.

So, one IEC plug, jack from the guitar, jack to dry amp, and jacks to stereo amps, and you’re good to go! I also love how snugly it fits into the Peli.

Really cool rig, I’m glad I got the opportunity to work on. If you’re in Norway, feel free to contact me if you want some help with a board! And check out the artist I made it for: SJ Sveen!