# A pedal board plan is a diagram, not a photograph > A pedal board plan numbers seven pedals in sequence, because swapping two of them changes the sound more than swapping either pedal for a different one. August 19, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/pedal-board-plan Seven pedals in two rows, seen straight from above. Each is a plain rectangle with two or three knobs and a footswitch, connected to its neighbours by patch cables that cross and double back. Every pedal carries a number, 1 to 7, small in its corner. The board could be redrawn with the pedals in a different order and none of the hardware would change. Only the sound would. ## What is a pedal board plan actually recording? The sequence a signal passes through seven effects in, not an inventory of what those effects are. A pedal board photographed from above looks like a parts list — one box, another box, cables connecting them. But every pedal takes an input and hands off an output, and the chain only works one way round: whatever is plugged in first receives the raw signal, whatever is plugged in last sends the finished version on to the amplifier. The numbering makes explicit what a photograph leaves implicit — this is a path, not a pile, the same distinction [a numbered patch bay strip](/stories/patch-bay-cable-tangle) makes for a bank of cables that could otherwise fall in any order. ## Why does swapping two pedals change what the board sounds like? Because each pedal reshapes the signal for whatever comes after it, not just for the ear listening at the end. Put distortion before a delay pedal and the amplifier hears a clipped, saturated signal that then gets echoed — every repeat carries the same grit. Put the delay first and the distortion pedal receives clean echoes and clips each one afresh, producing a messier, more chaotic repeat. Same two pedals, same settings on each, and a different result entirely, because a pedal doesn't know or care what order it was bought in, only what's arriving at its input right now — which is also why [resoldering a jack that's stopped passing signal](/stories/soldering-iron-and-a-jack) fixes the chain regardless of which pedal happened to fail. ## Which seven pedals should the numbers actually belong to? Whichever seven somebody actually owns, run in the order they actually run them in. A board built around a real, working chain reads specifically because it is one. Tuner first, then compression, drive pedals in the middle, modulation and time-based effects last, is a common shape but not a rule anybody has to follow — a player who runs something unusual, delay before overdrive, three fuzz pedals in a row, gets a plan that's theirs rather than a textbook diagram. That's different from [a modular synth panel with no fixed sequence at all](/stories/synth-patch-cord-web); a pedal board is supposed to have one, and the numbers are what prove it was actually used rather than assembled for the drawing. ## Can a real pedal brand or model appear on the board? A pedal's control layout and its printed name belong to the company that made it, and both are licensable the ordinary way, the way any product identity is. If a real pedal is the point — a board built to celebrate one particular pairing of effects — the permission is part of the job, the same as it would be for any branded object on a shirt. If it isn't the point, a plain rectangle with knobs and a footswitch says everything the numbering needs it to say, without borrowing anybody's front panel. Nobody owns the idea of a stompbox, and a recognisable board is also the board a thousand other people already run. ## Does this work for a board of five pedals, or fifteen? Yes — the count only changes how crowded the rows get, not what the numbering is for. A five-pedal board redraws into a single row rather than two; fifteen needs three rows or a wider print. What stays fixed is that every pedal gets one number and the cables show the actual connections rather than a tidied schematic — a board with a delay looped in twice, or one pedal bypassed on a cable that skips it, is still worth drawing exactly as it's wired, because that irregularity is usually the interesting decision. ## Isn't a signal chain too specialised a thing to put on a shirt? Not to the one person who built it, and that's the entire audience it needs. A pedal board plan isn't trying to explain effects processing to a stranger; it's recording a chain that took years of swapping boxes to arrive at, in the order that took years to settle. That's a different kind of record from [a sound engineer's numbered channel list before a show](/stories/sound-check-input-list), which exists to be read by somebody else — this diagram doesn't need to be. Anyone who has rearranged a board at eleven at night before a gig because the delay was in the wrong place understands the print instantly. Anyone who hasn't doesn't need to. ## Does it print well? Yes — flat rectangles and thin cable lines are close to ideal artwork for fabric. Knob details reduce to two or three dots per pedal rather than the real hardware's finer marks, and the numbers stay bold enough to survive the weave. Olive with cream for the hardware and orange for the cables and numbers keeps the sequence readable at a glance, which is the entire job of the design. ## How do I get one made? Describe the board at [JustOG](/) — how many pedals, the order they run in, and which effects they are. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped. Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop). Seven numbers, and together they're the only part of the board that was ever decided by a person.