Why are pedal boards normally right to left?

Rocky1991

I just had a thought (admittingly after two drinks) 

Why do we order (in general) pedalboards right to left? its not the way the English works (or the majority of other languages work). I know most boards you can buy promote this but still. 

The only thing I could think of, is the most stepped on pedal I would assume for most people would be the drivey pedal and being on the right side as most people are right footed that may make sense. 

Jonathangus

Because most people are right-handed, so the lead comes out of the right of the guitar into the first pedal.  So the input is on the right, and the output on the left.  If the pedals went left to right, the cable would trail across them and get in the way.

Alex2678

Guitar lead is on the right of a right handed person, the lead from the guitar to the first pedal doesn’t cross your body 

Lestratcaster

Probably cos most output jacks of pedals are on the left and you want your tuner first, then your compressors if you use any, drives and time based effects last.

stevrossthepipe

Pedal jack inputs go right side input and left side is  output ... right? ya i think ha I am  confused now but that must be the reason?  Would be a nightmare to wire the board the other way.

blobb

Synth modules run left to right. Explain that and stay fashionable.

Rocky1991

The lead comments make total sense, no more sunday drinks for me!

slacker

Put the pedals where you want and wire them in with spaghetti under the board. If your patch leads are not long enough use a long lead as a cable donor.

CavemanGrogg

blobb said:

Synth modules run left to right. Explain that and stay fashionable.

That's simple, Jesus hates lefties, that's why pedal boards go from right to left, and synth modules go from left to right.

scrumhalf

Multi-effects boards with the foot pedal on the right annoy me.

Most people are right-footed but to use your right foot means that you have to stand at an unnatural angle to the board or use your left foot, which may not be as nimble as the right.

ICBM

scrumhalf said:

Multi-effects boards with the foot pedal on the right annoy me.

Most people are right-footed but to use your right foot means that you have to stand at an unnatural angle to the board or use your left foot, which may not be as nimble as the right.

I don’t get that... having the pedal on the right and using your right foot means that you stand in front of the board and everything in is the right place. Having the pedal on the left would mean standing off to the side of the board.

The real oddity with multi-FX is that apart from the wah, the rest of the effects go left to right, ie the opposite of separate pedals. Somehow I never find that confusing though.

Nikc

ICBM said:

scrumhalf said:

Multi-effects boards with the foot pedal on the right annoy me.

Most people are right-footed but to use your right foot means that you have to stand at an unnatural angle to the board or use your left foot, which may not be as nimble as the right.

I don’t get that... having the pedal on the right and using your right foot means that you stand in front of the board and everything in is the right place. Having the pedal on the left would mean standing off to the side of the board.

The real oddity with multi-FX is that apart from the wah, the rest of the effects go left to right, ie the opposite of separate pedals. Somehow I never find that confusing though.

I was sat here thinking the same thing Right to Left on real pedal board - Left to Right in my Multi-FX never gave it a moments thought. Although I'm sure the signal chain in my FireBox 2 is right to left but, as that sits on the pedal board it might make sense. I'll check this evening as now its bugging me 

KevS

My Shi nei Fuzz Wah goes the Opposite way..

Sassafras

Coz life isn't fair. Get used to it.

scrumhalf

ICBM said:

scrumhalf said:

Multi-effects boards with the foot pedal on the right annoy me.

Most people are right-footed but to use your right foot means that you have to stand at an unnatural angle to the board or use your left foot, which may not be as nimble as the right.

I don’t get that... having the pedal on the right and using your right foot means that you stand in front of the board and everything in is the right place. Having the pedal on the left would mean standing off to the side of the board.

The real oddity with multi-FX is that apart from the wah, the rest of the effects go left to right, ie the opposite of separate pedals. Somehow I never find that confusing though.

If your board is deep then for your right foot to be on the pedal the left foot cannot be adjacent to the right foot. It has to be either square to the board, at nine o'clock, or parallel with the right foot but further back.

If the pedal was on the left my right foot could control it and my left foot could be next to it. 

ICBM

scrumhalf said:

If your board is deep then for your right foot to be on the pedal the left foot cannot be adjacent to the right foot. It has to be either square to the board, at nine o'clock, or parallel with the right foot but further back.

If the pedal was on the left my right foot could control it and my left foot could be next to it. 

The pedal is at the front on the right on a multi-FX... it is on all the ones I've ever used, anyway. You can easily reach it when you're standing in front of the board. I'm a midget too, so it's not a leg length thing .

If the pedal was on the left and you were standing to the left of the board, you'd then have to move across and backwards to turn on and off the other switches, which would be very awkward and weird.

I did actually have a bass pedalboard once where the wah was at the left end - bass wah sounds better there than at the start of the chain - and I just used my left foot, still from standing in front of the board.

EricTheWeary

Some early pedals had their input sockets in the middle, there have been various left to right pedals over the years. And having multiple pedals wouldn't have been common for a long time. So right to left pedals either won out because people did find them more convenient or probably just that the pedals that were successful happened to be right to left and other makers just copied that (like the 9v centre negative thing). I'm less convinced that it was part of some grand design. 

Musicwolf

Physical connections Right to Left for the reasons stated above about trailing leads.  Virtual pedal boards (i.e. using HX Edit) and synth modules are Left to Right because that's the way we read in the West.  No dispensation for Left Handers as they are an abomination in the sight of god.

PAL

You can with a bit of thought wire your board to work for you left or right it can be done.

TheBigDipper

There were enough people complaining to TC Electronics that the Plethora X5 went left-right that they added an enhancement to the last firmware release to let the player choose… 

JayGee

I’m just glad that pedal builders have (by and large, there may be exceptions amongst the vintage and exotic stuff…) settled on a single orientation.

Imagine trying to wire a board where hall the pedals were set up for left to right and half for right to left - I’m sure if it was a thing we’d learn to live with it but a single orientation does make life somewhat easier.

Mind you, I sometimes think it might be kind of neat (in both senses of the words) if I could have my bottom row running right to left and the top row left to right (or vice versa) as would be little easier to patch from the last pedal on one row to the first on the other and you’d naturally end up with all the I/O grouped together at one end of the board as is Right And Proper…