The Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus is an 8 pedal power supply for guitar pedals.
This power supply is designed to isolate the power output to each pedal, giving it as clean
of a signal as possible.
In this video, we’ll take a look at the features of the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 plus,
getting it setup with a pedalboard, and we’ll finish it off by comparing the amount of noise
we get with this isolated power supply compared to a cheaper alternative using a regular single
pedal power supply with a daisy chain cable attached.
If you’re interested in getting a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus, check out our links
to this power supply in the video description.
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When setting up a pedalboard for electric guitar, powering all the pedals can be very
difficult, but it’s something we need to pay attention to in order to get the best
quality results.
There’s two ways to do this.
The cheap way is with a single power supply and a daisy chain cable that connects all
the power inputs on the pedals together.
The second way is with a dedicated power supply mounted to the pedalboard that isolates every
power output to the pedals, giving us a cleaner result.
This is the kind of configuration we would get with the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus,
and it really makes a huge difference in reducing the noise produced by the pedalboard as we’ll
see in our experiment later in this video.
First let’s start with the features of this power supply.
There are 8 isolated outputs for the pedals that provide clean power.
This can prevent issues like ground loops and some of the interference that we get from
chaining our pedals together.
All the pedal outputs can be set to 9V, which is what most guitar pedals will use.
However, there is also an option to set a few of them to 12V for pedals that require
that, or there’s an included cable to use two power outputs together to create an 18V
output for those types of pedals.
To switch to 12V, you would set the switch for that power output on the bottom of the
power supply.
2 of the outputs offer 250 mA power to a pedal, since some pedals have a higher power draw.
Your specific pedal’s power draw might either be written on the pedal itself, or found in
the manufacturers specifications.
These power limitations for the mA are important to know about, since we don’t want to exceed
the current draw for the power supply on any of the outputs.
That means that we shouldn’t be connecting multiple pedals to a single output with a
daisy chain like we might do with a regular cheap wall power supply, since a lot of those
power supplies are actually designed to allow that and have a higher current.
In some cases, some people have used daisy chains to power multiple pedals from the 250
mA outputs, but keep in mind that you can lose some of the isolation that you were likely
looking to gain by purchasing this type of power supply to begin with.
The Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus power supply does have a metal bracket that’s available
to attach it to a pedalboard.
It’s usually used for the Pedaltrain pedalboards, which is what I have.
To install it, you would need to screw the bracket onto the power supply and drill holes
in the pedalboard.
Then you can secure it with screws.
All the power outputs for the pedals are now underneath our pedalboard, and we can use
the included cables to power all the pedals.
Next I want to do an experiment testing the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus against a regular
cheap single pedal power supply with a daisy chain attachment.
I’m going to setup all the pedals in the same order with the same cables and guitar,
then plug them directly into my Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 as a direct recording.
We’ll test this will all pedals off and on, and compare the overall noise levels.
I’ll make sure not to touch the preamp levels on the audio interface, and the interface
will be set to instrument mode for all these recordings.
The preamp level is set to 1 o’clock to really boost the level.
This is much higher than we would normally use to record a guitar at, but it should give
us the best comparison for just the noise.
The pedals I’m using are the Behringer Super Metal, Boss DS-1, Crybaby Wah, Danelectro
Chorus, and Behringer Digital reverb, so there’s a mix of different types of pedals here.
All the controls for the pedals are set to 12 o’clock.
I do have a guitar plugged in at the beginning, and it’s the Gibson Les Paul Studio.
I used this guitar for this test because it has the humbucker pickups so they don’t
produce noise; I didn’t want the noise from the single coil pickups from the other guitars
interfering with the results.
Let’s compare what the results from the recordings of each of these setups now.
The daisy chain configuration with the pedals off peaks at -16.7 dB, whereas it’s -58.5
dB with the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus power supply.
This is due to the isolation, since the daisy chain setup has noise from a ground loop.
This is actually a pretty interesting result that we’re adding that much noise even with
the pedals all turned off.
I wouldn’t focus too much on the actual level of the noise, since we’re increasing
the gain with a preamp to really make a comparison here, but more just look at the different
between the two configurations.
Once we turn the pedals on, we get quite a bit more noise as they’re all drawing power,
and they’re also boosting the signal since we’re using some distortion and gain increasing
pedals here.
The non-isolated daisy chain setup brings the peak level up to -4.3 dB on this recording,
and the isolated setup with the Voodoo Lab power supply is at -18.2 dB.
So the Voodoo lab power supply with all the pedals enabled is still quieter than the daisy
chain setup with all the pedals turned off and no gain increase.
This is actually a lot of noise difference here, and I was actually very surprised at
how good the power supply did at cleaning up the signal.
Overall, I’m very happy with the results from this power supply.
It’s very clear that the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus is providing a lot cleaner power
to our pedals and preventing a lot of noise compared to the cheaper daisy chain setup.
I think the daisy chain setup noise would be fairly unacceptable in most cases, especially
running into a high gain amp.
Of course, the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus probably costs almost 10 times as much a power
supply with the daisy chain cable, so that’s important to consider as well, but there’s
no doubt there’s a big difference in noise and signal quality.
Thanks for checking out this video on the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 plus power supply.
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