6 Best Pedal Power Supplies: Proven Power Providers

The Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+ Power Supply has become a bit of the industry standard workhorse when it comes to powering pedals. This is a true isolated power supply, eliminating the noise and hum that would ordinarily be brought about by ground loops or interaction between pedals.

The U.S.A.-made Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+ weighs roughly 2 lbs. and measures about 6 inches wide by 3.5 inches deep, with a height of 1.8 inches. This power supply is used and trusted on stages all over the world.

What you’re essentially getting here is power supply with eight outputs that are completely isolated, meaning that for “basic” use you can use it to power eight of your battery-operated effects pedals. Each of the eight inputs can be modified via a dip switch at the bottom of the unit, which allows the outputs to accommodate nearly any voltage/current combo. The outputs are laid out as follows:

• All eight inputs can handle your straightforward 9V Boss PSA style pedal.

• Inputs 1, 2, 3, and 4 can be switched to handle 12V Boss ACA pedals, and deliver 100mA current.

• Outputs 5 and 6 can handle pedals with higher current requirement (250mA), and the DIP switch lets you pick between powering Boss Twin pedals, or Line 6 Modeling pedals.

• Outputs 7 and 8 handle standard 9V pedals, and available controls let you “Sag” the voltage from 9V down to about 4V, emulating a dying battery for those vintage wah, overdrive, and fuzz pedals that work well with that.

• There is a courtesy AC outlet , which is convenient if you have any effects that require AC power.

The Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+ can actually handle even more pedal types. If you have a pedal that requires 18V, you can purchase this Voodoo Lab PPY 18V Y cable to combine two 9V outputs to create an 18V supply. You can even join together two 12V outputs to power a 24V pedal.

We won’t go through every single voltage and current combination the Pedal Power 2+ can handle in this review, but if you want specifics, check the manual on Vodoo Lab's site.

The versatility the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+ offers is only part of the reason for its popularity. The other, arguably more important part is that by providing isolated outputs, you’re assured of a clean, hiss-free signal.

Bottom Line: All in all it’s very difficult not to recommend the Pedal Power 2+. It might be one of the best purchases you could make for your sound, serving as the solid backbone and delivering clean power to your pedal collection.

Luckily, a very economical solution exists that will allow you to power all of your pedals, and not have to carry around a bag full of batteries, or multiple adapters and a power strip. This solution (which we talked about above) is a daisy chain, and the most popular one is the Truetone 1 SPOT (for those of you that may have heard it by a different name, the company used to be called Visual Sound). The Truetone 1 SPOT comes in two primary configurations: one is the Truetone 1 SPOT 9V DC Adapter by itself by itself. The other is the combo pack, which is the one we’ll refer to more since it’s an all-in-one solution that comes with everything you need.

The 1 SPOT is very straightforward. You have a 9 volt power supply, which is the only thing you have to plug into an outlet. It only takes up this one spot, hence the name of the product. From there, you have a multi-plug cable with eight barrel connectors chained to each other, each of which can be used to power a pedal (you have about 10 ft. to play with which should be plenty). For convenience, an L6 converter is included to power Line 6 modeling pedals, as well as 3.5mm and Battery Clip Converters to power vintage style pedals.

Earlier, we talked about how the sum of the current your pedals draw cannot exceed that of the power adapter. This is definitely true with the 1 SPOT. Luckily, it can handle an ample 1700 mA, which is enough for a medium-sized pedalboard (provided you’re not using a bunch of current-hungry digital delay pedals).

While we love the ease of use of the Truetone 1 SPOT, at this low price you are making some compromises. For one, it’s not as versatile as some other power supplies. You can power the most common pedals with it, provided they are 9vDC. The 1 SPOT won’t be able to handle 12V, 18V, or 24V pedals, as well as any pedals that require AC instead of DC.

Because you aren’t isolating the power going to each of your pedals, the 1 SPOT is prone to noise and ground loop hum. It’s hit and miss, however, with roughly 50-60% of 1 SPOT users complaining about noise issues. Some users deem the noise unacceptable, while many accept this is the price to pay for paying such a low price for this power supply.

Bottom Line: While it’s certainly not perfect, it’s great that a solution like this exists and is very accessible. It’s certainly good *enough*, and will solve power issues for 80% of pedals out there (the vast majority of pedals are 9vDC). As far as experiencing annoying noise issues, it will be hit or miss, and largely depend on the pedals you are powering with it and how they interact with each other. If we generalize, we can recommend the 1 SPOT daisy chain as a nice solution to any guitarist on a serious budget, or for a backup pedalboard. If you have a more serious setup, perform live, or for any reason cannot tolerate noise/hum and want to feed your pedals the cleanest power, we would recommend looking at an entry level isolated pedal power supply instead. Still, the 1 SPOT is reliable, and an amazing value.

These days Walrus Audio is making it hard for us not to be super fans of them. Even “unsexy” stuff like pedal power supplies, they seem to nail it. We got our hands on the Walrus Canvas Power 8 with 8 power outputs (they also make a Power 5, 15, and 22, depending if your pedal collection is smaller or larger).

Unboxing the sleek packaging reveals the power supply, main power cable, mounting brackets, and several pedal power cables. Walrus gets the little details right, since these cables have a small right-angled plug on the pedal side to save space (if you’ve ever attempted a pedalboard build you know every little bit of space counts). It goes without saying that everything here feels built to last.

Scanning the back panel left to right, there’s a VERY cool LED power meter which shows you roughly how much power is being consumed. This is absolutely brilliant, especially if you don’t want to manually add up the power consumption of your pedals.

There’s a USB-C port, so you can charge your phone while playing. Again, a super thoughtful feature for the modern age.

Then there are the power outputs, each with its own LED letting you know that output is sending power. On the Canvas Power 8 two of the outputs are switchable between 9v/12v/18v for those thirsty pedals of yours. The 24V THRU lets you daisy chain this power supply with another Canvas Power supply, for when your pedal collection grows and you run out of power.

In terms of actual operation, no problems whatsoever. This powered our pedals flawlessly with no noise or hum.

Bottom Line: Again, with this power supply it all comes down to the little details. We would put this one head-to-head with a Strymon Zuma, and while the Zuma has one additional power output, the Walrus Canvas Power 8 is simply designed better. They both do the job of delivering clean, isolated power to your pedals. But the Walrus has the power consumption and operation LEDs, and the super useful USB-C port. Walrus for the win.

The T-Rex Engineering Fuel Tank Junior is a very nice and compact isolated power supply solution that can power five effects pedals via its five outputs. It’s light and compact, and best of all, it is reasonably priced.

T-Rex Engineering is a great company, and they manufacture several boutique guitar effects pedals people know and love. The Fuel Tank Junior weighs in at about 1 lb. and measures around 4 inches wide x 3 inches deep x 1.4 inches tall.

The T-Rex Fuel Tank Junior is best suited for those with relatively uncomplicated pedal power needs, and powering a smaller pedal collection. The Fuel Tank Junior has 5 isolated 9 Volt DC outputs, each delivering 120mA. What this basically means is that if you want to take advantage of the isolation, you can power one pedal per each output, which means the Fuel Tank Junior can handle a maximum of five pedals. That is, provided each of those five pedals accepts 9V, and draws no more than 120 mA of current.

If you have a pedal that needs 18 volts (and consumes no more than 120 mA), you can buy the T-Rex voltage doubler cable which lets you use two of the Fuel Tank Junior’s outputs and combine them for 18 volts (9+9=18). It’s a bummer that you have to sacrifice two outputs to power a single pedal, but at least you have the ability. But, again, make sure your 18V pedal does not consume more than 120 mA, otherwise you cannot use the Fuel Tank Junior for it. Also, you unfortunately cannot power 12 volt pedals with this unit.

If you love the idea of the T-Rex Fuel Tank Junior but need to power more than five pedals, you can of course daisy chain off of a single output (so long as all the pedals you’re plugging into this daisy chain are 9V, and the TOTAL current draw is less than 120 mA). The problem with this, as with any other daisy chain, is that you lose the benefits of isolation, since you’re sharing power amongst multiple pedals.

The Fuel Tank Junior is absolutely rock solid with dead quiet operation. Meaning, this thing delivers exactly what a high-quality isolated power supply should.

If you absolutely love T-Rex Engineering but find the Fuel Tank Junior limiting, you need either the Fuel Tank Classic or FuelTank Chameleon (but now you’re looking at significantly higher price tags). If only the best clean & isolated power will do for your coveted guitar and bass pedals, but you don’t quite have enough saved up for the Voodoo Lab, we strongly recommend this compact unit from T-Rex Engineering.

Bottom Line: We love this power supply as a very reasonably priced way to deliver clean isolated power to your pedals.

The Truetone 1 SPOT Pro series. Truetone is the company behind the very popular 1 SPOT daisy chain solution, and the 1 SPOT Pro Pro Series is their premium power supply line. Here is the 1 SPOT Pro story straight from Truetone's Bob Weil:

If we were going to make [a power brick], we were going to do it our way and have features that nobody else could offer. As pedal designs changed and it became more common for digital pedals to require isolation and for others to need something other than 9Vdc, I finally saw a reason for us to design a power brick.

These power bricks offer six, seven, or twelve isolated outputs for clean, noise-free operation of your pedals.

What really makes these special is that they use Truetone's "Worldwide Input Voltage" so that you can use it anywhere on planet earth. If you travel internationally, this is a big benefit.

Another thing that sets the 1SPOT Pro series is switchable voltage. It is so easy to toggle between different voltages and really comes in handy if you have pedals that operate at various voltages.

If you don’t need the 18 volt DC outputs, you can use Truetone’s 18V To 9V converter cable to convert them, thus gaining more 9V outputs.

The 1 SPOT Pro line comes in three options; the low-profile 6-output CS6 (1600mA max output), the CS7 (1900mA max output), and the full featured CS12 (3000mA max output).

Tthe Truetone 1 SPOT Pro series does exactly what it needs to. All three options provide clean, isolated power to up to twelve pedals. Truetone includes color coded power cables of varying length to allow you to keep your pedalboard wiring nice and neat. You also get some adapters to accommodate pedals with different power inputs.

Another nice feature of the 1 SPOT Pro Series is the inclusion of mounting brackets and and self threading screws, although we wish the brackets were more universal instead of being purpose-made for Pedaltrain pedalboards. Mounting these supplies to Pedaltrain boards is easy and straightforward.

Bottom Line: The Truetone 1 SPOT Pro Series are quality built power bricks that handle almost anything you can throw at them. The fact that they work internationally with different pedal voltages make them very convenient and functional.

The Strymon Zuma and Ojai power supply family is actually an expandable system developed by Strymon. The flagship model is the Zuma, which has 9 total outputs, 2 of which are adjustable to 9,12, or 18 volts.

You can expand from a Zuma as your power needs grow, or start with the smaller 5-output Ojai and expand from there. The Zuma and Ojai also both come in low profile models if you have a flat board, but you will lose one adjustable output when opting for the low profile versions. Which will work best for you will depend on the shape of your board and placement to see if the traditional shape or low profile form will work better as well as how many adjustable voltage outputs you need.

The modularity of the system is brilliant, as you can connect up to 6 Ojais to the Zuma unit, which could power 39 pedals!

What really distinguishes the Strymon power supplies is the high current of each of the outputs. Each 9V output supplies 500mA , which will power almost any pedal out there, including all the popular digital options from Strymon. This option will be really appealing to players that already own or aspire to own BigSky reverbs, Timeline delays, Mobius, or any other power hungry digital pedal.

As with all Strymon products, it has a sleek brushed anodized aluminum finish. In fact, Strymon went to great lengths when designing these supplies so that no screws are visible on the top of the power supplies.

Bottom Line: Strymon has created a modular system that allows you to mix and match supplies for whatever needs you have or may arise. Furthermore, these units can handle high-powered pedals with ease, as every 9V output supplies an ample 500mA. That makes these options some of the most powerful supplies available.