PedaltrainJR MAX 28-inch x 12.5-inch Pedalboard with Soft Case

This is definitely a quality board. It's a little pricey. I like how I can use it without removing it from the soft case.IDK how well the cheaper options stack up. Wasn't worth the gamble for me.

I've outright purchased four Pedaltrain boards in the past five years. Being a gigging musician moving from different projects I found them to be what I needed the most; simple, reliable, rugged. At the very core there's not much to fail on them; rectangular tubing welded together and powder-coated seems simple enough on paper but it discounts the number of times they get thrown into the back of a car for transport or stepped on inadvertently on stage by a sound guy, other band member or free range idiot.The 28" width is very welcomed. Previously they only went from 24 inches to 32, which is a huge jump. Anyone who has had to set up a Jr. and a Classic on stage knows this. The Jr gets comments like "Wow! Your pedals are like the tightest game of Tetris I've ever seen" and the Classic gets "I think you can land a plane on that thing." The Jr. was easy enough to transport but you needed to pick and choose and tweak to get it all to fit. With the Classic everything fit and you could see daylight in spots but moving it was awkwardly big and didn't fit into little spots like the Jr.The first Pedaltrain felt like they had something to prove. The bag it came with was more rugged, the zipper felt more solid, the outside material could take more abuse. There was an included power adapter mount for it as well and the little plastic "hatches" that could be removed and set up for a power supply or whatever you could imagine pushed them from the realm of Ham and Egger slamming out BTO tunes on Saturday night to pre-signed band where someone gets brought in to make their gear flight-case friendly.Additionally the outside pocket on the original ones was super handy for cables and other accessories. That's now not standard. If you want it you can buy a bag, with the same less-rugged material and bigger zipper teeth, from Pedaltrain for another $100.The quality of the board is still the same, which is where it matters. But the fact of the matter is that there isn't much to it, as covered earlier. The only way you can screw up powder-coated welded rectangles is by using cheap materials or cheap labor. But let's be fair, there's not a whole lot to it. Giving them undue credit for their consistency is like giving credit to someone who makes doorstops; they never made something so light that it didn't stop a door isn't wholly high praise, nor does Pedaltrain need to be elevated to such lofty status either.We deserve better than a bag that feels and appears less rugged and has less features than what we're getting. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the bag is better quality than the original ones. But to know something simple like a pocket for cables is what your customers want and to make them dole out another C-note for it? At close to $300 for that setup (and with a bag no one is going to want to buy) it's somewhat unconscionable on the part of Pedaltrain.I don't mind paying the premium cost for the low-bar of reliability. I genuinely appreciate knowing a board I'll build on will last. But to cut corners with the case? Come on guys, that isn't innovating. That's deciding you could hoover another hundred out of your customers pockets because they're expecting what they had before. It's like Fender deciding not to ship whammy bars with Strats to save a few bucks and then offering them at a higher price with the justification that they're now made with a better material. Cut the crap.Pedaltrain earned it's reputation on having a solid product at a price higher than you'd want but with the reputation that they'd last forever. So as they soldier on making the same great core product they always did I have to wonder what possesses them to decide that the thing their customers really wanted was, well, less of what they were getting previously.Pedaltrain was built by doing better, and this is not that.

The JR MAX is a very sturdy pedalboard with plenty of room for an amp modeler and pedals. The provided velcro holds the pedals in place securely. There is plenty of room under the pedalboard to hold a power strip and power supplies and the rails allow you to lots of options for placing cable tie mounting pads (not included) as needed to tie down your cables with cable ties. After four months of light use however the velcro on the soft case handle is ripping out and probably won't last much longer without repair and reinforcement. I could live without the velcro on the handle so not a big deal. The rest of the case is well built and the materials are good quality.

I really like this pedalboard. It is sturdy and big enough, but not too big for my needs. I've had 10-12 pedals on it at one time with a Strymon Zuma mounted underneath. Excellent quality. The soft case has been solid so far after several months. I wonder about how long it will last, but it seems well made.