Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
Just 30 hours to go for the super smart ebbe design Magnetic Modular Pedalboard - which comes in 2 core infinitely expandable modules - _ma and o_ma size editions
Key Points
Swiss designers Eric and Beni (ebbe design) made the Magnetic Modular Pedalboard (MagMo): two core modules, _ma (448×176mm) and o_ma (448×304mm), that snap together with magnets (presumed Neodymium).
Top-side uses Magnetic Pedal Plates secured via adhesive tape strips with blue pull-tabs; each plate has six magnets and a 5mm feet gap for cables. Underside offers a Mounting Grid and magnetic PSU plates, plus large/small magnetic cable tidies and adjustable rear legs. Soft cases zip-expandable join width-wise.
Kickstarter ends in ~30 hours; bundles listed: €235 (_ma), €315 (o_ma), €495 (o_ma_ma). More: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ebbedesign/magnetic-modular-pedalboard-ebbe-design/
Young Swiss designers Eric and Beni - aka ebbe design have innovated an incredibly smart infinitely expandable Magnetic Modular Pedalboard system, which makes excellent use of presumably Neodymium magnets. While there is some involvement with pedal tape - but like everything else here - that is ingeniously executed too - as we shall see!
At the core you have 2 sizes of boards - designated as ’_ma’ and ’o_ma’ which you can quickly snap together to expand in every direction. On the top-side - pedals are attached by way of Magnetic Pedal Plates, and on the underside you have the option of a Mounting Grid and Magnetic PSU Mounting Plates to secure Power Supplies, patch bays etc.
The top / main picture shows the two board sizes - _ma and o_ma which are 448 x 176mm and 448 x 304mm which you can rapidly snap together! There are magnets on all sides, as well as additional magnetic fixing plates - which make the whole structure totally secure.
You also have a system of Cable Tidies which you can apply above and below the board to make everything super neat! Pretty much every element has been thoroughly considered and clevery engineered here.
The smaller _ma size fits roughly 5 Compact / Boss size pedals - so 1590B / 125B, and the larger o_ma should be able to handle a maximum of 10. The six magnets under each Magnetic Pedal Plate need to line up with the various slots on the top surface - so there’s always going to be a reasonable cable gap on either side for side-mounted pedals!
For sake of ease and brevity I will mostly refer to the Magnetic Modular Pedalboards as ’MagMo’ from here on!
NOTE that there are only around 30 Hours remaining for this Kickstarter - so you need to be quick if you still wish to benefit from the early bird discounts!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/ebbedesign/magnetic-modular-pedalboard-ebbe-design/
The Magnetic Pedal Plates
The above visual shows the various elements of the Magnetic Pedal Plates and how they relate to a typical Boss pedal by way of example (DS-1!).
You have special tape strips which secure the Magnetic Plates to the Pedals - where those strips have Blue Pull-Tabs - which allow you to decouple the Pedal from that Plate / Base very quickly - and without any sort of glue residue. Presumable those strips are not re-suable - certainly not the tape part - so you will surely need extra for each significant transaction.
So the Pedal adheres to the tape which connect the Plate, which then utilises 6 magnets to solidly secure the Pedal to the Board. A Bungee Rope experiment below (Shorts) shows just how securely those magnets fix the pedals to the board.
The whole thing is proper genius!
The Magnetic Cable Tidies / Large and Small Magnetic Clips
This visual shows the 2 sizes of Magnetic Cable Tidies / Clips (Large and Small) - which you can apply both to the top side and the underside of the board - to make everything look properly neat and organised. A really elegant system - like the board - which quickly and easily snaps into place and can be easily moved and adjusted too - but once in place - holds very firmly.
The Underside Board is Thomas's from RhPf Electronics and features on both the next 2 images too. It's an excellent example of how to make best us of a single larger o_ma unit! Thomas is the one who introduced me to ebbe design!
Example o_ma 10 Pedal Board - from the rear
Here we see Thomas's o_ma MagMo board from the rear - 2 different elevations. You can see how much of a neat freak Thomas is by his immaculate setup here.
You should hopefully be able to see how neatly everything is aligned here - and how solid it looks.
You also have those super-handy adjustable rear 'legs' which can bump up you rear elevation to make rear pedals more easily accessible. I have a feeling we will have risers too eventually - which will allow you to deliver a significantly elevated second level - those will surely be part of a Phase 2 rollout!
Example o_ma 10 Pedal Board - from the front
And here is Thomas's o_ma board from the front - where the lower images illustrates the 15 'holes' on that board - which you can pass cables through - there's plenty of flexibility here for you to lay things out in various ways and track back those cables in the neatest of fashions!
The _ma Kickstarter Bundles
And to the various Kickstarters Offers - which are composed of _ma and o_ma Bundles. There were initially 3 Prototype ones which came with a Mounting Grid rather than one of the Modular Soft Cases q.v.
All the Prototype offerings went very quickly - and I'm just using the Prototype _ma Bundle to illustrate its inclusion of an Underside Mounting Grid.
The core _ma Bundle is still available for €235 (discounted from €282)
The _ma Bundle includes :
- 1 x _ma pedalboard
- 1 x _ma soft case
- 5 x magnetic plate L
- 1 x magnetic plate S
- 2 x magnetic PSU plate
- 2 x cable clip L
- 5 x cable clip S
The o_ma and o_ma_ma Kickstarter Bundles
The core o_ma Bundle is still available for €315 (discounted from €387)
The o_ma Bundle includes :
- 1 x o_ma pedalboard
- 1 x o_ma soft case
- 10 x magnetic plate L
- 3 x magnetic plate S
- 2 x magnetic PSU plate
- 2 x cable clip L
- 5 x cable clip S
The core o_ma_ma Bundle is still available for €495 (discounted from €681)
The o_ma_ma Bundle includes :
- 1 x o_ma pedalboard
- 1 x _ma pedalboard
- 2 x segment connection
- 1 x o_ma soft case
- 1 x _ma soft case
- 15 x magnetic plate L
- 3 x magnetic plate S
- 3 x magnetic PSU plate
- 4 x cable clip L
- 10 x cable clip S
Magnetic Modular Pedalboard / Features / Accessories
The above visual showcases 3 features / elements of the MagMo
Namely :
- The 5mm gap on the Magnetic Pedal Plate - enabled by its feet - which allows cables to run underneath each pedal too if required!
- The Underside Mounting Grid - which helps securely fix Power Supply Units and Patch Bays in a set position (currently an optional extra - only included for Prototype offerings) - surely more will be available soon!
- An example of a PSU Mounting Plate - which fixes your Power Supply to the underside of the board - there are screw-mount holes too - so you have options as to how you attach your PSU!
The included Modular Soft Cases / Board Bags
The further genius of the MagMo is that each board comes with a corresponding Soft Case - which is modular too!
You just zip off either end of the Case - and then you can expand those infinitely by zipping two or more together - but width-wise only obviously!
Super smart indeed!
The Designers Eric and Beni (hence ebbe!) in their own words!
Eric and Beni - in their own words - as above - just read the text in the visual!
Note that there were only short videos available - I checked both YouTube and Vimeo.
I'm not sure what the original format of the Kickstarter intro video is - I could not find that on any of the obvious ones, maybe in Instagram or TikTok - but those are alas not embeddable formats for me - the videos on this site really need to be either YouTube or Vimeo ideally!
These are wholly ingenious boards for sure - a little pricey no doubt - but that's the price of innovation. I'm not sure there are any pedalboards out there quite so expandable and innovative as these. This Kickstarter deserves your support!
You've got around 30 hours to get involved! :
www.kickstarter.com/projects/ebbedesign/magnetic-modular-pedalboard-ebbe-design/
YouTube Shorts
