Vertical vs Horizontal Enclosure Format - Pedalboard-friendly vs Aesthetic Choice!

It’s fairly well documented by now that I mostly favour Single Compact Enclosures - especially when there’s only a single footswitch present. I do go larger for the occasional pedal - like my various Stereo Workstation Pedals for instance, and my Drum Machine - while by and large I always try to get something in a fully practical and easily slottable form factor.

My rig / board is highly congested, and has been for a while, now with 52 pedals in the signal chain - so in many circumstances I’m somewhat constrained to compact formats - in order to be able to fit everything in that I want to. And generally I tend tp steer clear of unnecessarily oversized formats - like say all those original vintage ones for instance - they just have way too large a footprint and take up way too much floor space for me! I really don’t see the point of them - I feel it’s a little like still wanting to drive around in a Ford Model T!

There are a number of builders though - which make truly great pedals, but wholly stick to the horizontal 1590BB format rather than deliver a more practical and pedalboard-friendly vertical orientation - after all it’s almost always the width of a pedal that is the most significant limiting factor with regards to pedalboard placement - something which I frequently refer to as ’Pedalboard  Tetris’!

For sake of example - I’ve referenced two of my favourite brands here that near enough wholly stick to the horizontal format and which therefore inadvertently render their pedals somewhat non-pedalboard-friendly and ill-fitting for my rig.

There are a tonne of builders who favour vertical enclosures - and I’m not always clear as to why those brands that persist with horizontal formats continue to do so!

If Chris Benson or Tom Cram made more vertical formats - I’m sure I would have more of those pedals in my references collection. Those brands make beautiful pedals - but they always lose out in the practicality stakes for me - based on their girth! In fact the only Spiral Electric FX pedal I own to date is their compact Demhe Fuzz - where I encouraged Tom to make more in a similar format - which successful rollout he’s somehow chosen not to replicate a second time? I’ve always liked the look of his Brute and Allora Fuzzes - but never quite hit the trigger yet for all he reasons discussed here in this blog!

I know Tom Cram uses a lot of cool custom pedal knobs - and he has more freedom to fit those in on a horizontal format - while Chris mostly uses those rather slimline MXR type knobs - so I would presume it mostly comes down to aesthetic choice for both those builders mentioned.

As is always the case - I’m keen to hear from all you pedal fans as to how much the format of enclosure size  and orientation influences your purchasing decisions. I know some people out there are almost militant in wanting compact pedals with top-mounted jacks - and won’t buy anything else. I’m a little less precious about where the jacks are located - as that depends a lot on the nature and construction of the circuit - It’s a nice to have for me rather than a blocker.

Obviously you can’t be anti side-mounted jacks if you’re a fan of Boss Pedals like me. Several brands still continue to do side-mounted jacks - which I’m mostly kind of alright with!

So the question is really - what influences your purchasing and acquistion decision making as regards different pedal formats and enclosure orientation?

The 2 pedals featured here are the Benson Amps Deep Sea Diver Fuzz-Echo which I recently covered, and the Spiral Electric FX Brute Fuzz, now with slightly different knobs - both are of course great pedals, and both of which have appeared on my wishlist - but never quite made it to must-buy acquisition status - likely because of their somewhat lesser pedalboard-friendliness of format!

I get that on my verticak Brute Fuzz visual the top 3 knobs are a little congested - while there is still sufficient space around them to operate each of those in relative comfort. Probably you would choose slightly different knobs in that orientation - which brings us back again to the question of aesthetic choice!

This is of course mostly just about personal preferenes - but also pedalboard practicalities! I hope you enjoyed this ride!

Note that it’s also a matter of pedal storage - and not just Pedal Tetris - the bigger the pedals are the trickier they are to stove away, and the more space they end up taking over!