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In this video, we're taking an in-depth look at the QuickMount system by Rockboard. This is an alternative designed to do away with sticky, messy, hard to work with velcro. It's super sleek, easy to use, and 100% tour proof! Here we unpack what it looks like, how it works, and some considerations you should keep in mind. So... What's in the box? Let's take a look! Products FeaturedQuickMount Mounting Plate: https://bit.ly/3rjdc6z QuickMount QuickRelease Tool: https://bit.ly/3jrApPy QuickMount Pick Box: https://bit.ly/37zD9HU QuickMount Cable Fix: https://bit.ly/3xhhf7f All Tools & Accessories: https://bit.ly/3Ky5bm2 Video TranscriptHey, you’re here in the studio with Luke from GuitarIQ.com. In the last video, we were checking out some great little pedalboards from the good folks over at Rockboard. Today, I wanted to do a follow up video taking a look at their QuickMount system. Now for those who aren't familiar with the QuickMount system (which is probably most of you, given that you're watching this video—fair enough), the Rockboard QuickMount system is a little thing they've devised to use with their pedalboards that does away with the need for velcro. Velcro is far and away the most popular method people use to attach pedals to their pedalboard. But ‘popular’ doesn't mean it's the best method, right. Velcro can be really fiddly to apply and to work with. It can be really infuriatingly difficult to try and remove from your pedals after the fact. And in the heat of battle, velcro doesn't always hold up as well as we might like, in terms of keeping everything where it should be. By contrast, the Quickmount system by Rockboard is easy to use, it’s super sleek and elegant, and most importantly, it feels really robust and sturdy.
So in this video, we’re going to check out what it is, what it looks like, how it works. And hopefully answer the all-important question: Is this something you should be interested in? So this video is really perfect for you if you already own a Rockboard pedalboard and are just interested in taking a look at this QuickMount system and potentially upgrading. Or, if you're just looking around at buying a new pedalboard, and want to find out a little bit more about the newer more innovative stuff people are doing in this space. So if that all sounds interesting, I encourage you to click on the like button to let me know about it and to help nudge along that YouTube algorithm. As we go through the video, as always, feel free to leave any thoughts, feedback, questions, or comments you might have in the comments section below. And finally, before we get stuck into the video, I warmly invite you to head over to GuitarIQ.com to check out some of the great books and other learning resources we have waiting for you over there. That’s it from this intro, let's head over to the workbench and check it out! Okay, so here we're looking at the Rockboard 3.0 pedalboard. If you're interested in a couple of my top picks from the awesome, little, compact pedalboards that Rockboard do, I suggest checking out the previous video. Today, however, we're just going to use this board to showcase and demonstrate how this whole QuickMount system works. So if you're interested in the QuickMount system, the basic questions you're probably asking are along the lines of: What is it? What does it look like? And how does it work? So if you order a QuickMount mounting plate, you get it in a little box like this. And in the box we have, firstly, the mounting plate which we'll leave here for now and a few other accessories that we'll cover in a minute. So let's just leave this all over here like so. As you can see, the mounting plate has four holes in it, right. These are designed to align up with the holes on the back of your pedal. So you simply flip it over, unscrew the screws from your pedal, place this on the back plate of your pedal, and then screw it back up, it holds nicely in place. This is made of a very heavy-duty plastic, and then it just clips nice and snug onto your pedalboard. So that's basically it. This, however, probably doesn't answer all the questions you have. Namely, what happens if the pedals I own are bigger or smaller than the mounting plate? Well, Rockboard actually offer about 15 different variations on their mounting plate. Here, I have an example over here of their bigger standard mounting plate. This is attached to the back of this Keeley Caverns delay. You can see it fits really well, the screw holes line up perfectly, and we can slot that in place like so—a nice click. Over here we have another example of one of their standard smaller mounting plates for this EP Booster pedal by Xotic. Again, a similar situation… just clicks nicely in place. And they're really designed to cover all of the major pedals from the major brands. So pretty much whatever you own, there’s going to be a solution that will work with the QuickMount system. The way this works is, you really need to have a solid idea of the pedals you're going to use in advance. And then go through their catalog and match the appropriate mounting plates with the appropriate pedals. But alas, we have a few more questions we might need answering before we go, First of all, what happens if the screws on the back of the pedals aren't actually long enough to hold the mounting plate in place? Well, Rockboard have rather helpfully thought about that in advance and they supply a little pack of extra screws to accommodate for that situation. With the Keeley Caverns, I found the screws were long enough to hold the mounting plate in place. Whereas with the EP Booster, I had to use the supplied screws because the existing ones weren't long enough. So it's really just going to be pedal dependent. The next question is, what happens if you match the appropriate size bracket to the appropriate size pedal, and the screw holes either don't match up or there's no screw holes on the bottom of the pedal to start with? Well, here Rockboard again have rather helpfully supplied an interesting backup option. This is an adhesive pad (I’ve got the plastic covering on it at the moment, so it's not sticky) but this is a really interesting design. It's a silicon adhesive sort of mat which is actually reusable. So you can take it off, it doesn't leave any sticky residue on the bottom of your pedals or the top of the mounting plate, you can re-wash it and reuse it if you want. So a handy backup solution Rockboard have thought of. The next question you might be wondering is, how secure is the system, right? You can see there's some slight movement here. And the reason for that is I haven't yet attached the other accessory that comes with the mounting plates, which are these foam pads. Rockboard gives you two options that you can attach to the bottom of the mounting plate to keep it really securely in place. The first is a foam pad that's 4mm thick. The second is a foam pad that's 3mm thick. The idea being, if you want the QuickMount system to stay in place without any movement whatsoever, you use the 4mm foam pad. And it will compress against the pedalboard and the thing won't move at all. Whereas, if you want to shift your pedals slightly from side to side, like so, using the 3mm pad will hold things securely in place. But give you a little bit more room to slide things one way or another should you need to—to access connectors or something like that. So that's the basics of the system itself. The next question might be, how easy are these to actually remove once you've mounted them to the board? Relatively easy, it is a little bit fiddly. I would definitely recommend getting their QuickRelease tool. You place this underneath the pedalboard and it basically compresses the little clips on either side of the mounting plate, which just makes it a little bit easier to remove from the board. So if you are going to invest in this system, I definitely recommend picking up that QuickRelease tool. And finally, there's just a few other accessories worth taking a look at. This is a little pick box that Rockboard do. It's about roughly the same size as their small mini pedalboard mount. Again, it’s made of that super durable plastic. Basically, on a lot of boards nowadays you see little mint tins and things like that people place on their boards to house their spare guitar picks. This is just a nice, slightly more elegant solution for that—which is good to see. The other thing I wanted to show you was these fantastic little mounting clips. These are perhaps the thing I'm most excited about out of everything. Now, I know not everybody gets excited about cable management. But let me tell you, cable management is the one thing that separates a pro-looking pedalboard from something your old man threw together in the shed! So these little clips can sit on top of your pedalboard, they can also go underneath the pedalboard. So you might have some for your audio cables on top of the pedalboard, and some for your power cables underneath. And once it slots in the screw, you just press down firmly and it clips in place. That’s going to hold things securely. And to me this is a much better solution than something like cable ties, for example. And finally, the last thing I wanted to note, since I'm using this board to demonstrate this system, is that if you want to have two rows of pedals that are stacked vertically on top of each other, you really need to upgrade to either the 4 series or 5 series of pedalboards. Using the QuickMount system, you’re not going to be able to fit two rows of pedals on top of each other with the 3 series of pedalboards. Having said that, Rockboard do make some horizontal mounting plates, which I'm definitely keen to check out when I come to build this board properly. So if you're keen to see how that comes together, be sure to subscribe to the channel and keep an eye on my future videos. But I just thought that is something worth mentioning. All up though, my first impressions of this QuickMount system are really positive. It feels really well built. It seems really well thought out. It’s great they've included these accessories for really getting the most flexibility out of this QuickMount system. As we said at the start of the video, even though you know velcro is supplied with pretty much every pedalboard in existence, it really isn't the optimal solution for attaching your pedals to the board. Velcro can be hard to deal with, it can be extremely hard to remove, it can leave sticky residue all over your pedals and the pedal board. You can gather dust and crap over time. And any of us that have done any types of rigorous touring will know that, most of the standard types of velcro you get, aren't actually that secure when it comes to being on the road and flying, and such and so forth. So yes this is a more expensive alternative to velcro, and you have to put in a little bit more time to work out which brackets are going to be most appropriate for which pedals. But once you've got everything together, it’s really straightforward to use and it offers a much cleaner, more elegant, more robust solution to something like velcro. And that is my look at the QuickMount system by Rockboard! Well, that’s it for this video, I hope that you found it helpful. Just to clarify, as I mentioned in the previous video, Rockboard did send me a couple of pedalboards and a bunch of accessories to use in some upcoming pedalboard builds that I have planned. But this was not a sponsored advertisement or a paid promotion. No money's changed hands. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. If you are interested to check out the previous video, then I will link to that in the description below. If you're interested in more content like this, then be sure to subscribe to the channel and click that bell icon to be notified of future uploads. And finally, just a quick reminder, if you're looking to take your playing skills a bit deeper, then I encourage you to mosey on over to GuitarIQ.com at your leisure to check out some of the great resources over there. Everything from books on fretboard memorization and chord theory, to scales, warm-ups and workouts—all of the good stuff at GuitarIQ.com. That's it from me, thanks for watching. And I will see you in the next video! Comments are closed.
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