The bassist who built her own pedalboard from salvaged electronics

Esi Mensah plays bass and shares vocals in Soft Static, a Melbourne four-piece moving between indie rock, electro-pop and folk. Onstage, her signal chain lives in a scuffed case that looks borrowed rather than bought. Its compressor, overdrive, delay and looper are homemade from donor pedals, discarded audio gear and a cassette deck nobody wanted.

Her homemade effects board is less about vintage pedigree than about what each salvaged machine can still do. Her story connects Melbourne’s shared rehearsal culture with the repair-minded Montreal scene she encountered while living in Mile End.

The independent artist interviews archive fits that outlook, reflecting the community-driven spirit of Lady Indie’s run from 2013 to 2015. Esi discusses her tools, her limits and why a handmade effects board can be cheaper and more expressive than a matching row of factory pedals.

A board made from other people’s leftovers

The first circuit came from an amplifier left behind after a Brunswick garage sale. Esi found a usable preamp, a cracked knob and a power section that still met her needs. Rather than buy a finished pedal, she traced the signal path and rebuilt the compressor around the surviving components.

That thrift became a habit. A scrapped mixer supplied the enclosure and wiring; a discarded effects unit provided the overdrive stage. Each donor was tested, photographed and labelled before it entered the board, making the project easier to repair when a connection failed.

“Spare parts are not romantic once a cable shorts at a gig,” Esi says. “I keep the original boards beside the replacements. The old circuit tells me what was lost, while the new one keeps the instrument audible.”

The switch, the power and the quiet work

True bypass was the first engineering problem. Esi selected mechanical switches that route the bass around each circuit when disengaged, then tested every jack for continuity. She rejected a noisy switch rather than accept a pop on every stomp, even though replacing it cost more than the original component.

She runs the pedalboard from batteries and a fused, low-voltage distribution box. Nothing from an unidentified mains device goes into the case. For live shows, she carries spare power, a passive tuner and a backup patch cable, habits borrowed from touring musicians in Montreal.

“I wanted repairable gear, not gear that merely looked handmade,” she says. “If a part fails in Adelaide, I should be able to identify it without a workshop full of specialist tools.” Her small breadboards and labelled wiring diagrams turn a hardware project into something a touring bassist can maintain.

Where the salvaged parts shape the sound

The circuit order matters as much as the components. Compression smooths the low end, the overdrive adds harmonics and the delay supplies movement without swallowing the bass note. A separate tuner avoids stealing signal from the final mix, while the looper sits where she can layer a phrase cleanly.

Salvage also shapes the tone. The cassette preamp rolls off harsh upper frequencies, giving the drive stage a rounded edge, while the old mixer’s op-amp introduces a faint hiss Esi accepts at rehearsal volume. On a cleaner bass, that noise disappears; through a valve amplifier, it becomes part of the texture.

Soft Static’s songs shift from restrained indie rock to bright electro-pop, so Esi often changes the board between sets rather than chase one permanent setting. “The handmade part is not preciousness,” she says. “It is having enough control to decide what stays and what goes.”

Melbourne rehearsals and the value of a shared room

Soft Static rehearses in a shared Brunswick room above a shuttered bakery, then plays small Melbourne venues where the band can hear itself from the back of the room. Esi keeps her pedalboard in a separate flight case because the rehearsal room’s power is unreliable and the venue’s is worse.

A volunteer gear library nearby lends cables, stands and occasional pedals. Its members share repair skills on Sunday afternoons, a local habit that makes a broken footswitch an afternoon’s work rather than an excuse to cancel a rehearsal. Esi now volunteers there and teaches newcomers to trace a simple circuit.

Her repair instinct grew during a winter in Montreal, where artists in Mile End swapped broken equipment as readily as records. She returned to Melbourne with a dead delay unit and no intention of reviving it. Six months later, it was the centrepiece of Soft Static’s first homemade board.

The Australian circuit and the second-hand market

A weekend trip to Sydney’s inner-west markets gives Esi access to donor pedals, flight cases and discarded stage equipment. She trades unwanted components rather than paying cash for a full pedalboard, then brings everything back in a carry-on to keep the cost of freight down.

Consumer protection depends on who conducts the sale. The Australian Consumer Law mainly applies to goods supplied in trade or commerce, so a private transaction may fall outside parts of it. A dealer or auctioneer still cannot misrepresent condition, and an “as is” description does not excuse a known false claim.

That distinction has changed her buying habits. Esi asks for a demonstration, checks the serial number against a service history where one exists, and walks away from gear with a scorched transformer. She says the aim is not to own more, but to make each piece of stage equipment work harder.

Listening, sampling and working within the law

When testing a donor machine, Esi first records a reference bass line and plays it again with the effect bypassed. For cassette transfers used to compare old recordings, she follows a cassette calibration guide to set capture levels and avoid judging a noisy source by ear alone.

Sampling brings a separate legal line. Under the Copyright Act 1968, buying a recording does not grant a general right to reuse it in a new release. A licence or the rights holder’s permission may be required, and an open licence can still exclude commercial use. Esi clears recognisable samples before publication and files the permission with her session notes.

For used electronics, she prioritises the boring checks: a stable jack, a clean footswitch, an intact battery compartment and a supply with a readable rating. A pedal that merely clicks may still hide a damaged circuit.

A short rehearsal and buying checklist

Before rehearsal

• Photograph each connection and keep a labelled diagram in the case.
• Pack spare batteries, a patch cable and a tuner that works independently.
• Listen for hum before leaving home and carry a passive input.

Before buying a donor pedal

• Ask whether the seller has tested the input, output and footswitch.
• Check battery corrosion, bent plugs and scorching around the jack.
• Compare the noise with the effect bypassed as well as engaged.
• Weigh the price against one new entry-level pedal, not only a complete board.

For a broad Australian comparison, these indicative figures change with condition and setup.

Choice	Indicative outlay	Main advantage	Main compromise
Salvaged components assembled at home	A$60–200	Low cash cost and a distinctive signal path	Time, troubleshooting and uncertain component life
A complete second-hand pedalboard	A$250–700	Ready to use and easier to test	Less control over the sound and repair options
New entry-level pedalboard	A$400–1,200	Warranty and known components	Higher outlay with less individual character

The next repair on the bench

Three months after its first performance, the board has needed one repair and no replacements. Esi upgraded the tuner rather than conceal its shortcomings, and now keeps a small parts tray inside the case. The instrument sounds the same, but the board no longer looks untouched.

Her next step is concrete: host a free repair afternoon at a Brunswick community hall, with a multimeter, soldering iron and labelled box of donor pedals on the bench. The session will begin with the cassette-deck preamp that started the project.