As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m a big fan of simplistic, but effective designs. Something that is simple, hassle free and accomplishes what it sets out to do. When StageLitePro sent me their pedal guards, that was my first immediate thought. Nice design that accomplishes exactly what it’s suppose to do.
So, let’s discuss the purpose first. If you’re a guitarist/bassist that plays out quite a bit, you’ll probably understand the various lighting situation one finds yourself in. From venue to venue you might experience a very active light show, or you might find yourself in an environment where the lighting doesn’t change much, and is overall very dark. Or you might be in a band that prefers dark stages. Either way, dark stages or strobe light situation can make it very hard to see your pedals.

For me, as a guitarist, seeing pedals is really important when I need to make adjustments, not necessarily stomping on the pedals. But if you need to make adjustments on the fly, or if something went out of wack and needed to be reset, it’s very hard to see where those knobs are in a very dark environment. The StageLitePro On-Stage Lighted Pedal Guards addresses this simple problem. There is a upper ‘shelf’, which as a row of bright LED lights. These lights are focused downward, and the guard itself will not allow the light to shine to the crowd, but to light up the pedals. I like the fact that it lights them very brightly, but oddly, not distractingly. It just lights up the pedals, and that’s a good thing. The guitarist won’t ‘glow’ on stage if you know what I mean. Below is a photo of a dark room with the Pedal Guard lit up from the guitarists point of view.

Additionally, these units are called pedal guards. They’re not set up to protect the pedals from severe abuse (I could be wrong here), but I noticed immediately, that it help secure the knobs from my instrument cable sliding over the pedals. To me, this is the number one culprit of knocking your pedals off of their settings. Also, I don’t want to mention any names, but I was in a band with a lead singer. He was an ‘active’ lead singer and definitely was a showman on stage. But, he liked to accidentally step on my pedals and/or step on my cable going into the tuner. Something like this could very well help in this case.

StageLitePro also makes a a “set list” version, which would also work well with vocalists, etc for lyrics. Their units are either powered by AC (4′ power cord) or via 9V battery. Each pedal guard is built with very sturdy 10 gauge black matte powder coated chassis. LEDs are moisture and vibration proof. Each pedal guard comes with a 1 year manufacturer warranty. Each unit is assembled in the USA.
There are 3 units to pick from and each can either be VAC powered or battery powered. Those units are:
Pedal Guard Pro which is their largest unit measuring in at 24″ x 10.5″ x 8″ (L x W x H). This unit handled my Pedaltrain PT-2 perfectly. The Pedal Guard Pro sells for $99
Pedal Guard Compact is their next option measuring in at 14″ x 6.25″ x 2.5″ (L x W x H). The Pedal Guard Compact sells for $79
Stage List Pro is the smallest unit and has a sharper angle, which is suited for set lists/lyrics, and probably not the best option for pedals. It measures in at 14″ x 6.5″ x 2.5″ (L x W x H) and sells for $69
You can purchase these guards directly from their site.

When I think of this product a couple types of musicians really come to mind that would benefit from this: Touring musicians that are on the road and experience a lot of environments. Bands in the bar/cover circuit – basically have their gear set up on location consistently. Worship bands that might experience a constant set up, but also deal with potential low-light situations. Obviously, there are a lot of other types of situations for these guards, so I didn’t mean to limit it to those mentioned, but those people definitely came to mind for this product.
Be sure to check out StageLitePro on the web and on Facebook and Twitter for news and potential sales on these guards!
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13 years ago
Thanks so much for the coverage Hank! We really appreciate it. So sorry you were shipped units with stickers on them. Just to be clear, the lites ship without any stickers on them.
dd
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