I’m Thinking About Building A New Pedalboard…..All Boss Effects.

[trandy9850]

I’m an admitted pedal snob….I have spent an obscene amount of money for just about every “booteeky” pedal you could imagine.

But I’m also old enough to remember that Boss pedals used to rule the marketplace…so now I’m curious.

Can I build an all Boss pedalboard and be a happy guy?

I’m thinking five…maybe six pedals not including a tuner…maybe CS-3, CE-2W, BD-2, DS-1W, RV-6, and one of the delays.

Suggestion much appreciated.

 

[bobio]

Sold all of my pedals last year, some boutique, mostly BOSS (by far).

I decided I wanted to go the multi-effect amp route rather than mess with pedals.
I am essentially 100% BOSS effects, and I couldn't be happier with my tone.

BOSS Nextone Special and BOSS Katana Artist.

 

[tfarny]

They're great pedals and pioneering effects back in the day. 5-6 pedals is too many for a board, for me - any more than three and I think you're better off with a multieffects, of which Boss makes many great examples.

 

[Festofish]

Boss still reigns supreme. I’ve had and have plenty. I usually run the OD, DD and MD-200 on my board. They’re all fantastic!

 

[Highway 49]

Yes, must be the answer, I think - a Boss pedalboard can be a fine thing. I've tried to do it with a three-pedal boss BCB thing: DM-2W/BD-2/TR-2 with the TU-3 outside the board... trouble is I'm not a huge delay lover so don't love the DM-2 and I've never really got on with the BD-2 so...
I think instead of the DM2, I'd go with the RE-2 for reverb and echo - I had that but stupidly returned it too quickly and got the DM-2 but, on reflection, I now think the RE-2 is a great sound.
And I'd probably swap the BD-2 for a DS-1 for more... just more.
I've no idea if this is useful but I hope it is

 

[trandy9850]

They're great pedals and pioneering effects back in the day. 5-6 pedals is too many for a board, for me - any more than three and I think you're better off with a multieffects, of which Boss makes many great examples.

I agree…but I have an aversion to all multi-effects units.

What if you don’t like the chorus? Too bad…here’s your chorus.

What if you don’t like the delay? Too bad…here’s your delay.

And on and on….with single pedals I have more choices.

 

[bobio]

I agree…but I have an aversion to all multi-effects units.

What if you don’t like the chorus? Too bad…here’s your chorus.

What if you don’t like the delay? Too bad…here’s your delay.

And on and on….with single pedals I have more choices.

You know you don't have to turn on the chorus or delay
I don't believe they are charging by the effect either.

I had over 50 pedals of all different sorts, I find multi-effects units way easier to deal with.

 

[trandy9850]

You know you don't have to turn on the chorus or delay
I don't believe they are charging by the effect either.

Then why buy a multi-effects unit if you’re not going to use them?

So…I’m going to buy a multi-effects unit AND some single pedals to compensate for what the multi-effects unit lacks?

I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.

 

[tfarny]

I agree…but I have an aversion to all multi-effects units.

What if you don’t like the chorus? Too bad…here’s your chorus.

What if you don’t like the delay? Too bad…here’s your delay.

And on and on….with single pedals I have more choices.

I think I have over a dozen delays in my Line 6 HX Stomp and several chorus pedals too. Far more than I will ever spend much time on. And the Boss miltieffects are modeling the Boss pedals, which is the kind of board you are considering anyhow....

 

[bobio]

Then why buy a multi-effects unit if you’re not going to use them?

So…I’m going to buy a multi-effects unit AND some single pedals to compensate for what the multi-effects unit lacks?

I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.

You were implying that it bothered you that they were there, I suggested not to turn them on

Sounds like maybe you have never used a multi-effects unit?

 

[trandy9850]

You were implying that it bothered you that they were there, I suggested not to turn them on

Sounds like maybe you have never used a multi-effects unit?

Well…I sold them for over 40 years…including in their absolute infancy…so I may know a thing or two about them.

I remember being impressed with one of the first efforts from Boss: The BE-5 Multi effects unit….simple but effective.

It was a CS-2 compressor, a DS-1/SD-1 distortion/overdrive, a DD-3 delay, and a CE-2 chorus….all in a compact plastic housing…nothing programmable….but a great space saver.

The point I was trying to make is that I like ”options” and your options are limited to whatever the manufacturers of these devices are offering you.

 

[Lawdawg]

I don't currently own any Boss pedals but have fond memories of using a ton of them back in the 80s and 90s and have thought about buying a bunch of old favorites. In my experience, Boss pedals all sound pretty good and you can definitely build an all Boss pedalboard and be happy.

Here are some of my old school Boss favorites in addition to the ones you mentioned:

TR-2
PH-2
DD-3
VB-2
BF-2

Except for the VB-2, you can usually find these used for decent price. Among the new Boss pedals, I'd be all over the RE-2/RE-202.

 

[bobio]

Well…I sold them for over 40 years…including in their absolute infancy…so I may know a thing or two about them.

I remember being impressed with one of the first efforts from Boss: The BE-5 Multi effects unit….simple but effective.

It was a CS-2 compressor, a DS-1/SD-1 distortion/overdrive, a DD-3 delay, and a CE-2 chorus….all in a compact plastic housing…nothing programmable….but a great space saver.

The point I was trying to make is that I like ”options” and your options are limited to whatever the manufacturers of these devices are offering you.

The point of your whole thread was limiting your options to BOSS.
With BOSS multi-effects units, you get ALL of the effects BOSS offers.
Where is the limitation in that?

 

[trandy9850]

The point of your whole thread was limiting your options to BOSS.
With BOSS multi-effects units, you get ALL of the effects BOSS offers.
Where is the limitation in that?

Obviously you just want to argue…I don’t want to argue and furthermore it’s against the rules here.

I thought that building a new board with all Boss effects might be a fun project for me in my retirement.

You’ll have to find someone else to argue with.

Have a nice day and thanks for crapping on the thread.

 

[tfarny]

I don't think people are crapping on your thread, just trying to show the value of a sensible alternative, iow to be helpful. Feel free to make whatever pedalboard you want!

 

[Deebs3]

I think it is a great idea, it would be nice to have all the pedals the same size with the same connections. I have a lot of pedals and thought i might build a pedal board just for my green pedals...... and one for my red pedals..... etc

 

[MilwMark]

My whole board, except the tuner, is Boss. Hundreds of shows.

CE-2w -> SD-1w -> DD-3. Tc Polytune because its easier to read than the Boss.

They work and sound great to me.

 

[generic202]

I've done this before. Everything was early 80's MIJ Boss pedals: CE-2, DM-2, SD-1, OD-1, OC-2, PSM-5.

Heck, even the pedalboard/case BCB-6 was MIJ Boss and had a serial number on it. And the power supply and even patch cables were all Boss!

But I sold it not too long after putting it together. If "I" would do Boss again, I would personally go with @bobio 's suggestion. YMMV.

 

[BlueShadows]

If you are serious about going the "all Boss, all standalone pedals" route then starting with the all-in-one multi-effects might be the way to go just to experiment, play around with different stacking, and then settle on which 5 or 6 pedals you really want to go with. Then you just sell the multi-effects and buy the stand-alone pedals for as cheap as you can find them. Going that route would likely be tremendously less of a headache and less expense than trial and error with single pedals.

Or even better...go into a Guitar Center and just play with one for an hour (or two), and then land on your choices.

For my own input, I would say that my BD2 for drive into my SD1 for boost is my favorite overdrive stack that I have found so far. And the CS3 is a great compressor, if you are into that thing.

 

[GearGeek01]

The concept the OP has about one pedalboard, one pedal manufacturer is pretty cool. Someone could do the same for several brands these days because a lot of pedal makers are in ever effect type. Not all pedal makers make all effect types. Some folks specialize in fuzz-only, so they wouldn't have a delay or chorus or flanger or phaser to add to the mix.

I suppose the folks mass-producing printed circuit board pedals are going to be like a BOSS, folks like MXR/Dunlop... I had the vision that you could do 4-5 MXR pedals and cover the basses. Mooer seems to have stretched out across most every effect type... but you might not like Nooer, but I could see 5-6 Mooer pedals doing anything someone might want. Plus they are cheap and small.

As far as single versus multi-effects... I have my personal take on that subject, but it may or not match somebody 20-something years old today he has grown up with massive amounts of technology everywhere. Generational familiarity... I'm 61 years old and was 7 when the man put his steps on the moon, using vacuum tubes... I saw the interior cockpit of one of the vintage space capsules they used on an actual mission back then. NASA had it at the museum at Cape Kennedy in Florida. They had placed a plexiglas window in the side and you could see where the guy sat during the mission. Next to the window, at the left side of his chair was the "ABORT" control. It was a shifter panel like off a 1969 Simplicity garden tractor... It had a Z-shape opening where the metal rod stuck through as a shifter... complete with a small red knob that was obviously just screwed on top of the rod... just like a garden tractor would have... That was the 1960s version of aborting the mission knob...

A today's space shuttle pilot wouldn't know what the hell to do with it...

I was around in the 1980s when the first all-in-one rack mounted preamp/multi-effects units hit the stores. My first question back then was "what the F~~~ is a "parameter". Back then there weren't any handy PDF manuals you could keyword scan through to find the thing you wanted to do. There was this dinky 2" or less LCD screen where you "edited parameters" whatever the hell that meant. Take Neil Armstrong, teleport him to 2023 and show him how Space-X can retrieve there stuff w/in 3-feet of X marks the spot back on Earth to be used over and over. That's me in 1983-ish looking at the plugged in lit up Lexicon PCM-70...

The "language" of single pedals is very understandable. You don't usually need to know any fancy verbs or nouns, it is usually "gain" or "treble" and the rest of the language is a switch, maybe some other knobs with a few different words ("manual", "feedback", "time") and it is a great little world that zillions of manufacturers have used in this language to make single pedals about from the beginning. That is MY language and I came from that country and in that country we all speak the same language. It is one language every human on Earth can speak. It crosses over genres of music, country, rock, blues, jazz, (don't know if Rap even ever uses guitars...) I can't help the Rap guys, sorry... LOL

Enter a multi-effects unit of any kind (well, most times)... It doesn't speak in the same language. With a single stomp box, plug it in, fiddle a knob, yeah I love my new pedal. With a multi-effects... S~~T loads of hype about what it can do... Promises the world to you that it is the biggest, fastest, baddest thing that ever was (but if you're like Line 6, you'll whore out the latest effects chip in ever size package you can, profit from it, then out-date your own product in a couple years to the next oh-my-god-its-so-cool-you-just-gotta-have-it-or-you-suck doo-dad. That is exactly how they have built their business.) Oh, and the War and Peace (novel_ sized manual you need to read, before you can SPEAK their language. And guess what, every manufacturer out there writes their own manual. So in order to learn how to use a Helix from scratch, plan on copious amounts of manual time... Unless you were born in a newer technological bracket than old farts like me (61yo...)

Those multi-effects manuals (for me) are like learning Chinese or Japanese, or forced to learn both before I can eat my next meal. If I buy any kind of effects, I want top bring it home from the grocery (music) store, plug it in and eat. I don't want to sit down and learn how to eat like mommie spoon feeding me Gerber carrots and spinach...

Plus, forget about me having +/- $2,000 these days to drop down on a Helix or a Fractal... I live on $900 bucks a month disability, and even on a 90-day layaway with 25% down, that $500 down, and then $500/ month for 90-days. Not gonna happen anywhere near to me until the day I die, they sell all my stuff and go buy the newer one Line 6 will have by then that makes the Helix look like a toy. Today's "everything is free" generation has not a clue... give them all 40 years, watch their parents pass on, many of their friends get cancer or just die... and they're living on $900/mo... because that is all the folks who dial up the SSA numbers will still be giving you by then...

I was a contractor field engineer for any Ma Bell type phone company in the country (and in many other countries). I had plenty of money to buy anything gear wise I wanted. I chose to not buy a multi-effects anything... oh well... not that I haven't tried... to not want and not try is one thing, to be curious and try and hate the effort is what I did. For $200 I bought one of the Boss GT-1 multi's. I have no complaints about the sounds inside... but on the outside of the case, with the switching and such... there is no "Bypass" switch to just turn the effects OFF. You have to drag out the manual, somehow magically figure out in this new langauge how to create a patch, and make an OFF patch... f-in weeeeeee

I traded it in for $100 towards a Godin XTSA synth/ceramic HSH/piezo guitar... Roland still has my faith... just not their Boss division. I have never bought a Boss pedals because for as long as I have lived there has always been something BETTER (with less super-hype marketing) than any choice Boss has for me. I also once had dual Blackstar Fly3 mini amps I used to backpack lessons from house to house. They got sold in financial wars, and this year I bought the very disappointing Boss Katana Mini. I had hoped it would be a bit louder because the case size is size-able bigger than the Fly3. But the only thing "more" was the price... $100 for the Katana Mini, vs $50 each for the Fly3's back when I bought them. No different features, just more plastic case and more cash off the plastic wallet... (i.e. "money")

Here's one other reason why I don't ever buy Boss anything. My first stomp box in around 1977 was a Heathkit Distortion somebody loaned (I didn't assemble it, Heathkit stuff was DIY back then) then I got a Cry Baby Wah... back then if you went in a hip store, you'd see MXR, Maestro, Electro-Harmonix... the TRUE people who PIONEERED effects pedals (some other poster and Boss fan person said they thought "Boss had pioneered" effects... whew... probably didn't know they landed on the moon with vacuum tubes, either... and those huge I Dream of Jeannie tape computer machines... (and oh my god, no cell phone or Internet - but talked to the guys on the moon... with vacuum tubes...) -- JUst because technology is old doesn't mean your new stuff is better. The yearling buck in the wild is going to lose against the experienced older buck in an antler battle. Maybe some of you will get these parables, but maybe some will scratch their head... LOL

I witnessed Boss enter the scene late-70s and more so full-on pig out by mid-80s. They flooded the market with a zillion "choices" for every effect type (pretty smart actually)... you could have 2-3 distortions, 3-4 overdrives. all different names, and all built on thew same internal chip... LOL... which for Roland/Boss was used to advance their claim on the overall economic market share of profits in the pedal business... Which was great for Roland/Boss but pretty soon folks like MXR went bye bye... and as I watched it happen, and my take on it happening, was because of how Boss ran their business... and that is the #1 reason I will not and do not buy Boss's pedals. Plus they just don't really match up to what is available today. They are existing on a lot of brand name recognition, and on folks who learned pedals when Boss were all that there was available to them. That's my opinion, right or wrong. Boss ALWAYS super-hypes all their new gear (I do ads for music stores for their online products, I see them all)... IMHO, it is so bad, it is almost like they release something new and then try to cram it down the buying public's throat. They need you to buy their stuff in order to survice as a business. I do not (and you and we do not) need Boss for anything. Kind of like Microsoft needs us to buy Windows 11, but my computer still runs for years just fine on Windows 7.

So for my individual life, several things. I like the language and simplicity of single pedals. All you gotta speak is a few knobs and an on/off switch. In order for me to learn any new multi-effect, I am out of the technologically friend generation (many of my gen don't know anything about computers and don't even own one). I didn't mention how much I HATE reading. So don't hand me a more than one page one sheet manual. I'm not gonna sit down and read a 300+ page manual (or even 25 pages). Many multi-units are priced out of my single purchase price range. The super-hype the multis can "do it all" has never been true. They might have 50 different choruses, but the guy is right, what if you don't like any of them, and... this is where you spent your money,,, so an expensive multi thing plus you still gotta buy something that does what you want... way beyond the solar system of financial possibilities my Wallet Spaceship can afford to experiment with.

But if you are from the generation that understand technological stuff more easily, then go for it... save up and buy the best. Line 6 Helix, Boss, Fractal, Headrush, Zoom, Mooer... or one of each... what the hell...

I'm 61 and won't be alive much longer, let's say 20 years tops... I can't afford to spend an entire year or more of what I got left reading some manual

Instead I am going to try to buy every guitar and pedal and amp there is on the planet on my measly little income, on payment plans, layaway, or just plain buy a lot of other cheap crap, hahahahaha That's my plan for the next +/- 20 years, and I'm certain it will not include any kind of Boss pedal (we are in the Golden Age of pedal makers, why settle for just Boss who doesn't even make the best pedals???)

On my headstone they can write... "Never Bought a Boss Pedal"... but wait, I want to be cremated and my ashes poured out from the top of the Rocky Mountains...

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