Minimalist Effects Solution

The commercially available pedal boards are nice, but they are kind of expensive for what they are, IMO.

Pretty easy to take some wood or other lighter material and make your own. Spray paint it with flat black,
put velcro on it (or drill hole and use zip ties) and you're good to go. You can use wood or other material to give it as much
tilt as you want, Use an old laptop case or other cheap case/bag for transport. Lay out all your pedals just how you
want them, measure the footprint you want to accommodate, and start cutting your custom board to the exact dimensions you want. Add enough room for one extra pedal so you can have fun with pedals that rotate on and off the board.

Here's a picture of one I made--

 

I'm trying to come up with my ultimate compact pedalboard. Right now, I have a Tech 21 RK5 (V1), a Digitech HT6 tuner, and a Digitech EX-7 (provides a number of expression effects - e.g. wah, flanger, rotary/leslie, volume, etc. as well as additional Distortion models). I now just need reverb (the reverb included with the RK5 doesn't have a lot of flexibility) and tremolo - I'm contemplating a unit that does both (perhaps the Strymon Flint or Mr. Black Deluxe Deluxe Plus) to complete my setup. I just don't have the space or time for more at this point.

 

I'm a minimalist sort of player; I usually use a guitar, a cable, and an amp.

When I need effects, I bring this little pedalboard I put together using a Tech 21 Fly Rig 5 ver1. It has tap-tempo delay, chorus/modulation, SansAmp with reverb/three-knob EQ/clean&drive, overdrive, and boost. All the effects sound really good.

These run on 12vDC, so I built a small board from 1/4" Lexan and installed rubber feet on the bottom, along with steel cabinet handles to protect the plugs from getting stomped on and broken off in the jacks.

I installed a 12v rechargeable li-ion power pack (Talentcell brand, less that $30 on Amazon) designed for remote camera applications. The power pack runs the Fly Rig for more than 40 hours between charges, and it has a 'fuel gauge' on it to show charge status.

I added a plastic ring over the SansAmp switch because it stays on all the time (prevents me from accidentally tapping it off). I also added a half-round aluminum bar across the top to protect the small knobs from getting stomped on. This thing is bulletproof, and I carry it in a small padded laptop bag with the wall-wart charger and spare cables.

The entire unit is small; 12.5" wide x 6.5" deep x 1.5" tall. All it needs is a cable running to the guitar, and a cable running to the amp.

 

Now that there is slick.

jh

 

Stick with your Boss pedals and add a reverb and get a BCB-60
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...KZ9hjuT_D2ibaZpJi_QaAv0LEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

If I were suddenly to be without my pedals, I would get the TC Electronic Nova system without skipping a beat.

 

All the FX on your list require a board bigger than your amp.
If you don't have the perfect reverb and the perfect trem, but want those to be just right, I'd bet that in the long run you'd save time and money by simply switching to an amp with good tube reverb and trem, like a PRRI.

With those hard to nail issues fixed and the pedal board shrunk, the rest should be pretty easy to find and fit on a small board.
Just a thought...

 

This, actually, is probably the best idea. Use your compressor as a boost. That keeps you down to six pedals after buying a BOSS reverb.

I use a BCB-60 (which has its own power supply), as well as a BOSS RV-6 Reverb, FWIW. Also, the BCB-60 comes with a complete set of patch cables, so you really don't have to buy anything else. My amp is typically a Pro Junior, so very similar to your situation. Works like a charm.

 

I like the Sonicake Twiggy Blues. Compressor, Drive, Slapback Delay and Reverb. Lightweight, sounds good and fits in my gig bag. Very easy...

 

Check out the Zoom G3N or the G3 used (battery option on the older unit). I live in my Helix in the studio.... and I use the HX stomp as a part of my gigging board... but those are quite costly, and in many ways my old Zoom is MUCH easier to operate. It is sort of a halfway between the HX stomp and the ME-80. We all remember the awful distortions of Zoom products in the past.... But I find the comp, screamer and fuzz to be more than passable in any situation going into an amp. The delays are good enough and the Reverb is not studio quality by any measure. But you are going into the front end of an amp, so the color of the amp will hide 99% of what I would consider deficiency. I prefer the G3 (battery powered) for my backup everything. I can dial in just about anything in under 120 seconds and in a jam or gig I will take bulletproof reliability over cork sniffing any day. Plus.... I paid $65 for mine.

 

That sounds REALLY good!

 

This gets me most of the way towards what you're after. The Gain Changer provides adequate compression. I mostly use tube amps though. The reverb pedal is really good at the spring thing. I have on-board tremolo on two amps, but have a tremolo pedal for use with others. I also have a gnarly preamp pedal, another dirt box, and compressor, but find the board as is to be sufficient for gigs.

 

I love this. Never see it before. Thanks.

 

One question I would raise is how much you tap those pedals on and off vs set it and forget it. For example, a zoom multi stomp could handle your term/delay/reverb/tuner needs if you don’t change those settings more than three sounds on the fly. Then a comp/od like a route 66 out front. If you want lots of individual control, though, you’ll need individual pedals or a large format multi unit.

 

If you are daisy chaining the power from your one spot that's why you are getting power supply noise (ground loop). Try testing with just one pedal connected to the power supply and if there is no noise, then the power supply isn't noisy. Then it's a matter of figuring out which pedals can be daisy chained without causing noise and which pedals cannot.

In my case, I found I could daisy chain all of my analog pedals (comp, trem, OD, EQ etc.) without any noise but my two digital pedals (delay and reverb) each needed to be on their own power supply. So instead of buying a $200 isolated power supply, I bought 3 inexpensive power supplies and I daisy chain the analog pedals from one supply - the digital verb gets its own supply and the digital delay gets its own supply. Very quiet now and only using 3 spots on the power strip.

 

Another vote for something like this.

I actually was debating between getting an ME-80 or a handful of individual pedals. Ended up going with the individual pedals route for similar reasons as the OP. I only use a few effects often, and I like the control and ease of pedals.

Powering them can be kind of annoying, as well as patching everything, just more possibilities for things to go wrong. But I prefer being able to quickly tweak on the fly with a few pedals I use all the time.

I ended up going with 4/6 Mooer on my board (also a Joyo and a Digitech), but I gave an all Boss board some thought. Kind of a cool idea to have it all in one on the BCB board.

 

where is the chorus?

 

It's in the delay function:

Set the Repeats control to zero, and use the Drift control and the Time control to bring in the level of modulation you want. Nowhere on the unit does it have a 'Chorus' label, but it's in there.



"We're gonna need to have a chorus!"

 

I know most will disagree, but I feel like 5 or 6 pedals is kind of the line between using individual ones and need a MFX. The OP could maybe use one of the newer MFX like Boss MS-3, then he can put pedals he still wants to keep in the loops. I'm roughly in that same boat - I'm maybe a 5 pedal guy - and I'm considering the Line6 PodGo when the finances come around.

 

One more thing: some think that the BCB-60 can only take BOSS pedals. That is not the case. Any compact pedals and the BOSS doubles can be used, as well.