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Sounds like we work pretty much the same in the studio, behind me is a Blue Robbie, Manley VoxBox, 2 Universal Audo LA610A(s), Sebatron VMP4000e, and an Presonus/DiMaria ADL600 and there's also 3 channels of NEVE pres And besides a bunch of good solid state mics like the U87, and U89, most of the other mics are tube (LAWSON the one I'm singing through, VIOLET, NEUMAN, etc). But even then though, the recordings still see a fair share of digital plug-ins. I just don't like digital on the stage That MISSION pedal is a volume pedal, but I do have and like their expression pedals.

An HX Stomp or HX FX or Plethora X5 can be had for the price of a good pedal. I have had my Helix go down and I was up and running in a few minutes. Someone mentioned something about needing a cumputer to program things. I think I might be faster on the Line 6 than hooking it up to a computer these days. Same with the Quad Cortex. Once you understond one of these units the others are similar enough to figure out with very little trouble. Kind of like Cubase or Protools. It may take a little time at first but once you understand some basic stuff it's a lot easier. And I am not some young digital punk. I am an old analog guy who grew up with analog FX and analog studios. I do combine digital and analog. I use protools but use mostly analog preamps, compressers, etc. And many of them have tubes. I have one all Digital rig but 90% of the time I use tube amps with digital FX. And Daniel. I love those Mission Engineering Xpression pedals a lot!

Yeah but I can live with those compromises. And my response was to your statement there are NO consequences of the Fractal. In the real world there are plenty! I can't deal with menus on digital units where I have to reset my FX to the venue, and I play in a ridiculous amount of different venues a year, and in the venues where we get a soundcheck, the room totally changes when all the bodies get there. On my pedal board I change everything I need in under a minute or two, and if one pedal goes down, I can still use all the other FX, if a digital modeler, preamp/FX unit goes down,you lose all the FX. And a backup unit would be too expensive ($700 for the cheapest VP4). Although I love having a few gain/drive pedals along with the Origin FX Revival Drive on my board, the only FX I really need are volume pedal, tuner, trem and delay, everything else I can cover from my amps. And before you think I'm a luddite who doesn't know his way around technology, I've owned a recording studio most of my adult life, with the last 20 years being computer based, so I've programmed more pieces of menu driven gear and software than most people will do in a lifetime of gigging. I recorded plenty of songs, (with amp and FX plug-ins) where there were no amps in the room or pedal boards, but I will still take a pedal board (with as many analog FX as possible) everytime, and a killer tube amp! That said, I've seen many people use Fractals/Kempers/etc and they sounded just fine, so there are many ways to skin a cat so to say, I just prefer my way! BTW I do have a compromise board where I use an HX stomp to program all the 'verbs/delays, and modulation FX..

While using a computer is optional it's not required, particularly once you set it up the way you want.

Well there we have it!

I have no doubts those are amazing, but needing a computer to set them up and if how to quickly adjust on the fly seems challenging if you aren't intimately familiar with the units. But I'm not dragging around a computer for live play. I've gone back to analog (mostly), this time I have my drive pedals going to the front of the amp and a pair of digital pedals, Wampler Terraforma (chorus, flanger, phaser, etc) and a Universal Audio Del-Verb (delay/reverb pedal) through the effects loop (there is an interesting path where as I have the phaser go in front of the drive pedals).

But that also stands true for every piece of gear in you rig.

Any piece of equipment has compromises. Take it out on a stage a few hundered times a year and you'll find them

I did once track down & buy back a strat I sold to someone, who'd since sold it to someone else.

With a unit like the VP4 there are no compromises, only improvements on pre-conceived notions of what used to be considered great. This unit takes it to another level.

The only multi-effect I've ever owned is a Digitech GNX-4, which I think they discontinued maybe around the time Columbus discovered the New World. Would I say it was awesome? At the time, yeah. It does way more than I've ever bothered to figure out. Have had a ton of fun with it; for my purposes it's been great. But, I think any time you go "all-in-one" you make compromises. The question becomes, "Are you ok with those compromises?"

my board...

No poker chips on my H150s, and personally I like them better that way, I tried one on each of them and off they came! And I prefer the Heritage pickguard to the Gibson guard, I like the way it follows the body contours. I don't feel the same way about their semi-hollow pickguards, they look too small to me, and definitely not as nice shape wise as the H150 guards. I had MojoAxe make me one Gibson style for my H535P90 that cus sold me and I love it.

I've been using this https://www.fractalaudio.com/vp4/ for my tube amps for a couple weeks now, it's a great sounding unit with a truck load of efx.

First I heard that the OG Rev F or Rev G Two Channel Dual Rectifier Solo Heads were making a return, and that preorders were being taken. Never saw any official. Then I heard the same thing about the vaunted Mark IIC+, which over the course of the pandemic suddenly became an amp worth over 10K USD depending on the load out. Well, it appears that at least one of those rumors is true. Do I have any interest? Probably not. Paying $3500 for an amp that is very lacking in features that I like, and probably not made at all in the way the originals were? When I already have a Mark V? Nope. But I'm sure these will be sold out everywhere.

In 2005-ish (maybe 2006 or 2007), I picked up at the factory a 150 Goldtop that I custom ordered through a dealer but just wanted to pickup at Heritage. I asked Marv if he would install a poker chip and Gibson LP pickguard that I bought and brought with me on my brand new 150 Goldtop. He said, "We used to install those years ago at Heritage, but due to the lawsuit we don't use/install them anymore". But he was kind enough to do it anyhow, he said to just keep it between us. So now the secret is out.... I think he is safe from litigation.

Nice

When I started my new band, I thought I would be the plug straight into the amp guy, but I assumed the other guitarist would be playing all the solos, while I covered the rhythm. But as I wrote some of our newer songs, I found that I wanted to play some of the solos, and some of the songs had us trading solos, so I brought my pedal board into the equation, and frankly I'm glad I did, because I think our sound is a bit more consistent. Also it's nice to have trem and delay along with various flavours of overdrive. My board is... Ernie Ball Volume Pedal Jr Peterson StroboStomp Mini Red Witch Glassio Fuzz Durham Sex Drive Origin FX Revival Drive Custom Boss RE20 Delay Voodoo Labs Analog Trem Dr Scientist Reverberator

I have also enjoyed Pete Thorn's compresser. There are a lot of cool verbs on that Plethora X5. It's nice that you can set it up to run stuff via 4CM. I use those pedalsnakes for that so I only have one cable running at a gig.

Hmm, my Plethora X5 came with 600mA power supply. I suppose you have to consider what you really need in terms of effects. I remember Robben Ford saying in an interview that all he really needed was some reverb and a bit of delay, though now he has a new pedalboard courtesy of Dan from That Pedal Show. This made me consider what I really need - reverb, delay, chorus, tremolo and a Univibe-type thing. Pitch-changer and/or octaver is nice but not essential. Consequently my main "board" on the Plethora is Viscous Vibe > Corona Chorus > Pipeline Tremolo > Flashback 2 Delay > Hall of Fame 2 Reverb. All of these are in the effects loop of the amp, and I'd be unlikely to use all of them at once. The MASH footswitches are useful, e.g. for changing the speed of the Viscous Vibe. It's fun to have a chorus into a delay into a reverse delay into a reverb into a looper, but that's not something I'd use on a gig 🙂

Ive seen them on a lot of early 170s and 140s. But the font on the poker chip is different than the Gibson font.

I have always liked rack stuff. With a pedalboard you have to either tweak with your feet or bend over and tweak. I started using the old Ibanez UE 400 rack FX (all analog!) back in the late 70s or ealy 80s. I have the switches on the floor but can add/subtract stuff by turning around instead of bending over. My Helix is the rack version and even with the Quad Cortex I keep it at waist level and use a floor midi switching system to change FX. I do use the Plethora X5 for really simple gigs where I only need a couple of basic tones. The Hall of Fame reverbs in there are stellar as are the delays

I found that the Plethora X5 was more manageable if I used up slots with things like noise suppressors and a switchable loop for an overdrive pedal or wah. I also like it because it is somewhat limited in what you can do, and comes with some great presets. I however also have watched some videos on people who have massive pedal boards and effects setups, and I don't know how they do it. I have enough trouble dialing in a nice tone for just overdrive sometimes.

I've never saw the poker chips on a catalog model. Obviously, I wasn't old enough to know back when they sold new in a shop. My assumption is dealers and individual owners added the poker chip. My 1985 H140 did not have one.

Er should have ended with we are "OK" with it.