Multi-Effects - Option Paralysis

[DetroitBlues]

I've been trying to get more versatility from my pedal board without going overboard with dozens of pedals.

Thought I'd go the route of a multi-effects route so I can get different reverbs, delays, modulation, compression....

Instead I ran into option paralysis.  At first I was going to use a TC Electronics Plethora X3 or X5 as it has 3 to 5 different effects you can switch on and off like an individual pedal.

However, that version requires a 600mA output and the most my power supply offers is 300mA.  I returned it in favor for a Boss M3 Effects Switcher.  

This was even worse!  You can load hundreds of banks, run you own individual drive pedals in/out, decide if you want to put anything in/out before your drive pedals.  But as I discovered, creating you own banks is a challenge, sorting the pedal order, avoiding switch banks if you only want to switch a pedal/effect on/off.  Limited to 2 Modulation effects and 2 internal drive effects.  It became too much to use.  There was no way I could effectively use this pedal live.

I've gone back to regular pedals.  I am going to try a Wampler Terraform for different modulation effects as it seems to function a lot simpler for live use.  May investigate some different Reverb/Delay units that offer more options.  We'll see I guess

 

  

 

[rwinking]

I have not used a pedalboard in years. Now I have a bunch of the Helix stuff, a Quad Cortex and also the Pleathora X5. They are all similar once I got used to them. Since I rarely use the modeled amps I have plenty of computing power to run as many FX as I need. Setting up pedal order is easy, with the QC being the easiest....take my finger, put it on the effect and move it to where I want it. The line 6 stuff is simple too but doesent have a touch screen. It is way easy. It's like having a bunch of different pedal boards and I can just call them up as needed. The paralysis for me is deciding which of the many reverbs or boosts, DDLs, Choruses. etc. I want to use, But once I found my favorites, it was easy to save them and pull them up whenever I need. Most of these devices also have a favorites place to store my fovorites effects and my favorite settings so I don't have to tweak whatever I pull up. Of course there are FX I will probably never use but they are there in case someone asks me for a strange ass sound for a song.

All of my units have an FX loop or two so that if I want to incorporate some outboard pedal or two it is easy. I can even switch them on and off through the unit.

Since I still use tube amps, even the digital boost pedals sound great.

I use the Helix rack for most of my gigs. If it were to go out, I carry either the X5 or Quad Cortex as a back up and they take up very little room in my bag.

The learning curve was steep a few years ago but I got the hang of it now. It was well worth the work.

Thanks God for youtube, though, as anything I have been confused on , there was a video to unconfuse me.