Humbucker Soup

  Ever since the Boss ME line came out, I’ve not seen too many floor-based multi-effects that do as good a job of replicating a bunch of pedals on the floor. That’s not to say there aren’t other units that do a great job, but Boss has remained faithful to this line and improved it [...]

This is a special little combination that really works. Rick Franklin’s mod of the BOSS DS-1 implements the much-needed true bypass that takes this pedal from “working class” to “boutique”.

Introduced in 1982, the CE-3 was the first Boss pedal to have three knobs in a row. The odd metallic finish was also a bit of a departure for Boss. This pedal was featured on many early ’80′s recordings, characterized by it’s slightly metallic sound.

This is one great EQ pedal. The frequencies are spaced out to be optimized for guitar and it works well. Like most BOSS pedals, it’s built like a friggin’ tank. You can certainly get more boutiquy and you can can also find other EQ pedals that have more EQ bands, but if you need a solid and affordable floor based EQ guitar pedal, the BOSS GE-7 will do just fine.

A phase shifter is a phase shifter is a phase shifter… right? well, kind of, well, not really…. each of these offers a little variation on sound and many of them offer a lot of variation in features and performance. Not all phase shifters are created equal, but some are pretty damm good.

There are some great volume pedals out there, and I will get to them shortly. But just a quick note about the FV-50H from Boss. Why? I’ts crazy light and not a bad volume pedal. If you are on the road a lot or just need a volume pedal that is easy on the vertebrae, this one is perfect.

If you tend to use drop-tuning, you may want to consider one of these pedals for maximum results.