Redid my pedalboard for 2026 (better late than never…)

[draelyc]

Finally got my pedalboard redone for 2026.  It’s way more complex than rock & roll decorum generally allows, but the way I’ve got it set up now, I can run completely amp-less with just guitar & pedals going straight to the mixing board (the Boss IR-200 has amp & cabinet modeling) or I can run the same board in 4-cable mode with either of my tube amps without rewiring anything.  

When running amp-less, I can still use the MS-3 to control the Wampler pedals and to place some fx in front of the modeler amps and some in the IR-200’s fx loop; and when running a real amp, I can take an extra output from the IR-200 directly into the mixer (with cab simulation) so I can have a direct signal using my real amp but without having to mic it up.  The MS-3 controls the whole shebang, with through the internal loops or through MIDI.

And it all works beautifully & looks quasi-neat & almost professional, to boot.

This is by far the most compact yet most powerful board I’ve ever built.  I’m pretty proud of how it all came together.

 

just to be sure I’m on topic, here’s what I’m using with this board! 😎

 

[RobB]

Redwitch phaser FTW. Lots of sounds in that one. 

What do those dual-eared, Mooer pedals do?

[draelyc]

54 minutes ago, RobB said:

Redwitch phaser FTW. Lots of sounds in that one. 

What do those dual-eared, Mooer pedals do?

I adore the Moon Phaser!

The Mooer on the right is a wah that kicks in when you step on it (switch less), and the one on the left is an expression pedal that controls various parameters in the MS-3.  

The white pedal on the right is another expression pedal, only with a switch instead of a rocker pedal.

[BoogieMKIIA]

Nice. I don't have an amp-less set up, would be a big change to my current pedal board. New devices, rewiring, etc. Trying to not spend much this year.

I assume you are pleased with the Boss IR? I considered a TC Plethora to consolidate time and modulation effects, didn't pull the trigger. An IR device would let me go direct without a big tear up, but I'm fine with a mic on my amp for gigs. Curious if getting sustain and feedback amp-less is possible.

[draelyc]

On 2/11/2026 at 8:20 AM, BoogieMKIIA said:

Nice. I don't have an amp-less set up, would be a big change to my current pedal board. New devices, rewiring, etc. Trying to not spend much this year.

I assume you are pleased with the Boss IR? I considered a TC Plethora to consolidate time and modulation effects, didn't pull the trigger. An IR device would let me go direct without a big tear up, but I'm fine with a mic on my amp for gigs. Curious if getting sustain and feedback amp-less is possible.

I was a little iffy about the pedal’s amp modeling at first.  I’d read online that all the amp models had a harshness around 2-2.5KHz that’s supposedly characteristic of Boss modeling.  When I first plugged in, I was like wow, that’s not just harsh but brittle.  Thought I’d have to return it.  
 

But the global eq fixed it pretty fast.  Better still, you can run a different global eq setting for the separate A and B outputs.  So the output that’s in line with my real amp has no extra eq, but the one I use with the modeling for running ampless has the eq dialed in to fix that harshness.

 

The built in IRs are okay so far.  The don’t appear to be tweakable, so I will eventually experiment with uploading my own into the Boss unit.  But for now the built in ones seem pretty usable. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Running ampless tonight at rehearsal for the first time.  Will see how it works… 😬

[draelyc]

Welp, preliminary tests have been somewhat disappointing. Probably — hopefully — down to user idiocy, but we’ll see.

Right off the bat, I was stupidly not prepared for how different band practice last night would feel with no amp next to me — just trying to hear myself through the mains. The dudes with in ears said it sounded great, but I couldn’t much hear myself, and what I could hear was all bass, a little treble, and no mids. But that’s more of a monitor thing than an IR-200 thing.

Otoh, setting my rig up at home, I’ve discovered that the IR-200 pretty drastically affects the tone of my amp rig, even with the 200’s amps, cabs, and eqs shut off for Output A (the one that’s connected to the rest of the rig. Even stranger, even with nothing connected to Output B (and with the A/B link set to “off”), changing the Output B can sim changes the tone coming out of my real amp (which, again, should only be getting signal from Output A). So, what the 

The downsides of making things so complicated is that trying to figure out why it’s doing like this, much less trying to fix it, is exponentially more complicated.

Where’s that old Plexi I used to have?

[draelyc]

Okay, last update — I FINALLY got everything working like I wanted.  Looks like the trouble (other than my being cranially challenged enough to conceive of this harebrained scheme) was the sheer number of menus I had to explore to figure out what was keeping the IR-200’s separate outputs from being truly separate.  And figuring out which bits needed to be set up in the global menus and which ones had to be done in individual patch settings.

And of course, that was on top of figuring out how everything had to be physically wired together, which also is not my forte’.

But, at last, it’s all working just like I’d originally envisioned.  One board to rule them all, whether running real amps and cabs (whilst simultaneously using just a cab sim for a direct line to the mixer for live performance, or running completely amp-less and just using the board, or using either setup for recording.  Even got the MIDI all connected so the MS-3 controls both the IR-200 and the Wampler Pantheon.

WHEW!!! 🤣

[mrjamiam]

23 minutes ago, draelyc said:

Looks like the trouble (other than my being cranially challenged enough to conceive of this harebrained scheme) was the sheer number of menus I had to explore to figure out what was keeping the IR-200’s separate outputs from being truly separate.  And figuring out which bits needed to be set up in the global menus and which ones had to be done in individual patch settings.

Making 

 or something like it look more appealing to me all the time.  I haven't pulled any triggers yet, but I'm tempted.