Why the BOSS EX-4 could transform your pedalboard
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If you’re a guitar player, chances are you’ve spent more time than is entirely healthy thinking about your pedalboard, and specifically the endless game of Tetris involved in getting all the sounds you need onto the board you have.
A great way to get around this sort of issue is to use a compact multi-effects unit to expand the versatility of your board – adding a huge variety of sounds on tap without needing to have a board that looks like something that would be suitable for sending astronauts to Mars.
BOSS’s new EX-4 Effects Expander is an interesting new take on the formula – and it’s one that could transform your entire rig in a variety of ways. Let’s take a look at three different ways you could incorporate it into your pedalboard.
Building the ultimate fly rig
Most compact multi-effects pedals are effectively one-shot units – with a large number of sounds on tap, but limited to just one effect at a time. The EX-4 rips that whole rulebook by not only offering 120 premium BOSS effects in its library, but the ability to run up to four separate effects at once.
The benefits here are pretty obvious. While you can of course use the EX-4 to just provide one effect at a time should that be what you need, the ability to build out multiple mini-signal chains in one pedal means that it has the potential to replace not just one or two pedals on your board, but a whole host of them.
This is a game-changer for those who want to travel light for shows – especially touring musicians and those who do a lot of varied gigs. If you’re flying or using any kind of public transport to get to your gig, you’ll know that you want to keep things as streamlined as possible – but a limited load-out doesn’t mean you have to bring limited sounds.
By making the EX-4 the focal point of a small travel board, you have access to a broad palette of pro-ready sounds, and paired with your amp sim or IR pedal of choice, it enables you to have everything you want at your feet with minimal hassle.
The heart of a hybrid powerhouse
Scaling down your rig is all well and good of course, but what about going the other way? Yngwie Malmsteen didn’t teach us that “more is more” in order to watch us all streamline our guitar rigs down to the smallest possible option.
Thankfully, the EX-4 has everything that the most maximalist effects fan could want to make it the powerhouse behind a serious set-up. For starters, the EX-4 not only has 128 factory presets, but also the flexibility of 128 user-generated presets. That means that you don’t have to worry about scrolling through and swapping out sounds and settings between songs – you can simply program everything you need in beforehand, and then cycle through presets as you need them.
But what if you want a pedal to be the beating heart of a hybrid rig that pairs a classic no-messing tube amplifier with a switching system like BOSS’s own impressive ES-8 unit? Well, the EX–4 comes ready to add a broad palette of modulation, delay, reverb, filter, pitch, and speciality effects to this set-up, straight out of the box.
For one, thanks to a pair of space-saving TRS jacks, the EX-4 is fully MIDI controllable, meaning that you can hook it up to your switcher and be able to control everything you need without any need for tap-dancing.
What’s more, the EX-4’s stereo inputs and outputs also double as an effects loop, meaning that you can further enhance and expand your sonic options by adding a favourite dirt pedal or other go-to effect in the pedal’s loop, and then take advantage of the internal routing options to ensure that it sits exactly where you want it in the chain.
As if that wasn’t enough, the pedal’s two footswitches can be programmed for sophisticated custom operation – allowing you to switch or adjust individual parameters on the fly. Want to kick in that momentary effect or kick things up a gear for a solo? The EX-4 has you covered.
Expanding your sounds without expanding your board
If you’re an effects obsessive, you’ll know well the pain of having to try and squeeze all the sounds you might want into a limited footprint – invariably there are some sounds you’d love to have at hand for the rare occasion you need them, but you can’t justify the real estate to keep them on your board.
The EX-4 can solve all your pedal-picking headaches by offering a huge number of useful effects – including some really esoteric ones like the Slow Gear or Slicer – in a compact package that also includes loads of quality more common effects like delay, modulation and reverb.
The EX-4’s ability to run up to four effects at once means that most of the time it can sit on your pedalboard as a great-sounding option for everyday use, but with the flexibility to add those more occasional sounds into the mix as and when you need them.
If you’re a guitarist that loves finding new textures, the ability to explore these new sonic landscapes, safe in the knowledge that you won’t have to re-wire your pedalboard to make it work in a live environment, is priceless.
What’s more, the impressive level of internal and external routing options removes many of the compromises that pedalboard-based multi-effects can often necessitate. For starters, the stereo input and output jacks double as an effects loop, meaning that you can use it to build a reorderable signal chain with any external pedals you choose. The exp out also means that you can hook it up to an external footswitch or expression pedal and further add flexibility to your on-the-fly switching options.
The pedal itself also features a variety of useful utility features on board to enhance this further, including foot volume, two noise suppressors, send/return, and divider/mixer. And you aren’t limited to running the effects on the EX-4 in one direction either – with advanced series, parallel, and wet/dry options within the virtual chain itself, you can create complex effects configurations that maximise your tonal versatility.
Avoiding option paralysis
A common drawback with mutli-effects units is that they have so many sounds on tap, and so many parameters to edit, it can be quite overwhelming knowing how to get a great sound out of each effect.
Thankfully, BOSS has taken the pain out of all this with the new Gear Suite function – tap this dedicated button while you’re selecting an effect, and you’ll be presented with a bunch of presets for each different effect type, and once you’ve found the sound you love, you can even save user presets for each effect and then use them across your global presets.
It all adds up to a pedal that takes away much of the pain of using a compact multi-effects unit, while expanding your tonal options to elevate it beyond a simple occasional pedal. Whatever your needs, the EX-4 adds a new dimension to your board.
Find out more about the EX-4 Effects Expander at boss.info
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
