simon_j_dodd's Pedalboard

I use this as the “low gain” channel on my pedalboard. Its job is to push a clean, glassy Fender amp with just enough gain to have some bite and juice that up to warm light overdrive for hot country and things like Mellencamp and CCR. It performs those duties admirably.

For thirty years, my trusty Boss CH1 was my best friend. In my pedalboard reorg for a new band, I needed to save space, so I needed a great-sounding chorus in a minipedal format. This is it. It sounds fantastic and the mix control is an unexpectedly useful boon. You should buy one.

The Donner Mod Square does nothing very well but it does several things well enough. I use chorus enough that I have my favorite chorus pedal on my board, and in a perfect world, I'd have a phaser, a flanger, a tremolo, and a Leslie simulator, too. But I use those effects much less often—a few times each in a gig. (I use a flanger once in an average gig, for eight bars.) It would be hard to justify so large an expansion of the board for such infrequent use. Enter the Donner Mod Square! It packs good-enough-for-gigging-work effects into a tiny frame. It's not winning any awards, but it ably fills a vital niche and I would replace it if it failed.

The RM600 is an adequate Leslie simulator. It lacks two critical features: An external fast/slow switch option and a blend control. I deal with the second by using an ABY box and having it drive a second amp; the volume control on that amp becomes the blend control. The lack of a real fast/slow control is—problematic. It's far too easy to turn off the effect at the precise moment when you're trying to speed it up.

And yet—

For all that, it sounds better than a lot of its competitors, including Boss' flagship.It's a pain in the ass, but I love it.

When Apple released the "trashcan" Mac Pro, it was an impressive machine. By the time of its long overdue retirement, it was an embarrassment. The Boss AC-3 is of a piece. It was, on its release, an amazing accomplishment—but how can it be that after literally twenty years, this is still the best we can do? Look, it gets the job done; no doubt. It's adequate. But I refuse to believe that Boss can't do better in 2026, and I resent that Boss hasn't done better with an AC-4. When they do, I'll hate-buy it. Until then, I'll make do with this pedal, that was once impressive and is now just okay.

Powerful and flexible 5-band EQ ladled out in frequencies that are roughly comparable to the Boogie Graphic EQ. I use it to trim and sculpt the output from a NUX RecTo, but it would also work as a very nice boost.

My go-to for medium gain sounds, the Guv'nor excels at giving humbuckers a big, warm rock n' roll tone.