One per Board? Boss 200 Series Offers Great Power in Moderation

Boss offers a 500 series of pedals that are flagship digital monsters, but many of us mere mortals don't have room on our pedalboards for something like the DD-500. But the 200 series crams powerful, workstation-like pedals into a more practical form factor. And the allure, at least to me, is tempting.

When I learned about the EQ-200, I knew pretty quickly that I wanted it. I am a gadget guy, and it felt like a natural choice. I ended up buying one, and I love having it on my board to customize my sound. Since I like the series, it should have been an easy decision to put the DD-200 on my board when I wanted a new delay for my board, right? I had the room on my board and power supply, but I ultimately chose to order the DD-8 instead. Since my pedal is currently delayed (hahaha) due to a snowstorm, I figured I could take some time to explain both what I like about Boss' 200 series as well as why it didn't . I think it's an interesting case study in pedalboard design; the choice forced me to think about what I'm trying to get out of my pedalboard when viewing it as a deliberately-designed system.

Why I love my EQ-200

Having an EQ pedal in my FX loop lets me experiment with different sounds. The memory features of the EQ-200 are essential though to having a 10-band EQ pedal on my board. Sometimes I want to experiment with surgically EQ-ing different bands. Sometimes I want to just use presets that I already know I like. The EQ-200 lets me choose when I want to think about EQ and when I want to just treat it as a solved problem.

I've had headroom issues with cheaper EQ pedals, but none with the EQ-200. Additionally, it offers a variety of routing options. If you want to run parallel EQs, you can do that, but I tend to keep things simple. There is also midi I/O.

I really like the control the pedal gives me. There are some overly-rumbly frequencies in my Marshall for which turning down the amp's bass is not sufficient.

EQ-200 spec highlights

See Boss' website for full specs.

Firmware friction and tech debt

One area where I've been critical of Boss overall has been their UX and (lack of) customer support for firmware updates. In fact, this whole website at least partially owes to a bricked Katana. We need to think about firmware updates when buying and reviewing products. It's a part of the ownership experience that can inflict hidden costs.

I haven't attempted to update the firmware on my EQ-200 yet. Frankly I'm a little bit afraid to, and that isn't the most . And I think this is one of the "catches" with the 200 series (and perhaps the 500 series as well). With 1 pedal like this, this state actually feels like a tolerable amount of tech debt to me. But 2? That starts to become a bigger sticking point in terms of fragility.

Pick what kind of "brains" you want for your board

For me, having 1 Boss 200 series pedal, the EQ-200, on my board has helped make the board feel like more than the sum of its parts by letting me basically save different presets for how I want my amp to sound. I think 2 would clearly start making my board worse than the sum of its parts. It would be like having competing mini DAWs where you have to save different parts of your presets separately. May as well just use a DAW or a floor modeler at that point. And I think it would be a major L if my pedalboard makes me feel that way.

I think this whole exercise of buying a new delay pedal (and rejecting the possibility of buying the DD-200) forced me to think more carefully about the point of my pedalboard as a system. I use it mostly for home practice and recording of metal and hard, so shaping the EQ various ways is important to me. Delay? I love it, but if I really want to customize delay, for me, that's a DAW task that I want to separate from my practice and recording time.

The 200 series offers players different choices about what they want to be the "brains" of their board. For me, it was EQ. For players that are looking to use their board as an ampless gigging and recording solution, the IR-200 (earns commission) could be a great choice. If you want to build your board around a delay workstation, the DD-200 (earns commission) could be compelling. I don't really have a "performance need" for that though. Same with the SY-200 (earns commission). For some people, that synth pedal could be exactly what you need to open up your board as a whole knew instrument. For myself and a lot of other guitarists, the more compact SY-1 would likely do the trick if you want a Boss synth pedal. What kind of player are you? What do you use your board for?

Conclusions

"More features" isn't always better when building a pedalboard. It's a custom interface for controlling your guitar tone, and you get to choose where you want choice and where you don't. I think I would start to find my pedalboard (at least) slightly overwhelming if I picked the DD-200 as my new delay pedal. A lot of my time and energy might start to go into learning how to use it and creating new delay presets. For some people, that is probably exactly what you are looking for, but it's peripheral for me.

Frankly, if we take things to an extreme, it would be rather unwieldy to have a board of all Boss 200 or 500 series pedals. In terms of price and cognitive bandwidth, a modeler or DAW seems better at that point. I don't think even Boss really intends for these pedals to be used that way.

According to Amazon, the DD-200 is commonly bought with the EQ-200, so it seems that not all agree with me. But I've put my reasoning out there. It's not the choice I made, and we have no idea how happy the people are that buy both. But that's the beauty of building a pedalboard, I guess. What do you think?

Boss EQ-200 on Amazon (earns commission)