Are Digital All-In-One Pedalboards the Future?

For many effects, it makes far more sense to keep them analog, IMO, for several reasons:

  1. Latency. Analog responds almost instantaneously. Digital always has a slight delay to it because of processing time. Sometimes it’s imperceptibly short, and it’s not much of a delay to make a difference to the listener. But often you can feel the difference when you’re playing. And if you stack digital effects the latency can add up.

  2. Some analog effects like old school fuzzes interact with the electronics in the guitar in a way that would be very difficult to replicate digitally.

  3. I’ve yet to see a multi effect unit that replicates the “workflow” or whatever you want to call it of playing with a pedalboard of individual pedals. I prefer the feeling of turning a knob or flicking a switch and immediately hearing the difference rather than scrolling through menus. It just feels more intuitive and satisfying to me. Menus feel like work.

Got nothing against modelers/multieffects. Just my own personal reasons for why I avoid them. If you like them, good on you.

/r/guitarpedals Thread