Ultimate 5 Pedal Pedalboards

I recently came across a budget line of pedals called SubZero, in particular the SubZero Micro Pedal Board - which is a fully contained travel-case-type pedalboard with built-in power supply and leads. You can buy various arrangements of 5 of their mini pedals all for a princely sum of circa £150. Of course at this price range you are not going to get full-spectrum high-fidelity tones with deep and richly realised sound, it will rather sound a touch one dimensional / brittle - but then you largely get what you pay for. Interestingly within this range there is no Reverb pedal available, so you would have to go with something like Compressor + Overdrive / Fuzz / Distortion + Chorus + Flanger + Delay - for that particular range of pedals.

 

For my own preferences I go down the more conventional 5-pedal route of:

Compressor + Drive + Modulation + Delay + Reverb

 

I decided I should compile a list of the best options available for creating a pedalboard of the key different size-format pedals - ending up with:

Mini | Regular | Medium | Large | XL

 

The larger you go obviously the more features and options you typically get, which means at the smaller end of the scale you need to choose very carefully / cleverly and usually make some compromises. This is why I ended up with 3 different option at the Mini Size and two at the Regular Size - essentially ranging from budget > mid-range > boutique for Mini and mid-range | boutique for Regular.

 

The above visual follows the usual signal path convention of right to left, same goes for pricing of different options. I had initially though to include options on different pedalboard platforms, power supplies and cabling, but that would have been overly complex and this is already a long enough post, so I settled for just naming the various pedal options and their relevant pricing - with likely alternative.

 

Please Enjoy! and Discuss!

 

NOTE - Alternatives are listed alphabetically, with top recommendation occasionally in bold!

 

 

Mini Pedals

I have a number of Mini pedals in my own pedal chain, mainly 4 brands are active - Mooer(3), OneControl(4), Wampler(2) and Xotic(3), and then also backups / alternatives in the form of BYOC(1), EWS(2), Ibanez(2), Keeley(1) and Pigtronix(1). For smaller pedal sizes you are enormously restricted by pedal enclosure as to what can be accomplished, so you usually don’t get a lot of versatility at this size (there are exceptions). TC Electronic cleverly gets around this by utilising its TonePrint technology so that you can literally dial in different tones via your phone - but at the smaller size you only get to store / use one tone at a time. Some may prefer smaller pedals with option toggles which Mooer excels at - often giving you 2 or 3 or more different modes or voicings. In my recommendations - working through the categories from right to left we have all Mooer, then mostly TC Electronic, and then a mix; as follows:

 

Mini Compressor

I love having a compressor to smooth out and warm up my core tone - the one I use is the Wampler Mini Ego which is great.

• Mooer Yellow Compressor - £49
• TC Electronic HyperGravity Mini (TonePrint) - £89
• Wampler Mini Ego Compressor £179

ALTERNATIVES: Fairfield Circuitry The Accountant (£155) | Keeley Mini Compressor (Discontinued but occasionally found on Reverb.com) | MXR Dyna Comp Mini (£114) | Pigtronix Philosopher’s Tone Micro (£129) | Xotic Effects SP Compressor Alchemy Mod (£129)

 

Mini Drive

I really love the sounds of both my mini drive pedals - I actively use both the Mooer Blues Mood and Xotic SL Drive (plus Wampler Tumnus). F-Pedals is a new brand to me, but I like the sound of both their distortion pedals - Darklight and Edstortion.

• Mooer Blues Mood Overdrive £56
• Pigtronix Micro Disnortion £143 (Updated)
• Xotic SL Drive Alchemy Mod £125

ALTERNATIVES: F-Pedals Darklight (£119) | F-Pedals Edstortion $129 | Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini (£62) | Mooer Black Secret (£42) | Mooer Hustle Drive (£37) | One Control Persian Green Screamer (£99) | Wampler Tumnus (£179)

 

Mini Modulation

There’s only one proper multi-modulation pedal available here which is the Mooer Mod Factory, I use larger pedals for my own modulation needs, smaller pedals do many things well, modulations are not necessarily a strong suit for them though. There needs to be more competition with the Mooer really, TC Electronic only do individual type pedals here, I have selected the TC Electronic Shakes - which with its TonePrint feature can allow you to download all manner of effects to it - one at a time though!

• Mooer Mod Factory £53
• TC Electronic Shaker Mini Vibrato Pedal (TonePrint) £75
• F-Pedals PhazeVibe - $139

ALTERNATIVES: Ibanez Mini Chorus (£74) | MXR Phase 95 Mini (£114) | TC Electronic Corona Mini Chorus (£78) | TC Electronic Vortex Mini Flanger (£78)

 

Mini Delay

I rely entirely on larger pedals for delay too, although there are some decent mini examples, with a lot less versatility, but that can sound great.

• Mooer ReEcho Delay £55
• TC Electronic Flashback Mini (TonePrint) £84
• F-Pedals EchoBandit $109

ALTERNATIVES: Ibanez Analog Delay Mini (£92) | Mooer Analogue Echo (£52) | Mooer Echolizer Vintage Delay (£50) | One Control Sea Turquoise Delay (£155)

 

Mini Reverb

A number of pros use Mooer pedals for squeezing in specific tones onto their boards, some of the most popular seem to be the Blues Mood Drive, the Trelicopter Tremolo and the ShimVerb reverb:

• Mooer ShimVerb £53
• TC Electronic Hall of Fame Mini (TonePrint) £83
• One Control Prussian Blue Reverb £155

ALTERNATIVES: Mooer EchoVerb (£75) | Mooer ModVerb (£75) | Mooer SkyVerb (£53)

 

 

Regular Pedals

This is the form factor popularised by Boss and MXR, which makes up the mainstream of pedals available, I have somehow ended up with very few Boss and MXR pedals so far, preferring other makers’ offerings for the particular pedal effect I am after. In this listing there are two pedals for each category - the more affordable mid-range offering is largely TC Electronic - who do things just a little bit smarter in that sector. The boutique offering is mainly Chase Bliss Audio - which makes amazingly detailed / full-featured / versatile analogue pedals in regular-sized enclosures.

 

For Drives, I was looking for maximum versatility - ideally something with twin channels or drive + boost which is how I ended up with the two recommendations listed. Foxpedal has a couple of dual switch pedals - I think The City Overdrive is a touch more versatile then their Kingdom Combo V2, I also considered Keeley Filaments here, but went with the added versatility of having twin / dual footswitches - seems like only Chase Bliss and Foxpedal are really pushing that format which is a shame.

 

Note also, that much like the Mini Pedal category, there is not a decent all-rounder multi-modulation pedal for the regular form factor, or at least not that I am aware of. TC Electronic’s Dreamscape will suffice for now - but someone could really win big here by having our a modulation workstation at this size!

 

Regular Compressor

The Cali76 Compact Deluxe is what the pros favour, some go for the Keeley Compressor Plus, some for the Wampler Ego, I still rate my Mini Ego and will stick with that for now.

• TC Electronic HyperGravity (TonePrint) £98
• Cali76 Compact Deluxe £279

ALTERNATIVES: Bondi Effects 2026 (£249) | Boss CP-1X (£125) | EarthQuaker Devices Warden (£205) | Friedman Sir Compre (£199) | Keeley Compressor Plus ($179) | Mad Professor Forest Green (£165) | MXR M102 Dyna Comp (£94) | T-Rex Neo-Comp (£139) | Wampler Ego (£189)

 

Regular Drive

Both selected pedals feature dual footswitches for extended versatility - obviously the Chase Bliss is a little more versatile with its 6 voicings, versus the two on the Foxpedal. I also wonder why TC Electronic has not brought out a TonePrint-enabled drive yet. I would have thought this was prime territory, currently both MojoMojo and Dark Matter simply have a dual voicing toggle - just imagine what could be done with a couple more clipping options and some TonePrints here!

• Foxpedal The City V2 £229
• Chase Bliss Audio Brothers Analog Gain Stage £349

ALTERNATIVES: AnalogMan Prince of Tone (£159) | Foxpedal Kingdom Combo V2 (£229) | | Friedman Dirty Shirley OD (£199) | Friedman BE-OD (£199) | Fulltone OCD (£139) | Fulltone Plimsoul (£149) | Keeley Filaments (£179) | Source Audio L.A. Lady (£149) | TC Electronic MojoMojo (£43) | TC Electronic Dark Matter (£41) | Wampler Euphoria (£189) | Wampler Pinnacle Drive V2 (£189)

 

Regular Modulation

There is a genuine paucity of all-round Modulation pedals at this size. Even Mooer has the Mod Factory for Mini Pedals, but for Regular, the only all-rounder is TC Electronic’s John Petrucci Signature ’Dreamscape’ which combines just Chorus, Flanger and Vibrato in 6 modes plus TonePrint option. For me the essential modulations are - Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Rotary, Tremolo and Vibrato / Univibe - it’s a genuine mystery why no one is bridging that gap. TC Electronic already have algorithms for most of those - I don’t see why they can’t produce a regular Flashback / HOF -type pedal with say Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Rotary, Tremolo, Vibrato, Filter and Lo-fi plus 3 TonePrints like their latest V2 generation.

 

My actual favourite modulation is Tremolo, which is where I start with the Chase Bliss modulation pedals:

• TC Electronic The Dreamscape £129
• Chase Bliss Audio Gravitas Tremolo £299

ALTERNATIVES: Keeley DynoMyRoto (£169) | Keeley BubbleTron (£189) | Keeley Vibe-O-Verb (£139)

 

Regular Delay

This is one area that is not short of candidates. For my liking no one offers more versatility at this size than TC Electronic - this is their backyard really. You also have old stalwarts Boss DD-7, MXR Carbon Copy and Dunlop Echoplex - yet nothing touches TC Electronic for versatility. For the boutique option I have settled on the Chase Bliss Flanger - choosing to place their delay at the end of the chain (Chase Bliss has no Reverb).

• TC Electronic Flashback 2 £166
• Chase Bliss Audio Spectre TZ Flanger £349

ALTERNATIVES: Alexander Radical Delay II ((£199) | Boss DD-7 (£125) | Catalinbread Adineko Oil Can Delay (£161) | Catalinbread Belle Epoch EP3 (£161) | Catalinbread Echorec (£185) | DigiTech Obscura (£129) | Dunlop Echoplex (£219) | Electro-Harmonix Canyon (£132) | Fire Custom Shop Kronos (£199) | JHS Pink Panther (£239) | Keeley Mesmer Astral Delay (£179) | Keeley Multi Echo ME-8 (£199) | MXR Carbon Copy (£159)

 

Regular Reverb

Another area with no shortage of options - TC’s new Hall of Fame 2 is exceptional, it now easily side-swipes Neunaber’s Immerse, but there are lots of interesting alternatives. I have also included some combined Delay and Reverb pedals here. The boutique option is Chase Bliss’s exceptional Analoge Tonal Recall (Delay!).

• TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2 £130
• Chase Bliss Audio Tonal Recall £399

ALTERNATIVES: Boss RV-6 (£129) | Catalinbread Talisman (£167) | Digitech Polara (£129) | EarthQuaker Afterneath V2 (£199) | EarthQuaker Dispatch Master (£205) | EarthQuaker Transmisser (£225) | Foxpedal Magnifica Deluxe (£199) | MXR M300 (£217) | Mr Black SuperMoon (£149) | Neunaber Immerse (£219) | Wampler Ethereal (£229)

 

 

Medium Pedals

In the Medium-sized category, Strymon seems to have carved out a rather unique niche for itself - having a form factor of a regular-pedal-and-a-half - squared. These twin-switched wonders feature a range of hidden secondary functions, so that even at this slightly higher price point there is no real competition - or at least there did not used to be until Source Audio came along with its Nemesis and soon-to-be-pleased Ventris.

 

Strymon has not seen fit to do a junior Mobius yet, so we settle on the marvellous modulation abilities of the Deco - which produces all manner of tape-based chorus, flange and flutter effects. Strymon now seriously needs to step up its game to fend off Source Audio at this size, and the various improving competitors at the larger size too. Not long ago Strymon ’owned’ this category, now it is being muscled out in key areas!

 

Medium Compressor

The OB1 handily combines both Compressor and Clean Boost in one

• Strymon OB1 Compressor £199

ALTERNATIVES: Bogner Lynhurst (£279) | Carl Martin Andy Timmons Signature Compressor Limiter (£199) | Carl Martin Compressor/Limiter (£179) | Diamond CPR-1 (£185) | Emma Electronic TM-1 TransMORGrifier (£145) | Orange Kongpressor (£119) | Way Huge Saffron Squeeze (£149)

 

Medium Drive

I went for the Strymon Sunset over the Riverside, as it has a more varied pallet of tones - both are excellent and have their own individual strengths.

• Strymon Sunset Dual Overdrive £299

ALTERNATIVES: Amptweaker Fat Rock (£179) | Amptweaker Tight Drive (£99) | Atomic Ampli-Firebox (£349 est.) | Blackstar LT Dual (£79) | Free The Tone HB-2 Heat Blaster OD (£287) | Free The Tone QA-2 Quad Arrow Distortion (£295) | Free The Tone RJ-1V Red Jasper OD (£205) | Gurus SDMKII Sexy Drive MKII (£219) | Keeley D&M Drive (£229) | Moog Minifooger (£155) | Radial Bones London Dual Distortion (£136) | Strymon Riverside (£299) | T-Rex Alberta II (£129) | T-Rex Dual Drive (£59) | T-Rex Møller 2 (£139) | T-Rex Mudhoney II (£139) | T-Rex Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive (£135) | Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe (£209) | Wampler Plexi Drive Deluxe (£209)

 

Medium Modulation

As previously mentioned, not exactly a direct modulation pedal, but one that generates similar effects through simulated tape manipulations.

• Strymon Deco Tape Saturation & Doubletracker £299

ALTERNATIVES: nothing else really at this size

 

Medium Delay

The introduction of the Source Audio Nemesis changed everything in this particular form factor, until that point the Strymon DIG had been king - and still is for many Dual Digital Delay effects, The Nemesis however brings a full-range super-size workstation feature set to this smaller format - significantly outpacing Strymon now for feature set / value.

• Source Audio Nemesis £289

ALTERNATIVES: EarthQuaker Devices Disaster Transport (£205) | Electro-Harmonix Number 1 Echo (£104) | Maxon AD-999 Pro (£319) | Maxon AD-999X (£239) | Providence DLY-4 Chrono Delay (£309) | Stone Deaf Syncopy (£269) | Strymon Brigadier (£299) | Strymon DIG Dual Delay (£299) | Strymon El Capistan (£299) | T-Rex Duck Tail (£179) | T-Rex Room-Mate (£179) | T-Rex Replica (£295) | Wampler Faux Tape Echo V2 (£229) | Way Huge Aqua-Puss (£161) | Way Huge Echo-Puss (£167) | Way Huge Supa-Puss (£225)

 

Medium Reverb

Lots of pro players have the BlueSky - particularly those overcome with option paralysis on its bigger brother BigSky. Does near enough everything you would need a Reverb pedal to do at this form factor. As with delay, there are several alternatives at roundabout this form factor, the imminent Source Audio Ventris Dual Reverb is likely to upset the apple cart again and send Strymon back to the drawing-board.

• Source Audio Ventris Dual Reverb £399 (est.)

ALTERNATIVES: Caroline Meteore Lo-fi (£199) | Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Max (£148) | JHS VCR (£249) | Meris Mercury7 (£319) | Strymon BlueSky Reverb (£299) | Strymon Flint (£299) | Tech 21 Boost RVB (£219)

 

 

Large Pedals

In times past I might have bundled all manner of things into ’Large’, but on this occasion ’Large’ is akin to the Empress Reverb form-factor circabout - obviously larger than Medium, but not into the ridiculously huge - say old school Elektro-Harmonix Deluxe Electric Mistress, or the Elektron Analog Drive. I really like Empress, and if they improved their presets system slightly, these could all totally be my go-to pedals. I have two of these to date, the EchoSystem and Multidrive, I wish the latter had a proper system of presets, as currently you have to do a lot of dial-tweaking between tones.

 

Large Compressor

This one’s on lots of pro boards - includes really useful LED meter too to show extent of compression. I would of course prefer it if they could reduce the form-factor of this compressor into a smaller size, but it is brilliant at what it does.

• Empress Compressor £249

ALTERNATIVES: Keeley Compressor Pro (£199)

 

Large Drive

The Empress Multidrive is the perfect Swiss-army-knife drive pedal - allowing you to combine fuzz, overdrive and distortion voicings in any combination - it is only let down but its lack of presets really - to make it 100% useful in a live situation.

• Empress Multidrive £299

ALTERNATIVES: Bogner La Grange Overdrive (£169) | BYOC Crown Jewel Analog Drive Modeller ($219) | EarthQuaker Devices Pallisades (£245) | Emerson Custom Pomeroy (£299) | Empress Heavy (£299) | Fullton Fulldrive 2 (£135) | Fulltone Fulldrive 3 (£149) | Lunastone Wise Guy Overdrive (£209) | MXR EVH 5150 Overdrive (£196) | Tech 21 SansAmp Para Driver DI V2 (£229) T Jauernig Electronics Robbie Calvo Soul Drive (£249) | T Jauernig Electronics Gristle King (£229) | Wampler HotWired Drive Pedal V2 (£249) | Wampler Dual Fusion (£249)

 

Large Modulation

Slim pickings at this footprint level - seems all-round modulation pedals are nearly all either huge or tiny! I’m picking the Keeley Super Mod Workstation here as it covers off most of the key ones - Chorus, Filter, Flanger, Phaser, Rotary, Tremolo, Vibrato and throws in a few delays and reverbs on top. The Empress Nebulus pedal covers off slightly less variations - and is not dual-channel.

• Keeley Super Mod Workstation £299

ALTERNATIVES: Empress Nebulus (£299) | Keeley Mod Workstation (£299)

 

Large Delay

The Empress EchoSystem is my current favourite delay pedal - lots of clever dual routing options and 36 different effects algorithms - it has to be really special to unseat my much cherished Strymon TimeLine. Again Keeley provides the best alternatives at this footprint size.

• Empress EchoSystem £449

ALTERNATIVES: Dawner Prince Boonar [Echorec](£299) | Keeley Delay Workstation [Delay + Reveb](£299)

 

Large Reverb

Until the new Boss RV-500 is out, I am still rocking the Strymon BigSky, which on current tone and feature set is still just about king of the Reverbs. The Empress Reverb runs it very close though with a smaller form-factor and all control via surface dials. I have long toyed with adding this, for now though BigSky is my #1 choice, most likely to be unseated by the Boss RV-500 when it comes out in late August / early September

• Empress Reverb £449

ALTERNATIVES: JHS Alpine (£235) | Keeley Delay Workstation [Delay + Reveb](£299)

 

 

XL Pedals

So we come to the motherships then - the full-featured Extra Large pedals that give you everything you need. I’m not going to encroach on Binson Echorec territory though, the largest pedal up for consideration is the still massive Elektron Analog Drive, it does though contain 8 separate analogue drive circuits! Used to be that I was a Strymon man through-and-through really - you could say a ’Stryman’! - rocking the Mobius, TimeLine and BigSky. Yet the new Boss pedals look a real threat to the Strymon hegemony, just as the Source Audio Nemesis and Ventris are threatening Strymon’s medium-sized offerings. And the Empress EchoSystem has already unseated my TimeLine - so I would hope that Strymon was making plans on how to take on the new contenders. Seems that while Strymon was busily concentrating on drive pedals, the rest of the world caught up and overtook them in their Delay / Reverb heartland.

 

XL Compressor

There are few options here, and so I plumped for the Maxon tube-driven compressor - proper old-school analogue!

• Maxon RTC600 Real Tube Compressor £299

ALTERNATIVES: Gurus OVA Optivalve (£299) | Electro-Harmonix Platfrom (£148) | Electro-Harmonix White Finger Compressor (£127)

 

XL Drive

I bought the Elektron Analog Drive very soon after the Strymon Riverside, and it tackled a number of issues I had with that pedal. Yet even though there are great sounds on the Analog Drive, I have better tuned individual pedals which cover off all those sounds - so it’s not just a case of doing all the key drive tones well, but to do them as good as the original source references - and even though I could get pretty close, I still preferred my originals. That’s not to say the Analog Drive is not an amazing pedal - it is really rather quite large though! And has no real competitors for what it does, possibly beyond the BYOC Crown Jewel, but that is at a way smaller size.

• Elektron Analog Drive £299

ALTERNATIVES: Amptweaker Tight Drive Pro (£249) | Gurus 1959 Double Decker (£349) | Friedman Motor City Drive (£299) | MESA:Boogie Flux-Five {£279) | Positive Grid Bias Distortion Pro (£329) | Stone Deaf Warp Drive (£175) | Van Weelden Royal Overdrive (£599)

 

XL Modulation

This used to be entirely Eventide and Strymon Territory, but the Boss MD-500 looks like a definite threat with its Dual simultaneous effects engines and smart signal routing. However much I love my Strymon Mobius, I am very seriously considering the Boss MD-500.

• Boss MD-500 £339

ALTERNATIVES: Eventide ModFactor (£373) | Strymon TimeLine (£414)

 

XL Delay

So I swapped out out my Strymon Timeline for an Empress EchoSystem, which will likely be my go-to delay workstation for the foreseeable future. When the Boss DD-500 first came out people generally weren’t that taken by it, and it barely registered a ripple for me. The two newer Boss workstation pedals though look and sound amazing per Rabea Masaad’s demos on my previous Boss head-to-head post. I understand new firmware updates are forthcoming which will bring the DD-500 pedal in line with the amazing feature set of the other two. So I will wait until that time to make a definitive decision, it does seem that this will likely be the most advanced Delay workstation, if not, I of course still have my EchoSystem and TimeLine.

• Boss DD-500 £305

ALTERNATIVES: Eventide TimeFactor (£365) | Free The Tone FT-2Y Flight Time (£406) | Pigtronix Echolution 2 Ultra Pro (£472) | Strymon TimeLine (£414)

 

XL Reverb

Boy do I love my Strymon BigSky, but then Rabea’s demo of the Boss RV-500 is phenomenal. Not only does that pedal offer the Dual simultaneous effects routing, but it also allows you to assign a complementary Delay to each reverb, meaning you can run dual reverbs and dual delays simultaneously - the number of permuations here is next-level shizzle. This is most likely my next big acquisition when it materialises end of Augus / beginning of September

• Boss RV-500 £339

ALTERNATIVES: Eventide Space (£465) | Free The Tone AS-1R Ambi Space £368) | Strymon BigSky (£440)

 

 

 

Postscript

Were I to choose my favourite 5 pedals from all of the above, it would of course be dependent on whatever size restrictions applied, but if you could select anything from any category, my choice would likely be:

• Compressor = Wampler Mini Ego or Cali76 Compact Deluxe
• Drive = Empress Multidrive / Chase Bliss Brothers / Strymon Sunset - tricky one!
• Modulation = Strymon Mobius for now, probably Boss MD-500 when it’s out
• Delay = Empress EchoSystem - probably likely to stick with that, may check Boss DD-500 post firmware update
• Reverb = Strymon TimeLine for now, almost most definitely Boss RV-500 when it comes out