NOSTALGIA, REVISITED

“I first came across the concept of a pedalboard as a young teenager in the late 80s when a hip older guy showed me his Boss BCB-6 – a pedalboard that was released in 1983 and the same one used by pioneering electric guitar players such as by Les Paul, Gary Moore and Robert Smith. “These days, teenagers eloquently debate the merits of various pedalboard switching systems, but back then I barely knew the difference between fuzz and overdrive. I was intrigued. ‘What was a compression?’ ‘Why is a chorus?’ ‘Where is fuzz?’ Et cetera. Within a few years I was confidently hauling a fully loaded BCB-6 around to gigs and rehearsals myself. “Fast-forward a few misspent decades and here I am returning to the source of inspiration with a Boss BCB-90X. Why? Because Boss pedals just work. Even 30 years later. My other ’board is a Ferrari, a GigRig-built dream machine jammed with boutique and vintage pedals. But this simply does what it says on the tin (Fuzz, OverDrive/ Distortion, Delay, Flanger, Reverb and Tremolo) very well.”