Most pedalboards run out of room before they run out of ideas. The new BOSS EX-4 Effects Expander is built for that problem. The idea is to add to the board you already have, not start it over.
It measures 4-5/8 by 5-7/16 inches, and inside is a library of 120 BOSS effects. You can run up to four at once, including more than one of the same effect, and it’s set up for bass as well as guitar.
A Big Library in a Small Box
The library covers every major category: overdrive, distortion, and fuzz, pitch and modulation, delay and reverb, dynamics and filters, plus synth sounds and effects tuned for bass. BOSS also brought along a few of its more unusual favorites, like Slow Gear and Slicer.
There are 128 preset memories for guitar and bass to start from, and another 128 user memories for your own sounds.
Quick to Dial In
Four FX buttons sit around the 2.4-inch color screen, and each one lights up in the same color as its effect block on the display. Press one to turn that block on or off. Hold it, and you’re into that effect’s parameters.
Gear Suite is the shortcut for building sounds. It calls up ready-to-play versions of each effect and lets you save your favorite settings for each effect type, so you’re not starting from zero every time you drop a delay into a new preset.
From there, you choose how you want to play it. Manual mode works like a row of stompboxes. Memory mode switches whole presets.
Routing Is Where It Gets Interesting
Each preset can run in series, in parallel, or as a wet/dry setup, and you can put the blocks in whatever order you like. Two of the four audio jacks can also work as an effects loop, so one or more of your own pedals can sit anywhere in the EX-4’s chain. That Send/Return block also handles wet/dry rigs and the four-cable method.
There are utility blocks, too: up to two noise suppressors and a foot volume you can place in the chain, plus a three-band global EQ for overall shaping.
When you change presets, delay and reverb trails can carry over in certain effect configurations, so the tail of one sound doesn’t get chopped off by the next.
Room to Grow
The two footswitches have split color LEDs, so you can see what each one is set to while you’re playing. You can assign them system-wide or per memory, for block on/off, memory up and down, master bypass, tap tempo, and more.
Add up to two external footswitches or an expression pedal, and you can assign up to eight parameters per preset. TRS MIDI In and Out connect the EX-4 to MIDI pedals, switching systems, and external clocks.
If your board is already full of pedals you like, the EX-4 is a practical way to fill in the gaps without starting over.
You can preorder the BOSS EX-4 Effects Expander at ChuckLevins.com!