Which effects and why?

For me after searching for what seems like my whole life, I would add again and again, a myco three. Tube overdrive/tone shaper. Brilliant pedal. Expensive but honestly one of the best investments I've made to date. If I get rid of my effects id keep that one.

 

Compressor.
For the obvious limiting of peaks and valleys of playing and making the tone extremely even note-to-note, string-to-string, style-to-style (slap, finger). If you're thinking of a compressor/limiter check out Bongomania's ovnilab website for great suggestions.

 

+1000. I have never worked with the Three but man, I want one. It seems like this would be a great choice for the sound you would want in a classic to more modern rock sound. If I were you though and I had to fill 2 more spots, I would def get a preamp that you could get some dirt mixed in with it and then an octave or chorus pedal. JUST 2 more is hard to choose for me, Im a pedalholic. But maybe getting the B7K for your pre and possible dirt a chorus or octave pedal. With the B7K, you can get a huge amount of tones from different genres. It too is expensive but worth every penny as I am sure the Three is.

 

When you say a "three pedal board", do you mean one meant to fit three Boss pedals specifically? What board is it? Available space will put some limitations on the suggestions.

 

This is very true.

 

In that case, comp or limiter and somekind of OD pedal. The Boss ODB-3 comes up to mind, but the Digitech BassDriver also, because of its flexibility. You can get a lot out of this peda (SVT style, Rat style, ODB-3 style, fuzz...) and it should fit in the Boss 3-pedal board. I read a lot of good around here about the Ibanez Phat Hed, which also offers versatility.

 

I would definitely get the ODB-3 (remember to keep the blend knob almost all the way dry), and then I'd get some kind of a filter, either the RV-5 reverb, which can do lots of stuff, or the BF-3 flanger. Either of those effects used would be good in some of those Zeppelin tunes.

The LMB-3 limiter/compressor is an awesome pedal and suggestion above, but I think just starting off you'd be underwhelmed, as it's not an "effect" that you notice. It's more something you appreciate down the road after playing a while an noticing a need for it.

 

I rarely use effects anymore - but if I used a petal board with 3 stomp boxes if would be a tuner, compressor, and chorus.

 

I'm with jumblemind. If I were limited to three pedals, it would be:

(1) Tuner
(2) Overdrive/distortion (from Boss, probably ODB-3), doing double-duty as a boost
(3) A Chorus or reverb/delay pedal to make clean passages/chords more interesting. I'd probably go with the CEB-3 chorus from Boss, but the RV-5 reverb, BF-3 flanger, or DD-7 delay are all reasonable choices.

 

Going down that route, a Boss RV-3 Delay/reverb pedal would provide interesting options.

 

Tuner, Compressor, Preamp lml

 

Tuner > DigiTech Bass Synth Wah > Looper

 

+1 for the BF3 and the ODB3.

 

I had this same question a while back. After doing some experimenting with a small board I ended up with (going to use pedal pedal types, not exact pedals since yours have to be boss): volume; fuzz w/ blend knob to also work as more of a dirt sound; compressor; phaser (can be similar to flanger or chorus); and delay. The pedals getting the most use are the compressor, fuzz/dirt. Delay and flanger are used about the same amount = not extremely often, but man are they clutch when they do get used. I don't find a ton of use for the volume pedal either.

In your situation, it might be worth looking into the Zoom MS-60B and see if the dimensions would fit on your boss board. I think the pedals are pretty similar. In the first part of my post I listed "compressor", which is actually an MS-60B that I use primarily as a compressor, but also for filters and other things. It's the size of a single boss pedal, but is a programmable multi-effect unit. Pretty handy for small boards as it allows you to have a lot of the effects that you may only use every once in a while, or multiple always on effects, with only having a 1 stomp box footprint.

Hope some of this helps!

 

Since you're playing classic rock (like me), I'd suggest:

- Darkglass Vintage Microtubes
(never turn this baby off) It's enough of a tone shaper for your vintage rock, and it even compresses a bit (just enough). Gives you nice dirty old school tone.

If you want more dirt, Wren and Cuff Tall Font Russian - awesome muff fuzz for your old school fuzz needs.

If you don't need more dirt, maybe a phaser. MXR Phase 90 is simple and works real nice on bass. It can give you those leslie like tones as well when you crank the rate.

 

I like the cut of your jib!

 

I bet you could fit a Catalinbread SFT or WIIO on there. I would think for classic rock you would want some kind of dirt. Depending on your amp you might want a fuzz or an overdrive. I've read favorable things about the Boss Blues Driver and I think there are mods to make it more bass appropriate.

 

A tuner, an overdrive and an octaver for me, thank you.