Essentially I want the GigRig G3 to be my command centre for the entire rig. Think of it as a posher version of Helix snapshots.
Yeah, that was sort of obvious (to me at least, using loopswitchers since decades already).
I was actually more interested in the useability aspect. Which, in my case at least, is asking for trouble.
For instance:
I think the Stryfecta plus a HX Stomp would get me everything I need.
Soundwise, that would defenitely be the case for me, but useability would be way less than ideal.
I usually just can't program entire setlists of presets, I rather need to have pretty instant access and certain global options. But I still need to be able to switch through a good amount of rather different sounds (usually, as a minimum requirement, that'd be 4, better 6 and ideally 8-10) quickly. I have this all sorted at least quite well for the kind of gigs I'm playing, but it's just "quite well", not perfect - and to make matters worse, I also want/need some kind of a playground in addition to the above. Like a patch (plus perhaps a variation of that patch) I can use for free gain and FX scaling, whatever. That "free playground" is the very thing I really need to spend some more thoughts on. If both money and (even more so) space were no issues, I could possibly start buiilding right away. But at least space is a very, very important issue. I need this to be transportable on a bike trailer (or cargo e-bike in the more or less near future, when the car is finally gone) and at least occasionally I also need to be able to haul the thing in and out of trains.
Okok, I'll stop as these are my personal issues, totally unrelated to yours - but from my experience, this is what most people building more or less complexed pedalboards (for me, "complexed" starts at the moment you need to involve a loop switcher and one or the other additional programmable device) will be dealing with. And more often than not, it's likely the reason why they will tear fully functional pedalboards apart again and again, investing yet some more time and money, just to come up with something still not ideal.
And because of all that, before I even think about ordering anything for what at least theoretically should become my last bigger board, I'm trying to think about as much details as possible, especially in terms of operability (which includes form factor, accessability and what not).
To give you an incredibly stupid example (again: my personal issue, likely totally different from yours, but you get the idea): I need a programmable delay/reverb unit with global tap tempo. Given that pretty much each and every modeler on earth (even the cheapest) does that as a side-job, I was looking for dedicated devices. Had an eye on both the TC Plethora (either the X3 or the X5) and the Mooer Ocean Machine. Both pretty much perfectly doing what I need - just no global tap tempo. And not even supporting tap tempo via external switches (wtf, are they serious?!?). Ended up using a cheesy Zoom G3 as an intermediate solution and finally bought an HX Stomp for these things. Soundwise and regarding some functionality, I'd vastly prefered the Plethora (I absolutely dig the Mash function), but it's a no go.
As said, just an example, but from all I ever experienced, this is the very kind of stuff you're dealing with all the times when building pedalboards. And IMO it's really important to care about that stuff. I mean, one of the main reasons we're building pedalboards would be that we want things to be a) personalized and b) perfect, right? Otherwise, there'd be tons of MFX units. You can always get one and maybe add 1-2 specialized devices, done. But that's not what you usually want from a pedalboard.
Sorry for all that blurb.
