Hope you stepped in to rescue those poor saddles!

Depends on the type of reverb, just a regular spring I’ll have last but if I use a shimmer reverb having it feed in to a tape style delay can make it sound more interesting.

It’s naming the presets that gets you!

Hi, yes I use the Roland UM-One cable direct to my Mac. The software is a lot easier than using the pedal especially when setting up performances.

Saying that, I’ve had a few midi controllers before this and it’s great being able to make changes on the pedal if you need to.

You can also have trails on two reverb and delay loops so switching presets lets your delay or reverb finish naturally.

Yes, so I do the same with the HX One. I can use it as a compressor at the start or modulation after the drives or a reverb at the end. Likewise the Muff can either be start of the chain or after the Tubesreamer depending on what sounds best for that preset.

It can also do a lot more than I’m using it for too, multiple TRS controls for amp switching, expression inputs can be mapped to multiple expression outputs too.

Yes it can have two paths, so stereo or parallel and pedals can be reordered per preset.

In terms of cons, editing on the little display is old school and the app is very basic and uses MIDI. It’s an old device I guess so could do with a hardware update to give USB or Bluetooth support.

Yes, plus there’s plenty of used ES-8’s around, I got mine used.

I really like the look of the GigRig G3s but the Boss ES-8 is better value and does the same thing. Those LCD’s on each switch would be nice though!

So it has lots of pros… Cleaner signal path, ability to change order of pedals, create presets, control midi devices are main benefits.

Yes it’s Aluminium, it’s a Fender Pro Pedalboard.

Please keep up the good work James. At the moment it feels like your work is the umbilical feeding the last remaining clean air down to us survivors living under a sea of misinformation and madness.