Boss BCB-60 Guitar Pedal Board Product Review

If you are a beginning electric guitar player, the name Boss probably sounds familiar to you, as they are the company that makes accessible easy-to-use guitar pedals for beginners. In fact, I would bet that you own at least one or two of their pedals already. In any case, Boss has come out with a pedal board to put them all in, and if you're starting to get serious, you may definitely want to check this one out.

The BCB-60 has everything you need to function as a pedal board, except for the extra power outlets you see on the more expensive pedal boards. It has two buit-in outputs and one built-in input to connect your signal chain. It also comes with six patch cables (to connect your pedals together to make the chain) and a series-circuit power chord to provide power to all your effects. If you own strictly Boss products, this will definitely work well for you. It will not take you very long to get everything connected, and you will be quite pleased with the convenience of having all your pedals in one place, patched together, and ready to go.

That is, if you own exclusively Boss products. This is the biggest problem with the board. It is not very compatible with pedals of different brands. The best example in my opinion is the Crybaby Wah, which is just too tall to really allow you to close the case without forcing it. Fortunately, if you purchase the BCB-60 new, it comes with an extra pad to set your pedals in, which you can make custom cuts on to allow pedals of shapes different from Boss products. Another problem I've noticed is that the input and output jacks require you to place the quarter-inch cable in vertically, which could possible cause some bendage in the cables after a while. To solve this, you can simply plug your guitar into the input of the first effect in the chain and plug your amp into the output of the last effect.

The board is also quite small, so once you really start investing in more and bigger pedals, you will quickly find that the BCB-60 will no longer work for you. I have heard of some people buying another BCB-60, but carrying two cases around is just too inconvenient in my opinion. If you're really going to deck out your collection of effects, you should probably either make your own custom pedal board or buy a Furman stereo board or something like it.

So basically, if you've got just Boss pedals and don't expect to get anything new anytime soon, this will be a good buy for you (only $129 on musiciansfriend.com), but once you're ready to get serious, you will need something else.