electro-harmonix SwitchBlade+

This unit is quite a useful addition to a pedal board depending on your needs. In my case, I split my guitar signal into two channels. Channel one continues my guitar signal path through a chain of pedal effects to my guitar amp. Channel 2 runs to a Boss guitar synthesiser, a Mooer yellow comp and Strymon Leslie speaker emulator, then out to a mixer and PA. The virtue of this arrangement with the Switchblade is that you can switch between either of the two channels, or have both running simultaneously. So, you can have some organ type sounds during the verses of a song, then have both channels on during chorus, for instance, or just switch over to the guitar channel. Or you could have two different guitar channels running different effects chains. For instance, if you could use delays set to different rates in parallel on the two channels to get '80s-style Edge-like guitar sounds. In my opinion, the Switchblade is most useful if running from DC power (it doesn't take batteries) as its two lights up red and green depending on which of the three channel modes you're using (A, B or both), which helps you keep track. The unit's not especially large, so should fit on a pedal board just fine. (In that regard, it seems better than the larger, heavier Fender ABY.) Durability seems okay for the money too: not sure why JHS and others charge so much more for their equivalents.