by hamerman » Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:28 am
The micro pedals are fine for certain types of things, generally volume-tone-gain type pedals. I am always concerned with the quality of the pots, since two of them have to be the small board mount type. They are also basically unrepairable, being mostly SMD. The main reason I use them is that they offer pedals that are either too big for practicality (the Mooer ElecLady vs a vintage Deluxe Electric Mistress) or offer improvements (the mix control on the Mooer Ensemble King vs a vintage Boss CE-2).
One trend I do like is doing away with the battery option. I only use them when testing out a pedal or an arrangement on the pedalboard. I'd rather see the space used for something else, and it would allow for the switch to be moved closer to the bottom edge of even the large box. You could put a second footswitch in the standard Trifecta type box if you lost the battery. A couple of boutique builders (Vick Audio and Blackout Effectors) don't put in battery options for green reasons. Given that the isolated power supplies people use now have a couple of variable voltage outputs, you can even play with the dying battery effects. One pedal that was forward looking in that regard is the VHT V-drive. It had the ability to adjust the voltage up and down. I'd far rather have that (and pay a little more for it) than a battery compartment.
In the Barber line, only the LTD, Direct Drive and Tone Press could reasonably be put in a mini enclosure. Micro enclosures pretty require SMD parts. I'm fine with the standard boxes, as you can have trim pots, chip sockets for op amp changes and an easily repairable unit. A micro box is a one trick pony, whereas a full size box can be tweaked. There is a place for both, but personally, the mini box like the CDD is as small as I really like. The micro boxes are actually a pain to mount and connect up. I'm certainly up for some new Barber boxes when it becomes feasible to sell them again.
Fender Strat Plus with Lindy Fralin and Duncan JB pickups, Hamer Special and Special FM; Egnater Tweaker, Blackface Fender Princetons and Bassman; Barber Dual UnLimiTed; DD w/mod board, LTD Silver and SR, Dual Direct Drive, Small Fry, Dirty Bomb, Tone Press, CDD and GC; MXR Phasers and Flanger; Strymon El Capistan Delay, Corona Chorus, Vortex Flanger, Strymon Lex.