It's turning into a big year for Boss, not only is it celebrating its history with anniversary pedal editions and enhanced reissues, but it's entering bold new territory with the Eurus GS-1 guitar and EV-1-WL wireless expression pedal, its now making another debut with an amp and cab simulator effects pedal, the IR-200.
Like the Walrus Audio ACS1 and Strymon Iridium, the IR-200 offers players the flexibility for recording and can transform your pedalboard into a mobile rig for stage and rehearsal. But Boss has also taken the step of partnering with speaker icon Celestion here.
The IR-200 boasts 144 BOSS and 10 Celestion Digital IR cab and mic combinations, and users can import up to 128 of their own WAV IRs via the IR-200 IR Loader software for macOS and Windows.
In addition, there are eight guitar amps to choose from to offer go-to platforms from "classic clean, tweed, and class A to vintage and modern high-gain". There's three bass amps too. Players can then choose to use the IRs only or go fully mobile with the amps sims too.
Two custom DSPs provide class-leading IR performance with support for mono and stereo files, up to 32-bit floating point/96 kHz resolution, and up to 500 ms length for natural bass response. Players are also able to use two IRs at once and feed signals to different destinations.
We think the development of pedals to allow self-contained rigs for players is one of the most exciting developments for guitar in recent years; providing a whole new way to develop your rig and tone. And the connectivity here could enhance that further. In addition to a mono input, there's mono or stereo outputs, and an effects loop, allowing the IR-200 to integrate with your mono or stereo pedal setup.
Players Two IRs can be used at once, and it’s possible to feed independent signals to different destinations, such as a stage FRFR cab or a venue PA. While two onboard footswitches are available for memory selection while performing, players control various functions with external footswitches, an expression pedal, or MIDI.
There's more! The IR-200 functions can perform double duty as a USB audio desktop interface for music recording and streaming software on macOS and Windows computers and iOS devices.
SY-200 Synthesiser
The IR-200 is a signifiant release in itself, but Boss are clearly on a roll this year and have added a whole other new pedal to the 200 series. The SY-200 makes a lot of sense to us, bringing Boss's acclaimed synth technology to the 200 series, a line up of pedals that we think hits the sweet spot for form factor and features.
Boss are leaders in synth guitar and bass processing and this addition to the SY line sits between the classic stompbox SY-1 and SY-300 for a manageable size with plenty of feature scope.
There's 171 sounds in the SY-200's 12 categories for running wild with your creativity and 128 memories onboard to save your tones. Two footswitches are available for real-time performance control with the ability to connect external footswitches, an expression pedal, and MIDI.
The IR-200 and SY-200 will be available in January 2022 for $399.99 / £351 / €399 and $299.99 / £307 / €349 respectively. We can't wait to try them out!
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