Good question, Joe. I thought about getting a Kemper, like Brian has. It comes down to a question of pre-processing vs post-processing. I never do any gigs, just play for myself and Youtube. So I can just play mostly clean, then add in any of countless thousands of effects from my DAW. Logic Pro (which I use) is the big brother of GarageBand and has more effects options. I do like the idea of having a pedal that can switch from volume to wah, but I’ve never seen such a thing. It’s possible to do volume swells and controlled wahs in Logic, but it’s much faster and easier to just do it manually with a pedal.

Joe
I’m going to give you something to think about on this issue.

Instead of recommending a multi-EFX pedal, I’m going to ask you – how many effects do you typically use?

The reason that I ask this is simple – I had a 1st generation Fender Mustang amp and we all know what those are. A digital amplifier with a boat load of effects and possibilities.
The cliche “Paralysis by analysis” came into play when I had that amp because I ended up playing around with all of the features more than I was playing & practicing. I finally sold that amp and went back to discrete pedals

So before you jump into buying a multi-EFX pedal, consider what effects you would need and how much it would cost you to build a pedal board to your specs. If you look on eBay, you’ll find aluminum pedal boards with canvas carrying cases priced reasonably. That’s the route that I went and now I set my effects and forget it.
And if you consider pedals by Behringer, Joyo & Caline, you can build a pedal board very reasonable. All 3 brands are building good quality pedals that are clones also at very reasonable prices

Keith
aka GnLguy

A YT channel that I find interesting is JHS Pedals; Josh Scott, owner/founder of JHS pedals will demo various pedals that are competitors of his company and he will give an honest review of other products. I think that shows a lot of confidence in his products to give straight up advice on products by other companies

Here are his comparison & review of the 3 companies that I mentioned: Behringer, Joyo & Caline

And 2 other companies that I see a lot that are even cheaper prices than the 3 that I mentioned is Azor & Mosky; they actually look the same so it may be the same pedals with different names on them. Pedals by both companies are getting good reviews and in the demos that I’ve heard, sound pretty good

I saw an extra large aluminum pedal board with a decent case for $49 on eBay. I think for $200-$250, you could build quite a nice rig to your specs

I don’t use pedals generally but there’s a good shakedown of the Line6 Pod Express that almost tempted me to pick one up just for fun, the case is genuine plastic and it’s cheap:

Depends on how serious you want to get I guess.

I am a huge fan of the HX Stomp. You can probably pick one up used for under $500. It is so versatile: huge range of effects, world class amp and cab modeling, fully functional audio interface for recording and integrating with your computer/monitor setup.

If you are dead set on a built in expression pedal, then the POD Go is a great option too.

I bought the Berhinger mfx pedal from Sweetwater and have been pleasantly surprised. If you want a great reverb pedal, TC Electronics Hall Of Fame 2 is awesome! I also own the Berhinger Delay pedal. I started to buy a better one, but decided to wait until this one dies. So far, over a year and still works great.

Lucky you, Joe! Congrats for finding an optimal solution without additional cost. Quite an interesting topic and thread, because I think sooner or later we guitarists all land at that junction: MFX or pedals? I started out with an amp that had all the bells and whistles you can ask for, but after playing around with all the options, I felt it was only distracting me and keeping me away from playing. And of course it did. So I sold it and got me a tube amp with just two pedals: Overdrive and Reverb/delay. That’s already enough for me to dial in different tones and experiment with. Most importantly, the sound is just the best I ever had! The amp itself (Blackstar HT-20) already sounds good, but once I switch on the two pedals, it sounds like a million bucks! I am very content with this set-up, but I have a few more pedals I might add over time: A looper (partly, because my DAW stopped working, partly because I prefer the amp anyways), a drum machine, and a compressor. But there is no urgency for that and I will take enough time before I pull the trigger. I don’t want to end up having dozens of pedals lying around and thus too many choices. Which would keep me away from playing again.