Multi-Effects for Electric Guitar

(Originally written by pierrelaforge/translated from Audiofanzine FR) Features: Already described on this page... Generally speaking I would say the Boss ME50 offers the following advantages: - direct access to the parameters (no complicated menus, etc.) - Comprehensive connections: stereo output on TS phone jack, line output with a tiny integrated preamp, line input to feed your favorite CDs... - Very good tuner (much better than in most multieffects...) I do miss a USB port to connect the unit to a PC. It's a must have in the DAW era. ***TIP*** You can plug a standard amp footswitch into the ME50 footswitch connector to control the mic simulation and the compressor (it worked with my Laney dual-channel footswitch). Useful... UTILIZATION Very easy to use, beginners shouldn't have any problem. What about the user's manual? I haven't opened it except to set the expression pedal (see paragraph below)!! Note: you'll have to calibrate your expression pedal if it suddenly turns on and off when you try to control the volume with your foot (see manual: push a button while you turn off the unit, blah blah blah). After that, set the switch value to "2" ("1": the switch is too responsive; "6": you'll have to depress like a madman). SOUND QUALITY Distortion effects: 2 or 3 are really nice (like a RAT or Tube Screamer) but most of them don't sound very good especially with a high gain! The metal distortions and the crunch sounds sound quite artificial. Reverb effects: the hall verb is great, but the other two settings are unusable (cathedral, etc.) Delay effects: nothing to say... Wah-wah effect: quite good... Compressor: ok. But you cannot set it correctly with only two parameters... Hard settings can easily generate feedback so I don't use the compressor. OVERALL OPINION I used it 2-3 years and just sold it a few days ago. The unit is alright and, of course, the sound also depends on the amp you're using. It will produce powerful sounds with a decent tube amp. It sounds better with high gain sounds than with clean or crunch sounds. I recommend you to use it in manual mode in order to control the effects with a footswitch...Don't use the sound bank mode where effects are assigned to A1, A2, etc. Why? Because in bank mode you'll get a short silence every time you switch... You won't have that problem in manual mode.

I just got it (no, it wasn't launched during the 2014 NAMM!) and it works great. Clean, crunch and lead presets, plus some banks, easy and readable. Not too much latency when switching presets, not worse than my Fender mustang 3 anyway. Great connection options, with the direct tuner output and the two jacks for left and right. Standard 9V power supply, but consider 300mA of current for it to work properly. USE It's great, the input level can be adjusted without affecting the preset, so you program it once and that's it, even if you have 50 guitars. The same applies to the output level and the noise gate. It doesn't have too many controls, a simple Contour instead of an EQ, delay or reverb but not both at the same time. One parameter for the compressor. Only one type of crunch and one type of distortion, but they are good, compared to the 876 settings and useless models of any modern unit that can drive you insane. It's very user-friendly, and as long as you connect it to... SOUND QUALITY ...a Vox ac15, it sounds awesome! But connected to something else it's not so great, it lacks something. It needs a distinct amp, full of life, very detailed in the mids. Obviously, the contour poses a problem to balance the full-blown distortion sound in relation to the clean, but once you admit that the lead corresponds to the dark and hairy category, it's okay. A guitar with an aggressive and lean bridge pickup, think sh4, will naturally balance the combination. The clean is sumptuous, the compressor very good and natural, and the reverb dense and lively, it's addictive with the ac15. The crunch is well-balanced, quite grungy but not too much, it's actually very well adapted to what you expect in this category and it's not too far from being ideal. The full-blown distortion is great, it doesn't sound digital and it makes me wonder whether it's a hybrid circuit (like the g1 or ax300g, which I also have). The delay is a slapback, short and medium, adjustable in terms of intensity (something Roland has certainly not understood with its Cubes). Up to 450ms max. The chorus is stereo, but I don't use this type of effects. OVERALL OPINION I repeat, you need an amp like the vox ac15 to truly appreciate this g1 to its full extent. I like its density very much and the fact that it never sounds sharp. Its clean sounds are addictive. The ac15 becomes smooth and rich with it, while remaining well-defined. A bass control in addition to the contour would've been great, but it's so nice as is that I don't even care about that!

The Line6 M13 is the flagship stomp box modeling unit from Line6. Unlike most of the Line6 products, this unit does not have all of the signature Line6 amplifier and speaker cabinet modeling software at your disposal. This unit is designed to work WITH your amp and not in place of it. Do not be fooled by this however. The M13 is an extremely flexible unit in that there are myriad different options for sound shaping including the various different stomp box models and the connection options that allow you to connect your amp via the now-famous 4-cable method. This allows you to put effects in their proper place, with distortion and non-modulation effects before your amp's preamp stage, and the time-based and modulation effects after the preamp stage. The amp also has MIDI capability if you want to use it as a controller or control it via MIDI. The MIDI implementation is not the most straightforward but can be figured out with an investigation of the downloadable MIDI Implementation Guide. UTILIZATION The words "Bonehead Simple" are actually printed on the M13 box and I think that about says it all. I received the M13 with the updated 2.01 software on-board. The one thing you DO have to watch out for is that it could be perceived as OVERLY bonehead simple. During one of my trial sessions, I couldn't figure out why sound was coming out of my amp but nothing was happening on the M13. That's because the M13 is truly "true bypass" and it simply wasn't powered on. So you know that if your M13 dies mid-gig, your signal will still get to your amp. Excellent!! This is a great (relatively) little unit. The beauty of the M13 lies in its simplicity and flexibility. It takes about 10 seconds to memorize the color coding for the different types of effects, but hours to go through the settings and different models. There are two different modes of operation: Standard mode and Scene mode. Scene mode works like any other MIDI patch--you call up the patch and it brings up the pre-configured models in the pre-configured order and with the pre-configured levels. In scene mode you have access to the active models in each bank and you can toggle them on and off individually. In standard mode you have access to 12 different stomp boxes'four banks with three options in each position. The payoff is no cables and no re-wiring. When you call up a model, the stomp box is activated with the last settings already pre-programmed. There is a global option to either save all settings automatically or not. I suggest leaving it on as that is really the purpose of the M13. I haven't yet found a need to have the settings NOT automatically saved. Without the auto-save enabled, any called-up model will accept the position of the knobs as-is' most likely undesirable. When I started writing this review, I liked working in standard mode over the Scenes, although in truth the 'Standard' mode is really just a 'scratch pad' scene. Unless you have a special need for a high number of different sounds, you can get a great deal out of standard mode. I have my 'Scratch Pad' M13 scene set up in the following configuration: Bank 1: A. Screamer, B. Blue Comp Treble C. Line6 Drive Bank 2: A. Line6 Distortion, B. Heavy Distortion, C. Dimension Bank 3: A. Noise Gate, B. Dual Phaser, C. Tri-Chorus Bank 4: A. Stereo Delay, B. Noise Gate, C. Echo Notice that I have the Noise Gate in two different positions and weaker distortions in front of heavier distortions. This allows me to either run the Screamer or Comp for a little boost of my amp's preamp or the Bank B distortion. Having the Noise Gate in Banks 3 AND 4 allows me to either put the gate at the end of the signal if running in 2-cable mode, or after the distortion effects in 4-cable mode so that the modulation effects are super-clean. In the latter configuration, the modulation effects really shine through the mix. With this configuration, I can get punishing distortion out of the M13, juice the front end of my amp, or get wonderful multi-dimensional clean tones. After learning about the flexibility of the M13 and how to better leverage scenes, a whole new world opened up to my tonal 'mad science.' It's like having 12 stomp boxes at your disposal at a time, 12 sets of 12 stomp boxes, and you can activate any of them in their pre-defined position' NO WIRING!!! The only thing you can't do is have more than four boxes active at any one time, one from each bank. (You can only have one 'A', one 'B', one 'C', one 'D' on at a time). Pressing the foot switch activates the effect. Pressing another button in the same bank activates that effect and deactivates the previous one. Pressing the button of the active effect toggles it on/off. There is a dedicated button to activate the looper, a button to activate Scene mode, and holding the looper button activates the on-board tuner. The tuner is one of the most sensitive I have encountered. After running the M13 straight into the front of the amps, I configured the M13 to have the effects loop in between banks 2 and 3. This one of the other beautiful features of the M13: you can place the effects loop wherever you want as opposed to being locked into one configuration. Line6 characteristically doesn't include a ton of literature with their products because just about all of their product information is downloadable from the web. While I appreciate their commitment to green initiatives this doesn't help much when you're at the gig and there's no internet connection and you REALLY need some help from a manual. Still, the unit is easy enough to figure out that you only need the manuals for the really intricate operations. SOUND QUALITY I played this modeler with the following guitars: VOS '58 and '59 Gibson Custom Les Paul guitars with Burstbucker 1 and 2 models Gibson Raw Power Les Paul with '57 Classic pickups Ibanez JEM 7VSBL with stock Dimarzio Evolution pickups installed Ibanez RG550MXXDY with Dimarzio Super 3 Bridge, Evolution Middle, and Evolution Neck Ibanez RGR4 with Dimarzio Crunch Lab Bridge and LiquiFire Neck Epiphone Les Paul Standard with Seymour Duncan Phat Cat P-90's PRS SE Semi-hollow with stock pickups Squier Telecaster with Dimarzio Air Norton T bridge and Area T Neck B.C. Rick Mockingbird Neck-Thru with Dimarzio Super Distortion bridge and Super 2 Neck Squier Strat with Dimarzio VV Solo bridge, VV '54 middle, and VV Heavy Blues neck. I played the M13 through the following amps: Marshall JVM410H head and Crate Blue VooDoo stereo 4 x 12 with Jensen 60's Marshall HAZE 40w 1 x 12 combo Marshall Class 5 1 x 10 combo Marshall Vintage Modern 50-watt head and a Carvin mono 4 x 12 with Celestion Heritage 30's Mesa Boogie 1 x 12 Mark V combo Marshall DSL100MLB full stack. Marshall Vintage Modern 50-watt head and a Carvin mono 4 x 12 with Celestion Heritage 30's + Hughes & Kettner TriAmp MK II and a Carvin mono 4 x 12 with Celestion Vintage 30's in stereo. The M13 ended up sounding the best with the Marshall HAZE 40 so I used that as my basis for sound. Hooking up the M13 with the 4-cable method opened up a whole new dimension to the tone. The distortions were tighter and the clean tones were, well, cleaner since I could just run the clean (standard) channel preamp valves of the HAZE. One of my favorite models in the M13 is the model of the old BOSS Dimension C. If you tinker with the different switch combinations on the Dimension C you can get everything from light Chorus to Phase to some unique sounds. I highly recommend using this effect to add a unique ambience to your sound. The Blue Comp + Treble model is nice for cleaning up the darker overtones of the EL34 power valves and really focuses the tone when engaged. Using the Screamer model adds a nice compressed boost to just about anything after without adding too much gain. I didn't have much use for any of the 'Purple' category models, but I play pretty straight-ahead rock, so your mileage may vary. The quality of the models is so good I encourage you to at least try them. There are only a few reverb models in there, but the ones that ARE there are all I could want or need in a reverb including 100-200 millisecond echo model. You can get lost in the delays, especially in the Scene dedicated to them. One of the things I found odd about the M13 is that the EQ models were in the preamp (yellow) category, making them somewhat hard to locate at first. Also, putting them in that category limits the number of EQ/Overdrive/Distortion combinations you can create, but I suppose they had to put them somewhere. Even though there is a Noise Gate pedal model, there is also a master noise gate that is accessible from the main Setup screen, so if you can live with just the overall noise reduction of the M13 you can save pedal spots. The M13 nailed everything. Usually, when you are working with a complex unit like the M13 you'll find something where you're relatively unimpressed. While there are effects in the M13 that I would probably never use, there was no effect that I tried where I thought the model simply didn't pass muster. Line6 really took the time to get all of the models right and it shows when you hit the strings. I found all of the tones easy to work with and great-sounding. You know you've got a good product on your hands when you come across an effect that you've never really been a fan of, but the implementation in the Line6 M13 wins you over. OVERALL OPINION So what's the verdict? It really depends on what you're after. I've read a lot of material that compares the M13 to other Multi-Effects like the BOSS GT-10 or Line6 POD X3 Live. At first, the difference seems pretty obvious... Units like the GT-10 and X3 Live have amp and cabinet models in them and have the ability to emulate both and amp and add effects, where the M13 just adds effects (no amp modeling here), so one would be led to think that the M13 needs to be run into/with an amp, whereas the others can just be run straight to the board or recording console. Well, I got to thinking about it. Let's say for example I just want to use the M13 in 2-cable mode right into the front of my, um, 1968 Plexi. No problem, right? Well, what's the difference between running the M13 into a 'real' Plexi and running the M13 into the POD Farm model of a Plexi? Turns out not very much--you have to tweak the levels a bit, but I found that I could run the M13 in front of my Line6 KB37 and then into POD Farm and with minimal adjustment of levels I got the same results as running into a 'real' amp. How cool is that? I initially figured to get the M13 recorded I would have to turn on an amp and mic a cabinet. Not so. Just wire it in front of your amp modeling software of choice, tweak it to taste and you're good to go. My biggest issue with the M13 as noted previously is that the MIDI implementation on the M13 isn't the most straightforward or "plug-and-play" like most other units that factory default to OMNI/ON so that they just work right out of the box. If the MIDI implementation were as easy to work with as other comparable units the M13 would have scored perfectly. Bottom line, not only is the M13 a great stomp box modeler on its own, providing you with an arsenal of stomp boxes that would cost you thousands to collect and would be a nightmare wiring up the signal chain, Line6 has done it all for you in an affordable, flexible package that works for both live performance, live recording, or in front of your DAW. If there's a sound you're looking for that you can't coax out of the M13, well, there are always drums, right?

Over 100 stompbox effects • Run up to 3 effects simultaneously (with 3 more on deck) • Dedicated knobs control each effect parameter • Create up to 24 pedal board scenes. (It's like having 24 fully tricked-out pedal boards available at any time!) • Universal tap tempo syncs all your time-based effects • MIDI in/out • 1/4" mono or stereo inputs • 1/4" mono or stereo outputs • Two 1/4" expression pedal jacks • True Analog Bypass or DSP Bypass 28-second looper with dedicated footswitches (Record/Overdub, Play/Stop, Play Once, Undo/Redo, Half Speed, Reverse) • Built-in chromatic tuner • Heavy-duty all-metal chassis and footswitches • Included AC power adapter • Dimensions: 10.5"W X 2.4"H x 6.5"D - 3lbs. Can't really say enough about the features of this multi-effects. They have definitely come a LONG way and I can't believe that I've come full circle with owning one again since...'95 or earlier. UTILIZATION It is quite easy to use as a multi effects, most of the other ones have not difficult, but slightly complex ways to tweak settings and configurations etc. So you are generally bound to spend a few hours with it before taking it to the rehearsal studio or the next gig. Yes you probably should read the manual for certain things but you don't have to read it before playing. You can pretty much plug it in and play, and I read the manual for certain things if I'm looking to do something specific with it that I have in mind. Yes you have to read the advanced manual for anything beyond what the youtube demos show you etc. So yes it does take some time on your part to get used to how this thing works. MIDI has always been my enemy so I can't comment on that. I currently use it with the line 6 expression pedal. SOUND QUALITY Pretty darn good! Lives up to the hype that's been built on the internet from youtube users etc etc. There's tons of video demos that will give a wide range of very usable sounds to crazy whacked out sounds that you'd sparingly use. There's been lots of debate about the distortion sounds and I want to say that I think it sounds VERY good. No, of course it doesn't sound exactly like a tube amp but this kind of debate will go on for years to come regardless of my opinion but I think....I might just bring the m9 to rehearsals for the next little while instead of my usual pedals, that's how convincing it sounds! The effects are top notch in my opinion. I love the variety of wahs available and I use all the effects I need to cover almost any song. I have a huge tube distortion pedal that I use to get most of my sound OVERALL OPINION A really interesting unit to look into. Definitely worth checking out. I was never a multi effects guy, I tried a few in the early 90s and gave up and did the whole single pedals and a board for the next 10 years and now I've come full circle back to a multi effects like the m9. Because this one actually sounds QUITE good and not only that, is very usable live, you can tap things in and out on the fly during a gig and with an expression pedal you can control nearly every parameter of an effect on the fly also. And it sounds great! What more does one need??

Compressor, overdrive/distortion, eq, delay, chorus/flanger, reverb It's all digital, except the distortions, which are analog, according to the manual. UTILIZATION Very easy to use. Really awesome. SOUND QUALITY The compressor is very good and, especially, silent. The delay and chorus are very good, just like the reverbs. The flanger is a bit less precise and watch out for extreme settings, because the sound turns muddled. The distortions aren't really bad at all. OVERALL OPINION I've been using it for 17 years It's awesome for clean sounds, but not so for distortion, although you can always add distortion pedals before it. In short, a relic, not uninteresting for fans of clean sounds, if not expensive. It lacks a phaser, though.

(Originally written by vinc59600/translated from Audiofanzine FR) Nine simultaneous effects Jack input Mono jack output for an amp or stereo for headphones, mixer or computer. USB connector also used for power supply. My dealer said the external PSU is optional (I had to bargain to get it for free). Integrated expression pedal assignable to each patch. Connector for an FP02 expression pedal to control the volume (optional). 40 factory presets 40 fully editable user presets. UTILIZATION Short learning curve. Fast and intuitive editing, no signal dropouts when you change presets. Easy and precise user's manual. You'll have to edit the factory presets because they don't sound good. It won't take you long to get the sound you're looking for and you'll be surprised by the power of the device. SOUND QUALITY I play rock, funk, pop, a bit of everything. I use it on stage and for rehearsals but also at home where I connect it directly to my PC. It's sweet! You can connect it to your amp or to a mixer depending on the setup. I use it with a Fender Strat or a dual-neck Ibanez, and with my 100-watt Yamaha combo. I get a wonderful fat distortion. Chorus, reverb and delay effects sound amazing. The optional FP02 expression pedal is not necessary but quite convenient to control the volume. As I said before, you'll have to edit the factory presets to get the sound you want. I can get the sound of The Edge, Andy Summers, Knopfler, and even Gilmour. Only acoustic guitar simulations are not convincing. And some effects are only provided to show off the power of the unit. OVERALL OPINION I owned a G2 two years. Four months ago I gave it to my son who plays in a hard rock band, and I bought its big brother. Before buying it I tried a G7, but the value for money isn't good so I ended coming back to the G2. I just had to transfer all the presets I had created. I love the fast editing for stage and rehearsal applications. 40 presets are enough for almost any application. Excellent value for money. Based on my experienced, I would buy it again.

This is a stereo preamp (with adjustable input gain on the front) with all the main guitar effects except a proper distortion. The flangers & phasers are lovely and the delays & reverbs are wonderful. It's digital, of course, with 8 processors, 1 per effects module. So, unlike with other gear, you don't have quality loss when piling up effects, the quality remains optimal throughout. 2 high impedance asymmetric 6.35mm jacks, 2 line level TRS outs on similar jacks. SPDIF in & out on coax. 24 bit 44.1 khz conversion, but not sure the digital I/O's can convey 24 bit signals...someone told be that they were 20 bit...(check that, i'm not sure). There's MIDI in & out i believe, and you can easily set up a MIDI pedal board such as the Roland FC-200...the G-Force has a ready made template for it all set up. For the price, i think they could have made this a 96 khz machine and/or have AES/EBU I/O's in addition to the SPDIF coax...it's just not a pro machine without AES/EBU! UTILIZATION Extremely easy to use, all is very very intuitive. You can see it wasn't designed like a TR-505 or an MC-303! :-D Editing & saving presets is real easy. Great manual, that is even nicely made...not just some cheap photocopy look-alike, this is nicely bound & all...a high-class manual for a high-class piece of gear. ;-) SOUND QUALITY The effects are nice but you can be tempted to overdo it...because they are so nice! Then again, you'll have that problem with any effects processor...it's just that the others don't sound so good! ;p The reverbs are amazing, of course, and you can use this for vocals or anything you like if you come in digital. This is a very good effects processor. The dynamics are good but not perfect: i still prefer going direct into a good amp, but if you accept that the sound is just different then you can enjoy it for what it is. It's still good, it's just not 100% the same...maybe only 95%? Anyway, incomparable with any Boss or Roland or Digitech effects i've tried...and i have tried a lot of those. True, the price isn't comaparable either! ;-p OVERALL OPINION I've had it about 7 years. Best thing? Everything! Worst? No real distortion. You can add crunch, or boost existing distortion, but this is not a SansAmp or a POD...no cabinet simulation here worth mentioning, that just wasn't the aim of the machine...but you want those luch choruses or reverbs then this is the way to go. Was 11400 Francs when i got it, that was the best price in France at the time...say £1140 or 1700 €. Now it's below 1000 €. Still expensive, but possibly the best for the money. The price actually remained stable on this for 6 or 7 years i believe! The only other piece of gear i know of to do that is the Roland VS-2480 multitrack recorder...which stayed at 4500 € in France...

First of all, this is not a multiFX board for the beginner, but more for the guitarist, who has found his or her sound, but wants to adress the issue of tapdancing on a stompbox pedalboard. It must be said though, that this is some really high quality effects, you buy with this multiFX board. It contains all of the effects you might need in a normal situation (filters, modulation, delay, reverb, compressor, gate, EQ and a tuner), but no ovedrive/distortion effects since these has been notoriously difficult to create digitally and in general sound rather cheap. Most guitarists also have their own unique sound, when it comes to overdrive and distortion effects. Each category of effect has its own button on the board, which makes it really easy to find the effect you need and also makes it easy to get an overview of what you actually have turned on in a preset. The G-system utilizes a combination of TS (unbalanced) and TRS (balanced) 1/4" Jack connections, which also provides several ways to hook up the G-system to your amp. You have a choice of running all the effects in front of the pre-amp, some effects after the pre-amp or in a four cable method, where the G-system automatically runs post pre-amp effects (e.g delay and reverb) in the loop. It would take to long to describe how it all is connected in a review, so head on over to Youtube and do a search on the four cable method - there are lots of videos out there. Even though the G-system has a MIDI connection option, it can only transmit on a single channel. This is kind of a downside, but at the same time it should not be necessary to run with external devices, as almost every kind of effect is present. Since the board does not have any overdrive or distortion effects, you need to hook it up with those effects. The board comes with four loops that you can plug you own favorite pedals into. Three of them are switchable from the board and the forth has the be programmed in. The G-system is a combination of analog and digital effects, and therefore have multiple analog to digital conversions in the signal chain. It is rackable, so that you can have the effect brain near your amp, and only the control board up front. Third party software is available to do editing (both MAC and PC), but is not supported by TC Electronic. UTILIZATION In general, it's easy to edit and program presets. It takes a little getting used to, but once you get the basics down, you should have no problem creating your own presets. You can go really creative with your presets and hook up expression pedals assigned to different parameters, even the same expression pedal to several parameters at once. But this is a little more advanced and takes a bit of reading in the manual and "The White Paper" from the TC user to user forum. As mentioned earlier, you can hook it up straight to you amp, so setup is really simple. But you can also go the opposite way, and do the four cable method. You need to be able to edit your effects using either numbers or close your eyes and listen. Unlike traditional stompbox pedals, where you just turn a knob until it sounds right - that's not possible with a multiFX board. So keep that in mind. SOUND QUALITY Sound quality is nothing short of perfect! Considering that it is a combination of analog and digital effects. When you have setup the board so that the input and output volumes are as close as possible to each other, then you can't hear it's there. All effects bypassed and it sounds like you plug it straight into the amp. My favorite effect must be the tape delay and the detune pitch, which behaves somewhat like a static chorus effect. Everything is crisp and clear with this unit. But why would you expect anything less then that, when it is produced by TC Electronic and has a price tag like it does?! OVERALL OPINION A great multiFX board for the semi-pro and pro guitarist, who plays music for a living. I would certainly not recommend it for the bedroom guitarist, who's looking for a new set of effects. If mine got stolen or broke down, then I would get a new one for sure. Pros: - Great sounding effect - Easy setup Cons: - Rather complex menus - Price

Bought new in 2008, wanted it as an effect board for my tube amp. I looked at a few other boards such as the Vox tonelab, Line6 X3, and the Boss GT10. I chose this because it had the option to run it as a standard amp/pedal modeler but also with a push of a button it became a pedal only board. So when using it with my amp I could use my amps tone with the pedals of this, without having to turn of each amp model. It has all the standard effects: compression, distortion, overdrive, chorus, flanger, phaser, delay, reverb... but along with some other cool ones. Whammy, pitch shifter, talker (talk box simulator), wah, rotary, tremolo, and many more. Another great thing about this is some of the amp models. It has some that no other modeler I've found has, such as the Randall RG100 and the Mesa Boogie Mark IV (up until the Axe FX added it). UTILIZATION Like all Digitech modelers it was very easy to setup and get passable tones from. Most of the presets are ok and easy to work off of. This is pretty basic, pick the amp, the cab, the pedals, put the settings in and go. Some more advanced modelers get deep into things like tube bias, power tube sag and many other deep options that are to advanced for most players. That is where this shines, the simplicity. SOUND QUALITY The sound is the only thing that didn't do it for me. While it does have a ton of great options they just aren't the greatest sounding. I owned a few of the pedals this modeled. I ran both into my amp and A/B'ed them back and forth to compare them and they just were too different to compare. I was pretty disappointed. I was able to get some pretty cool sounds using this as an amp modeler, but it just didn't have a great feel to it. Nice amps have a indescribable feel to them when playing through them, most modelers can't even attempt to copy this. This RP500 was just very uninspiring feeling so I ended up selling it. OVERALL OPINION Even though I ended up selling it I'd recommend it to beginners to modeling. It's easy to use, has tons of options, and doesn't sound bad, just not to my standards. It's very easy to setup and most of the factory presets are pretty good sounding.

This is a review for the Peavey Delta Stomp. Before I get ahead of myself; this pedal runs only on a 16 volt 1 amp power supply. Don't buy this unless it comes with a working power supply! Once you are beyond that. This is a cool little effects unit. I guess it is considered a multi effects unit, but there is no confusing LED screen and pedal to patch up and down. Just a simple rotary knob that adjusts the effects. The effects to choose from are: 3 reverbs, 3 delays, tremelo, chorus, phaser, flanger, wah (adjustable through addt'l controller) auto wah and a cool rotary speaker. My local shop had one of these on clearance. No idea what it usually ran for, but it cost me around $50 with the power supply. Solid box! The chorus and delays were great. At the time there weren't many reasonably priced leslie effects. As I mentioned the power supply is weird. You almost need to get the factory one for this pedal to work. Other than that, a pretty straight forward pedal. Rock solid. Peavey has always impressed me with their build quality. Everything seems rock solid. A great box packed full of cool effects. Keep an eye out and make sure you are getting a working power supply with yours. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Initially I borrowed it from a friend and found it so good that I bought it from him for £120 as he hadnt got to grips with the programing as he had lost the instructions booklet. With some careful selections of chorus you can get some nice sounds of Pink Floyd or U2 and also the Heavy distortion as well if you choose.You can also select the same sounds on the 3 different pads within a bank but set the volume different so you can switch volume by foot during a song. You can step up through the program banks by foot but you cannot go back. So once you have clicked forward, to go back you have to keep stepping on through the 9 banks until you get there again. The unit is gigged and is robust for my use, but I have treated it with respect. I have kept it as found some good sounds in this unit and good and I have found it has many choices of sound and is simpler to use than some other pedals on the market. Once you play around with the sounds and get to know it, I have found it to be an excellent unit for the Rock scene. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

NDT - Nova Drive Technology: All-analog programmable overdrive and distortion circuit under preset and expression control. 6 effect blocks taken straight from G-System: Compression, EQ + Noise Gate, Modulation, Pitch, Delay, Reverb - these are all digital 30 factory and 60 user presets Two footswitch layouts: preset and pedal Hi-Z and balanced input + balanced stereo outputs Optional G-Switch for added control Very nice display feature Anodized aluminum housing - very durable Great switches UTILIZATION The Nova System is designed to replace a pedalboard setup. It is a multi-effects processor, which is a term that makes many guitarists groan - one tends to think of the old cheesy processor units with over a hundred sounds, but zero GOOD sounds - but this unit is full of excellent tones. It has a smaller amount of presets, as well as different effects models, as something like a Line 6 M9 has, but they tend to be higher quality sounds. The unit is really easy to navigate and program. SOUND QUALITY First things first - the delays and reverbs are PERFECT. They don't get much better than this, folks - you'd have to get into mega-expensive Axe Fx units to get any noticeable difference. The analog drive unit is surprisingly good. I thought the addition of having analog drive instead of digital distortion was a great move on TC's part - digital distortions frankly typically sound like crap. Now, distortion is one of the most personal of sonic touches that any guitarist looking for their "signature tone" can have, so it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but TC Electronic has made it easy to bypass the distortion signal so one can use one's amp distortion or another external pedal. OVERALL OPINION I love this pedal. The functionality is vast, deep, and yet simple. Two gripes - it weighs a lot for the size, so it definitely adds a considerable mass to a pedalboard. That's not totally a bad thing - it seems to be extra durable, but I wanted to mention this in order to be thorough. The other gripe I have is with the switching - it seems like the switch activates the function upon the RELEASE of the switch, and not upon the PRESS of the switch, like 99.99999% of all other units. This is a bit awkward to get used to. It's not the most annoying feature in the world, but for someone that is used to many sound changes in the course of a set, this can make the stomp timing a bit harder to nail. All in all, this is a great unit.