Multi FX Units?

[Rink the Pink]

I quite like the look of the Boss GT-10. When does it come out?

BTW I'm new here

[Mad-Mike]

I've used heaps of digital effects devices for years, I started with the BOSS ME-6, and now use a Behringer V-Amp Pro for just about everything that is Direct input.  Until I can afford a couple dozen Tube Amps (Fenders, Marshalls, and a couple Boogies), laundry baskets full of effects pedals and signal splitters, and power brakes/sound-proof-rooms for all of them, I will continue to use digital effects.

My opinion on the BOSS-ME6 is it's a tempermental beast that takes a LOT of fiddling to get used to.  I set aside a whole school night in high school to figure out how to get the sound I wanted out of that thing.  I got some great sounds out of it though.  I found the key to most of these digital effects and getting them to sound cool is to find "glitches" or "easter eggs" in their digital effects section.  On the ME-6, theres a really long plate reverb, that when paired with a Delay, makes neat synth like noises, kind of like the stuff you'd hear My Bloody Valentine do, I used that on a metal demo called "Crystal" we did at that time for the underpinning sounds.  The ability for a digital effects unit to make a sound like that has become a requirement, hence why I've had the Behringer the longest.  It also had an awesome stereo chorus for home recording, one of the best actually to my ears.

During that time I also used an AX-30G by Korg, which to me is a much better sounding pedal in general, and had a lot of neat effects including a spring loaded expression pedal built into the board itself that could be assigned to anything.  I used to use it with the Ring Modulator the most to get these weird warping noises with my distortion, which sounded awesome when kicking into different sections of a song and so on.  It also had a random noise generator that could get some "kick the R2-D2" kind of sounds, an envelope filter that could do anything from laser noises to stuff bordering on Talk Box type effects, and I found a glitch in the delay that if certain settings were cranked to the max, the delay would make sounds akin to "going back on itself" for lack of a better description of the sound, it has to be heard to know it, it was really cool.  Also, the wah was pretty cool.

After those two died by the piss of my mom's moody cats, I went out and bought my first new board, a Digitech RP-200A, which had whammy, harmonizer, and drum machine effects built in, but lacked the super long reverb (like the AX30G) that I wanted.  The pedal steel effect it had on it I used to some rather cool effect, and I got some neat shimmering effects using chorus and delay with the heaviest reverb I could find on it.  Of course, the cats got this board too....so I decided to go back to BOSS since the ME-6 survived chemical torment the longest.

So I got a BOSS ME-33.  This pedal was cool in that it could run off of 6 AA batteries (meaning when the power goes out I still have my electric rock sounds), had an artifical feedback device (which all in all was very good and I used it a LOT, I'm still looking for a good pedal to get that sound with), an arpeggiator, an intelligent harmonist, and an expression pedal.  I used this board for a year, and yet again the cats got their gummy little claws on it and killed it.

That's when I got the Behringer V-Amp Pro, which has been my favorite digital device so far, it's got good stable patch editing software (unlike my Line6 AX2 amp from the early early days of amp modeling), a nice long reverb (ultra-room), and stereo effects, and quality parts (except master volume which has some issues from time to time).  I found some neat "glitches" using the noise gate though to get neat cloudy sounds, as well as found "my sound" using the British Hi-Gain amp (JCM800) and an EVH or 67' 2X12 cab (the EVH is warmer, but the 67' 2X12 has more prescience and treble response).  However, I don't like the Wah effect, and the phase shifter is terrible, so I plan to get a phase 90 or something like that to put in front of it for a phaser.

For a short bit in 2007 I "upgraded" to a second hand Digitech GNX-1, which too had awesome editing software, but then the AC Adapter overheated and took the pedalboard with it.  It was pretty much a fancier version of the RP-200A I had, I wound up replacing it with a Digitech Whammy and some other pedals (Zvex fuzz factory, DOD Flanger, Dano Octave, BOSS Pitch Shifter).  I like the V-amp, it's been good to me, however I would like to find another Korg AX-30G just for the funky Delays and stuff, and put it on a bypass switch for certain effects that I can't get from anything else.

[rickenmetal]

I have one of these:



What can I say. The distortion sucks, so do the regular phaser and chorus.

The delays are great, the best ring modulator I have ever heard, good backwards effect, nice step phaser, good octave up and down. Some other good effects I can't remember the names of, but all the in weirdness category. You have to program your own patches, the factory ones all suck except for one or two of them. The distortion is usable with some effects like the ring modulator and step phaser.

Kind of cheap construction, had to replace one of the jacks and I only used it at home.