Multi-Effects Pedals

roseylarose · Post by **roseylarose** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 1:50 pm

Hey there -

I?m interested hearing some experiences with multi-effects pedals. I?m at a crossroads... if I should just buy a bunch of pedals I?ve been meaning to get (and go broke) or try to get a multi-effects pedal.

As a brand, Electro-Harmonix are definitely my favorite. More than anything, I?m looking for an multi-effects pedal that is great LIVE. I?ve tried out several will some decent sounds ? the one Vox makes ? but it goes completely silent when you click between settings which, to me, sounds extremely clunky live. And some, the programming is not very user-friendly.

General bands/sounds I love... Flaming Lips/Wilco/Kinks (I like my distortion my Neil Young than Joe Satriani)... I?m really trying to widen my guitar range and sound options, thus I?m considering a multi-effects pedal.

Any units that people absolutely love out there?

Thanks!

wren · Post by **wren** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:28 pm

Exactly what are you trying to accomplish with these pedals? What kinds of sounds do you want to make? Which pedals are you considering going broke buying rather than buying a multi-fx? What pedal(s) do you already have, if any?

Nathangrn · Post by **Nathangrn** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 3:52 pm

Steve Drozd from the Flaming Lips uses a Boss GT-8.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/intervie ... album.html

ott0bot · Post by **ott0bot** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 4:48 pm

Personally, I think the flexibility of tones and effects you can get from buying different pedals and setting up a decent pedal board can't be beat. Other than changing batteries from stuff that you can't power with an ac adapter, I find that this set up to be pretty painless.

That being said, I use a Boss Me-50 all the time. It's an analog controlled digitally modeled effect board, and there are three different pedal controlled banks, plus reverb, noise gate and compression. When you turn a knob to change from one effect to the other....yes there is a drop out, but you can duck it by simply disabling the effect then changing the setting. Or you can use a volume or tuner pedal after the me-50 to cut the noise....still a bit annoying, though. I usually use it with my casio set up, and tend to just use chorus or delay and my amps reverb with guitar.

Anyway...it sounds great, has a pretty wide variety of effects, and best of all...no menus or banks to go through. All analog knobs for tons of tweeking on the fly. They were discontinued and replaced with a slighty larger version(me-70), so you may be able to find a good deal on one.

Anyway...take a look and see for yourself:
http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/ME-50/

kslight · Post by **kslight** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 7:26 pm

I'm more keen to a well setup pedal board, but I think a good multieffect processor in the hands of someone that knows how to use it can sound good too. However a pedal board offers a certain flexibility and immediacy in dialing in sounds...for example I frequently cascade different types of distortion together for tones rather than using one lone pedal, and I often build or modify pedals for a bass frequency response. Another consideration is that IMHO if you buy quality pedals they will last forever, or at least can always be repaired or modified, while a multieffect board is usually digital which makes it basically disposable. If you plan on many years of guitar playing a good pedal board is an investment.

The fun of a pedal board is that you can keep adding and subtracting and rearranging as you see fit, while a multieffect you are limited to what you bought.

If you are handy with a soldering iron BYOC offers pedal kits that are copies of popular designs, which offer if nothing else boutique quality effects at reasonable prices...I have built several and they work well and are easy to modify to my tastes.

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 1:41 am

Personally I've never really found a multi-effect pedal that I was as happy with as I am with my separate pedals. To me the difference is not unlike the difference between a modeling amp and a tube amp or nice solid state - it can be coaxed into working alright for what it is, but I'd rather just have a great sound right off the bat. I use mostly Boss pedals, and most times I've played out I've gotten compliments on my sounds. I've had three multi-effect pedals before, and I really didn't find the fact that it was just one box to be more convenient than having pedals on a board. When I want to switch cleanly from one effect to another, I step on them both at the same time, which isn't any trouble at all. A guy I record a lot had always brought his Boss multi-effect (I don't remember which one it is, I believe it's the GT-6), and we always have trouble getting a really great, "real" sound, and we always end up going back to my pedals (he often doesn't even bring his anymore). It's convenient for him to use live because he's one of those more-is-better effect people, but in the studio it just never cuts it.

I'd want an analog multi-effect pedal, but I guess that'd essentially just be a bunch of pedals installed in one case. Maybe if I can get more into electronics I could work out some way to have a bunch of BYOC pedals in one case, and somehow rig up different circuits so you could have a button for each effect alone, and then a way to use them along with others, change the order, etc. That'd be the multi-effect for me.

comfortstarr · Post by **comfortstarr** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 8:17 am

While I agree that you will usually get better sounds out of individual effect pedals, the allure of the multi-effect is pretty obvious. I had a Yamaha Magicstomp that allegedly had the same processor as the SPX90. It did have very yummy reverbs and delays. The "crunch" and "overdrive" stuff was shite. Sadly, it gave up the ghost.

For my purposes, I just won't be buying really good individual phasers, tremelo's, and other modulation oddities that I only occasionally use, but I would like to have 'em. So I'm interested in the recos on this thread. Someone around here once extolled the virtues of some of the zoom multi stomp boxes.

I'm someone who generally likes Boss's individual pedals (I have their DD-20 and the distortion pedal, DS-1) so I'm leaning to getting one of their multi-effects.

oyrgawd · Post by **oyrgawd** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 11:21 am

I think multi-effects are great as a sorta tasting menu for effects.

I've owned the Line 6 M13 and M9 at separate times. Pretty good sound, true bypass, great looper. I keep thinking I should buy one again just for home entertainment.

I sold them though, and the other multi-effects I had way back, because it's just more appealing to have *really good* versions of the effects I really use than *pretty good* versions of a hundred things that are fun sometimes but would never make it into regular use. From the M13 proceeds and a few other things, I was able to buy a Fulltone Deja-Vibe and Supa-Trem, a Malekko Ekko analog delay, and a great weird fuzz pedal.

Another big issue for me is the ease of use while singing and playing. With the multieffects pedals, I was always worried I'd accidentally footswitch to something way wrong. Dunno if that would matter to you.

BrontoSoreAss · Post by **BrontoSoreAss** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 12:01 pm

If you are at all anal about your guitar tone I doubt you'll be happy with a multi-fx pedal. I'm a bit anal so every pedal I use I picked for a very specific reason - there are tons, tons, tons of pedals to choose from and likely only few you will completly fall in love with. You'd be very lucky/its pretty unlikley you will find the specific sound your after with a multi-effects pedal - although, if you are just looking to "widen" your range of sound without anything overly specific in mind maybe a multi-fx pedal would be the right fit.

It's also worth considering what specific effects your most interested in - if your really need distortion, delay, a phaser, a flanger, a ring modulartor, filters....blah blah blah then maybe a multi-fx pedal is your best option - however theres a decent chance you won't be overly excited about any of those effects once the novelty wears off. You could on the otherhand put around the same amount of money into a couple really nice boxes (like a fuzz and a delay) which if picked carefully and used alongside conscientious use of your guitars controls could give you a fairly flexible setup that sounds killer.

douglas baldwin · Post by **douglas baldwin** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:28 am

I regularly play two extremes of music on guitar:
* A club-n-bar cover band that plays a lot of soul, blues, reggae, and classic rock (vintage guitar sounds, mostly)
* Ambient, heavily effected loop-n-drone (stuff that barely sounds like a guitar)
I use a Boss GT-8 for both. I also love me some tube tone from my amp. With an amp with channel-switching (clean and slightly ragged), my GT-8, and two other pedals (a Visual Sound Angry Fuzz for germanium fuzz and octavia sounds, and a DigiTech Whammy) I can rule the world.

Wanna hear 'em? Go to my web site www.TheCoyote.org and listen to any of the music. The opening music uses the ring mod sound from the GT-8, and if you go to the Music page and the Listen sub-page, you can listen to little snippets of guitar-driven stuff of all styles. Heck, you might even wanna download a whole track for 99 cents. (End of commercial announcement.)

comfortstarr · Post by **comfortstarr** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:51 am

oyrgawd wrote:I think multi-effects are great as a sorta tasting menu for effects.

I've owned the Line 6 M13 and M9 at separate times. Pretty good sound, true bypass, great looper. I keep thinking I should buy one again just for home entertainment.

I sold them though, and the other multi-effects I had way back, because it's just more appealing to have *really good* versions of the effects I really use than *pretty good* versions of a hundred things that are fun sometimes but would never make it into regular use. From the M13 proceeds and a few other things, I was able to buy a Fulltone Deja-Vibe and Supa-Trem, a Malekko Ekko analog delay, and a great weird fuzz pedal.

Another big issue for me is the ease of use while singing and playing. With the multieffects pedals, I was always worried I'd accidentally footswitch to something way wrong. Dunno if that would matter to you.

Hadn't seen those line 6... the m9 looks pretty nice, but it's a tad pricey... Believe me, I understand that from a pure quality standpoint, individual pedals are better, but I still like the idea of having sooo many things to choose from!

oyrgawd · Post by **oyrgawd** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:57 am

comfortstarr wrote:
oyrgawd wrote:I think multi-effects are great as a sorta tasting menu for effects.

I've owned the Line 6 M13 and M9 at separate times. Pretty good sound, true bypass, great looper. I keep thinking I should buy one again just for home entertainment.

I sold them though, and the other multi-effects I had way back, because it's just more appealing to have *really good* versions of the effects I really use than *pretty good* versions of a hundred things that are fun sometimes but would never make it into regular use. From the M13 proceeds and a few other things, I was able to buy a Fulltone Deja-Vibe and Supa-Trem, a Malekko Ekko analog delay, and a great weird fuzz pedal.

Another big issue for me is the ease of use while singing and playing. With the multieffects pedals, I was always worried I'd accidentally footswitch to something way wrong. Dunno if that would matter to you.
Hadn't seen those line 6... the m9 looks pretty nice, but it's a tad pricey... Believe me, I understand that from a pure quality standpoint, individual pedals are better, but I still like the idea of having sooo many things to choose from!

If you're cool with buying used, you can get either the M9 or M13 for $300-350 on ebay. Weird how the M13 gets equally cheap used. I guess it's coz it's been around longer.

daveg62 · Post by **daveg62** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 3:28 pm

It really depends a lot on if you are using the multi-effect for amp sims or just effects. Also what is your budget?
If you are happy with your amp, I can suggest a Carl Martin Quattro. That will give you OD, Chorus, Delay, Compressor that all sound decent. Carl Martin Plexi-tone is also a great pedal.

With a bigger budget nothing touches the Fractal Axe-fx right now. I use one and never even turn on my amps anymore. It's very good

comfortstarr · Post by **comfortstarr** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:34 am

I love my amp (Peavey Classic 20). I'm not looking for amp sims, for that and when I can't record at volume, I'm okay with what's available in Logic. I'm just looking for effects. I'll go try several this weekend (duh... the obvious step).

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