Alesis GuitarFX

Really easy to use.

It's noisy if you want clean distortion :( But flanger, clean sound and overdrive are great!

Well mine was warking well, and then, all of a sudden, it stoped working. When i plug my guitar in, connect it to an amp, there is no sound :S I dont understand what could be a problem, there is simply no sound at all (tuner is working)

I cant find any1 to fix it.

Help me fix it, i gave a lot of $$$

The user interface is very easy to understand. Editing patches is very easy to do. And the manual is very easy to understand too.

I bought mines at a webshop, so I had no oppertunity to test it.
I already had a Alesis Nanoverb which sounds good/very good in combination with a Marshall 8200 stereo head. So i had high exspectations about the Alesis guitarFX. So when i got it at home, i tested it. All the sounds are more or less bad sounding. It even don't come close to the quality of a Nanoverb. Some effects sounds very digital and the delay/reverbs sounds very poor. The distortions are a real disaster, the hiss sound is killing the pleasure. The pitch effects is useless....... In other words, the userinterface is good, but this Blue Box is lacking of good sounds.

I can't give a good opinion on this category, because after 3 hours of testing i was completely overwelmed by the bad sounds it made.
So it went straight back to the webshop.

I can't give a good opinion on this category because i never had contact with Alesis.

I play the guitar for more than 35 years and this "thing" is the most useless multieffect I have ever tested. The inside processing unit is a very bad way of Alesis to show what their capabilitys are.
I think they have to rebuild it, because it is a poor concept.
What i loved about it, is the ease of editing the presets. What i don't liked about it, is the bad soundproccesing and soundquality.
Anything i wished it had, at least the sound quality of a Alesis Nanoverb.

I found this unit to be very easy to use. I've read the other reviews, and I absolutely disagree about their opinions concerning the GuitarFX. All digital units require patience and practice to dial in sounds to one's liking. I play an esoteric style of Rock and Roll music, ala The Cure and The Sniths, and I found this little noisemaker to be perfect for 'alternative' tones that have to be savored for awhile to be truly appreciated.

The GuitarFX is definitely a different sounding unit than a Zoom or (uugh) Digitech multi-effects, but I really, really like the tones. As far as noise, well...yes there is noise on the distortion settings. This is why it is called DISTORTION. Any real experienced guitarist ALWAYS TURNS DOWN THE VOLUME CONTROL ON HIS GUITAR when not playing, with distortion settings active. Noise gates are a joke. Let's talk about the chorus and delay effects on the GuitarFX for a minute. They are fantastic. The chorus is pure 1986, and the delay blends with the chorus in a way that will make all the girls in your apartment building sit outside your window and listen to you play for hours.

A very light touch is all that is required for the dual footswitches. If you feel the need to 'stomp', then buy something made of steel. This is not a stomp box, so don't stomp on it and you are good to go. I have owned, played live, practiced, and traveled with this unit for three years without a single failure in the footswitches.

This is where Alesis fails hands down. Customer service is non-existent. I own an Alesis ION keyboard/synth, and wanted some information on a particular programming issue, and Alesis disapperead from Earth and went to Venus. In other words, I never got a response after three attempts.

I have reached the point where the GuitarFX is integral to my sound. I must have it in my sound chain, which is as follows: Fender Mustang Guitar(s), 2004 Alesis GuitarFX into the front of my 1993 Carvin SX-200 amp, 1990 Alesis Quadraverb (in SX-200 effects loop), TC Electronics Chorus (after Quadraverb in loop), Stereo outputs from the Quadraverb first back into the Carvin, then into my 1990 Fender Stage 160 as a slave. This is my sound and my set-up, and I wouldn't trade it for anything else at this point.

For a cheap pedal, they've tried to do too much. So you have quite a wide range of shitty sounding effects on a difficult-to-navigate unit, as opposed to a few killer effects on an intuitive unit. Anyone serious about programming their own effects is not gonna buy this, they'll go for something mid- or top-range.

Some interesting sounds but most of them are pretty crap. They should have had fewer sounds but made them higher quality.

Probably not a dependable unit.

The menu function is horrible. I don't wanna piss about with knobs on a cheap unit, I just want a list of sounds to scroll through with my foot, as is the case with the early Zoom pedals. A cheap pedal like this should just focus on providing a few reliable effects. This is not very straightforward to use and it's not worth making the effort to learn to use properly cos the quality of the effects is poor. On a cheap unit, they need to focus on quality not quantity.

See previous review posted 06/27/2005

See previous post of 06/27/2005

This is additional information. Since the previous review was posted, this unit has died. The first time I used it in a gig setting, the thing was dead (running my signal into the stereo channel of my Peavey Escort 2000 PA system). The batteries were fresh--but no sound. When I got it home and plugged it into my little studio amp--the thing worked fine--for about five minutes--then started cutting in and out.

In the previous review I had given this component a "no opinion" rating because I'd not had any dealings with the customer support at Alesis. Since then, I have formed an opinion and it is not a favorable one. I had e-mailed their customer support about the poor instructions for saving patch edits. Basically, the response I got was to place a long distance call to a certain telephone number. When I called the number I was informed there would be a 40-minute wait. I finally figured out the process on my own, but when I e-mailed them back to complain about the poor customer service, the tech who responded had the manners of a skinhead.
I've e-mailed customer support about other issues and received no response.

As indicated, previously, this is a unit to avoid. It has nothing to commend it over other units in the same price range.

I would not recommend this unit. When you attempt to edit the presets to create your own--following the instructions in the manual--the edited settings revert to the factory presets when you switch to a different patch. So the whole section about editing and storing your own settings is misleading. If I could I would give this unit a minus 10 rating for this alone. Unfortunately, "1" is the lowest rating possible on this site.

The sound quality is only marginally better than the comparatively ancient DOD AcousticOne FX unit I switched from. The reason is this has hum elimination and noise gate functions my DOD lacked. But the settings have to be set at the maximum to be of any use.

Haven't used outside of practicing yet. No opinion.

No opinion.

I play a lot of classic 60's and 70's rock and wanted this as an alternative to lugging around a lot of stomp boxes. I've been playing for over 35 years. I purchased this to replace an aging DOD multiFX unit. BIG mistake. I should have gone with Digitech (DOD's sister company) or Zoom--since they have proven track records in MultiFX units and Alesis is a relative newcomer to the field.

Well, the manual is horrible, but to make good effects in this pedal you need patience, I needed amount of time but now I make amazing effects

All the effects are good.. I have just one problem, When I set the Distortions with very much gain and put the Noise Gate it just stay whithout noisy when i'm not playing.. And the clean sounds are very good..
The Auto Wah of Alesis GuitarFX..... No comments.. It is very very good!

Good, I use a AC adapter and have no problem.. But I think that it was make of metal it was better of plastic

I never need help.. Because I never had a problem whith GuitarFX

I play a lot of styles... Hard Rock, Rock, Metal, Instrumental.. Alesis Guitar FX is good to my style, I can play all with it..
I play guitar about two years.. Sorry by my English.. Because here where I live the languange isn't English.. hehehe

The manual sucks and the little underlined letters that signify which effect you are using aren't very intuitive. Editing patches is pretty much the same as other low-end multieffects pedals I've used.

I'm using a Les Paul/Laney 100W head/1970 Marshall 4x12 cab. This unit is NOISSSSSSSSSY on ALL settings! I turn it on at night and use it to sleep instead of one of those wind machines! It's too bad cuz it has a lot of very interesting sounds and when I first tried it out it was with headphones and I liked it. Then when I hooked it up to the amp not only did I get hisssss, but also random pops and clicks. (And yes I tried different cables and even took it to a friends house and hooked it up to his guitar/amp)

After about the third time I used it, the input jack which is soldered directly to the board starting acting up. (Way to go Alesis..cheap construction). I would NEVER use this at a gig because I want a good sound and want to be booked again. Why would I back up a piece of shit with another piece of shit?

Unfortunately when I bought it, I was really busy in school and didn't even try it out until I had it about 2 weeks. When I discovered now crappy it was, it was too late to send it back to zZounds. zZounds requires that you call them within 2 days of receipt if there is something wrong with the item.
So they referred me to Alesis who suck. I could get no help from Alesis...they got my $69.99 and they refused to replace it even though I had only had it a couple of months.

I play classic rock and heavy metal. I have been playing about 30 years. If this was stolen I would laugh cuz the thief got the bad and of that deal. I love the blue color, and hate everything else. I picked this item because it was inexpensive and versatile. Unfortunately you get what you pay for. I ended up with separate pedals and a pedalboard, which is much better and believe it or not, less noisy.

I could never get anything good out of this because I couldn't properly work out how to use it for the first few months. I just ended up using the presets. Once you do get down to grips with it you realise what a piece of shit it really is.

Its ok for clean sounds but for distoriton its shit. But trying to make a sound it pretty hard.

Well, it doesn't look very solid but its yet to break. It is made of plastic. I would think it could take a bit of a bash around but I doubt its very solid. I don't know about gigging it, probably.

Not much point using the customer support for anything, it only cost 50 quid

Its a POS to be honest. I play a bit of everything and its not really good for anything. If it got nicked, I'd kind of be glad because I wouldn't have to go through the process of flogging it for whatever I could get. The best feature is probably the fact that you can mute it completley or just the pedal. Get any other multi effects, or just buy seperate pedals over time, much more worth it.

It's not extremely difficult to get a nice sound of it. I think for editability, this product is very worthwhile and ups the ante in its price bracket. The manual isn't very detailed though, and it doesn't mention anything about the factory presets. Had to download a manual from the alesis website to find out. Aside from that, this is a good, simple multi-effects pedal. It's so easy to use, 2 knobs only! The more defined tweaks have to be found out through experience and the manual though.

I'm using a laney HCM15R with this unit and I'm not gonna say its quiet - it's not very quiet, but it only happens when you enable any of the distortion settings, there's a slight hiss, but it's not too bad ( come on guys, it's cheap, don't compare it to the pod or anything ). The distortions are quite good, albeit digital sounding. The clean sounds are great! NO NOISE at all! And full sounding, like the reverbs and the chorus. This is a great unit for clean effects. I'd recommend using an analog pedal linked to this for distortions, but for clean tones, use the guitarfx. It's great.

One thing I don't like about this unit, it pops when it's jostled. I think there may be something wrong with the unit's earthing or grounding, or maybe I should just be more careful with it. Either way, if you're gonna use it live, don't kick it around, unless you want loud pops. Be careful.

It seems very well built, but the pedal selectors don't feel very sturdy. I'd probably use it without a backup since it's quite reliable, except for the 'popping' sound when jostled.

Alesis are great. They mail you back personally a day after you mail them. No problems there.

I play Christian music and some rock. I think this unit pretty much covers my styles. If it was stolen or lost, I'd just save up some more cash and get a pod. IMHO, it's better than the behringer X V-amp since drive and different distortions can be dialled in easily on the guitarfx, while the x v-amp doesn't allow for it. But , jostling and popping-wise, I think the x v-amp's circuitry has it beat.

Not the most straightforward guitar effects to use. Entirely because there are a LOT of features built into the unit. Mastering them takes a lot of experimentation and its wise to have the manual nearby for reference. In rating this unit, I'll give it a 2 because I can't think of any other guitar accessory that is more challenging to master. :-)

The sound quality is pretty good. However, the range of the controls is so vast that you can get it to sound shitty if you're not careful. (I think this is why a previous reviewer was shitting all over it) Case in point, I normally play through an overdrive pedal that I just crank up full bore. To get the same effect from this unit I only need to go about two-thirds throttle - going any further just adds hiss. Would I record with it? Sure, if you noodle around with it enough you can get it working fine.

No problems to date. Build quality isn't as great as those cast-aluminum pedals though.

Have had to deal with the company for any product issues. What would be nice is if they had a list of recommended presets to mimic certain guitar tones.

I play a mix of styles: surf, vintage metal, AOR, speed-picking, cowpie & boogie-blues.

It's kind of confusing to start with because each sound has sub-sounds that you can edit, but that's good because it gives you more versatility.
Editing patches is very much like a Zoom pedal for those of you familiar with that.

I use a Les Paul/Marshall 100W setup. This effect is the noisiest pedal I've ever had. (That includes the original electro-harmonix big muff) I couldn't believe how much hiss is in the effects. I makes all kinds of wierd comb filter noises (depending on the effect selected) and hiss right as you attack the strings. It's really a 70 dollar piece of shit. I expected MUCH more out of Alesis.

I haven't used it much except for farting around with the different sounds it makes because I would be embarassed to go one stage with it. But it seems to be reliable and doesn't really suck the batteries down either.

I will be checking with the company soon because my unit sucks

Good pedal for a beginner that isn't playing for money. Makes a lot of nifty sounds and has a large variety of effects for the money. Just get a good noise gate first.

Easy to Use. Laid out like a ZOOM pedal. Patches are straightforward. Manual is good.

I play an ESP F-100. That runs to an A/B Box ....A side goes to a distortion amp... B side goes to an FX Pedal board (alesis guitarFX and Zoom505 II) then on to a clean amp.

Its not too noisy. Except for distortion...but all distortions are noisy, thats why they made noise gates.

This pedal allows you to later 3 effects.... its awesome. Very usable.

I use this with a CRATE GFX1200H 120 watt Compact Head

I PLAY NEW ROCK and NU METAL like deftones, 36crazyfists, mudvayne, tool, sevendust......

I RECOMMEND THIS FOR GREAT CLEAN FX.

THIS IS THE PROB. Some settings can mess up and make this sqealing noise.... not much ..... but once in a while. It only seems to happen when i scroll backwards in the patch list.

I DO GIG WITHOUT A BACKUP.

I play NU-metal. Melody and Heaviness combined. This pedal is good for clean FX sounds.

Ive played guitar for 6 years. Ive owned Crate, ESP, Yamaha, Zoom, Dod, Digitech, Rogue, Ibanez, etc.

If it was stolen. Id get another.

I love its FX layering ability. I hate that it doesnt have an expression pedal built onto it.

I compared it to a ZOOM pedal. It is better except for the tuner. Its tunner sucks.......zooms got it beat there.

What I did was download the user manual from the Alesis site a while before I actually purchased the unit, so I knew the ins and outs of the unit reasonably well when I got my hands on it. If you are interested in the unit (as you probably are since you're reading reviews about it) I'd recommend downloading the manual from the site here - http://www.alesis.com/downloads/manuals/index.html - For a list of features go here -http://www.alesis.com/products/guitarfx/index.html

I think that this unit has the simplest user interface of any multi-effect unit in it's price range. Two knobs do it all. Even so, this unit does quite a lot so reading the manual is essential. One knob moves through the effects, the other adjusts value, master volume and stores your settings. Only complaint here is that I would have liked the patch level closer to the dist level since turning up the gain also increases the volume (so as to balance the two without having to turn all the way right to get to patch level and then left again to gain), but this is a minor niggle. The unit's 80 patch locations come loaded with a selection of preset sounds for different styles etc. which you can easily edit to create your own sounds. I've not paid that much attention to them since I started creating my own patches almost straight away. I did give them a quick glance though and it's a decent selection spanning from clean sounds to r&b to hi-gain, vintage and just plain weird. You can download the preset program chart from the alesis downloads page. My unit didn't include this sheet. (don't know why, maybe it doesn't ship with the preset sheet included) The preset chart helped me understand what they were going for with the different presets. The included manual is well written and clear.

Keeping in mind that multi-effect pedals are more complicated than regular stompboxes one should really keep the manual handy (I still refer to it sometimes) to check on certain settings etc. especially with regards to the two digit led display. But for a multi-effect, this is pretty easy to use. I've had it for just over 2 months now.

Sound quality is a very subjective term really. One guy might think something sounds great and another guy might think it sounds like crap. Anyway, I don't have any real complaints about this unit soundwise. I think it sounds good. Only playing round the bedroom with it but have turned it up loud a couple a times.

The overdrive/amp model/distortion section has a decent variety of sounds from slightly crunchy to high gain. Backing off on the guitar's volume knob actually cleans things up a little and turning it up dirties a patch a little more. Very nice. I especially like the three amp models (roughly a fender, marshall and mesa boogie) and the overdrive, lead and blues settings. The blues setting is very crunchy. The tube clean(fender) goes from very clean to "darkish" overdrive , the marshall and boogie models sound somewhat alike though the marshall is a little more open and "angular" sounding while the boogie setting is punchier and angrier. Slight breakup to full on gain, it's your choice. Though if you play super-heavy-death-metal-whatever then an extra distortion padel would probably come in handy. As for me it's got more than enough gain available. AC/DC like crunch and Gary Moore blues-on- steriods like wail is the hardest I'll push this unit in this department.

The EQ is limited but useful, compressor is subtle, noise reduction I don't really mess with. Cabinet modelling is nice and useful for going into a PA and for direct recording or even into an amp (I play through a very clean solid state amp and the cab sims are useful in further shaping the sound toghether with the EQ as all three sims sound a little different from each other, though I suspect this works the best through fairly neutral sounding amps). Adds the sound of a
speaker cabinet and adds a little punch as well. The 2x12 sounds a little darker, the 1x12 is my favorite clearer with good trebles and bass, and a 4x10 which is more trebly and open sounding to my ears anyway. Don't know how close this is to the cabs they model and I don't really care.

The modulation and delay, reverb effects all sound good te me (with exception of ring mod, pitch shift etc. which I don't like and don't use) You can combine modulation effects with eachother and with delay/reverb. You can change the way the effects are chained toghether with the "routing" function. This way you can have your modulations etc. placed before or after your distortion section. Routing your effects after the distortion causes the effect sound to dominate the overall sound more and vice versa. Not mindblowingly different tones but useful to have. Very importantly though, when using the Wah effect, you should route it so that the wah is placed before the distortion, otherwise it just sucks. The wah by the way sounds pretty neat though it struggles a bit to pick up on my high E string especially further down the neck(but I currently have a set of 09-45 on ) thicker strings may not have this problem. Each effect has two adjustable settings (usually something like effect level/depth and speed/rate) For delay it's feedback and delay time and for reverb depth and decay. Also most effects has a pedal setting where you can control the effect with the use of and expression pedal (which you can plug into the unit) This goes for volume, wah and gain as well.

Haven't had it long enough, only a little over two months. No problems with it yet though. Only time will tell.

Haven't had to deal with the company yet. They have a decent website with manuals, info, contacts details etc. Anyway I'll just deal with the dealer I bought it from if something goes wrong.

I like the music of Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits), Dave Gilmour and Pink Floyd, Chris Isaak, Gary Moore, Tom Petty, Chris Rea, Eric Clapton. No heavy metal and stuff really, maybe a little Savatage now and then so the tones I'm going for fall into rock&roll and blues mostly. This unit gets me where I want to go. If this was stolen I'd get this again , although Alesis have now come out with an amp built around this unit, the SpitFire, so I'll probably go for that. (Check it out - it looks really spiffy) I love multi-effect units as it's great having it all on the pedal right in front of you, and being able to save an recall sounds whenever you want to. I think Alesis did a good job on this unit. As for competition in this price range, I think the GuitarFX has both the Digitech Rp 50 and the Zoom 505II beat.

Well, it's quite easy. Let your eyes fly through the manual if you're not sure about how to do things, but I got a hang of it after 2-3 days of experimenting. The push-turn functions of the knobs are a little bit confusing at first.

I'm using several Guitars with it ...Squier Strat, Ibanez RG, Ibanez Destroyer and an Isonez Les Paul copy into a FenderX15 Amp.

Well if you think you'll get this,an amp and a guitar you're all set, you are wrong ! It's nice to play with it ESPECIALLY WITH HEADPHONES but for the real thing the quality is just too sucky. If you use it with an amp you'll never be satisfied with it. Ok it didn't cost much but you have to know this. Especially the distortions are horrible.
But once again : For a beginner who wants to use it with headphones and wants to learn about all those different effects (to figure out which ones he might need in the future) it's o.k. !

Nah, it's not a boss-tank or anything. It's for home-practise, nothing else.

never dealt with them. Would they tell me about a hidden knob that boosts up the quality of the effects? :-)

I play mostly metal. But that wasn't the reason I bought this. I wanted to gain flexibility. But this thing...well..can't give it to me. (except with headphones and without distortion)

Fool's proof, thank God. Like any manual, its user guide doesn'say it all. Prepare to spend a few minutes playing with it...

Well, anyway, it's bang for the buck, or "What were you waiting for$$$?"

No, I'd rather not carry it with me. Anyway, I sold it!

I play from Blues/Rock guitar to Matal, 80's style. I own a Roland cube 30 and a Musicyo Spirit GU-7R Custom. As I mentioned, already sold the little thing. It's for begginers... I mean, I'm beggining in electric tough played classical acoustic for 15 years, but I don't like the sound of that little blue box... Well, 70 bucks... Shoul have tried the RP-50, I think.

It is really easy to get a good sound out of it - just plug your lea in and play!
You can edit all effects.
The only problem is it can ny a bit tricky understanding the guide hence my rating.

I run my Guitar (ARIA PRO II MAC 60) through this and a CARLSBRO GLX 30 amp. When your not playing you can't hear any noise at all.
The effects always sound great. It is easy to get sounds of favourite artists - BLINK 182, etc.

This always works, unless I get the leads in the wrong sockets - In or OUT - I always get it wrong with anything!

I play all styles of music - rock/heavy metal, jazz, classical etc and I havent yet found a style that this product can't help me with.
I compared it with a Zoom pedal which is the same price, but on looks yet alone the sound I chose this one.
If ever I need insperation for music I try a different effect - works every time!

The Guitar FX might be a good entry level effect processor.
Has some decent effects, with tweaking you can get some nice sounds.
The only patch editing that I know of is that, you have juggle the built in settings around and save them in memory.
It comes with an OK manual, don't lose it as you might need it down the road!

I am using an early 80's style Black Fender Strat with an old Fender Princeton Tube Amp(They sound very sweet together!)or just headphones.
Just using the Guitar FX as a stand alone can make for some interesting effects.
The unit can be noisy at times on some settings, but usually adjusting of some of the parameters will help.
You can probably emulate most styles of playing with the unit.
Some of the effects sound muddy and are unusable. They are probably there as a basic setting that you can modify to suit your needs.

Well, now for the bad news!
The Guitar FX cannot be depended on and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
The knobs are just to fragile. Be very careful when using the foot switches, STAY AWAY FROM THOSE KNOBS!
The controller knobs/switches are just too flimsy to hold up through heavy use. (Maybe the makers have hopefully improved this!)
Don't ever use this unit without some kind of backup!
My unit failed just after a little more than a months usage.
I bought my unit when the first hit the streets, the price was right.
It wasn't being gigged or being transported, just used around the house.
I am an electronic tech by profession and cracked the case to have a look and verified that the knobs had failed and I was shocked at the types of knob/switches that were used in production. They are very fragile and can be easily damaged without much effort. These types of knobs should have never been used on an footswitch type effects processor.
It does still function on the presets, but all effect modification does not function.
I use it on occasions, but not much.

My experience with the company was a game of letter tag & email tag.
It took a while to get an authorization number.
After looking at the cheap price of the unit and the time and trouble to get an OK to ship the unit. It just wasn't worth the effort for the money it cost.
I just tossed it into a box with my other junk.

It was a good unit when it worked, but just didn't hold up even through light usage.
If it was stolen or lost, I would not buy a replacement model.
I will go the digitech route the next time.
I've got an original old Tom Sholz Rockman and it has always seen me through many years of playing. So the Guitar FX failure wasn't too traumatic.
Overall the Alesis Guitar FX was nice when it lasted, but it didn't last too long!
I have been playing for around 25 years, just as a hobby. Nice to kick back alone or with friends and to do the old living room or garage jam session.
The guy who taught me my first nice chops was Mike D. He was fortunate to have played with Billy Cox in Florida. Billy Cox was the 2nd Bass player that played with Jimi Hendrix a lot. Old Army buddies, I heard.
Mike D. can shread like no one I've ever heard!
I have a long way to go to get anywhere close to that!
But he was an inspiration and I will always keep playing and learning.
Thanks Mike & Thanks Ray!(Another Friend from Florida who plays with The Danny Morris Band)
You both have inspired me so much over the years with my playing!

It only has a two-digit display, bank letters A-G on the first digit, then patches in the bank 0-9. Lots of room for your own sounds, which is good, for reasons you'll read later. You won't be able to program it without the manual nearby for the first couple of hours, until you get used to the weird codes for the various effects.

1988 Fender Heavy Metal Strat into this thing, then DI to the mixing board and into my DAW.

The distortions suck, period. My RP300 stomps all over the distortions on this unit. Pitch bend sucks as well. Noisy is right, the noise reduction circuitry can't handle high gain on any of the distortion models - it hisses like a leaky balloon!

THAT said, where it does seem to work well is on effecting without distortion. I can get a nice, quacky echo/reverb sound out of it, the chorus and flangers sound different than my RP300, and I can't complain about the quality of the NON-DISTORTION effects. I ended up using this pedal as the "clean channel" feeding into my mixing board.

It's plastic but it's pretty solid. I'd never *depend* on it for a live gig, but in my home studio it's just fine. The knobs don't wiggle and the pedals don't wobble, it appears to be constructed decently enough.

Never dealt with Alesis support, so I can't say anything here.

I play trance/rock, jazz/rock, what I call thrash-space-metal (lol) and generally gothy/darkambientrock (I do defy categorization, honestly!). This box is a cheapie, no doubt, but for getting nice clean echo/chorus/flanged sounds it's as good as anything else I've ever tried. Thank heavens I have my RP300 for distortions or I'd be using this as a doorstop! Running this in parallel with the RP300 works out *very* well, but if you're not into that dense/textural stuff you might want to look elsewhere for an all-in-one pedal.. but for fifty bucks (on sale) it's well worth it for what I need it to do.

If someone stole it, I'd wish 'em luck with it and buy Boss pedals or another Digitech. This was an experiment, and while it's not a total failure, face it, you get $50 worth of quality and that's about it. I do love it for clean stuff - the effects sound VERY different from the Digitech - but for your only effects pedal? No way!

If it had better noise reduction it'd be a real winner, crappy distortions aside (I like crappy-sounding distortion, though).

Very straightforward. There are some limitations because of the large number of options.

As a music store employee, I get to play a lot of the equipment. This is the best multi-effect at this price and for a lot more. Very little noise and lots of combinations.

Our experience with Alesis products has been exceptional. We see very few returns

As a retailer for their products, Alesis's support is average to slightly better than average.

I enjoyed playing the GuitarFX so much, I bought one for home. We charge $90. There is an unlimited number of sounds you can get from the Alesis.

You can spend a lot of time with the other brand units before you hear of this one, since it is not as popular. Alesis makes top quality products and have for years. Also compare the power supply requirements and the cost of the adapter of competing products. The Alesis uses a low cost ($10) adapter because of the low power usage. Other competing models require the more expensive adapters ($25).

i bought it 2 months ago and still don't quite know how to use it... it's too complicated in my opinion. or maybe i'm just stupid:)

i've tried it with marshall, randall amps (with my slash signature epiphone) and it seems to be that no matter what amp you use it still SOUNDS HORRIBLE! when using headphones it actually sounds pretty damn good, but use it with amp and nothing sounds quite right. also it makes NOISE, A LOT OF NOISE (not with headphones)

so like i said before it works fine with headphones but is HORRIBLE when using it with any amp.

maybe i should try if it can take punches (gotta find some use for it)

haven't broken down so can't really rate it

IT SUCKS DONT BUY IT!!

Made well, but hard to understand. It took some time to figure out. I dont know how the other guys who wrote a review found it easy to use.

-80 programs (don't need them all, don't sound right(phaser/flanger sound very much unlike what i have heard in songs and on other effects pedals)
-9 effect modules
-8 different signal routing(i dont see how this works, i changed the routing and it was the same as before)
-Auto tuner(The pitch rapidly changes, and after 30 minutes of "tuning" i played a song and it was extremely out of tune)
-Battery or plug in adapter powered
-Simple user interface(yeah right!)

It does not suit my music style. As i said before the flanger and phaser sound different than the others(which sound the same). Other effects, also, dont sound
right. The distortions are not cruchy enough, the blues distortion is not "bluesy". My Ibanez amp has the best, crunchiest distortion i have ever heard. Much
better than the Alesis ones. It is extremely noisy on high-level distortion and other effects.

I think it is reliable and durable i would never use this thing at a gig. I think the regular pedals are best. I went to the Digitech website and heard some of their
X-series pedals and they are so awesome! You can get different sound on one Digitech X-series pedal. THey cost more but it's worth it check 'em out at
digitech.com.

Great, personally replied to all of my questions i sent them, quickly.

I have told everything i want to tell. DONT BUY THIS PEDAL. I RECOMMEND A DIGITECH X-SERIES PEDAL.AGAIN, DONT BUY THIS
PEDAL!!!!!

It took some time to figure out how to program positions, but after about an hour or so, I was able to program and chain some nice tones.

I rate the Reverbs, Delays, Rotary, Echo, all high. Agree with one of the last reviews about some noise, but specifically where noise is heard is on the distortion settings. Eliminate the destortions, eliminate the noise and you can get some nice clean sounds and effects. The destortions/overdrives aren't too noisey at low levels.. I bought this for the VERBS and I like them so far..

Don't know yet, only had for about 1 week. I'm prepared to play without..

The tuner function, doesn't work for me.. I will need to test customer service to get this checked out. If you are experiencing the same problem, please let me know. sigmon@sysmatrix.net

Easy to use. Few minutes extra to edit the settings.

REALLY REALLY BAD. VERY POOR QUALITY.
UNIT FEEDBACK SCREAMS LIKE A BANSHEE AND ALL THE PRESETS ARE REALLY HORRIBLE.
THIS UNIT IS SO NOISY, IN MY OPINION, IT IS UN-USEABLE.

Wouldnt even attempt using it much less depend on it.

Ive had limited contact with Alesis so I will pass on this one.

Doesnt matter what style or how long or what else I own etc. This unit may be ok for a beginning guitarist just wanting some FX and that's probably whom the target market is......newbies. So, with that in mind, I will not leave a rating in this category. For 69 bucks this might make some 14 year old very happy.

This is a pretty decent pedal (a big step up from my Rogue distortion stop box) with pretty decent sound. It has a lot of rock sounding distortions and excellent clean tones. Editing on it is very very simple once you figure it out. The manuel explains what everything does but thats about all that I read in it. It was simple enough I figured out how to edit and save on my own. The only thing is there is almost too many effects on it and it takes a while to find what you want until you memorize them.

I play a Epiphone G-310 SG guitar through a 125 watt Fender Princeton Chorus amp. The only thing noisy about it is using the distortion. Especially when the batteries are getting low (it makes a terrible ringing noise with low batteries while set on distortion). But it doesn't use much battery. I don't like the distortion much on it since its not too "Punk" which is the sound I want. There isn't enough lows. All effects are good with good batteries

You can depend on this pedal even though its plastic. I haven't had any trouble with it yet.

I bought this from my uncle (it was basically new and he gave me a discount of 50 from 70) for a good price. So I don't know about the company much.

A decent pedal for rock players. I am satisfied with is