Product: BBE 651
Price Paid: US $145 used
Submitted
01/16/2006
at
09:10pm
by
Randomplay
Ease of Use
:
10
Fairly easy to get a shape a good clean sound out of it, just like setting up an amp's eq, but with 3 channels. The manual is clear as day if you need it. And available still on BBE website. Overall straightforward, and simply designed. The input mute switch is a great touch when changing guitars. Well thought out. Channel switching couldn't be more logical. The input gain and meter is a great touch as well to match your guitars output properly.
Sound Quality
:
8
Quality is good for live, haven't tried studio yet. Using it currently with Marshall 1960A 4x12(stereo) and a ART SLA-2 amp, Yamaha FX-500 effects, and a Sansamp pedal. The BBE effect setting replaces my BBE 422 unit. Some after-effect noise seems to envelope the BBE effect when engaged, but it hasn't bothered me enough to get bogged down with it. I bought this mostly for the rapid/on the fly preamp eq adjustments that I can make with it, and the versatile range of clean tones you can get with it combined with the BBE process. Funny enough channel 2 with a slight gain came eerily close to the clean sound of my fender superchamp. Channel 1 can be fat sounding, but if you fiddle enough with this thing you can definitely find enough "elasticity" to make a good analog sound.
Reliability
:
9
Solid state, not much heat. Yes it seems dependable. This is already a 10 year old piece of gear, and it's working fine for now. We'll see after another 10 years or so, but solid state, doesn't heat up, so I'm sure it'll be good.
Customer Support
:
7
Manual is available on the BBE site still. Haven't dealt with the people yet though.
Overall Rating
:
9
Play all popular styles, gigged and recorded numerous styles from Pop/Country to R&B funk to Rock. Played lots. Just did the math, looks like 26 years. I tend to be a hybrid approach guy. I've had the rockmans, fender, gallien kruegers, mesa boogies, line6, and they're all great. I just find it boring to use one approach, so as out of fashion as it might be, I like the rack mount route including the POD, Sansamp, Yamaha FX-500, and rocmkan midi-octopus. The 651 is a relatively inexpensive way to to tweak a variety of useful clean tones, with the BBE process, allowing the other units to do what they do. For a working musicians price, and a tweakers curiosity, I'm happy with what this unit does in my rack.
