Boss ME-30

I find the LCD panel extremely informative when setting up patches, and the flexibility amazing. It'll literally take you twenty minutes of playing to learn it. The manual that comes with it is detailed and thorough.

I play my ME-30 with an american Gibson SG. I haven't been disappointed with any of the effects (although the modulator seems extraneous). I've gotten Van Halen, ACDC, and Metallica sounds, all out of the same box! However, because my experience with effects is fairly limited, I'm sure that for the extra money, there might be something better out there.

I haven't had a problem with it yet. I'd use it anywhere I could play.

It ain't broke yet.

For the money, this is one hell of a deal. I got a DOD TEC-8 for christmas, and liked it very much. I was at a music store with a friend a couple of days later (he was looking for a wah-pedal), and saw this little black board sitting on top of a display. I took it down, grabbed the (only!) SG on display for sale, and played a little bit. Needless to say, my friend and I sat there for thirty minutes until I finally convinced the sales rep to let me trade my TEC-8 for it. While I still think well of the TEC-8, the ME-30 is miles ahead.
On another note, since I've bought this board, the ammount of songwriting I've done has tripled. Having this much flexibility available is incredible.

I have only had this multi effects unit for a short time but I will try to answer these questions as best I can. It is very easy to get a good sound. After 5 or 10 minutes of tweaking the preset sounds you can come up with something original. Very versatile unit. I like the way that compression can be used as well as a distortion setting..... unlike the pandora! Manual is very good. I did read some bad english but I think that is probably because is was written originally in Japanese or something.

I use a custom hand built guitar with a seymour duncan full shred humbucker and a peavey bandit(not the new transtube but the older one) I didn't find noise or hum a problem at all.... very impressive. I tried to get a Van Halen type sound and I feel that I was quite successful. Distortion sounds are very good. The grunge is not something I feel I would use much. Pity there is no tube or valve distortion setting. The expression pedal seems to work very well. Nice and smooth. Is stiff so can be left in one position, good for volume and the wah-wah.
The ring modulator is a nice gimmick but I don't see the practical side of an effect like that. Shame it has'nt got the humanizer like the ME-8.

I think you could depend on it. Even though it is made from toughened plastic it does seem very strong. I tried a DOD tec8 and that seemed a lot more flimsy. Buttons are nice.... takes a bit of getting use to them though.
Well its a Boss so I suppose the good side is even if you throw it against the wall when your pissed off with it, I'm sure it would still work!

Contacted Roland for information before I bought it and they promptly sent me brochures and a pack of stickers.

I play rock, metal and bluesy rock so I guess it fits the bill nicely. I have been playing for about 7 years but had a while where I didn't have my gear (moved to a different country) I compared it to the Dod Tec 8 and Tec 4, they offer very similar effects and I think I chose the Boss because of the name and also the Boss appears to be very sturdy looking. I also compared it to the Korg AX30g and the Korg Pandora. I think it really is a matter of personal choice with this sort of thing. Boss has the Exp. Pedal
Like I wrote earlier..... I wish it had a harmonizer, and maybe the acoustic simulator but I guess for the money it has everything you need to make the sounds to use in virtually any circumstance. It really helps to make the music that I want to. It is an inspiration. The preset sounds are a very good basis for creating your own sounds. Obviously many are over the top just to show off the capabilities of the unit but I like those Jet Engine sounds and the way over th top distortion settings.
If anyone knows of a website that has Boss ME-30 patch settings or would like to swap settings with me, please let me know by email.
Fantastic value for money with a brand name that you cant go wrong!

It's easy to get up and running, and the interface is decent considering the cost of the unit. The only confusing thing I've found is the procedure for copying one sound to another. Depending on how you press the buttons you'll either replace the sound you're copying over or swap the new sound with the old sound, overwriting your original patch.
I spend a couple hours editing the 30 factory patches to get most of the sounds that I needed--a Police slightly distorted flange patch, a clean, warm, Metheny kind of sound (well, if you use a little imagination you can say it sounds like Metheny), etc. Then I tweaked the EQ and added delay to some of the distorted presets to make then a little richer.

I use the ME-30 mainly with an old Ibanez Roadstar strat copy as a headphone practice amp. You're going to be hard pressed to find a setup that sounds better and is more flexible than the ME-30 for the money. If you evaluate the ME-30's sound without taking into consideration the price, the distortions are extremely weak. You can get decent fuzz sounds from the ME-30, but most of the distortions sound cheap. The other effects sound good, though. AND you get a ring modulator that you can control with the pedal (plus wah, volume pedal, and pitch effects)! Using the expression pedal yields good results and helps liven up the sound--as you keep things moving, you're less likely to dwell on the quality of the distortion.

I've only had it for a couple of weeks. It's plastic, and I wouldn't recommend making it your gigging standby. It's a great piece of practice equipment, not a road warrior.

For the money, it's a great little box. One thing to note is that it doesn't come with an AC adapter. You'll want to get one, though, so remember to add $15 or so to the total price when comparing it against an AC-powered unit. It's fun to plug in some headphones and start wailing, and it's so small you can stick it anywhere and start playing. I'm still on my first set of batteries (although I mostly use an adapter).

10 it take me two minutes to get over it the display is very stompbox oriented so almost anybody can program it. my only bug is about the tuner it's hard to put it on pressing both pedal at once!

it's a bit noisy at high level and trash sound read (white zombie) are harder to get than on my old zoom 1010 But the semiclean tone are easy to get. the phaser can be easily too much. The amp simulator sound good ! the delay is really long and amazing! the ring modulator is too weird for my taste. the wha is better than the boss fw_3 that i had before. the pitch shifter is quite funny especially if you remove your guitar sound and set it an octave above your guitar sound like a bass whit no sustain. when recorded directly the sound is pretty clear.

I buy mine and the luminous lcd did not work so i got to take it back to the store. so when you buy something that's already broke is it reliable? for the rest it's well construct

for now it look oK but i haven't have my new unit yet!

for me it's a very good unit a lot better than my zoom 1010 for the price difference I still thing the boss distortions are noisy but pretty good at low level (be careful when you used the patch the volume is real high!) the main reason i bought the me-30 is the value for the price you get a wild unit easy to program good modulation sound and good distortion altough the distortion of my peavey transtube is better but the transtube unit max 100 did not get any amp sim and no wha and it's almost 100$ more than the boss here! so i really like this unit but i still think the tuner must be easier to get and tuning is always silent, i like to ear the sound to veryfy whit my ears if the tuning is on. considering i am playing more hard rock and blues than death metal this unit is quite good but if you want to play death i am not sure you got a great deal!

This unit is really pretty straight forward. I only had to read the directions once! Editing the pre-existing patches or ones you've made is very easy to do. Assigning the effect to the expression pedal took a little extra figuring, but not hard.

I run this through a Peavey Bandit 112 (transtube), and play a Fender American Strat. The ME-30 really gives a large variety of sounds. The more effects you add, the more hiss you get, but the noise gate helps. I don't think you can have effects present without some extra noise once you add things like compression and distortion. I discovered that the master level should really be pretty low (20-40) for the best sound. Higher than this, and it makes alot of noise. At 20-40, it matches the sound level coming from the amp naturally. You have to hook it up and see what level allows you the sound yo want. I can go from Stevie Ray Vaughn to Santana, to Bad Company to thrash speed metal pretty convincingly.

I haven't had it long enough to test it predictably.

See above???

I like mostly Blues and Classic Rock, but I'll play just about anything. This lets me do just that. Iv'e been playing almost 20 years, and I've always been a straight guitar and amp guy, but this is real fun. I'd buy it again in a second. An extra feature that is real useful to figure out difficult passages is the PHRASE TRAINER. It digitally record up to 12 sec of a song, and loops it for you. you can listen to it through headphones so you don't bug your neighbors, and slow it down. When you slow it, it stays at the same pitch...real cool.

This unit is pure simplicity. I am a stompboxe kind of guy and was very impressed with the ease of use of this multieffect unit. Editing patches is as easy as turning knobs on a regular stomboxe. The guitarist friendly interface and the big display helps a lot. Being easy to edit was one of my main concern when shopping for a multieffect unit (with sound and budget of course). This one is really easy.

I am using a Fender American Standard Stratocaster and a Gibson LesPaul Studio through that effect and into a Fender Blues Jr.. I must say that this is only my second multieffect unit, the first one being a DOD FX7 that i returned to the store because i was really not please with it, so don't base your buying decision on my opinion regarding sound quality of this unit, go try it out and make your decision on what you hear. This one is in my opinion really good. For sure you can get a better multieffect than this but for the price i really like the sounds in this unit. I only use a couple of presets and was able to create patches that i like really fast. I have a Boss DS-1 distorsion and was able to recreate the sound of this pedal pretty accurately. The wah is good but the range of the pedal is short (one cool feature is that if you press on the controller pedal harder it turns the wah on and off). All the other effects are good. The ability to place the wah or volume in different positions in the effect chain is cool. Some presets were design for humbuckers pickups and some for single coils (look at the guitar icon in the top left corner) but don't let that fool you when listening to the patches, some patches work well with both pickups.

This unit is made of plastic. It looks a little bit fragile but is alright for what i use it for (home practice). The controller pedal feels like its going to break every time you press hard on it to turn the wah on and off but for now it is still working fine (only had it for two weeks). I will take good care of this unit and will not abuse it if i want it to last.

Never had to deal with them and hope it stays that way

I mostly play pop/rock and blues and i am really satisfied with this unit. I'm sure it will also fit with somebody who is more into heavy stuff. I own a complete set of Boss pedals but wanted to be able to change sound without having to reach down every time and this multieffect does the job well. I would definitely buy it again because it has every thing that i wanted (good sounds, ease of use and cheap) plus more (phrase trainer, but i don't really use that feature). I compared it to the DOD FX7 and it wins all the way. **Take a note that i'm considering the price of the unit when rating it.** **I did not list all the specs because they are available on Roland's web site**

This thing was amazingly simply. I mean editing patches to get a good sound has never been as easy. It's like having a bunch of BOSS pedals, with the ME-30s "virtual knob" feature. It took virtually no time at all to start reproducing my favourite effects; effects that usually required a slew of pedals. Saving is simple, the phrase trainer is easy to use; it's just like a cassette player. The tuner could be operated by an untrained monkey. The manual is 35 pages long, and it goes into detail about each effect, each option per effect, and gives easy-to-comprehend step-by-step instructions on how to move, copy and edit patches. The only reason it doesn't get a 10, is because once in a blue moon I would have to scan the instruction manual.

Running my Fender Jag-Stang through it, into a Fender Champion 110 I get a little bit of his when playing, but the noise suppressor takes care of any static that might get in the way. Some of the distortion effects are a little noisy, but not any noisier than the DS-1 or anything. As with 99.9% of all effects processors, the factory presets are a little weak. There are 30 of them to choose from, and you can assign 30 of your own as well. Here's a breakdown of the effects, and my feelings on them. 1. Compressor - It's actually quite good, with three settings to tweak: Sustain, Attack and Level. 2. Overdrive/Distortion - I was amazed at how true to the pedals the ME-30 reproduced the effects. There are 8 different types: Vintage OD, Warm OD, Crunch, Blues, Hard D, Metal, Fuzz. They're all pretty good. I don't think I'd use the Blues much, though. Then you choose Drive, Level and Tone (-50 to +50). Very nice. 3. Equalizer -This is a very good EQ, and I was quite impressed. It has standard Bass, Treble and Mid, with -14 to +14 settings. It also has a level which controls the volume of the equalizer. 6.Phaser -It's nice and warm, very natural sounding. Resonance, Rate and Depth, all easy to use, and sounds very good. 4. Noise Suppresor -This feature is always on, but if you want you can turn it down to 0. It does a very good job, and is quite adjustable. 5. Delay - I had a lot of fun with this :) It has a Type setting, either Pan or Normal. The panning makes the delayed sound pan across the left and right channels. Very cool. There's a Time setting which adjusts the delay time. I was surprised by the range: 1ms-2000ms. Try setting it to 2000ms, hooking up your mike, and talking to yourself. Very weird. It also has a Feedback control, which adjusts the amount of repetitions of the delayed signal. If it's at 100, things you get a very bizarre, multi-layered sound. And as the others it has a Level selector. No reversed delay, unfortunately, but hey, that's no big deal. 6. Chorus -Apparently BOSS developed Chorus effects, I didn't know that. Anyway, it's pretty standard stuff. Rate, Depth and Level. I'm not big on chorus. 7. Flanger -One of my band's songs uses a fairly specific flanging sound and within five minutes I had reproduced it on the ME-30. The flanging kicks, and it's pretty versatile. 8. Pitch Shifter -This really rocks. You can alter the pitch + or - 12 semitones, and you can control your Direct Level, which is the clean guitar sound. If you want, you can turn the Direct Level down to 0, and then your pitch to -1, and you're tuned a half-step down. This is how I plan on doing some Smashing Pumpkins stuff, as it saves me from having to retune everything. 9. Tremolo -You can do some cool stuff with this baby. Rate and Depth are your two "knobs" and you can make anything from surf sounding stuff to making it sound like the signal is cutting in and out. 10. Reverb -Two types, Hall and Room. And then your Time of decay. It sounds rather realistic, not twangy like most amp reverb... EXPRESSION PEDAL EFFECTS: 1. Volume pedal - You can put it in front of the rest of distortion or afterwards, which is cool. It's pretty neat, you can make steel- guitar-esque stuff if you really try. 2. Wah -You can put the wah in front of the distortion or after as well, which is cool. The wah-ing is actually pretty good, I was very surprised. You can even turn it off like standard wah pedals. 3. Tremolo Arm -4 setting for this puppy, as you depress the pedal: ARM 1: Lowers the pitch to one octave below the input ARM 2: Raises the pitch to one octave above the input ARM 3: Mixes the sound of ARM 1 with the input ARM 4: Mixes the sound of ARM 2 with the input All in all it's pretty damned cool, and you can do some interesting vox effects as well... 4. Ring Modulator -This surprised me the most. Very weird. It has to do with the ME-30's internal oscillator, and it makes strange metallic sounds. Not very practical, but fun to play with. Finally, the ph

This thing looks and feels dependable, sturdy, very much like BOSS' other products. It'll run on the AC adaptor (sold separately) or 6 AA batteries. I think that I would indeed use this without backup. I have yet to see a more sturdy multi-effects processor on the market.

I've never had to deal with BOSS before. Their customer service guy is like the Maytag repairman, I would imagine.

I play a lot of stuff, from grunge to blues to Industrial, a little bit of everything. I would buy this again a million times over. The sound quality is great, it's a low price, you just can't go wrong. It's not whisper-quiet, but it's not that big a deal. I was a little disappointed it didn't have the reverse delay effect, but that's just me wanting everything. With all the different flavours this thing can churn out, if you use a lot of effects in your genre, and you don't have a thousand to blow on a studio processor, the ME-30 is for you. This thing has helped me breathe life into stale material, and I've been able to reproduce effects used by some of my favourite artists. I've heard and seen a lot of other "processors" and they don't have anything on the ME-30.