Boss ME-30

easiest multi-fx processer i've used. you can set it up like a bunch of stomp boxes.

very cool stuff for digital effects i can get the chorus to sound almost like my old CE-2 so, thats bretty good considering the CE-2 is analog.

it's made of plastic(execpt for a metal base). it's tough plastic though i don't know how much of a beating it could take. i just stomp with care.

it's boss so i not that worried about it.

all the effects are cool, execpt the distortions. but, that's o.k. because i've got a boss DS-2 that does that job nicely anyway. this pedal has the best effects and the best price for quality of any multi effects unit out there. the only way you could do better is to buy individual stomp boxes. and that would cost you way more money.

Extremely easy. Exploring the presets required no thinking whatsoever and programing was extremely easy. Although I would read the manual for a few features you might not figure out on your own, you could easily do without it. Also, it has a nice big LCD display which is terrific. Manual mode is especially fun to work in.

Good sound here. I've used it with setups that are bottom of the line (my setup), to nice expensive Marshal stacks with high priced guitars (in the store obviously). Once I even had it plugged into an amp I made out of an old portable record player and after playing around a bit, it sounded good. Very verstile and all the effects are very customizable. The distortions are pretty good, but I wouldn't throw out your stomp boxes just yet. Ring modulator is pretty useless. Delays, Chorus, Reverb and Flanger are all amazing. Wah is also great!

It's plastic but it seems sturdy enough. I don't think I'd break it in normal use, but I wouldn't be slamming down on it just to be sure. Hasn't failed me yet.

Never dealt with them.

I play rock and alternative mostly and it works great. It I lost it or it was stolen, I'd definately replace it. Lots of veriety here and very user friendly. It would probably be good for most types of music. Like I said before, Delays, Reverb and Chorus are especially good and the Flanger is top notch. Not to mention the Expression pedal (wah, wammy arm, Ring modulator, Volume). Wish the Phaser was hooked up to a pedal and wasn't in the same space as the EQ (maybe put it with Chorus, Flanger, etc), but it's not that big a deal. Overall, I would recomend this to anyone looking in this price range.

I'd never used a multi-effects pedal before so this was great. The patches were really easy to program. The LCD screen doesn't just give you numbers and you have to look for what they mean, no. It gives you the 9 effect pedals - shown as little icons. It's really simple to understand. I would say that it is really easy to use.

The sound quality is EXCELLENT. I'm using a FENDER DELUXE 85 with a guitar that I have no idea of the brand. It's a copy of a Fender Strat. The disapointing thing about this unit is the distortions. They're rubish, but I can get a great 'Oasis' sound out of it! The other effects are great. But really, I wanted it mainly for the Distortion. You know, that famous BOSS sound. But I was really dissapointed.

Plastic? What the heck were BOSS thinking when they made this? Plastic? You know what I mean? Plastic? It's never given up on me yet. But I don't think I would use it at a gig... the expresion pedal might drop off or something! You know?!?

BOSS? Nahh... it's been running smoothly.

Well I play indie/metal music. But I could only get indie style from this. Tell you what... I can't get over these distortions. I'm sending mine back to the shop, getting a Digitech RP-3, a metal one, the only thing is - it's YELLOW !!! It's great - but just not for Distortions. The phrase trainer is pretty good. To tell you the truth, i'm into Heavy Metal.

very easy to use indeed!! i looked at the manual, which is helpful, but i could have just as easy figured the thing out on my own. the manual was good for explainations of the effects and how shifts in the individual paramaters in each effect would change the sound. this machine is pretty easy to use, but getting a good sound will take some time and playing around!!

ok, i use this with a washburbn nuno bettencourt signature model guitar and a stage lead II crate amp. nothing too special. first off, i do have to set the master down pretty far to get it to sound quiet. (with the volume at 80 on the pedal, i have to turn down the amp volume to 1 just to keep it from breaking my eardrums!) no problem though, i just set the pedal to about 20-30 and that fixes it. as far as the effects go, the important ones work just fine. contrary to what some have wrote, this machine is capable of good distortions!! you HAVE to tweak settings though!! (first off in the amp). after the amp's controls are set to a good sound for the distortion, you must use the equalizer!! the distortions sound crappy w/o the eq set. (i put the bass up, mid down, and the treble in the middle and it sounds good). i also have a boss meatal zone by the way, and i can get equally good distortion w/ this. you just need to mess around a lot and find a setting that sounds good w/ your amp. as far as the other effects go: compression- pretty good, don't use it much but good for solos i guess. eq- great!! i never used one before buying the me-30, but i can't live w/o it now!! phaser- shares eq slot, so i don't use it much. i think it does its job just fine though. delay: also great. can be set for up to 2 seconds. fun to play around with. chorus: very fine chorus in this pedal. if you like this effect, you won't be dissappointed!! pitchshifter: i like it, but when you set to just play the altered sound w/ no direct imput there is a noticeable delay. the detune setting is very cool though!! tremelo- yep, its good to. if ya like this effect, you will be happy w/ the me-30. flanger- i do like this!! this one has a good sound to it! reverb- well done reverb. wah- i have fun w/ this one! mabe not as good as a real wah pedal, but still, its cool! volume- yep, you can't screw this one up if ya wanted to! tremelo arm- has 4 settings. hard to imagine why you use these but whatever. cool with a mike!! (as is the pitch shifter) ring mod- weird. cool with my drum machine. well, i play hardcore and can get a hard sound w/ the pedal as well as a diverse sound for other styles of playing. it sounds good with headphones and the phase trainer is cool for tabbing solos. (it records the music off your stereo and lets you slow it down w/o effecting pitch).

i've had no problems w/ it at all. i would use it at a gig if i ever had a gig. this seems to be sturdy despite being plastic!!

no problems. boss makes reliable products so customer support is not ussually needed.

i like it a lot. i play mostly hardcore. i listen to bands like pantera, korn, machine head, deftones, type o, fear factory ect. i get a good hard sound w/ it. i play other styles w/ it as well and can play pretty much whatever sound i want w/ it (to some extent). i wish there was no delay on the pitch shifter as far as the altered part of the sound goes but oh well!! no big woop! also, i have a .60 gauge for my low end string and tune my guitar to an A. this pedal add to the low end chaos that this setup creates.

This thing is a piece of cake to use.....I'm borrowing one from my other guitarist in my band....I don't even have the manual and I figured it out in about 5 minutes.

I have a Gibson SG running through an EH Big muff pi(not sovtek), the Me-30 then a Mesa/Boogie .50 caliber head/ReadBear 4x12 cab, then I have the other input running into a Sunn 2x10 combo. The Compression gets noisey at times, then again I really don't use it that much. Phaser is cool, sounds almost like the regular stompbox version, Super Phaser, Same for the Flange and Chourus, pretty much all the modulation effects are faithflly reproduced in my opinion. The Delay with the Pan setting is VERY cool! Setting the delay time very low and doing some EVH tapping gets people's attention :-) The reason this gets an 8 is because of the distortions, BLAH!!!! Get a separate Distortion pedal. The Whammy is cool.....it tracks notes pretty good in my opinion. The Wah is ok for a Multi Effects unit, I'd still use a regular Morley though

Um, plasitc.......well......this thing can't take much gigging.......the one I'm using is missing a foot pedal, and the expression pedal has broken and will not stay up on it's own....

Haven't has to deal with them

This is a nice little Unit for not a lot of cash. I wouldn't buy one, I'm a digitech fan myself(Rp-20)

This unit is VERY easy to use. It will take 20 minutes without the instruction book to understand how everything works.

For 350$ can. , this is incridible. Many kinds of distortion, nice compression, exellent reverb, delay, chorus, flanger and wah. For the down side, you CANNOT use chorus, flanger, pitch shifter or tremolo at the same time wich is too bad and the same is for the phraser and the EQ.

For home, it's perfect. But if you plan to do some shows with it, it's risky since it is all in plastic. It is probably very solid, but not as much as the other Boss's product.

dunno

I wanted the ME-30 to give me all the effect that I needed and now, I can play all my fav bands with it ( Nirvana, Rage against tha machine, NIN, Manson, Steevie ray Vaugh). For 350$ CAN, it is amazing.....BUY IT!

you already read about its ease of use.. big LCD, easy patch editing , etc. etc.. one gripe is the LCD needs to be charged under a lightbulb to glow in the dark (contains phosphorous material) and it fades kinda quickly. another gripe is that the EQ cannot be switched off.. but the compressor can ??! presets are... well.. standard multieffect unit crap. the manual is very good and to the point.

modulation effects are great, flanger sounds just like my BF-2. phaser sounds like radiohead on Paranoid Android. expression pedal effects are awsome . Wah is great, the whammy bar effect is VERY well done, no delays, skipped notes or anything. volume- well... u know. I used the pitch shifter (an octave lower) combined with EQ to get a nearly EXACT simulation of a bass guitar ! its amazing. only thing is sometimes it has a slight delay from the moment I pick till a sound comes out. ring modulator can be used as a great intro /outro to a song.
now for the bitchings: THE DISTORTIONS! darn it! did Boss listen to any of their Dist pedals before designing this thing?? what IS up with those Zoom style ULTRA treble low fat low crunch distortions?? and the REAL weird thing is: When u turn ON the amp simulator, the distortions become tolerable, even Good to some extent! this is TOO strange. either my amp (Marshall VS30R , read my review) is the biggest piece of crap on earth (and its NOT) , or the unit was designed for use with the amp simulator in mind! I was able to get a marshall amp crunch, a smashing pumpkins ultra fuzz, it evens come close to my metal zone (which I plan to keep using) but ONLY IF THE AMP SIMULATOR IS TURNED ON.
the noise gate is SO worthless! how can anyone say its good? it only blocks the background hum when its on 100% but then it eats away at your sound! the compressor has been useless for me so far, but I guess it does what its supposed to (add TONS of noise ?!) will never use the phrase trainer. This unit has a good sound to COMPLEMENT ur favourite distortion pedals/preamps NOT replace them.

I dunno.. its plastic, the expression pedal is plastic I bought it a few days ago so I cant say have 2 other boss pedals my BF-2 seems to have a bad contact inside (loss of treble and volume) my metal zone is having problems with its volume (it might be the power supply, Ill have to check)

Boss? naah..

its not a 10. The amp simulator/distortion issue is driving me nuts. the noise gate is worthless, and the compressor is too. other than that, its such a good unit for the price. its the ONLY good unit in its price range. beats the hell out of the zoom stuff . the modulation effects are great , and it will serve anyone well.

Set up just like the pedals.

Some effects like ring modulator are useless to me and the presets aren't very good but it has a wide range of possible sounds. If you like the Boss pedals and can't afford to buy them all then this is the way to go. I think the distortions sound pretty good especially compared to other units I tried.

Plastic case is the worst part. Haven't had any trouble but I don't play out with it either.

Never had to call them.

If you want something very versatile and very easy to program then this is what you want. Won't sound as good as the big processors but much easier to get the sound your looking for. A web page has been set up to swap settings at : http://www.voicenet.com/~tcuddy/ME30/

Oh oh! This looks to be a very negative review.

Every things AMAZING except for the Phaser, flange,P-shifter,and controlable pitch shifter(with the expression pedal) Phaser-just has one distinct sound to it Flange-after you put the know past 12 oclock you lose the pitch Pitch shifting qualities is to mechanical than organic. You lose the richness of the the sound. It gets too brittle

Never! Never! Never! never use it in an outdoor gig unless you're in the corner of the wall in the shade!!!! You can't see anything. If you're caught in this situation you better try to remember the order of your presets. I've never tried it in a dark nightclub cause I'm not that lucky to play in one(unless I was in the audience :P) This processor is mainly for domestic/studio use.

yeah right.

I'm glad I bought this just to expand my creativeness. I'd suggest you do the same.

The LCD screen is fantastic. Every thing is clear and editing patches is a breeze. The ability to swap patches round is a great idea and is easy to do.

I use the new yamaha pacifica guitar. Used through the humbucker pickup the ME-30 sounds fantastic. The tone is always clear are distrotion never gets too messy. If you want to sound like SLASH or GARY MOORE then this effects unit will save you having to buy a vintage LES PAUL. The rocker pedal sounds great too.

Construction seems solid enough. On a gig I would not use the pedal to contol volume as it is a bit too sensitive. The effects themselves have never failed me and the patch swiches are sturdy.

I origonaly used a zoom 1010. After buying this the zoom can go in the bin. The BOSS is way better, and comes with a rocker pedal. All the effects are fantastic. The phrase trainer that is built in is a great learning aid too. An all round brilliant effects unit.

The entire approach to the ME-30 was for ease of use. The LCD screen is very easy to use and I found myself creating and naming patches in no time. One of the best features is the ability to swap patches around and put them in an order of how you use them. One of the most helpful things for me straight out of the box was that I was able to take a nice sound from one of the 30 presets and tweek it and save it under another name rather than having to start from scratch. Boss has done a really good job of making the interface on the LCD work much like stomp boxes. If you can tweek a stomp box you can in no time edit the patches on the LCD.

I use two guitars with it: I use my Alvarez Yari Acoustic with a Martin Thinline Gold and my Fender Strat with a Jackson humbucker in the rear. Both get some great sound. I built some clean patches that sound great with both but also built a few for each guitar. For my Yari I found the quality was great with the chorus, delay, and a little equalizer. The Fender sounds impressive with the distortion, delay, and the flanger. If you like Boss's stomp boxes I found them to be almost virtually identical. I pulled out my Boss Stereo chorus and set them both exactly alike and could not tell the difference.

I have only had it a few months but havent had any problems with it. I carry it around a lot and hook it up and unhook it quite a bit. I am a little worried about the plastic casing over time. I would have preferred it be metal. Mainly the pedals. The volume pedal is plastic as well with rubber grips on it. When using the volume I have a hard time coordinating volume settings. The sensitivity of the pedal has a tendancy to move slightly when I pull off my foot.

I havent dealt with Boss's customer service. Most of what I have needed to know about it I found in the manual and various internet resources. The manual is written to drive you to other Roland products. For instance, I was buring quite a few batteries in it and was looking for a AC/DC adapter. I couldn't find any specs in the documentation on what ratings to get. The only information the manual gave was to get an approved Roland PSA adapter. I finally gave up and found the information on a newsgroup.

I mainly play acoustical music with some electric rhythmm stuff. The acoustic is primarily for chording and picking for church music and electric is for playing for just pick up gigs with a few other people. If I was a professional I would never even consider using it but for my purposes it exceeds my needs and I am very pleased.

This unit is very easy to use. It has 30 factory presets which are convenient to access because it has bank up and down pedals. You can also program 30 patches of your own. This is why I gave the unit a 9 instead of 10. It is simple to use once you read the instruction manual the whole way through. Edititing is simple now. Patches can be copied into the manual mode and edited, or they can be edited in edit mode. The tuner can be accessed by pressing both bank pedals at the same time, for tuning on stage. You can do it all in the darkness because of red lights and a liquid crystal display that glows in the dark. Each patch that you create can be named as well for easy identification of what sound you are on.

I use a Marshall JCM 900 50W combo and a Gibson SG. The EQ on my amp doesn't have much effect, so I use the EQ on my ME-30. The only problem with the EQ is that it can't be used at the same time as the phase shifter. The chourus, flanger, tremolo, and pitch shifter cannot be used at the same time either. But you probably wouldn't want to use these effects together anyway. I never used a noise suppressor before, but now I couldn't live without one. This can be set with a high or low threshold, so you can still maintain your great sustain. Every effect is very versatile. There are 7 different distortions which can all be adjusted for drive tone and level. So it is like having 7 different distortion pedals. The delay can be set on normal or pan for stereo delay, with up to 2 seconds. The reverb sounds better than Fender, and is more versatile. The expression pedal always amazes everyone that I show it to. The volume pedal can be set at two places. One will lower the volume as well as the distortion. The other will keep the drive at the same level, and only lower the volume. The wah pedal can be the same as if you had single pedals. You can make it so the wah is plugged in before your distortion, or after, to create different sounds. There are four settings for the whammy pedal. 1-the more the pedal is depressed, the lower the pitch, up to 1 octave lower. (Similar to a whammy bar). 2-the opposite of 1, it goes 1 octave higher. 3- the same as 1, but you get the altered pitch as well as the standard pitch of your guitar. 4-same as 3 but the octave goes higher. The ring modulator is the strangest effect that I have ever heard. It is difficult to use it tastefully. I do not know how to describe it except that it is really screwed up. If you listen to the band Radiohead then you have probable heard their vast range of effects. I have yet to come across a sound of their's that I cannot duplicate. I have sounds for Guns 'N Roses solo sound. The phase shifter is acceptionally good on clean tone. It makes me feel like the whole room is filled with water. The phrase trainer function is excellent. It records up to 12 seconds of music and slows it down to your desired speed without changing the pitch. I never would have been able to learn the Sweet Child 'O Mine solo without it.

I have only owned the unit for 5 months. I think I bought it right when it came out. I have had no problems with it.

I have never dealt with anyone at Boss but they make their stuff built to last so they're probably pretty decent guys.

I play all styles of music and the ME-30 is sufficient in producing a good solid sound. If it were stolen or lost, I would go out and buy the exact same unit. I have played the Zoom 3030 which is very similar and more expensive, but cannot compare in sound quality. I also tried the Boss ME-6. The ME-30 is similar, but has more effects, is easier to use, is more compact, and costs $300 less. It helps me to write songs. It is easy to create your own signiture sound.

This feature is very important to me. I have been playing guitar for 20 years and I've almost always used individual pedals. In the 1980's when processors first came out, I was scared to death of them. A couple of years ago I bought a Korg G-3. For what I wanted, it was the ticket. However, it was a bit limiting. The ME-30 isn't. It was easy to play with right out of the box; but my interest lies in creating my own patches. This was almost too easy to do. I read through the manual, created my patches, and thought, "No, this can't be all there is to it." But that was it. The manual is as user-friendly as the unit itself.

I play a multitude of styles. From super-pickin' country to bepop jazz to progressive rock ala Rush, Yes, & King Crimson. My main influences include Larry Carlton, Pat Metheny, Allan Holdsworth, & Brent Mason (recently) to name a few. So as you can see, with a list like that I need all the variety of sounds I can get. I play a Hot-rodded Telecaster most of the time; and it goes through a Fender Blues Junior amp. For my uses the sounds I want are very attainable. I don't need overly harsh distortion and I don't get it with this unit. For the most part the effects aren't as noisy as other units because of the digital signals (minus the OD/DIST.).

I haven't owned it long enough; but, I think that if it was taken care of it would last just like any other Boss product.

I haven't had to deal with them. They need an e-mail address. Then I might bug'em a bit.

I would use this unit anywhere and everywhere I could. I've read a lot of other postings and have realized that some people are too hard on their equipment. Oh well, to each his/her own. If it was stolen or lost I would replace it in a hurry. I appreciate its user-friendliness and the quality of the effects that are in it. There's not really anything I dislike about it except there is no way to really see the display in the dark. Oh well, when your handicapped you either cry about it or adapt. I will learn to adapt. I used to own a Korg G3. Most players don't like that unit; not enough power in the distortion. I liked it. The ME-30 is almost as easy to use but 20x more applications. I would like a unit made of metal but that would drive the cost up. I could have gotten a much higher-priced unit but I don't need 400 user patches with 47 effects. I would get lost. This unit doesn't have too much nor too little. It's just a great unit.

It is quite easy to get a reasonable sound with this device, the manual is very clear about how to edit a patch. The manual clearly explains how the effects work and what the parameters have on the desired effect

The setup I use is a Epiphone LP-100 and a Peavy Delta-Blues. The overdrives and distortions of the ME-30 are ranged from worthless to reasonable, but none of them sound really great. I found that the ring-modulator and the tremelo are quite unuseable when you're playing. The chorus, delay, reverb, phaser and flanger sound very good and you can use these effects to improve the sound of the od's en distortions to some extent. You can get close to almost any artist's sound

In my point of view you can depend on it when you use it for practice or rehearsel, but I would not trust it enough to gig with it. The expression pedal seems the most fragile oh the whole device, and I would advice not to use this pedal to roughly

The style I mostly play is blues/rock, and the ME-30 sees in my need for the sounds of this genre. I have been playing for +/- 2,5 years now. Beside the ME-30, I also own a Korg Pandora, Ibanez Tubescreamer and a Jim Dunlop Crybaby. I'm not entirely sure if I would replace it if it was stolen, it would depend on the amount of money I had to spend for a new device. The chorus is my favoutite effect and the ring-modulator is the worst. The best about the ME-30 is the easy to use interface and the fact that it is quite easy to get a reasonable to good sound out of it without having to read the manual. I have compared it with an Ibanez multi effect processor, a DOD tec 8 and a zoom 9002 pro. I chose the ME-30, because it sounded better and more powerfull then the other processors. I wished it had a intelligent harmonizer, better od's, distortions and a better wah-sound. It is not a perfect unit, but you could do much worse and it does help you to create a good sound and make your music sound better. If you are a beginning player and you don't have a lot of money to spare, then the ME-30 is a good option to get many sounds for little money.

It was advertised and reviewed as VERY easy, and it is extremely easy to use. I already got the hang of it in the store waiting for a salesman. My only gripe with Boss here as that changing from patch selection to specific effect selection on the 5 primary foot pedals has to be done by hand with a smaller button, which gets to be a bit of a pain. I did very much like the option to edit patches, and use a patch like a set of pedals, so you could turn effects on and off one at a time within a patch. Also, I dont like that with the five footpedals that control distortion, modulation, delay, reverb, and compression, there is no footpedal to shut off the EQ/PHASER effect. Lastly, the LED dispaly is fantastic; it makes it even easier to use, and leaves no stone unturned. My ONLY prob is that is glows in the dark; I would have greatly perferred that it be backlit similar to a Timex Indiglo watch or something...

Boss does it again! No complaints on the effects. The flange has the capability to be very strong or not so well defined. 8 different distortions and overdrives leave lots of room to play, and the metal distortion even closely resembles the famed boss metal zone, of which I am also a proud user. The wah-wah is a close match to a Dunlop Cry-Baby, especially when coupled with a distorion or compressor. For the price, the ring modulator is superb, as is the digital delay and reverb. My one complaint on the effects is that the pitch shifter sounds kinda crappy. For the money, it's good, and sounds better than the pitch shifter offered on some of the DOD multi-effects I've tried, but it is still too poor for studio. The amp simulator is actually pretty useful as I found out, and does a great job of simulating the color an amp adds. I honestly don't think you can do better for the money, Boss has outdone themselves here.

IT'S A BOSS. The boss individual pedals shouldnt even come with a warranty card. I know this ME-30 does, and I did fill it out and send it in, because this isn't housed in a small, sturdy, steel frame like the other Boss effects, but it's done pretty well for me in the last month I've been using it. It has traveled across the state a few times in the trunk of a car, been plugged in and stomped on at lots of jams and recordings without once screwing up. Its plastic, but the whole underside is metal. I do carry backups, but only distorion (Boss metal zone, that I live by) and a Dunlop Cry-Baby wah-wah (that I declined to trade in to pay for this thing). My usual set up is my Squier supersonic, through the wah-wah, through this pedal. I use the cry baby to keep the cry-baby authentic tone, but more importantly to preserve the life of the expression pedal on the ME-30. I couldn't tell you how dependable it is over a long stinit of shows, but that the ONLY thing I'm babying with this pedal. I trust boss!

As many Boss users will tell ya, these guys could hire the Maytag repair man if they wanted to. I've never needed any repair on a boss.

For the money, this is the best multi-effects deal on the market, if you ask me. Boss finally did right what DOD has tried to do all these years. I couldn't recommend it more.

It's one of the simplest boxes I've used to edit, all you have to know is what you want and it's a piece of cake to create the effects with all the virtual knobs and pedals that are shown on the "luminous display." the manual explaines everything you need to know, it's pretty staight foreward.

I have a Peavey guitar that I run through a peavey practice amp at home, but I play straight through a PA system just about everywhere else which makes it really nice to have the guitar amp simulator on. The noise supression on this unit is incredible, when I bought this I was upgrading from a Zoom 505 which can be pretty noisy but this box does an amazing job, some of the presets are pretty noisy but if you just turn up the noise suppresion when you are using distortions or compression. I like all the effects on here, the Distortions are pretty good, the reverb, chorus and delays are incredible, and I like the rest of the effects too, altough I'm still looking for a use of the Ring modulator.

I haven't had it very long but I would trust for all of my needs. Considering I wouldn't even be able to afford a backup this is pretty good, but even if I could I would trust it in a gig without one, and if you are running it on bateries the Batt Low starts flashing at least a half hour before it stops working

I have never had to get it worked on or deal with Roland, so I don't know.

I play all sorts of music and it seems to work well with all of them. I've been playing for a little over a year now, and that's about all the gear I own, but I'm quite happy with it. I would definetly replace this if it got lost or stolen unless I had a lot more money to spend at the time, but for the price this is a great unit. I really like the phrase trainer function that lest you record up to 12 seconds of music of CD or anything else for that matter and play it back at as slow as 25% while retaining the original pitch, although it starts to sound really funny when you get it that slow, especially if there are vocals or drums with it. I compared it to just about all pedals in it's price range. I chose this one over some, such as the DOD tec8 because I really liked the phrase trainer, and the large LCD display more than just the little red lights. I'm very impressed with all it has, and it really helps me get all the sounds I listen to on albumbs and on the raidio that I couldn't get before. This unit is definetly worth the buy if you are looking around this price range.

This is the first multi-effect I've got. Before, I tought that multi-effects were a pain in the ass so I didn't want to even think about getting one. Then I saw this one in a shop, tried it and bought it the next morning. Editing is very easy to do, only a couple of buttons to press and that all (2 or 3 buttons) I haven't read the manual, I never read manuals.

I use a Ibanez FGM w/ Traynor amp (1980's...) and THERE IS NO NOISE AT ALL! My amp doesn't have reverb so I was hooking up my old 8040 Marshall amp as a pre-amp and it was noisy. I use a Dunlop Wah-wha and a Dod Stereo flanger in the chain. The Me-30 is in the middle of the 3 effects. All the effects on the ME-30 sound good, maybe except the ring modulator because it is only a noise... I don't try to get the sound of anybody else. I set it up like I like it to sound. The distorsion impressed me. At first I tought that it was going to be weak, usely distorsion in multi-effect are cheap (thats what I heared) but the distorsion was good... maybe not as fat has it could be.

I'm not rich enough to get a backup and if it breaks down, too bad, I'll have to manage to get throu the gig anyway. I've been using it for a week now, everyday, minimum 5 hours. I don't play sitting down and I presse hard on the switchs and expression pedal, result: no crash, no injuries.

I play any music for 5 years. If I'd getting stolen, I'd get another one for sure. What I like the most is the screen and how easy it is to change effects. I mostly use it on manual mode. I compared it with DoD Tec4, a much cheaper machine but you can change the effects parameters. I wish there would be couple of more effect and more effects you could use at the same time.
I would like to exchange sound setup you could have made up. If interested, just e-mail me, address is below.

This pedal is very easy to get started with. Any of the 30 preset patches can be copied into a user patch and adjusted into a more usable sound. However, The "luminous" display, while very detailed and functional, is a real pain to read in low light conditions. The display can be "charged up" under a light bulb (not mentioned in manual), but fades out far too quickly.

At first I hated the shrill and edgy sound of my distortions patches, but later discovered how to adjust the EQ settings, in conjuntion with the distortion level and tone controls to produce vary pleasing tones from SRV to ZZTOP. The Wah E-pedal "feels" alright, however, it tends to make your favorite patches sound too bright and piercing without some added patch "tweeking". It would have been better if they had made the Wah "on" all the time, and you just step on it to activate it (like a normal Wah), instead of having it already activated as soon as you select a patch with a Wah in it. Actually, my E-pedal wouldn't turn off and on at first, however I found a trim pot inside that varied the trigger point of the "virtual" switch and was able to properly adjust it. (There are 2 trim pots inside the pedal, one controls the E-pedal's off/on point and the other adjusts some parameter of the goofy ring modulator). Although, most of the pedals effects sound very good when properly adjusted for your guitar and amp, I thought the chorus lost it's cyclic "swish" too easily when distortion was added, and if the E-pedal is not placed in the line-up correctly the low tones become "digital" sounding. I was very disapointed in the guitar and Aux. input playback level through headphones. Even when the CD player is set to maximum volume, I can hardly hear it's sound through the headphones connected to the ME-30, and the guitar sound level is even worse. After sorting through a bunch of headphones I was able to find a pair that brought the CD sound up to a usable level. However, with the guitar, I have to raise the master level of my patches from around 70 to 100 to get a reasonable sound level in the headphones. Hey BOSS, listen to a Zoom 9002 Pro to hear how good a DSP effects processor can sound through headphones. Wished the phase shifter wasn't grouped with the EQ, this makes you have to select one, or the other, but not both. Would like to see another headphone jack for jamming with someone with another headphone amp. I really like being able to label the patches with a disciptive name instead of just a number (now if I could just read them in the dark). Being able to copy and exchange patches easily is a big win. Should have come with a wall wart at no extra cost.

As a Mechanical Engineer, I would have prefered a metal enclosure, however, my experience is that this kind of thick walled, injection molded structural foam is very strong and quite durable. Would I gig with this pedal and no back up, of course not. But then, I'm not sure I would trust any pedal that far. Always pack an extra distortion pedal, if nothing else. I give this pedal an assumed "10" for reliability based on a long standing partnership with several other BOSS pedals in my collection.

I called BOSS once to find out if the display should actually glow on it's own (electro-luminesent), or if it had to be charged up under a light bulb. The tech seemed to be able to answer my questions as long as I phrased them in a way that he could just reply "yes", or "no". Never could find a E-Mail address for BOSS, or Roland. If you know of one, please E-Mail it to me.

I enjoy playing Texas Blues, however, the band I'm in plays "classic rock", so I needed a very versatile pedal, and being married w/child, I needed something inexpensive without being cheap. I think I found it in the ME-30.
Disclaimer : Even though I ran on a bit about this pedal's short-commings, all would be right in the world, if BOSS would just put a stupid back-lighted display in it ! What were they thinking ?
For those of you interested, I think it may be possible to use double back tape to attach a little book light to the back of the pedal that would shine just enough light on the display to be able to view it on a poorly lit stage.
PS If anyone knows of a site exchanging patch settings, or posting tips for programing the ME-30, please E-mail me.

You really don't even need the manual to get started. The manual is pretty good though. The ME-30 is all icon based. You choose your effect and turn virtual knobs to whatever settings you want. Creating patches is really easy. Just adjust your "pedals" and the write button.

I'm using this with a Fender Squier Strat through a Crate GX15R and the sounds are great. The overdrive and distortions are nothing spectacular but the chorus is great as is the delay. The flanger, phaser, eq, wah are all good as well. The factory presets vary. Some are pretty cool and usuable, but most are too far out there. fortuneatly, it's easy to create your own.

It's plastic but sturdy. Perfect for home/studio use.

I called Roland a few times asking about the ME-30 and they were very nice and helpful.

Well, this is a great unit for the beginner or intermediate player. I've been playing for about a year and this is my first multi-effect and I'm quite satisfied with my purchase. I would buy it again. It's a great value.
I've set up a Me-30 webpage for swapping settings. the address is: http://members.tripod.com/~grzymala/me-30/

The ME-30 is really easy to use. You shouldn't have any problem figuring it out without a manual... well, everything but the manual mode. You have to copy a patch into the manual memory before you can use it. Why did Boss do it that way? Why not just click on the manual button and enjoy the current patch in manual mode? Not a real big setback folks. :)

I've used the ME-30 with a couple of setups. If your guitar is quiet, the ME-30 will be very kind to your signal, but even with a noisy guitar... you'll still have a fairly quiet output. The distorsion is probably the noisiest effect.. but I don't use the distorsions anyway. They're awfully harsh. Really, really harsh. I'm afraid I'd hurt someone's ears if I gigged with this thing (using distorsions). The "heavy" and "metal" distorsions are probably my favorites.. even though I don't really listen to any metal. The other effects are nice! The chorus is really, really nice. The wah suits me good. The tremolo, reverb, delay, flanger.. those all work out pretty good too. I'm almost positive the ring modulator is useless. Not to mention annoying. The pitchshifter is OK. I think there is a tiny tracking delay. Not only that, but when you pitch up an octave.. it doesn't sound completely natural. The whammy bar effects (basically a pedal version of the pitchshifter) work just fine, but I don't use them that much. The EQ works great, and I love the phaser. The amp simulator does its job. The recording quality of the phrase trainer is nice as well.

I've had the unit for a couple of months now.. It seems pretty darn reliable. It is plastic.. but it's built well enough. The expression pedal seems pretty secure to me. I'd gig without a backup.. but I'd watch my step.

no problems. no help needed.

I generally don't play other people's songs.. so the me-30 suits my style well enough, but I don't usually write with effects on. I've got a fuzzy ross distorsion box.. it saves me when I get sick of the me-30's crappy distorsions. If it were lost or stolen, I'd spend the money on individual stompboxes. I feel as if the multieffects gig was the wrong route. I love the wah, I hate the distorsions. It's a decent box for the price.
Alright, here's where I give advice. Please! play with this box and all its competitors THOROUGHLY before you spend hundreds of dollars on an effects unit. I'd also recommend that you buy individual stompboxes. This way, you can pick out your tonal colors one-by-one instead of having to depend on a predetermined palette of sounds.

I'm loving it. Its easy to set your own patches but at times you might screw up and accidentally delete it.The manual was quite helpful figuring out the phrase trainer and such. I was, however, intending to use the Phrase trainer for a drumloop but you don't get to use the modulation in the guitar mix. you get just the distortion e/q and noise suppression. I hooked up the computers speaker output to the input and put on a drumloop so i could fiddle with modulation. A very cool thing esp. with ring-mod. This could be usefull if you're a DJ or something.
What i want to see in this is the Compressor button(bank down) to be replaced with E/Q/Phazer. Who the hell wants to turn off and on the compressor?!?! I want the mix tremolo with flange or chorus or pitch shifter! I want to turn off and on the Ring Mod. and the Arms!!! just like the wha could! What the hell were they thinking?! Its just that easy to give it to the rest of the exprssn pedal effx!

Some bad stuff are- Chorus+Flanger kinda gets your sound out of tune if you setup the rate or the depth to high. - The Tremolo Arm( thats not right,its supposed to be called whammy arm) is pretty cool but because of the material used for the express pedal the peak can only be reached when you press with the your toes and keep you heel suspended above the unit so all pressure is at the top of the expres-s ion pedal.and use your heal and press down hard at the bottom of the ex.predal. to get the low if it. if you don't do this then you pitches won't be accurate.
-I wish the put a limiter on this cause when your phazer or flange or chorus is at its juiciest set- ting it starts to get very loud.
Im using a Peavey Studio Pro 112 BTW. I play mostly Pumpkins,Teaparty and Im very satis fied with the effects. So if you know these bands you know this pedals worth the bucks.
All the FX kick ass except for the Distortions. I like the FUZZ though its pretty rich and the one of the OD sounds alot like my amps OD so thats good.
I give nine cause a limiter was needed.

I could depend on this thing cause I got an adapter for it. I suggest boss make this this metallic so it can support the Xpressing pedal.

I'd rather not talk to these people. They are molemen.

I've been playing for about 4 yrs w/o NEthing but a metal zone and a Wha-wha and this unit is the 1st fx i've ever used.but I've have tried alot of Fx over the yrs so you can trust my critique. My style of playing is like Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins with a twist of Jeff Martin from the Teaparty(great Canadian band! check'em out! but they're known world wide Neway) If it were stolen,would I replace it? I got no job so it'll take quite a long time of saving lucky money (a chinese tradition) and stealing....oops.not supposed to say that. My fav feature on this has to be the delay! as you decrease the milli seconds on a delayed signal the signal speeds up but it doesn't lose pitch! FUN! Hours of usage is require by the psyche.

For a unit with buttons instead of knobs (pretty much a necessity for multiple effects) this is one of the most straightforward boxes I've used, mainly due to the custom LCD readout which shows pictures of simulated knobs. I would have given a 9 if it were possible to tweak the ME-30 on stage or at practice. However, since the LCD is not lighted, tweaking in the dark requires getting on your hands an knees with a flashlight. The LED which shows the number of the current program is very easy to read on stage though, and setting up your patches on your own time is not that terrible a requirement. My solution would be to give the unit a power supply and a light and add a few bucks to the price. Eventually I would love to see products that use wall warts suffer in the marketplace.

The distortions and most of the presets using them are absolutely hideous. I can't imagine anyone who could use them. Therefore, for anyone considering this unit for complete preamplification, I would say to look elsewhere. As much as I love BOSS pedals, and I've owned about all of them, I think distortion has always been their weakest effect, and these are far worse than average. That said, I didn't give sound quality the 5 that it probably deserves because I play blues through a Mesa Boogie Mark IV, so I don't need distortion anyway. As far as the other effects go, although the sound and flexibility might be slightly inferior to individual pedals, I am generally satisfied. I especially like the chorus, and the delays and reverbs are fine. Most importantly, this unit doesn't either overload digitally or thin out the body of your guitar and amp--maybe because of its 20-bit processing.

I haven't had any problems, but this box is not as tough as a regular BOSS pedal. I don't mind the plastic case too much, but I'm really afraid of the jacks snapping when somebody steps on one of the input or output plugs. I use right angle plugs just to be safe. I'm also a little worried about someone stepping on the plastic-housed glass LCD. But what can you expect at this price?

I faxed a question and got a helpful phone call within two days. I would have preferred emailing my question, but not being able to find an email address at the BOSS site was somewhat aggravating.

I'm generally pretty critical, so an 8 means I think this unit is a good deal for the money and I'm glad I bought it. If I were a heavy user of effects I'd probably get a GT-5 or maybe some other manufacturer's rack or floor unit. But for an intermediate, budget minded player or a casual effects user, I think this unit is a winner. Since I pretty much use only the time-oriented effects, I can throw this box in my loop and not have to worry about assembling half a dozen stompers every time I set up. And it's fun every once in a while to turn peoples heads with something weird like radical bends or ring modulation.

I must say, I waited over a month for my store to get this unit, and boy it was worth the wait. Imagine it, a small BOSS unit that replaces 16 pedals. All that was needed was take it out of the box, plug it in (I already had the power supply)and start playing. I did glance at the manual very briefly, but after a couple of minutes, you'll be creating your own user patches in no time. What I did see in tha manual would be very helpful. As far as the sounds, the factory settings are a little out there. Out of the 30 factory settings, maybe 15 are useful. You have to figure that BOSS is just trying to show the wide spectrum of this unit. The unit is set up with 30 preset patches and 30 user patches. To start with , the 30 user patches are the same as the preset ones, but you can change these and save them the way you want to. Like I mentioned earlier, creating your own patches are a breeze.

I curently use a Fender LoneStar with a Fender Deville Amp. The sounds that this thing puts out are mixed. It does have some weak points. The distortion gets a mixed rateing from me. There are I think 7 different types of distortions from blues to grundge. Since I use a tube amp I probably won't be using the distortion portion of this unit. But if I need a funky kind os distortion, I know I can go here a find one. EQ and phaser work very well. as do the modulation portions, i.e chorus, flanger, tremelo and pitch shifter. Probably my biggest beef with this thing is that you can't mix the modulation and EQ/phaser. By ths I mean that you can't have the chorus and flanger on or even the pitch shifter. You'll just have to play with it and try to get the best mixture that will suit your tastes. One neat thing about this unit is that you can name your patches. I currently play classic rock with a wide range of artists from Steely Dan, Tom Petty to the Guess Who. After I created my patch I then named it to display the artist i.e Petty-12 (Tom Petty 12 string). But i'll still need to remember where it is because ou really won't be able to read it on the stage. The LCD panel is NOT backlit. There is also an expression pedal on this unit, but I won't be using it much other than volume control.

Well it is a BOSS so it must be good. When my freind saw the unit, the first thing out of his mouth was that it was plastic. Now i'm not that big of a guy and I don't plan to dance on this thing, so it should hold up. The only thing that I can see breaking on it is the expression pedal, but since I'm not going to be using it much I should have no worries. I have all the confidence in the world on this so I see no need for a backup. I do wish it were made in the standard BOSS metal caseing though. Peace of mind I guess.

Never had to call BOSS in the past for pedals I had before so I don't see a change in that.

You can't beat the price for what you get. OK so it does have it's faults, but they can be worked around. It is worth every penny. IF given the chance, and if needed, I would buy this unit again. Buy it, enjoy it!

No complaints - very intuitive and easy to use.

Using a 69 Telcaster and a Starfield US Altair. Modulation and echo/delay effects are very good although I don't see the point of a ring modulator.
The distortion was weak and was very 'one sound' I didn't like them at all, the basic tone was very brittle and harsh. To a certain extent I'm annoyed at myself for being so easily impressed in the shop but it may have had something to do with the guitar they gave me to try it, a Thinline with humbuckers. If you normally use a single coil pick-up guitar, check it with one of them as it may have an influence on the overall tone. The noise gate suffers from charge pumping which can be annoying at times. The tuner is very good and easy to read. Expression pedal works well too.

Still early days.

Not used

Overall its OK. Basic distortion is pretty grim but the delays and modulation compensate for that. If your looking for a variety of distortions, you might be better looking elsewhere, however if your looking for good delays, reverbs, choruses and pitch shifting/detuning it's pretty good.
WOuld I buy one again? Nah! In fact I'm considering selling it and buying a Korg AX30G which are going cheap at the moment and offer much better distortions (but rubbish chorus and a silly expression pressure switch, but my old foot volume pedal should fix that)

Although this guy comes with directions, they are far from necessary. I took him out of the box and started playing right away. VERY easy to use. Everything you need to do is right there. I'm still in high school and I left the box in the band room and a fellow guitar player started messing with it. Within 5 minutes he had it mastered and was editing patches with ease. It's like having 10 pedals in front of you.

I use a Fender Strat Squier through a Peavy 112 bandit. The noise suppressor is excellent for open coil pickups. The presets, like on all products could be better, still they're pretty cool. I prefer to run it on manual mode where its like having the boxes there. This box is excellent for recording whereas manual mode is excellent for live performances. You can manipulate sounds from Dick Dale to Lenny Kravitz.

I only have one gripe. My ac adaptor does not work. This won't be a problem because the music store i go through will fix this for no charge. Other than this it seems very reliable. VERY VERY VERY low battery life. It's like 2 or 3 hours

If my music store can't fix my ac adaptor problem, then heads will roll at roland headquarters.

I overall LOVE it. I sit in my room till midnight with my headphones with this baby and write all night. Since it takes batteries, you use it on long car rides and such.

It is pretty easy to get some good sounds out of this guy. Editing patches is something you need to set sometime aside (not much), because you can thoroughly get your bandmembers upset if you do this at practice. The manual covers everything, but I had to read through it a couple of times to understand all of the features.

I use a PRS CE-24 into a Fender Super 60 w/ a Marshall 1960a 4x12. The box can be noisy, I agree with the guy that said to set the unit's volume between 20-40. I hated the distortion, but I have never really found a distortion that sounds natural in a pedal. I guess if you like pedal distortion, you might like the distortions on the ME-30. If you think this will replace the distortion on your tube amp - forget it. The good effects : phaser, compressor, noise supp, chorus, flange, delay, and tremelo wasn't too bad either.

Boss makes great pedals. I've owned several over the years, and I don't expect problems with this one either. Even though it's plastic, you just need to be a little careful (i.e. - don't stack the PA mains on top of it in the van!).

I play alternative pop, and I'd say it's a good fit for what I needed. I would probably replace it if it was lost.
I compared it to all of the other multi effects products that just came out (DOD, Digitech) and it was the easiest to use and I think the sound quality was better too.
I wish the expression pedal was just a little bigger and the wah wasn't so hard to turn off. I wish the display was easier to read. I wish there was an accoustic simulator, better pitch shifter, and the headphone out was a little louder.

Very easy to use although not quite as easy as my old DOD FX-7. Once I started tweaking the patches, I found that the advantages of the ME-30's flexible users interface out-weigh the lacking controls of the FX-7.

Very good. At first, I wasn't too impressed, but once I started creating and storing a suite of "practical" effects, I was very pleased with what the box could do. Don't judge this multi-effect by what the manufacturer has pre-set for you. From my research, Boss is the only manufacturer that has figured out "amp simulation". The box does a great job when you don't use an amp and are doing direct-in recording and performance. As far as the distortions, I play a Fender Strat and have found "Vintage" produces a very tasteful/clean distortion. However, I don't recommend this box for "grunge" players. This was not an issue with me as I have no interest in grunge anyway. All the effects individually are very good. Boss has done a great job in giving the impression that I am controlling a rack of pedals. They have also done a great job in allowing ME-30 users the complete control over each pedal. This is the main reason I upgraded from the DOD FX-7. Like all effect units, there is a little noise when combining several effects at once (no surprise). The noise gate does a nice job at eliminating most all of it. I'm giving the box a "9" because I had to work a bit at it to get the sounds that I wanted.

So far, so good. I've owned it about a week now. The footprint is small and seems very durable.

No issues

I don't want to say "For the money, this box is great...blah,blah,blah" because, it doesn't do the box any justice. In my opinion, this is all the box that 90+% of musicians would require. It offers a lot of flexibility because of the user interface and "complete control" over each effect. This is all most musicians are looking for anyway. Plus you get a functional expression pedal all in a "compact package" which puts the ME-30 in the lead over the ME-8 and Digitech RP-7 in my opinion. Yes, I would definitely buy this product again.

Its very easy to use. Out of the box it sounds good, the patches are easy to edit, didn't need the manual for that, its not rocket science. The manual was helpful in the area of copying and exchanging patches between locations.

I think it sounds great. I was leary of using the mono out, I thought ME-8 didn't sound so hot mono, but this guy cooks. I initially set my first patches at low volume, that was probably a mistake, at normal volume there were too many highs. Alot of good bite to it though . It is dramatically quieter than the zoom equivalent. It even sounds ok with my acoustic.

I think I can depend on this, Boss has a good history. I wouldn't use a backup. The battery life is low.

I have one other Boss pedal, and have never had any trouble.

This processor looks like it will do all the tricks I need it to do. I would buy another if it were stolen. The battery life is horrible, not even 2 hours, and that is inexcusable, Boss should have used the battery compartment to add more effects, and made the darn thing 120v powered. I will have to buy an adapter, that stinks!
All of the factory patches sound good, but not all of them can be used to play music, I mean if you wanna drive your parents crazy or have your wife make you move your amp to the shed for practice then Boss has come to your rescue with a couple of noises. I mean really, what good is a board of effects if you cant turn all the knobs up to 11(or in this case 100) ever once in a while.
Some of the overdrives sound like distortion, especially through headphones.
I chose this pedal over the me-8 because of the on-board expression pedal, and over the zoom 8080 because of the noisy nature of the zoom.
The phrase trainer does a good job of slowing down the licks while maintaining pitch. It was hard to get a good level between recorded lick and guitar while using the headphones.

The ME-30 is really easy to use. It doesn't take long to work out how to edit the presets. The manufacturers have tried to duplicate the stomp-box knob interface on the display with an analogue gauge as well as a digital reading which is far far better than the ME-8. I remember reading somewhere that the LCD was luminous, but it's just got some of the glow in the dark stuff on it, so if you hold a bright light next to it, you can read it for a few minutes in the dark, but there isn't a lot of point because you can tell which patch you have it on from the LED display. By pressing both bank switches at once you can get the tuner which is handy.

Somewhere I heard that everything in it was digital, including the distortion effects but the manual says otherwise. Everything works pretty well; the pitch shifter is okay but there is the slightest of delays which you'd expect for something of this price. I haven't worked out why they put in the ring modulator (the guy at the shop said that one day I might come across a song where I might just need that effect, yeah right) The more effects you have switched on, the noisier it is, but if you have every effect on it sounds kind of shocking (at least it did for me :) so that's not a big problem. One thing it lacks that the ME-8 does is a feedbacker which I just thought of but you'll live without it I guess.

It seems strong enough. To turn on and off the wah effect you have to push the expression pedal very hard which is a bit dodgy but it doesn't feel like it's going to break.

The phrase trainer is probably one of the nicest things about this one, you can record twelve seconds of audio from a line-in socket and annoy everyone in the house for hours on end by replaying it over and over and over. It slows things down to as much as quarter of the speed but it gets a bit choppy and hard to hear, but at 75% speed you can make out everything without problems. It doesn't have as many effects as the ME-8, notably the intelligent harmonizer, but it does cost a lot less and BOSS aren't making ME-8s any more. Some of the presets are bizarre but you can save 30 of your own. It doesn't come with a powerpack (batteries included though) so you might want to try hassling the shop to throw one and also a new lead in. Maybe you'll have more luck than I did.

I bought this pedal after trying a few like the ME - 8, and so on. I like this pedal because it offers such a wide range of sounds. Some of the preset patches are not too bad, but it is really easy to create your own original sounds. I misplaced my manual right away, but had no problem working everything. The only beef I have is I was led to believe that the display is easily read, but while standing it is tough unless at the perfect angle. The display also has a feature that it lights up in the dark, but this also did not really live up to the hype. Other than those small things, this pedal rules!

The are so many different effects that you can make you guitar fart or cry and everything in between. The effects that are included are compression, 8 distortions/overdrives, chorus, phaser, 2 reverbs, EQ, 2 delays, pitch shifter, flanger, tremelo, wah - wah, whammy bar, and ring modulator.

It's made of plastic, but I'm not smashing the hell out of it. I don't see any problems arising.

Boss products are reliable. so I don't plan on needing to contact the company, but the dealer was great.

I love this product. It is very versatile, cheap and provides fun, fun, fun. I highly recommend it.

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.