Boss ME-33

Easy to use once you read the manuals.

Very versatile sound,(metal, rock, country) can create lots of tones and sounds. Great with any type of amp, because of it's amp simulator. Wide range of distortions.. (overdrive to metal amp simulator really gives a fine distortion metal sound) and chorus, delay, reverve.. anytime you can imagine.

Really dependable, even me-33 alone can withstand every musician's need.

Great gear... been playing over a decade, rock ,blues, metal.. also been using a varity of stomp boxes. The only sad thing is , it is not made of any metal casing. But still a great gear to start or even a long time player...

Once the manual is used and you learn a bit about it, its pretty simple

I couldn't imagine anyone using this without tweaking the sounds. I'm still trying to get a distortion im happy with, the distortions for some I found were a bit overdone and too noisy

I can confidently use this without fear of it presenting problems. If I upgrade it will still be a good backup.

N/A

I found the unit to be reliable, I don't take the best care at times and its lasted me a couple of years gigging and jamming. The manual was easy to follow and is nessecary to get the best from it. The clean effects are good however I haven't been able to get a distortion Im entirely happy with, I try and bypass for this when I can. It is annoying how this can't be doen whilst playing (bypass switch isn't foot operated). The transfer between effects is pretty clean. It has been the perfect introduction for gigging but am now wanting more in the way of quality in effects and features such as fade outs and a proper bypass.

ok...you have got to read the manual before understanding what is going on at the pedalboard. i tried without reading and i get no where with it.
editing was easy but the only problem is the knobs, if u were to make changes to previous settings you have to turn is back to zero then from there turn to the desired value which makes it irritating.
the manual was easy to read and understand, clear-cut explainations.

my setup are as follows: Epiphone SG > crybaby > MT2 > Fish & Chips EQ > Boss ME-33 > peavey studio pro 112. all pedals are powered by visual sound 1spot adapter.

It gets noisy when i added in the ME33 in my rig. could be due to the adapter i'm not too sure either.
the effects are not-bad quality, of course not very good as compared to analogs but this is a multi effects which u cant compare with analogs. It doesnt sound like shit either as compared to those cheapo multi effects.

One thing which i don't like about it. you cant activate the bypass function with any of the footswitches. There is only a small button to switch to bypass mode. So here comes the problem, i wanted to use the ME33 modulation effects but not the distortion where i can get from my MT2. Therefore i preset everything...stomp on my MT2 and then i cant access the patches within the ME33 when it is on bypass mode. You have to exit the bypass mode first to activate the play mode then you can change patches here and there.

i've used zoom GFX8 before, it allow u to bypass when you step on the footswitch which you are currently using. As in you off the patch you're using and it goes automatically to bypass and tunner mode. Which is appparently more suitable for me. i can activate the effects as and when by stomping on one of the footswitch patches and there i have it.

i can depend on it.
gig without a backup is a no problem.
but as you know..this is made of plastic so it wont last in the long run if you are a hardcore user who doesnt take special care of your gears.

i've never encounter any problem with my ME33 yet. therefore i've never visited or call up the company

i play metalcore, blues, and funk
if it's stolen i will not get it replaced again
since i'm only using modulation effects from multi effects processor i'm consider the small Zoom GFX-1 which is very handy and it has all the basic effects. and of course bypass mode is easier to access as and when i wan the effects to jam in.

the mfx has a lot of effects in it. it also has a bit of effect selection for you to choose (fx1 and fx2) and i bet you can get a quality sound out of it. for editing patches, this is a total loser, you cant really tweak the effect at once. the trick is you should go " past"to the original "knob" value of a parameter for it to get around somewhere (you'll know it when you get one). The manual i got is japanese, but all in all if you got time to learn the mfx (lets say 30 mins or so), youll get into the basics. but the thing is if you use its "quick edit" thing, believe me itll get you through most of your rough times specially on the "tone" section (just make sure you have an eq in your fx chain :) ). ill give it a 6 coz its hard on the knees to edit it in "edit" mode.

I have a handful of guitar and i want to review the Boss Me-33 alone.. i have used it thru a marshall jcm900 combo. it isnt noisy "if" you dont really overdrive your drive settings. the effects seemed good but what i really dont like are some of its effects like.

wah - reason is untweakable. but can qualify as nice.
acoustics - also untweakable. but can qualify as nice.
metal (dist)- too mids, too fat alone, not gainy though
dist/fuzz (dist) - not my type
pitch shifter - it cant simulate pitch shifting nicely, it sounds horrible..
auto riff- this is shit, but usable in a weird way.

but all in all, if you know chain effects then you wont get any trouble getting nice sounds. because the effects here sounds incredibly unbelievable for a processor.

it sounded really like of an analog (if you go through the headphones) you can really hear your guitar's characteristics, it is "unharmed".

when im practicing, i usually use the effect pickup sim (single coil)>blues driver> eq > Match (matchless sim)>reverb and i cant believe it when i turn my guitars volume to lets say 3-4 i can get a somehow acoustic tone to it, and if i scoop my guitars volume to 10 and i can get a somewhat like shredmasters stack!. the pickup sims works!!, it can sound like a telecaster or a stratocaster.. but still you cant beat the real thing, only using this can somehow minimize the changing of guitars.. if you tweak it right you can get mostly the best, and i dont overgain my settings a nice combination of 40-50 gain is nice enough.

when im into shredding, i use pickup sim (humbuckers = 100 **to beefup the tone)> Od >Eq> Ms stack (i dont know but it somehow sounds like a Mesa rectifier)> Reverb. i have a total gain of again, 40-50. and if tweaked correctly (or tweaked from the quick edit), youll get an amazing tone, i can sound like michael angelo batio, if i want to, or go doing petrucci solos. but i create my own tone so nothing to worry about trying to be somebody im not, its sound is damn right amazing and REMEMBER use Overdrives only if you use your AMPS real gain, not DISTORTIONS or METAL DRIVES because it will really get muddy!! (also in a real dist>amp situation). listen to my new recordings at www.soundclick.com/sidpablo

i will try to give comments on the effects i mainly use .


pickup sims - this is really awesome you can sound both (single coils or humbuckers). the single coil somehow sounds like more of a telecaster. and sometimes i use the humbucker emulation to give more tone to the input signal.

FX1/fx2 = i cant remember all of the effects but will try to give some reviews on it

comp - compresses sound nicely, good for jazz type solos, but doesnt sustain long enough.

phaser - is nice and tweakable, can get a little bit out of hand if not tweaked correctly.

eq - has a tweakable mid-Q for more shape. and is very useful when in quick edit mode (though ive noticed that only the highs and the lows are being tweaked and the middle/mid-q is left behind)

humanizer - is a nice auto=talker, try to experiment with this one.

od-Fat-blues - i like all of these od/ds types, the od is bright and has a nice mid, the fat has scooped mids, and the blues is downright like the blues driver, it has a tubey tone!!, thats why i cant believe my ears is hearing this from a processor. this is great if added thru an amp simulation

AMP MODELs - all are passable, not the exact though but passable as is, youll get the twin/match for clean sounds, then you have the BG/MS stack and METAL drive for extreme sounds. the BG sounds too thick to me but can be shaped up using the right settings, the MS has a nice bright sound that can go to about every sound possible, the metal drive is dark and good for heavy riffs, but i love the Ms stack way much better.

MOD

chorus/flanger/trem - its because i hardly use modulations, ill try to give some comments to it. the chorus is nice, you can sound like pantera if you tweak it

a bad thing in this pedal comes when used in a program, like patch 1,2,3.. if you go from patch 1 to 2 or 3, there is a scissor cut on the sound.. similar to zoom products.. this is bad, though you can get the trick by using dlys as it passes through the patches, somehow making it seamless. another is the manual mode, yep you can eliminate the cut though but when you trigger the amp pedal and the mod pedal, problem is the magnificent scissor cut comes in full throttle, making the manual mode... boink...

the whole mfx is plastic, and the pedal really doesnt stay full, most likely on the pitch shifting, but on the wahs and volumes they are sturdy (i dont know maybe the guitars altering something or so..) but the patch switches seems heavy duty (though its plastic) it doesnt show any sign of malfunction.

but i wont gig without backup, ill atleast bring a lighter mfx like an ax10g or so. but the main thing is always bring backup even a good old 505 will do, if youre into gigging without your own amp..

i think it will break if not handled properly, im using a boss psa-100 adaptor with it so i think it wont die on me that easily (good power supply means stable,long life unit), so atleast ill give it like 7 more years and if so... over that period, dont rely on it anymore.

2nd hand, just trying to hear this unit. though no online manual is available, ill give it a 2 for that,

got it repaired?? dunno..

for 5 years prior to its manufactured date, ill give it an additional 7 more years. and i think boss wouldnt even recognize this model.. stupid boss company not giving an online manual for a discontinued product, not good at all.

ok im a solo artist and you can here my music at.. listen to my music recorded through a boss-me33 (www.soundclick.com/sidpablo ) (the first and second went through the boss me-33, the others were recorded thru a zoom gfx-8 as is).

im into a lot of music influences, i went on straight Rnb, Jazz/Blues, Rock/Metal, Alternative/Emo anything that has guitar on it. my main influences are mostly shredders but i strive to get a better career out of guitar playing through my own fretworks. ive been playing almost 10 years now and went through a lot of mfx's but boss me-33 somehow delivers an "excellent sound" with bad programmability/reliability and casing. no wonder they discontinued these products

if it were stolen, still i would get mad, cause it can still be used as a chain of effects (can get a possible of 3 modulations +DLY+REV+noisesuppressor+FOOTpedal presets), i think id rather save some money on a podxt live, buy looking at the picture of the unit it seems that it has all that is needed. but still i would get another or a used gt-3 just for the modulations and etc..

i love the sound quality, but programming it and using it live is not good at all, with all that scissor cutting shit, it is pretty annoying. the quick edit feature somehow is reponsive and is the best way to edit fast.

hmm comparing it with something like the gfx-8 or ax1500g it comes close with an ax1500g, only good thing about the me-33 is the array of effects and good sound quality. other than that i think ax1500g blows this unit in simplicity/reliability. but gfx-8 wont come any closer to the boss me-33, only with its hard metal casing.


I only wish it had better programmability, and the scissor cutting shit shouldnt be there (older me's doesnt have these shitty cutting) and the new me-50 isnt worth the money with only a few pedals to work with and not good programmability too PLUS it has no equalizer... shit...

it made music with me if youre trying to ask.. listen www.soundclick.com/sidpablo (first two songs used with boss me-33).. and maybe more to come)..

all in all, it definitely guarantees an excellent sound quality, if tweaked properly, if you are not that patient in getting any nice tone out of it, chances are youll have a thin or muddy sound with it.

i hope this doesnt sound like a bias review..

The menu and features are really very well laid out. Navigation certainly isnt a problem. The LCD display makes life so much easier since you can immediately see the effects which are chained together. But havent spent too long with the product. Still discovering it, hence will rate it an 8 right now. Will probably come back and post another review when I am more familiar with it.

As already mentioned by some others, the feature where you HAVE to turn the knob past the original value is really annoying and a bit defeating. That way you do discover what the original value of a parameter was but once you have tweaked from there you cant get back to it. Unlike this the AX1000G (which I also have) displays a small "ORIG" in the display EVERYTIME the original value of the parameter is dialled in with a knob.

I am a little concerned about the sound. The first thing is a very audible buzz which I get the moment I switch on the unit. I realised that I am not using an original BOSS PSA 120 adapter but what the heck, that same adapter works perfectly with my Korg 1000G !!

And since I am plugging my acoustic into the ME-33 the buzzing becomes quite untolerable after a while. Hook it into a PA and you may as well pack and go home.

I'll try and get a better quality adapter and check this thing again. Till then I have my doubts about the sound.

The patches weren't too exciting either. I tried to tweak the knobs for distortion/EQ/compression but they seemed largely unresponsive. At certain points I ACTUALLY thought that the knobs were not working. But the display shows a change in value whenever I tweak a knob. Then what could the problem be ?

Consider this, I dialled in SUSTAIN to full on the compressor and even then my guitar wasnt sustaining for more than 3-4 seconds. And the noise gate was off.

I am quite spooked with this thing. But since it is just a month old I am determined to spend time with it before I write it off.

Well, with the buzzing problem which comes and goes I am not sure if I can plug it into a PA in a live setting. It looks decently sturdy for live use otherwise.

Not dealth with them. But I really wish Boss would create a special section for archived products on its site. Its common sense really. It helps in evaluating their newer models better if we can go back and compare with the older versions, which we may have used.

I play both rock and acoustic but why I bought this pedal was for the latter. Its just a month old so am still trying to get to know the processor and get decent patches made for it. Personally speaking, the buzzing problem because of the adapter is a HUGE let down since it seems to be quite uncurable. The idea of shelling out extra chips for the adapter is silly. We musicians are always on a budget. If we could shell out another $25 dollars for an adapter then we could also wait and buy the GT-6. Besides this is cheap marketing. You are just hiding an important element of the cost only to surprise the customer later. This is like saying "use original fender strings on a fender guitar or else it wont ever get tuned".

ok the unit is definitely cool when using the quick edit knobs.... but when you go to editing directly (manual)... the thing really sucks... you have to tweak the knobs back and forth so that a parameter would move.. that certainly sucks... though it is really easy on quick edit.. (especially the equalizer)...

ok heres the thing i bought it because of the harmonist nothing more... the amp sim is weak as well as the od/ds... seriously it is weak... like have the gain of the original pedal... nothing simulates anything.. but as far as the sound goes it is really great.. in the sense that if you combined the two (amp + od/ds).. i have recreated my usual tone... and im not the kind of guy that copies every tone i want... mostly because im into composing.. the wah has a nice range but is lacking... the mods, dlys, rev, are great... the acoustic is somehow realistic... all in all it does most of what i wanted...

bad thing is the patch pedal... which consumes like .5 sec to load... that sucks big time

i can depend on it as long as it stays without malfunction... though the tuner and bypass is not as reliable as it seems and the pedal doesnt stay in full (it gets quirky at full blast)... at least it gives me a nice tone both in live and recording...

great... but there are more better fx than this unit... but it blows much fx like ax1500g and gfx8....

Takes a little getting used to, but makes sense if you read the manual/

My setup: Fender Telecaster Thinline '72 Re-Issue > ME-33 > Marshall AVT150 half stack

This thing SUCKS tone! All of my sparkle is lost. Wah is no crybaby, distortion sounds fake. I never use this thing anymore, only for the pitch blend for techno like sounds (very fun). Sounds great on paper, all of the boss effects in one box, but nowhere near the quality of individual effects. I must say I did have some fun with it at first when I was a beginner though, before I realized what it was doing to my sound.

Never had any problems

Never called them

I play lots of random stuff, and this is good for getting lots of different sounds, but only really as an introduction. I couldn't notice it killing my tone very much on my tiny crate, but once I got my marshall it became apparent. If you are a beginner and just want to try lots of different effects then go ahead and get it, but I recommend individual effects. I wouldn't replace it if lost/stolen and am selling it soon.

Overall it's easy to use, but the fact that you always need to rotate the knob until it passes it current value before it activates is very annoying.

I have been using it with my Strat (all Dimarzio HS-3 pickups) and Ibanez JS-1000. This thing kills the sound even in bypass mode. Most effect sounds bad especially overdrive/distortion type. Those amp simulators are hopeless. You can't get any good sound out of it. The overall sound quality is poor like it's been proceed through a low resolution ADC/DAC unit (sounds like 12 bits instead of 24 bits).

It's very durable. Never give me a problem.

Never have to call the support.

I have been playing instrumental/rock for more than 20 years. My current favorite artists are Yngwie and Joe Satriani. I had used Boss stomp boxes for many years before I upgraded to previous multi-effect unit (DOD-8). I bought this unit because of its amp simulator, but I am so disappointed with the quality of the sound.

Pretty easy, it has to be because the manual is less than wonderful.

Copy, move patches, edit, save, all VERY easy. It also sounds good run on batteries in a re-chargeable Pignose at mu Son's scout campsite

Also the bank switching and identification are very easy. The Wah Wah
sounds are very good, and the pedal doubles as a volume control, this is VERY useful with my Gibsons with Varitone. The varitone clips volume when rotated past the "bypass" mode, the volume pedal makes that very easy to fix without goping near the amp, OR nuying another $100 volume pedal.

Excellent sounds, with solid state, AND Tube amps, BUT my line6 spider II doesn't like very much in the way of pre-amps, so it's best to keep the gain low. Very little noise, and VERY few effects that sound trashy.

I can do a LOT more with this than my ZOOM GFX8. Hands down.

Boss had a winner here, the excellent display made you feel at home
while newer versions make me feel like I'm groping in the dark.

I've owned mine around a year now, no glitches at all, but you MUST use their DC power brick, not another, I don't know why.

N/A

I use it in Four amps from a Marshall 15 watter to a Quad reverb, all
sound great. I'm looking for another used one as a backup because
I do not like the newer Boss ME-50 at all. Wouldn't buy one of those
at all.

boss me 33 is very easy to use, everytime you need a last minute change of the settings you can immediately change it without any hassle. to get a good tone you must know each effect available on the manual.

im using a very cheap guitar and amps but still it sounds great with this unit depends on how you you use it well. ive encountered noises that i dont want when i first used this unit but ive found out that its the wires that causes the noises and not me 33 so right away i bought new expensive noise free wires. the effects are very strong and sounds great. you can simulate the sounds of incubus with its great delay

the boss me 33? very dependapble in fact i always used it without any back up at all

i havent met them

i usually play hard heavy metal sounds, love songs, etc. im a very versatile player and every versatile player must have this baby coz everything is in this unit. this is my first gadget and im thankful for it and im only a beginner. if it were stolen i would look for it if not i would somehow look for the money to buy it again or maybe id try the new boss me-50. i love everything about this unit but as the saying goes nothing is perfect i have to complain about the presets and no offense.... it sucks!!!!. i like the manual feature coz it simulates the use of individual effects. ive compared it with other feature if i were to rate it by ratio id say its 1:10 in favor of me33. i wish it had a separate wah,pitch,volume switch and a good set of presets and an ac adaptor. it helps me make awesome tones