Boss ME-50

This has got to be the easiest to use good quality multi effect unit on the market. Very easy to tweak, but doesn't have the "deep dive" tweaking capabilities of the more complex effects units, which is fine with me. I had TC Electronics G-Major for several years and although you can great sounds out of it, editing those sounds was a major pain. The setting knobs basically work like stomp boxes and I'd say if you're a stomp box type person and not a menu editing type person, the this unit is a great fit. It's got every major effect, a very usable wah peddle and no preamp modeling, which for me is great.

Editing patches is very easy, just turn the knobs. It has three modes ... preset, manual and edit which gives a lot of choices in how to use the pedals. I tend to use manual mode more as I like having pedal switching for each effect rather than moving from patch to patch. Don't think the tuner is that effective, but it's there nonetheless.

The fact is, this is a fun effects box. You can get millions of different sounds in seconds and it's all visible right in front of you. No menus, no complex buttons or parameters. As a result, I experiment with it a LOT MORE than I did with the G-Major and it's just a lot more fun to work with because there is zero chance of making a mistake, hitting the wrong button, screwing up a setting, etc... And for me, that's a HUGE plus. There's something about being able to see how every effect you're using is set right there in front of you versus having to toggle through 10 menus one by one to see what all the settings are. I found that to be a major fun buzz killer. You can see the delay settings while you tweak that chorus and quickly make small changes bada bada bing and you're strumming in seconds.

I use the ME-50 in the effects loops of a Boogie Studio Preamp (pure tone magic) which feeds a Mesa 20/20 stereo power amp and then out to two 2x12 cabs. I use a Voodoo Sparkle and a Barber direct drive in front of the preamp. Have some nice Les Paul's, Strats, Teles, Gretsch and other guitars.

Soundwise, I really like the ME-50. I don't use the overdrives, mainly because I love the tones from my preamp and distortion pedals. Having said this, I don't think the overdrive models in the ME-50 are very good. They all sound to me too compressed and "splat" like. I definitely would not suggest anyone buy the ME-50 for the distortion effects, because you'll be disappointed. Also, all the other effects on the ME-50 sound much better with the overdrive/distortion turned off.

I happen to really like BOSS effects, so this is partly why I like the ME-50. The stereo chorus is great, the delays and reverb (spring reverb setting sounds like crap, however) sound great and you can get a very wet sound out of the ME-50. The wah peddle is very usable, as well. Part of what makes the unit appealing is how easy it is to make big or little tweaks. Compared to a rack unit like the G-Major, it is so much more tweakable simply because there is zero hassle involved in making changes. The phaser and flange sound fabulous and both have a lot of range. I don't use compression much so can't give a good review. One thing I really like about the ME-50 is it sounds good with the effects used in a subtle way and also good with them used in a dramatic way. I never really found the G-Major to sound that great when the effects were laid on really thick.

I'll say it one more time, if you buy this unit, you must have a good preamp/distortion setup already in place. If you've got that, then this unit really fits in well.

I'm dinging the sound simply because of the distortion effect. If I was BOSS, I would have left them out or put in a much better, more usable distortion effect.

Another thing I really like about this unit is it doesn't color my guitars much. My Les Paul's and Strat's sound like themselves through this unit and this is not the case with Line6 gear.

It seems very sturdy and well made. It's a BOSS, so quality is probably there, although I don't have years of abuse on it to report on as I keep mine in a clean home studio. My experience with BOSS in terms of quality has always been good.

Website is useful but I've never called BOSS.

I play rock, blues and use mostly rootsy tones. I do a lot of looping and like dreamy sound textures too and the ME-50 allows me to get there very quickly without having to go through 5-10 minutes of patch editing.

I've owned a lot of high end tube and digital gear. The ME-50 effects sound much better in my rig than a PODxt, or the VOX Tonelab and I like it a lot better than the G-Major, although the G-Major did sound great once you got it all set up, which for me was always a hassle. The ME-50 sounds like stomp boxes to me and I love that sound. It mates really well with my Mesa Preamp and has virtually no noise at all when the distortion effect is off. I think the Wah peddle is a total surprise in terms of quality sound. Some reviewers say the wah sucks and I simply can't understand that at all.

All in all, this is my favorite effects unit and I've tried a lot of different ones, both pedals and rack type units.

I bought an ME-50 a month ago after using its predecessor, the ME-30, for the last eight years. There are some comparisons between the two that I thought might be useful if any Boss guys are reading this. First of all, I love the ME-50 - sound quality much better and the ease of use with the knobs on top is great. Very easy to get a good sound. Patch editing, though, is harder than on the ME 30. On the ME 30 there were 30 predefined patches and 30 user defined patches. On the ME 50 there's only 30 patches - if you want to make your own you have to overwrite the factory settings. What gives there? It was good to have the factory settings as reference points. On the ME 50 if you overwrite them you can get them back by using the restore defaults option but then you lose your own patches. In this area I thought the ME 30 was more flexible.
Second, on the ME 30 you could name your patches, and the settings were always visible for you to re-edit if you wanted to. On the ME 50 you have to write it all down somewhere. I would have thought that retaining some form of menu that let you see what you have done was a worthwhile thing.
Third, I liked the foot switching between levels on the ME 30. While bending down on the ME 50 isn't that much of a problem, it is a step backwards in my view.
I'd like to see Boss bring back the editing functionality that the ME 30 had.

I have played the guitar for 30 years and now play in a classic rock cover band using a Strat into a Bronx 112 tube amp. Mainly looking for good overdrive and distortion. Sometimes use the chorus, phaser and delay. I love the sound of the ME 50. My criticism here is of the wah - it doesn't seem as strong as it might be - I actually think the ME 30 had better wah. Also on the ME 30 you could put the wah before the other effects, or after. On the ME 50 you don't get the choice. What gives there, Boss guys? Another step backwards. On the plus side, the resonance and voice settings on the expression pedal are brilliant, and I like the octaves also.

Seems to be reliable. Anyway I have my Behringer pedal to fall back on if needed. Haven'r really owned it long enough to have an opinion but I had no problems with my ME 30

Never used them

I actually went to a music store to try a Vox Tonelab and the guy there basically told me not to buy one and get a Boss ME 50 instead. The Tonelab had some funny hissing noises that worried me. Don't have any of that with the Boss. If you're not interested in modelling other amps, which I'm not, then the Boss is very practical and easy to use.
How could you improve it? See above. Also, other writers have complained about the delay when switching from one patch to another so I won't go over that again. But to get over it, what I do is have another pedal (a Behringer Vintage Tube Overdrive) that I use with the overdrive/distortion on the Boss to go from rhythm overdrive to a sharper sound for solos. I know you can solve this problem by having different patches but I prefer the control that comes from being able to kick a pedal in without a gap. What would be really good would be to to have a programmable pedal that you could assign effects to. So you might have your overdrive pedal on one setting and your assignable pedal on your lead setting. It would also mean you could use two modulation effects together if you wanted to. Where do you get the room to do this? How about a few less distortion options - 22 is really over the top, and many of the 'variation' sounds seem pretty much the same as the others. So I would say 11 options is quite enough. Also I've never understood what the ring mod idea is all about (reproducing the sound of playing with your whammy bar fully depressed). Does anyone really use it? If so, tell me when your next gig is and i'll be somewhere else. So there's some room you can save, Boss guys, so how about making the changes I've suggested?
If it was stoen I'd get anouther one - I love it. But it could be so much better by just bringing back some of the ME 30 functionality and giving us that programmable pedal. Come on, Boss, just do it.

Seems pretty simple to use, just bought it last week, and was able to produce the goods pretty quickly, everything looks straightforward and intuitive. Manual is simple enough.

I use a deArmond m75t, and a Peavey T-60, amp is a line 6 spider. i have a lot of other efx, but plan to use this more or less on its own. Sounds are sufficient for the chaotic racket I generally make.

Bit early to be sure, but have had my ME-6 for about 16 yrs and bought this to update it. Looks and feels tough.

Phoned Roland here in Ireland with a question about a power supply straight away, got through clean and got clear sound advice.

I play experimental/drone/noise rock, good to have lots of efx to create the necessary chaos. Playing for about 23 yrs. Got a couple of amps, about 8 guitars and half a dozen other efx., mainly line6 modellers. Wish it had more pedal swithches, so u dont have to buy extra or keep bending down....

How easy do you want? just turn the knobs and get the sound you want... Only issue is creating/editing patches could be simpler, and switching between banks without an extra footswitch is a pain.

I'm reasonably happy with the sounds thru my Strat/marshall setup, but, can't find quite the tone I want with my Epi LP.

The drive channel is good, with lots of sounds from Boss' Pedal range, but see the variation button as pointless, I hardly use it.

Modulation and delay are good, get no complaints at all, however, would have liked a ping/pong style delay.

The expression pedal is okay, the Wah could be better tho. On some distortion settings (like the MT pedal) it's almost useless.

The other functions are all reasonable too, Reverb on Hall, room and Mod are okay, but spring is a little strange.

Compressor and NR are good, and I use them quite often with the Strat.

Only issue really for me is switching between patches in memory mode takes about 1/2 a second.

Had it a few years, and it's been heavily used. I'm massivly impressed with the expression pedal, still feels like new.

No need ever to deal with them.

It's not perfect by any means, but I've not used any multi fx anywhere near this good, and this dependable. IMO with a seperate Wah, you need nothing else!

Very easy to use. Chunky dials rather than menu scrolling makes this very user friendly. Everything seems to be laid out as it should be for simplicity. Programming patches is straightforward. The manual is worth a look though.

I play a mexican strat and a korean squier tele (don't laugh, I've upgraded it and it sounds a lot better than it should!) into a Fender Deluxe 90 for rehearsal and a Sunn ST-15 (fender in disguise)for home practice. You may have gathered I'm a Fender man.

I know all the reviews of this pedal do this but at the risk of being repetative I'll go through the sections.

Tone Modify - A basic EQ. Does the job but be careful with it.

Compressor - OK.

Noise Gate - Very useful. I dial it to 12 o'Clock and leave it alone and it does the job well

Reverb - Urrgh. The Room and Hall settings are just about OK but the Spring setting sucks. No idea what Boss were thinking. If your amp has reverb use that, if not then use a bit of Hall or Room or do without.

Overdrive/Distortion - Sounds like the box's it emulates. A couple of the COSM variations sound a bit wierd (Like the OCT FUZZ a lot!). Effecively you get 22 different OD/DS box's that are as adjustable as you want. Something for every taste.

Modulation - all good. Phaser is excellent and I love the Uni-v. Stereo chorus sounds are fairly good through two amps.

Delay - Plenty to suit most styles and tastes. Clear and easy to use. Does what it should very well.

Expression Pedal - Acts as a volume pedal until you push it down hard. Wah is OK but not Jim Dunlop by any means. Octave pitch shifter is OK if you like that kind of thing. Will someone explain to me who uses Ring Mod? I sounds awful and I can't think of any use for it other than to make your guitar sound like a robot farting.

There's also a master level dial which comes in handy if using headphones. Otherwise I leave it at 12 o'clock

You could use it to knock in tent pegs at a festival gig before you went on stage.

The military are borrowing the design for tank armour.

They found one under a glacier and it still worked.

the ancient pyramid builders of Egypt used it to......

You get the picture

see above

Do you know anyone who owns 11 different distortion pedals and uses all of them on stage at the same gig? Of course you don't. But if you own this then that's what you have. You can have a different sound for every song if you want. Now most guitarist tend to settle on a sound they like and stick with it for most of the stuff they play but this pedal allows you the flexibility to be adventurous. OK so you need to buy a seperate switch to change banks without bending over and pressing a button but you get the point.

I've been playing for well over twenty years and I really like this pedal. I play everything from Johnny Cash to Q.O.T S.A.

Some reviews have said that this messes up your tone. Tone is purely subjective and I think they are wrong. I think that like all pedals it allows you to experiment with sound and that's a good thing. Most tone purists I've met are too far up there own arses to be able to hear anyway.

It does what it's meant to do. It isn't hand wired with antique cloth covered wire and have it's glass tubes warmed between the thighs of young maidens but it sounds pretty good all the same.

For the price (I've seen these new for ??160) you can't do better than this.

Very simple to use in manual mode, not much mucking around, just plug straight in and dial in.

Memory mode takes a little more time, but still isn't too difficult.

I've had this unit for around two years now, and still can't get anything better than an "average" sound out of it. The OD/DS section is lacking and has few decent sounds.

The Mod and Delay sections do as they say, pretty standard. Not bad, but not amazing.

The Wah is good as a begginers wah; as in if this is the first wah you've used it's perfect, but otherwise you will know there's much better out there.

Built like a tank - Very strong structure, you could drop it a thousand times and it would still work.

I've gigged with this unit many a time, and the only problems I have had have been with the power cable, which wasn't even an official boss one.

Never needed it.

If you're looking to buy your first effects unit, this is perfect; very simple to use, and will teach you a lot about basic effects. If you're looking for a certain sound from your guitar, this unit is not for you. The effects are mediocre and weak.

If this unit were stolen or lost I wouldn't buy a new one, I would look to buy seperate stomp boxes, or improve my amp rather than effects.

Very easy to use. Wish that you could name the patches though.

sounds very good. I wish that it was true bypass.

I have been playing rock and popular type music for about 15 years. I like simplicity and the boss unit offers that. I do have to say though that there is a serious problem with the tuner. I have the white Boss stage tuner and the ME 50 tunes sharp compared to the stage tuner. The stage tuner is correct. I would love it if Boss made a big boy version of the ME 50 that had a good tuner and was true bypass and you could name your patches.

The setup is very straight forward. Very simple to use and, when you need it, the instructions are very clear and concise. You can reach professional sounding tones with a little tweaking, although, it can suck a little tone out of your signal on certain effects, particularly when using the noise suppressing function. Most casual players would never notice though. Very user friendly in general.

Again, a little noise suckage here and there...but nothing dramatic. Very cool sounds come out of this thing. The distortions are top notch, especially with the variation button depressed to get that COSM goodness. It has a few subtle effects that are a great addition to the overall package. The expression pedal is an excellent addition to this gizmo as well. It's not "excellent" or anything, but is definitely worthy of casual use.

I've had this unit for over 2 years and have never had a single issue with its reliablility. It is in fact "built like a tank." BOSS rules...end of story!

Never had an issue to warrant using BOSS's customer support. I probably never will.

Great piece of gear to add to the old repitoire. You have many effects at your feet and is great fr gigs, practice, etc. If I ever need to replace it, I would replace it again and again with no reserve. I love it. You will too! Just buy it!!!

The pedal has 2 modes. Manual and Preset.

MANUAL MODE
===========
In manual mode it is very simple to use...basically it's the same as having a bunch off BOSS pedals sitting on a floorboard. You get a tuner, compressor, noise gate, tone shaping eq, reverb, expression/volume pedal, overdrive, modulation, and delay.

Tuner - works great. just like the standard boss tuner pedal but with less lights to display sharp/flat.

Compressor - works great. although I don't use it all that much.

Noise gate - works great. sounds comparable to other good noise gates (ie rocktron hush, etc).

Reverb - I don't think it's as terrible as some people have mentioned here, but that being said I generally use the reverb on my jcm 900 instead.

Expression/Volume Pedal - Works great as a volume pedal. The wah is ok, but if I really used wah i'd probably get an external pedal. and the rest of the expression pedal options are kinda useless.

Overdrive - Awesome! Great stomp box type od/distortion effects. Since I already have a tube amp with great tone, I use these exclusively to get a more boosted overdriven sound for solos or heavy riffs that I want to thicken up.

Note: if you're expecting the sounds here to compare to the kind of warm "tube amp modeling" sounds you'll find in a vox tonelab (or some other similar pedal) then you'll definitely be let down. these sound just like the pedals they're saying they are: DS-1, DS-2, BD-2, OD-2, rat, muff, etc. What I'm saying is don't try to plug one of those overdrive tones straight into your solid state amp on clean and expect it to sound like slash. I can only imagine the terrible tone you would get using even an original metal zone pedal thru a clean solid state amp.

Modulation - Pretty standard effects. Chorus, Phaser, Flanger, Tremolo are all decent. Nothing amazing, but they'll get the job done. It's neat that they inlcuded the rotary setting although I've never actually used it in a song.

Delay - All sound very good. I originally rented the Line6 delay but decided that for the amount of money it costs I could probably get something with more effects than just delay. The Me-50 hasn't let me down. I was able to get close to the same sounds I was using on the line6 plus I have all the other effects on the me50 to play with.

Tap Tempo - It's great that they included tap tempo for both the mod and delay! My only beef is that when entering tap tempo (long press for 2 seconds) the effect will cut out for a split second.


PRESET MODE
===========
Preset mode is actually quite simple to use. Pressing "Write" once activates the save sequence. Select the bank and preset number (1-3). Then press "Write again. The number blinks a few times and you're done.

That being said, preset mode has a major downfall which I'll go into further in the next section. (that's why I only gave this section a 7 - because the downfall makes it difficult to use depending on your application)

I've never even looked at the manual; but I did rent a boss ME-20 (and read it's manual) before purchasing the ME-50 and they operate in a fairly similar manner.

The sound quality of the ME-50 is great.

I'm using this as my only effects unit with my Marshall JCM900 Dual reverb half stack. I play a Gibson SG standard and a Gibson Les Paul Special (both with 490/498 pickups). I play mostly rock/indie/punk music.

The main things I use on the ME-50 are:

-volume pedal
-delays
-a few overdrive/compressor/ns settings
-and some flanger/chorus


Originally I was pluging straight into the ME-50 and out of that into my marshall. Some people have complained they could "feel" something different when running thru the unit; but the tone seemed pretty comparable to me and I never noticed anything strange.

My only gripe was that with the ME-50 muted (either in tuner mode or with the volume pedal off) a tiny amount of guitar was still getting thru to my amp. The amount was very small and was definitely bearable but just not ideal.

Here's the real problem...
My current setup is a little different, Not because I was unhappy with the tone, but because I discovered the major downfall with Preset Mode:

LOADING A PRESET CAUSES A VERY AUDIBLE MUTE!

I haven't recorded the output to see exactly how long it mutes for when it does a preset change but my guess is at least 100 ms.

This isn't a problem if you don't change presets while you are in the middle of playing; but if you for instance want to kick in an overdrive preset half way thru the chorus then be prepared for your guitar to cut out momentarily. Basically if you are planning to use preset mode as advertised then you will be VERY disappointed.

Note: this has actually proven to be less of a problem for me than originally anticipated...

My workaround - I've realized that I generally only have (at most) two "tones" per song: my regular JCM 900 tone, and an effect (overdrive, delay, overdrive with delay, etc).

So what I do is:

-plug guitar into my old boss tuner pedal
-one output goes to A side of an A/B box
-other ouput goes to ME-50
-output of ME-50 goes to B side of the A/B box

Before each song I simply load up the proper preset in the ME-50, and then I can switch to it on the fly (with no audible mute) using the A/B box.

This solution also solved my problem of low level noise making it thru to my amp while the me-50 was muted, and it also gave me a slightly better tuner than the on board one on the me-50.

The other solution to the problem would be to only use Manual Mode (in which case there is no audible mute when engaging effects); but that's not a very good solution if you use multiple effects of the same type throughout your set (ie. mild chorus in one song, heavy flanger in another, light tremolo in another, etc) because you'd have to dial each of those in by hand.

I haven't owned the the me50 for long but it's built like a tank, and judging from the reliability of other boss pedals I've owned I don't see any reason it would breakdown.

Never had to deal with them.

Like I said above....I'm using this as my only effects unit with my Marshall JCM900 Dual reverb half stack. I play a Gibson SG standard and a Gibson Les Paul Special (both with 490/498 pickups). I play mostly rock/indie/punk music and I have been playing guitar and bass guitar in bands for about 13 years.

The ME-50 is a great effects unit. I really like the fact that it focuses on effects as opposed to all the amp modeling pedal boards because I already have an amp with tone that I like.

I own a VOX Tonelab (not the pedalboard one) and I quite like the amp modeling for use in my home studio; but for live I wanted something that was just effects.

It's built tough (solid metal body - like most boss pedals) and I would probably replace the ME-50 if it were lost or stolen.

It does have the major drawback that preset mode has an audible mute when changing between presets (see above); but with my current workaround I no longer have a problem.

That being said I'm definitely keeping my eye on a redesigned newer version of the ME-50 that would hopefully use a faster processor to reduce the mute between presets to something useable.

Definitely a good value for the price considering what all those boss pedals would cost you to buy individually.

After I bought this unit, I simply hooked it and used it. There were a a few non-obvious things, like how to switch operational modes of the expression pedal, or store patches, but if you have experience with other stompboxes, figuring out how each module works shouldn't be too much effort. The signal flow makes sense, and the controls are reasonably well labeled. (Hard to see in on a dark stage, though -- I used to put mine up on a bass cab so I could fiddle with realtime settings on the fly).

As for the manual -- I think I glanced through it once, and then lost it. The unit looks intimidating -- all them knobs! -- but it's not nearly as difficult to use as, say, a G-sharp, a V-amp, or a POD.

I have many guitars and amps, but my main live rig consists of swapping between a Parker Fly Deluxe and a 92 Standard Strat, into a Fender ProSonic. I've used the ME-50 live, but sometimes it's a pain to haul around, so I use a Yamaha Magicstomp on my pedalboard now. Then and now, my main use for the ME-50 is studio work, where I run all sorts of instruments through it. (Distorted, flanged cello, anyone?)

At the time I bought this (2001?), I already owned a POD 2.0, but I wanted something a little more basic, something with lots of creative colors but without amp simulations. (I was also annoyed that the POD didn't have a phaser effect.) This unit delivered many of the sounds I heard in my head, and then some. In the studio, I often put it ahead of a POD (which goes direct into the board), and just use the POD for amp/cab simulations.

I was especially pleased with the delays and distortion/OD effects, which are quite versatile. The distortion/OD FX are labeled as emulations of various classic stomps, but I found that only a few of them were reasonably faithful to the original FX. However, almost all of them were useful in one way or another, so no complaints.

A couple other FX are standout from my point of view: the harmonist feature (pitch shift and harmony tricks) and the Univibe emulation. The Univibe isn't all that close to the original, but if you set it right, you can get interesting banjo or pizzicato-violin sounds from your guitar, subtle woowoowoo coloring, or full-on Hendrix noises.

As for the harmonist -- it tracks fairly well with guitars, and allows you to play two-line harmony lead parts in various keys (music theory helpful).

An off-label use for the harmonist feature, which I discovered by accident, is as a bass sub-octave effect. (I play bass as well as guitar in my band.) Set the harmony interval to -1 octave, with the effected signal mixed at about 80%, run your bass through it (with a little distortion in the chain), and you get a seriously heavy doubled bass tone that tracks better than any of the bass-specific octave boxes I've tried over the years! Yes, it warbles and mistracks on sustained low notes, but that's part of the charm. Also, it can't handle much below the open bass A, but an octave below open A is already lower than my low B string, so I'm happy.

I've also used some of the distortion/OD effects with bass. Most of them are tuned for best tone in the midrange, so it's not something I do very often, but it's good to have extra colors in the paintbox.

The preset patches, as with many multiFX units, are a mixed bag. Some are great -- there's a couple OD patches I use all the time. Others are just filler, too weird or boring for day-to-day use. Certainly, the presets are excellent starting points for your own tweaked patches.

Some of the effects -- notably the phaser and flanger FX -- are noisy, in ways we're all familiar with (whooshing when no notes are played). But I can filter or gate most of that out in the studio, and live, no one notices. The "rotary" effect isn't the best -- there are better Leslie emulations in the PODs or in the Boss GT-8 board, for instance -- but it has a certain primitive charm if used with distortion.

The compressor and noise gate are somewhat better than average. However, I'd like more control over the compression parameters -- you're offered only "sustain" and "level" controls. The noise gate has to be adjusted carefully, or it will ignore/clamp your signal when you don't expect it (and make spitty sounds as it does so).

The ME-50 has stereo output, which is nice if you use dual amps. Those effects which have a spatial dimension (chorus, pan, rotary, and the pan delays) sound pretty good in stereo.

Generally, the tone is very good. If you want excellent-to-perfect FX sounds, you're in a completely different price range (or medium, such as ProTools).

The thing is bombproof, except for the knobs (which I've had to reattach once in a while). I've hauled mine around in a duffel bag for several years. I've dropped it and buried it under piles of stuff. It's been rained on and broiled in a hot car. Aside from damage to the paint job (and loose knobs), it keeps on working just fine.

It's a fairly expensive unit, so I don't think I'd get a backup. If it failed at a gig, I have ways to get equivalent tones, so I'm not worried. Except for electrical damage, however, the usual rigors of live performance shouldn't hurt it.

Apparently, you can run the ME-50 on batteries, but I've never tried this. Given the horsepower in the box, I suspect it eats batteries like crazy.

The power switch is a little slider on the back, which seems a bit vulnerable (I'd prefer a solid toggle or rocker switch). There's a plastic cleat on the back which can be used to anchor the power cable and prevent it from being pulled out by accident (it also protects the plug a bit).

I've never dealt with Boss product support.

I've been playing for 35 years. I play many different styles of music. Jazz, classical, folk, metal, punk, indygrass, whatever. I can find stuff in the ME-50 to support anything I'm doing. It's a creative tool, but it also offers simple meat-and-potatoes effects when I don't need anything unusual.

I'm really pleased with the ME-50's versatility. As I say, I've used it with bass on more than a one-off basis; I also use it with bowed instruments, mandolin, and keyboards. Percussion tracks, doubled through this gadget, can take on a whole new personality.

I favor simple, one-box solutions for guitar (as opposed to the bank-o-pedals scenario), and I like the analog-style, knob-driven interface, so this works well for me. The price was right for me when I bought mine, and I think it's still a good value at today's prices.

There are other multieffects units out there that have the same, or similar capabilities. Your mileage may vary. Personally, I'd recommend this for the guitarist/multi-instrumentalist who wants a flexible creative tool with an analog personality, rather than just another menu-driven amp-modeling DSP box.