Boss ME-50

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.

Once you realize how the pedal is made up its very very straightforward.

If you want to get the most out of the ods/dist models you need a tube amp, otherwise they will sound very harsh and uninspireing. The modulations and delays sound good through SS/digital rigs regardless. Reverbs are plain crap IMHO. The noisegate and compressor do there job. I use the enhance setting on the tone modify it seems to improve my tone slightly. I'm playing this through a valve junior and im really loving the ds-1 model. Rating for going through a tube amp only.

Well built. So far so good. Had it about 3 years

Never dealt

Perfect for gigging, no cables to trip over, easy to tweak and good tone if the rest of your gear is of good quality.

you can operate this unit with your eyes closed from the minute you take it out of the box. excellent layout. no learning curve at all with this unit. editing patches is almost too easy. the manual is to the point and worth reading even if you don't need to.

using an ibanez rg350 into a marshall 40w valvestate i get a very good tone, nothing breathtaking but enough to give me those usual sounds, spacey, heavy, bluesy, folky, jazzy and even some weird synthesizer effects.
what stand out for me is the delay, distortion colours, the phaser and chorus. the tone modify feature only seems to have an impact with clean tones. the octave mode is excellent, although that and the harmonist effect and the ring mode effect can only be used for single notes i.e chords sound terrible.

no problems at all very reliable

im sure they are useless as usual and thankfully ive never needed them

Ive owned about 5 multi effects units and this one is the best but not by much. It has its drawbacks, the wah is very weak indeed, when i line it up with my Dunlop 535q wah or even my Digitech Hendrix wah, the Boss ME50's effort at the wah is just lame. The voice and resonance are interesting but again they don't pack a punch. the reverb is also weak and seems to steal so much tone compared to my amps reverb.
distortion effects are good, the OD-2 setting is the one i find gives the best tone for me, the others get too mushy and nothing i do can get them to sound any good. the guv (high gain) is meaty and crunchy also but again the rest are just lacking for my set up.

last but not least is the compressor and noise reduction, just fantastic. i get a lot of interference from my PC and other stuff (like picking up radio stations and taxi's as they drive past) and this thing eliminates them, and as for the compressor i can huge sustain, in fact the most impressive thing ive noticed about this unit is the ability to get infinate sustain using the compressor and wah pedal set to about half closed.

Extremely easy to use and versatile as hell! You can get pretty much any sound out of this pedal that you want by doing a little tweaking here and there. As with any pedal it's good to pay it some attention. I spent about a week getting to know mine before i found "my sound" but that's only because i'm picky!

It does look complicated at first but read the manual through and it's plain sailing from there. You shouldn't need to read it again...

I play indie rock, alternative, metal and funk and this pedal does EVERYTHING i need. My current set up is a Burns Marquee into a Mesa/Boogie Roadster with Engl 4x12 and the ME-50 is my SOLE effects unit. I can't see why you would realistically need any more pedals than this. It seems to incorporate just about every decent pedal on the market as well as the whole Boss range.

First of all the Distortion options are superb. The Boss OD-1 and OD-2 settings are great for thick, liquid soloing while the BD-2 is exceptional for rhythm sounds or for fattening things up if you're the only guitarist in the band. With a Muff, an Ibanez Tube Screamer and a Marshall Guvnor also on board...you're sorted for overdrive and distortion. There's also a nice octave fuzz and a Square synth sound (think effector-13) if you need to wierd it up a bit!

The modulation channel is where i think the pedal lets itself down slightly. The phaser is stunning, as is the vibrato, but the other settings offer a very limited range for tweaking. The flanger could be MUCH better and the chorus needs fattening up a little more. Having said that i enjoy the Harmonist and the Rotary (very Lesley sounding) options.

The Delay is all good. All the Boss options are here along with some nice extras. The Hold setting offers a short sampler which is very nice for those set breaks or when someone snaps a string. Keep the crowd going with some nice layered delay sounds! It is, however, beyond me why anyone would use a 0-30ms delay...

The combined volume/expression pedal is great. Anyone who finds it difficult not to knock it out of expression into volume needs to take a little more care when jumping on it. Don't try to play chords in the +1 octave, -1 octave or ring modulator modes though - not a nice sound.

The reverb is ok but i don't use it. I use my amp for that.
The compressor works well - nothing wrong there
The Noise Gate is a nice feature however you will need to play around with it in relation to the distortions.
The Tone Modify knob is one of the best things about this pedal. There are 10 settings and each one sounds totally different.

I've had no problems so far and i've had mine for over a year. It's very sturdy and i wouldn't particularly urge you to buy a case for it. I just whack mine in a bag with all my leads and it's been fine up to now. It's been dropped, kicked around and stamped on and not even a scratch!

One thing though - load it with 6 AA batteries regardless of whether you have a power adapter. If the adapter gets yanked out (which it shouldn't because there is a hook to wrap your power cable around!) you don't want to be left scrabbling around on the floor trying to put it back in!

Never needed it

It's a great pedal. You can get any sound you want from it with little work. However it could be improved slightly. SOME of the modulations need looking at (tremolo, all 3 choruses and flanger) and i WISH that the power adapter and bank switching pedals were included. Also don't expect instant switching when in patch mode. There is a noticeable lag which gets VERY annoying. However a little practice and you'll get used to it.

Overall i'd recommend it as a good first pedal. It's got everything you need and is very easy to use. If you're thinking about buying a multi-effects pedal and don't want to spend your life savings on a processor, go for the ME-50.

Contact me if you have any questions about the pedal :)

I stay away from the memory mode, and in manual mode this is the easiest multi-effect I've ever used. It really is like a consolidation of a few Boss pedals into one. Fantastic to use, especially when I want to change settings on the fly mid-song.

I am quite picky with tone, and after tweaking the compression and noise gate I notice no audible alteration of my tone. The distortions are decent (especially the tube screamer and fuzz face, very close to the originals which I own and have tested side by side), but the key to my distorted tone is my amp (15w Crate Palomino, fantastic little amp despite its brand name). The modulation and delay effects are top-rate, and sound identical to their Boss stomp counterparts. The modulation effects are extremely sensitive and can be tweaked to just where I like them. Pity I do not have a second amp handy at the moment as I would love to play with some of the stereo effects. The expression effects are all of good quality as well. Volume works spot on, and the pitch shifts are excellent. The ring modulator is wild, fun effect to play around with in extreme moderation. Resonance is kinda lame (perhaps it will come to life in stereo?), and I find the voice effect somewhat difficult to get a use out of (for now anyway). The wah is excellent, sounds very Vox-ish, but I would have liked if it had a wider sweep. For what I was looking for--Modulation effects, delay, comp, noise gate, wah, and some 'go to 11' for solos, etc.--this thing is perfect. Although I will never sell my Turbo Tubescreamer, I am going to be parting with some old stomp boxes now that I have this thing.

I love my single effects, don't get me wrong, but I'm sick of pedals dying on me and I can't afford to have them repaired anymore. If there is one thing Boss is known for, it is rock solid tank-like reliability. This is made of steel and high quality rubber and I know it will last me as long as any of my other Boss effects.

None of my Boss pedals have ever broken, so I have no experience with Boss' customer support. This is a good thing.

Having owned myriad stomp boxes over the years, there is nothing like tweaking individual effects to taste. But, on the other hand, I enjoy the simplicity of having everything in one compact unit. The ME-50 offers a nice middle ground. It is extraordinarily simple to use and is very much like having several Boss stomps at your feet. The quality of most of the effects is top notch, I do not notice rampant tone sucking or digitization problems as I have with multi-effects in the past (Line6 PodXT Live, for example). For a little more than I paid for my Line6 DL-4, which is a fantastic pedal if it didn't break :( , I now have a compact, easy to maintain effects unit that keeps it simple and straightforward. There are enough sounds in the box that I will not need any more effects for a long time. And I can trust that Boss makes reliable products that last forever if properly cared for. Feel free to ask any more specific questions, as I am something of an effects junkie and I will be able to get as little or most technical as needed.. I'll be glad to answer anything I can.

It is the most strait forward, easy to use multi-effects system on the market period. One knob for each effect what more can I say.

It's no better than the individual pedals that it models, but no worse either. I only own three guitars...(i know, the few but the proud). A cort M-600 (extremely accurate knock-off of the PRS Custom 222), Seagull Enterage rutic acoustic-electric, and and antient relic (1905 or 1935 not sure which) SS stewart archtop. And from what I've found this unit will even perform at an exceptional level with acoustic guitars.

Expression: I use all of the expression settings except the ring mod because it's freaky and they all do what they say they do quite well (except the pitch benders, they only perform when playing one string at a time and muting the others)

Tone Modify: These are great tools, set it for what ever type of music you're playing and leave it there.

Reverb: useless, they are almost un-noticable when turned on.

Noise gate: set it to about three o'clock and leave it. It works perfectly

Disortion: high quality, extremely versitile. The varient patch works great with tubed amps. Any style of playing that uses distortion can be covered with this unit. Also for added base boosting without distortion set gain to minimum and use the bottom knob to get wicked base.

Modulation: all great versitile tools for all music styles. Harmonist one string at a time. Couldn't tell you about the pan effects...only own one amp.

Delay: Perfect and extremely usable from subtle to in your face no problems with this.

Over all I've found that haveing on bypass doesn't affect the sound of play at all and the effects only have things to add no draw backs

Had it for a year now never shown a hint of an inckling of an issue. Made amlost entirely of metal, and where there's no metal there plastics so solid they could be run over with a hummer.

I'd gig with this unit in a thunderstorm, infront of the entire world if my life depended on it without a backup... Nuff said

Wouldn't know... never had an issue

I play anything fron blues to hard rock and it will deal with anything that I can throw at it.
I've been playing for about 4 years now, I've got 3 guitars, The boss metal zone MT-2 distortion drive, and a very recently aquired Fender Blues Deluxe. If your amp has an effect loop use it with this unit. If this one for any reason was lost or stolen I'd get another one hands down. love the versatility, hate the rever on it, particularily like the distortion. I had a pedal that was made be some company called Zoom for a day and it broke so I got this before that I had a digitech that died in 6 months so this is the longest lasting pedal I've had. It has been the single best purchase musically I've ever made and it will continue to be for a long, long time

This pedal is a God-send for the gig'ing musician. Ease of use, convenient, instant set-up and great sounds is why ya buy this particular effects unit. I've been using the ME-50 for a couple of years now and have had no desire to go back to the 5 to 7 individual pedals I use to set up. I play country, rock, surf, a lot of Chet fingerstyle. Everything I need for the gig is in this unit and can be adjusted easily in real time without having to scroll through menus. It does have 30 presets and I've played with them but its rare that I will pull one up at a gig. I just use whats there in the non-program mode and there is a lot there; excellent compression, excellent distortions, great Univibe, great phaser, great flanger, excellent tremelo, all manners of delay including a cool reverse delay, four different reverb types with full adjustment on one knob (probably the most important feature for quick set-up in various rooms), excellent volume pedal, accurate tuner, nice wah and expression effects. But the big deal is that all of these are so easily accesible and adjustable for each new room you in which you find yourself.

Great great sounds come from this baby. I've been gig'ing with it for a couple of years and still find new ways to use it. Recently at a rehearsal, I couldn't understand why my sound was particularly good. When I got home and hooked up my gear to investigate whether I still that great tone, I noticed that I accidentally had the "tone modify" section engaged. It was set to "Enhance". I don't know exactly what "Enhance" does electronically, it may just be an EQ setting but boy did it give my country playing a nice big steel string character. It also sounded good in conjunction with the distortions and delays. I love the variety of distortions. If ya need a fuzz, its there in a few variaties and sounds great. I'm not a metal cruncher so I can't speak to the quality in that regard but it has great flexibility in overdrives.
The Modulation section also has very high quality sounds. I am particularly impressed with the Univibe. It has all the delays I need and accompanying adjustments, again very easy to dial in at the gig.

The single reverb knob to adjust all reverb possibilities originally seemed like a cheapy way to go BUT it has proven a golden feature of this unit. The knob has 4 reverb types assigned to it. Starting at the 6-o'clock position is a room reverb that reaches max depth in the 9 o'clock position. From 9 to 12-up is hall reverb, min at 9, max when the knob is turned to 12. The last two quadrants of the knob are given to Spring reverb (not very good or useful), and "mod" reverb whatever that means. I use either the room or hall reverb settings. Its the fist thing I set at the gig and is very quick and easy. No scrolling through 27 hall reverbs, no 32 room reverbs to select just the right one, no stereo reverbs (as if audience is gonna notice that at the gig) etc...Nope, its just one knob with enough variation. Set it and forget it.

Compression is another "set-it-forget-it" function but has two knobs, level and sustain. It works very nicely.

Threshold, set and forget again is nice gate feature if you're experiencing a lot of noise typically when using distortion with a lot of drive and single coil pick-ups. I could detect no robbing of tone what-so-ever even when the threshold is tured all the way up.

The volume pedal is a fantastic feature in that you keep your full range tone when pulling back on the volume. The other expression effects such as wah, and some very fun pitch-bend effects are great BUT you lose your ability to control volume when they're engaged (so you have to use the guitar volume knob if you find you're too loud).

I tested the ME-50's tuner against a good full-VU tuner. It is calibrated right on the money. It only has five leds to guid you to the right note which is a little "coarse" but once you're used to them, it works very well.

I have played with the programming, its very easy to do. I think I have some nice ones in there, but I only rarely use my programs at a gig.

The unit is very robust. I carry it around in an old brief case. The expression pedal, even though plastic, is very strong and sturdy heavy duty plastic.

Haven't gone there yet.

I have found the other fancier largely-programmable units useless at gigs. They sound great when set up at home but take 'em to the gig and they need to to be readjusted 'cause every room sounds different. If you are a home-enthusiast, sure, a fancier programmable set up may offer more possibilities, but the ME-50 has plenty of options as well and is much quicker to adjust on the job.

Ok i rated this one a lil while back. Now i think i can give a really good review on it cause i have put tons of hours into it and used it quite a bit. So Ease of use: Not very easy at all, if your a very specific person with your tone, if you actually know the difference between a boss ds-1 a rat and a tubescreamer. your not the kind of person thats gonna just want to use the presets. And it will take you a while to get to the point where you can start getting the sounds your looking for out of this beast. You can get there its just gonna take a while, the worst part about editing patches is theres just to much crap in the top end of the unit. i really think the preset eq is kinda useless, im almost inclined to super-glue it to the off setting. never read the manual, im not a manual guy, my opinion is ill figure it out eventually. my advice is if you get one, study the manual or just be patient in learning it.

Ok heres where i get to say what ive learned, Now here is the one thing about this unit that is unmistakably the biggest error with it and hopefully someone will come out with some sort of mod to fix it down the line. or upgrade. its the one thing you will not be able to get past. theres a maybe one second delay when switching effects. if your not the kind of pewrson that uses more then one effect in a song dont worry about it. if you are, your gonna have to learn to work with it. now with that being said. Distortion: Not bad but you will have to get the hang of them. certain things dont work well together on this pedal. if you have the distortion on stay away from the eq. as they mess with eachother real bad in your tone. the od's are good, the rat is dead on. the tubedriver sounds weak, not a suprise for some reason, its a boss pedal right. the guvnor is ok. the ds 1 is pretty damn accurate. stay away from the plus settings. keep that button off till you learn the pedal well. Mod: ok the chorus is weak with the distortion. clean its not so bad, about as good as the domestic boss chorus they have now. thats clean though. same with phaser but works perfectly fine with distortion, same with flanger. they all sound pretty close to there domestic counter-part pedals. now im not talking about the vintage MIJ models ok. this is a 300 max pedal and you shouldnt expect that, if you want that what are you doing with a multi pedal anyways? now the trem is the same, right on with the boss pedal. all the mods are pretty much just as good as the domestic counter parts. except the non boss settings. now those are another thing. not too good. the roto vibe is pretty lousy, the rotory setting is awesome, just avoid with distortion. ok Delay: all great, thats where this thing shines, if your all about complex delay in your band and thats your main thing and you can deal with loosing tone in a live situation yes, you need this, yeah this thing kills your tone, but tone loss versus having to try to tap out your delay time at a gig and it ruining the song for everyone, yeah this thing wins. ill get back to this at the end. Expression: excellent, follows better then the whammy 4 which doesnt say much for the whammy 4 now does it considering it cost more and only does its deal, but hey i have a whammy so ill just stop right there. eq: sucks, id just forget its there unless youve already figured the whole unit out. only about 3 of the settings are worth a damn. fat helps fill out sometimes. compressor and the noisegate do exactly what there supposed too. Tuner: ok in a live setting, im just gonna skip forward. this thing is only good in a practice setting or a live setting. do not buy this thing thnking your gonna throw it on your pedal chain, your not. and a bypass is just silly cause the damn things pretty big. i use live a MIJ jazzmaster with a vintage duncan neck, quarter pounder bridge. then my fender tuner(by the way if your a fender fan, dont get the boss tuner get the fender, works just as well and is half the price!!) then this unit, then my 4 10 fender hotrod tube amp. why? cause it does not play well with others!! i might throw in my jekyll and hyde eventually but like i said it does not play well with others!! this unit is great cause it gets close enough to the sounds you need without having to spend all the time setting up your pedal rig. i dont like the idea of bringing anywhere from 250 to 1000 dollors worth of little boxs that people can snatch into a gig setting. plus if you have crazy settings it can be a real pain in the ass between songs unless you wanna bor the audience to death. they didnt come to watch you screw with your pedals buddy remember that. dont go and get rid of your vintage pedals. save them for recording. this is just good to have for live situations and practices. or if your poor. if you only use a few effects, then use those live. if you have twenty pedals. then you should get this. it gets the job done.

ok heres where i go back into sound quality sort of. for what it does, man this thing is built great! just as good as any other little boss box. thats what makes it worth it. i love the interface. i hope this sends a message to all the other multi pedal makers out there. back to basics like the old ibanez multi units. thats what people want. you can beat this badboy up and itll just come back for more. metal case, tuff knobs. honestly id say for what your paying you really have no right ot grip about the lack of tone quality considering its built this well. this thing should be called the working mans box. thats more or less what it is. if you gig and dont wanna destroy your vintage pedals, get this lil beast. youll be glad you did when your bandmates 500 dollor wh-1 gets stolen. even if you get it jacked, 300 isnt as bad as loosing those vintage pedals. so with that said this thing was built to take a licking and keep on ticking.

like youd need it. ha

ok, so all and all. this thing is great for the working and gigging musician. it can take the live shows and be just fine. i wouldnt be suprised if it outlasted all my other gear. its not the greatest sounding thing. but in a live setting it gets the point across just fine. at home i have a visual sound jekyll and hyde, whammy 4, boss eq-7, mxr phase 100, boss hyper fuzz, boss rv-3, pro co rat, boss ds-1,and im forgetting a few sorry. now does sound like those pedals. no not exactly, it does get the point across, well except for the rv-3 nothing really sounds like the rv-3. now if you have a 2 grand amp and a 2 grand guitar. dont buy this. your stupid if you do. why would you mix a 300 dollor pedal with 4 grand of gear. but if your rocking out a 800 or less guitar with a 800 or less amp. then this unit is perfect for you. since you like me obviously cant afford to loose your vintage pedals. if i lost this lil guy id replace him in a heartbeat and id feel it was worth it. and in my opinion this is the best multi unit out there in its league. the only one id compare it to is the old ibanez 9 series multi unit if you can actually find one. dont come up with your sounds on it if you can, it works better if you come to it with a preconcieved sound. so with all that said you you do punk, go get a marshall head. but rockabilly, surf, trippy stuff, indie, metal, or just your own thing. check it out, you might find its worth the dough. when you take two minutes to set up at a gig instead of 15 youll be glad you got it.

A little background real quick. I'm a teen musician who works on guitars as a main hobby and does sound engineering on the side. So I guess you could say I know my way around the block decently well. I play anything from Pop to Metal. So it's a big spectrum I like to cover. However, money is tight when your a high school senior and getting that big rack system you're dreaming of isn't really an option. So after a hand full of people recommended me this unit, I took the dive. My set up mainly consists of various Les Paul shaped guitars running through this and a couple of pedals into a modified Peavey Classic 50. It's a great budget setup for versatility.

Well enough about that let's get to the review.

Out of the box things weren't too hard. I've been adept with computers and electronics my whole life so this was basically child's play after the first 20 minutes. What can I say? Read the manual. You'd have to be a fool to not figure out this unit. Separate knobs for every effect. Come on. It was made to be user friendly.

Patch editing is pretty much a breeze. Set it and forget it to be sure. Everyone gripes about the patch change time. But in reality, even the high end units like Lexicon and TC do the same thing. IF YOU ARE SWITCHING PATCHES WITH ANY MULTI-FX UNIT THERE WILL BE DELAY. Deal with it. It's not that bad.

The manual is great. Any small details left out can be easilly figured out if you do a little experimentation. But it really does a good job of explaining everything.

Overall I found it VERY easy to work with.

Me playing lots of different styles, I have to have a large pallete of sound to work with. Let me first start out with an effect by effect review of the unit.

expression pedal - As a volume pedal it works just as it should
wah - pretty standard wah. It's usable. I actually use it a good bit.
ring modulation - this is a freaky effect. Stay away unless you're into weird styles like acid or whatever.
pitch shifts - I love this thing. Works just as it should. Perfect.

Tone Modify - Everybody says they want a 7 band EQ. But Boss didn't put it there. So we get this. It's actually pretty decent. The acoustic sim is great. Everything else is uh...usable.

compressor - I always keep it on. It sustains perfectly.

noise gate - Let is be said. When you turn on the Distortion for high gain, this unit gets noisy. And you will use this. Otherwise don't.

reverb - the only thing on the unit that really suck bad. Don't get me wrong...they are okay. But let's be honest...the spring verb on my peavey is better.

pre-amp - A lot of people are either love or hate on this. But I think Boss did a great job. MOST of the stomp emulations are great. A couple kinda suck but for the most part it's spot on. Let me warn you though, getting into the big high gain modes can be really noisy. So be warned.

modulation - I use chorus a lot. And this one it pretty good
flanger - great
phaser - also great
harmonizer - It gets the job done pretty well.
tremolo - it's good if you sit down and turn the knobs a while
pan - same as tremelo
uni-vibe - meh...it's okay
rotary - tweaking required and then it's just okay


delay. VERY VERSATILE. Sounds better than single pedal delays.

Oh and the tuner works great.

Well I haven't exactly dropped it or anything, but I've hauled it to practice and shows multiple times and it's never had a problem.

It's amazing for the price. Nuff said.

This processor is much more hands-on than most of the other processers I've used before. Just about every function has a dedicated knob or button attached to it. The tuner is easy to read, though I personally don't use it much. I also can't really speak for the memory mode either, as the real beauty of this processor lies in the manual mode.

Let me first preface this section by saying that I'm only 18 years old.
Most of the time I spend playing with other people usually ends up being a sort of ambient/extremely experimental/noise jam. I've been playing for about six years now, and my setup is as follows:

Fender 60's Strat / Schecter Tempest Custom (both stock) -> ME-50 -> Digitech RP350 (crap pedal, stay away!) -> Fender Hot Rod Deluxe

I haven't been touring my entire life, and I've never owned a rackfull of state-of-the-art gear, but I like to think that I have a decent ear for good sound when I hear it. Most of the sounds available are very usable, though the tone modify section doesn't seem to anything special in terms of practical application. All of the OD/distortions have at least a few solid sounds in them. The three different choruses, which admittedly all sound the same to me, are pretty good. I've never been one to obsess over a good chorus sound, so I don't know what to compare it to. The phaser, which is the effect I use most often, works well for what I do, which is setting the rate at 2 o clock, depth and level at 10 o clock. I don't use the flanger much, so I'll just omit that one. I do use the harmonizer an octave down on occasion for those especially strange moments, and it sounds good. The rest of the effects are pretty standard, nothing special, but nothing to complain about.

I use delay heavily, and this thing delivers what I need, and nothing of what I don't. I especially like the reverse delay. I can't really take advantage of the stereo opportunities involved with the delay section, so I can't comment on that. The reverbs, I believe, are the only real problem with this processor. Boss could have easily taken out the virtually useless tone modify section and had the room to expand upon the reverbs, making it more than a simple line 6-style knob. I mainly use the reverb on my amp, but for really ambient moments, cranking the Mod reverb will make my sound swirl around the room.

I really only play at home, every once in a while jamming with a few friends, so I can't really comment on how this box would hold up to relentless gigging. Seems like its definitely built sold enough for my applications.

I've never dealt with Boss.

If this thing were lost, I would be furious, because it would take me weeks of saving and working for minimum wage to replace it, but I defeinitely would. I've gone through a number of modelers and processors and modeling amps and this and that before coming to this one. I've owned a Digitech RP200, a Vox Valvetronix, a Behringer modeling amp, The infamous Line 6 POD, and a bunch of other crap I can't remember. This one is staying with me, because of the awesome hands-on approach and the fact that it doesnt try to model an astounding array of amps. Most of the boxes modeled are Boss products anyway, so the core tone of the original is there. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this to a gigging professional, as there are many more capable and better-sounding (and markedly more expensive) pedals out there that can satisfy your needs. But, for someone just getting into multi-effects or the thousands of guitarists on a budget, it wouldn't hurt to give this thing a try.

The ease of this machine is terrific, basically connect two wires - one to the amp - one to the guitar and voila.

The name of the effects are pretty straight forward, for example; the metal effect is labelled, 'METAL'.

the effects are adjustable from 1) being hardly hearing it. To 10) your amp almost getting up and shouting at you...it's amazing...

It has 3 Chorus' and they are all amazing, trying to get sort of BMFV sound is so easy.

The ease of of getting your fav. bands sound is so easy, and sounds amazing

This is the only thing I would say lets it down, it almost eats batteries...I would only use it at a gig if I'd put new batteries in it just before

It is incredibly robust, but is quite heavy, and the edges are quite sharp to carry with bare hands. But can stand a good old STAMP!

Haven't had to deal with BOSS

I play trance metal and screamo and it's perfect. For stuff like Blues and Jazz it would be perfect to as it has got Blues Drive on it and other great effects for things like that.
I use it with a Fender Princeton 65 and it was slightly tinty before I got it and it was not what I wanted but it made it sound lovely and meaty.
I chose this one over the 'Line 6 Floorpod' because it looked more professional and more robust.
It has everything I wanted out of a multi effects pedal and I love it
The only thing that lets it down is that it eats batteries

9.9999999999999999/10

Pretty easy to use. Problem is, it's an absolute TONE-SUCKER! But easy enough to figure out.

Like the sound of your amp? Then don't buy this. I have to rate it low here, because this unit significantly altered the basic tone of my Mesa F-30 amp. It cuts the gain down noticeably when you run through this effects unit, that's with it going in front of the amp, in the chain, like a stomp box. If you do it through the fx send/return in the back, it doesn't alter the amp tone, but then the distortion settings are useless, as they really need to hit the front of the pre-amp to sound right. VERY disappointed in this effects unit! :(

Who knows, their stuff seems well made.

Don't know.

A "5" is a gift really, as this unit is basically un-usable to me. I can't deal with the tone-suck factor.

Well it's not exactly easy. I got mine from a pawnshop and had no manual till recently. but ill say this its easy enough to where i picked it up without the manual. editing the patches is kinda annoying. more annoying for the distortions however. I give it a 8 because out of all the multi pedals that do this much. It has to have the most clever set up ive seen yet, i mean the knobs do make a big difference.

Ok the first thing you gotta know about this pedal is it has to have the worst bypass ive ever heard. I mean bad. Almost useless. Im takingthe advice of the other guys and buying a bypass loop pedal as soon as i get a chance. Ok, now the delay. well the delay is amazing considering its a combo pedal. i loved the analog delay. it sounds better then some of the high end delays ive worked with. i could see having it just for that its so good. The wah expression etc. well not so good, honestly ive never scene much use for a wah not my style but i have tried it and owned my share of wahs and i gotta say its pretty weak. the other setting are to wierd to have much use for on a basis i use a whammy for all my crazy actave moves and its well obviously not even in the same market with the expression pedal. i think its only good for the volume. volume is a hard thing to get wrong. the mod, etc. ok i am in love with the rotary setting, its incredible. very useful if you want one, and not bad compared to what you gotta dish out for a rotory pedal. the flange is weak, chorus ok, phaser is well, cheap sounding. tremolo is tremolo. not amazing but ok for a tremolo. its not the boss tremolo pan or anything but its good enough if you have one song that needs a trem. and the others well arnt really worth mentioning in my opinion. distortion.ok, the ratt setting is pretty right on. i own a ratt and compared them and its pretty close. the rest are pretty lousy since the tone is so weak to begin with. DO NOT buy this for the distorion. you will end up very upset. ds 1 is ok, but ds 1 lacks tone too so i guess its right on. the fuzz's are weak fuzz is always fat in the bottom once again this thing has no real bottom end so no good fuzz. the metal zone setting is aweful but so is the metal zone so its all in opinion. you can not get a warm distortion on this so dont try. but theres a few sweet crunchy setting that are great for what they are. the compressor is awesome and the reverb is annoying as hell! and a pain to get it out of the mix. i give it an 7 cause when they got things right on this pedal it was dead on. its pretty close to its stomp equals for alot less. and sadly alot less bottom end too.

its boss. enough said.

never needed it or knew anyone who did.

Well if you want this pedal cause youll just never be able to buy all its components go for it. its definetly worth it. but if you own a amp that has a tone thats worth a damn be prepared to buy a bypass pedal. hell it shoulda just came with one its so harsh. if it wasnt for the bypass id give it a ten easy. if you play outta a peavey or crate (solid state)etc.. well then dont sweat it. but if your a tube man. you might just be better off dishing out the money for the pedals or at least getting a bypass pedal. other than the tone id say this is the coolest multi pedal ive ever played with.

ME - 50 ahhh The beauty of simplicity / knobs are easy enough. Just play around a little to suit your style. I have not edited anything yet. Seems simple , I just purchased this about a month ago, so no rush to be to picky, sounds great right out of the box. Manual included with product, easy to understand.

I play live in full Church group. Mostly all modern Christian worship and praise, this ranges from old old 1-4-5 country style to on the edge of metal, This units' functions handle all types very well and sound quality is superb. I run straight into PA and all mod effects and OD/DST are great. I use a Les Paul / all p/u positions used depending on what sound I need per song. No noise at all during any settings / (have threshold very low) I practice at home on all types of music - country to heavy rock with a Fender 15 and a really cheap Behringer / pretty good sounds from both considering the amps' quality.

BOSS no more to say / do not use a backup

Never needed , having a reputation like Boss / I expect CS should be OK

Perform modern Christian / play everyting else for fun & practice - country to hard rock / me 50 covers it all. If it went away I would buy another . I like most everything about it / mods not difficult at all but can be tough to dial in to preference sometimes.The OS/DST options are awesome. It really should come with power supply. I ck'd out the line 6 POD also before I bought this. I believe Boss makes a better line of products + I read reviews for weeks before deciding. (Line 6 amps sound like WalMart stuff) I used a Zoom G2 before - its OK but sound quality & ease of operation cannot compare to ME 50

I bought this unit precisely because of ease of use. I was sick of the tangle of leads with my stomp boxes. The ME 50 replaced 6 Boss stomp boxes I had in a purpose made Boss pedal case. Two leads and a power supply and you're away. But not for long...

Straight out of the box it takes about five minutes to start getting reasonable sounds. The manual is well laid out and straightforward and the ability to twiddle familiar knobs a la stomp boxes to access the sounds is a plus.

I found I could work my way through all of the sounds very quickly but must admit I hadn't got to the point of organising a series of banks. However , it is a big drawback to have to use two footswitches to access banks.

All those groovy Boss sounds ( and a good tuner) in one simple box ... or so I thought.

I have to admit that's where my exploration stopped. read on to find out!

Here's the thing. The sounds from almost all of the effects are a pale cold imitation of my beloved stomp boxes. The digital sounds are like a photograph. They look (sound) like the real thing but they're not.

To be fair some of them are good. Several of the distortion sounds were more than reasonable and the ability to combine the Compressor easily is a good thing.

However .. it lacks WARMTH. It lacks MUSICALITY. I hated it!!
I was surprised because I was expecting the Boss pedals in a box. That's NOT what it is so beware.

The chorus/flanger/phasers etc are OK but nothing special. No depth no beauty.

The expression pedal is fine. Great to have a volume pedal but the other effects are mostly superfluous and the Wa is kinda Woeful. Compared to my Crybaby it's a dud.

The delays are a problem. Compared to my Boss DD3 they lack warmth, flexibility, depth and the sheer beauty of sound I'm used to.

And the tone modify is at best just OK. Kinda gimmicky. My trusty seven band Boss graphic EQ is so much better ... a true studio quality instrument.

I played it straight for three hours carefully going through the effects I would use in various combinations. I realised that this unit no matter how competent and well thought out can't compete with Boss stomp boxes.

I was replacing a DD3 Digi, a Chorus Ensemble, Tremelo,Flanger, Compressor Sustainer and DS1 Distortion. After feeling sick and realizing I'd made a HUGE mistake .. I rushed around to the music shop around the corner where I had them on consignment and got them back back from the nice man just in time! Man I kissed 'em I was so pleased to see those candy coloured babies back. And took the BossME50 straight back and thankfully got my money back. I was so relieved.

The stomp boxes are king of what they do. If you only want a few sounds take my advice ... stick with your stomp boxes at all costs.

I only had it for one day but it appeared absolutely bullet proof. I've never had a problem with Boss products over thirty years of playing.

I think it would be a reliable workhorse.

Never had to deal with them.

I play straight ahead jazz ... for which I use my '86 Ibanez GB10 or my 2000 Dot 335. For jazz I use my Polytone MegaBrute which is simply brilliant with no effects. Warm and wonderful.

And a kind of hybrid flat out Hellecasters style surf in my duo The Surftones. That's where I use the pedals. The pedals have supplied me with exactly the sounds I wanted for years. I put them through a ten year old Fender Hot Rod Deluxe which is a killer amp.Tone central when it's cranked.

I use an American Standard Strat with noiseless pu's and the S1 switching. And a 98 American Standard Tele which is a gem. Prior to that I played an '86 Strat Plus with Kinman noiseless pu's which was a beautiful axe with tone to burn.

The Strat just sings with the Boss pedals. The DS1 is all you need. That and a little delay, a touch of chorus or flanger where necessary. Whatever the drawbacks of pedals with convenience, they more than make up for it with their beautiful unsurpassed musicality.

Don't make the mistake I made if gorgeous tone is what you're after.

The ME 50 is a wonderful piece of design but it's a digital dud when it comes to pure warm tone. Warning ... new is not better when it comes to technology.

This was very easy to use, compared to other processors out there. Easy to edit stuff. How much simpler can they get.

Let me begin by saying that I boutht this unit INSTEAD OF THE DD-20. I needed more delay settings I only have a DD-5 and my band was playing stuff that had called for more than one delay.

With that said, the delay on the ME-50 is identical to the DD-5. With no noise when used merely as a delay. Bottom line if you like boss delays you'll love the delay on it.

Now for the other effects. Flanger is awesome, sounds just like my BF-2B (which sounds the same as the BF-2).

The Wah is also quite good, I don't use much wah, but I have a classic crybaby (that i'm borowing) and the ME-50 wah gets the job done.

The distortions sound ok but not amazing, I A-B'd the muff sound against my English Muff'n with a 12ax7c and 12ax7r in that order. similar but the EM has so much more life I mean the thing is tube for goodness sake.

The pause between sound switching is very minor, all you guys out there whining about that should be playing with other pedals anyway. I have mine going through a "true bypass loop box" I hit that to turn the pedal "off" (it is still on just not in the loop because of the TB loop box).

I gave it a 10 here because it is perfect for what I bought it for "delay" and a few extras Wah, and flanger. The octives also sound decent, when used right.

Its BOSS!

Never had to deal with them

I have been playing for 12 years and have had all kinds of equipment and pedals. If you are buying this to make up for a few mod pedals (flanger, phaser, chorus) and delay pedals you don't have get it. The distortions are ok but not that great very digital sounding. What do you people want for 300 bucks? Even if the price was a bit more for what i got it for it is amazing and does what i want it to do, I have other pedals that do the rest.

Very Very simple to plug and play. Good instruction manual when you want to dig deeper.

I agree with the "pros" on here that some of the effects are iffy and some are great, it's pretty subjective however. I have it in front of an Epiphone 5w Valve JR head (no mods other than a JJ EL84) pushing a Marshall 2x12 cab and it's a pretty stellar rig. I play 2 different hot-rodded Epi's: a Studio Paul w/ Fernandes VH-1's and a good wiring harness and an SG with Gibby pups blah blah blah.

It's a Boss. I could throw it down the stairs

I'll most likely never have to find out.

I'm a power chord basement guitarded onanist, so for me it's perfect. It makes me want to plat more so how could that be bad? If I were the real deal, yes I think I'd move up. Probably the best entry level piece of kit out there. Tons of em on e-bay, don't pay more than $200. Well worth it.

See previous posts

Used this at band practice the other night through a Hybrid amp 65 watts with master on about 7. I used the tube screamer and muff models mostly aswell as chorus and tremelo fx aswell as a little delay here and there.

I thought it sounded great, the other guy was playin through a GT6, he was there tweaking and menu surfing and i was there just twiddling the knobs. It so easy to setup its stupid.

I found that the MT-2 sounded very digital though.

When using the master volume on the ME50 leave some headroom don't crank it all the way up, let the amp do most of the work.

Had it now for about 2 years, so far so good.

never dealt with boss

In terms of features, build quality, ease of use and sound I'm very satisfied. You do need an amp of reasonable quality though.

this is an update on my previous review... so i got the chance to gig with it a bit... pedals are a bit close together for my taste. accidently did the dual pedal stomp a couple of times (pressing two pedals activates the tuner, or memory mode, both resulting in signal cut, no good) probably drop my overall rating of this unit to a 8.5. still a good bargain, but got i wish that the preset switching was better.

I AM AN EXPERIENCED GUITAR PLAYER OF 15 YEARS, I HAVE PLAYED ON EVERYTHING FROM THE SIMPLEST OF RIGS TO THE MOST COMPLEXE OF MIDI RACK MOUNT RIGS...

Pretty straight forward, if you've had any experience with any kind of programmable multi effect, you'll have no problem with it. 2 MAJOR THINGS i didnt like about how it runs. when running in "memory" mode (using stored presets as opposed to using the three pedals, preamp, modulation, delay as straight up pedals) there is a lag between switching presets. yes, your entire signal cuts for a split second, noticeable, but not a major deal depending on how you use it.

its not hard at all to get good tone out of these selections. the manual is pretty straight forward and easy to read.

like i said, if you've had any experience at all using multi effect units, editing and manuevering around this unit is a breeze, but is also simple enough if its your first time dealing with programming.

i give it an 8 because of the lag when switching presets, however when just using the pedals as preamp, modulation, delay, switching the effects on and off is seamless and crystal clear.

i listen to everything from led zepplin to TOOL, i hate modern rock and emo garbage. TONE IS MAJORLY IMPORTANT TO ME. (david gilmore. that's all i gotta say)

my current set up is as follows - Paul Reed Smith McCarty 22 and a 1975 Fender American Stratocaster > rocktron banshee talk box > boss NS2 noise suppressor > VOX Clyde McCoy Wah > Ibanez Ts-808 tube screamer > MXR Phase 90 > Boss ME - 50 > HAO Rust Boost > Morely A/B/y SWITCH > Fender Blues Junior 15 watt all tube combo and a Peavy classic 4x10 50 watt all tube combo.

as i said before tone is incredibly important to me, as is any noise, coloration or shit added to my tone. i spend an entire hour going back and forth comparing my signal with the unit in my line and with it out of my line. i really heard little to no coloration or noise added. enough to be impressed.

here's a break down of what the unit offers

expression pedal... great volume pedal
wah - pretty good for setting it to a certain lead tone, not much sweep to it if you wanna go crazy slash style.
ring modulation - a little out there, but could be cool if you like your acid
pitch shifts (1 octave up or 1 octave down) a little "warbly" but pretty cool for those crazy solos

Tone Modify - i wish they had given control of this for a full 7 band eq, but so far i havent really been wow-ed by it. the acoustic simulator sounds great through my prs, not so much with the '75 strat. hollow body emulator is crap.

compressor - pretty good, but i dont use compression much

noise gate - for a one knob set up, the thing is pretty on the money, a great asset to this pedal. very sensitive and really allows you to find the sweet spot so you dont loose any sustain.

reverb - reminds me of how line 6 sets up their reverbs. all in all pretty good tones, doesnt have anything on my Fender's reverb though.

pre-amp - okay... so the real challenge was when i went back in forth trying to match my ts-808 with the supposed ts-808 emulation this thing has. and i gotta say, pretty damn close. infact, the drive knob goes further and offers more gain. 4 knobs here, drive, bottom (great for low end response) tone and level... the preamps are REALLY impressive, ESPECIALLY for boss. i hate most boss preamp pedals, but i cant get over how many useful lead tones there are in this thing, from blues to metal to industrial saw tones... this thing is pretty crazy.

modulation - chorus not the best i've ever heard, but gets the job done
flanger - sounds wicked
phaser - really a clear sounding phaser, very adjustable
harmonizer - a little warbly but fun to play around with, dont get your hopes up, its no 4k dollar eventide
tremolo - a little choppy, really takes some fudging with
pan - same deal
uni-vibe - kind of weak
rotary - kind of tuff to work with

BUT HERE'S THE KICKER! TAP TEMPO MODULATION... yea... that's right... i said it..tap tempo modulation... genious! however, not accessible in preset mode. they really fucked up the preset, or memory mode as they call it. i'd really hoped that once you selected a preset you'd be able to step on the pedal again to bypass. you'd think that'd make sense... but no. and if you want to flip through banks, make with the bending down, cuz unless you buy extension pedals, your only bank changing options are the two buttons on the interface. (shhhhh, its only 200 bucks)

delay. its a boss delay pedal.. it kicks ass. whatever you want, this thing does it. tap tempo is great, reverse is trip tastic, everything else sounds fantastic. tap tempo works great

did i miss anything? i think that about covers it, again, the preamps were really impressive, very true recreations of the big muff pi, pro co rat (my personal favorite) fuzz face, blues drive, mxr distortion + and yes, even the ts-808.

oh wait the tuner! duh... its a boss tu-12... its right there in the unit... step on the left most two pedals .. its fabulous

just got it, i'll let ya know

i play everything from reggae to metal to jazz and you name it. as said before i've been playing 15 years, i'm very very very serious about music and tone. i've owned tc electronic units, digitech units, both midi controllable and floor boards. for the price, this thing is pretty awesome. i basically got this thing to simplify my pedal board, i gave my delay pedal the boot, gave a few other distortion pedals the boot, gave my tuner the boot, and will probably give my phaser the boot. i wanted something that i could simplify my pedal board with, and get a little more as well. this did above and beyond that. and althought memory mode is so disappointing, it really does have some usefulness to it, it does suck that you ahve to program a "bypass" pre set to get back to square one. i supposed if this thing was all that you had at your feet that you wouldnt need to do such things, but with such a wretched clip inbetween presets i dont know why ANYONE would do such a thing. if lost i would defintely think about getting another one. i really wish it had dual processing so that they could work on the clip between presets, its lacking in some areas, but it really kicks ass in others. for the price i really dont think you can find a better deal. why buy 2 boss pedals you want, when you can buy this thing and have everything you'd need from their repitoire. i give it a 10 because for the price i really dont think it can be beat.

This guitar pedal is no hassel at all. it has three main banks, distortion, modulation and delay. There are also threshold, sustain, reverb, tone modify and a rather good expression pedal. The distortions are some of the best i have heard on a multi-effects and there are a number to choose from. The modulations are all the ones you would need e.g. chorus, flanger, phaser, harmoniser etc.
In the way of delay, you can modify it so much that it is perfect for whatever you are using it for.
The expression pedal is also one of the best i have seen. The wah isnt quite up to the same standard as a cry baby but for a ??170 multi effects is excellent. You have even got an octave changer on the expression pedal aswell!
It is pretty easy to use all the effects although you cant change the sound to another one on the same bank as it but i wouldnt think you'd have to. Editing patches is a bit of a problem with the ME-50 and i still havnt figured out how to do it.

The sound quality is brilliant. The distortions have a great sound ranging from natural to fuzz. The mods are great as you can tweak them down to the last little bit to get the perfect sound. The delays are just as good as the one you get from the single pedal that boss do. The expression pedal is also really good and probably what i use the most. Reverb is ok but could be a little less delicate because if you touch the knob only slightly it changes alot. I love the tone modify as it allows me to use an acoustic guitar sound on certain stuff and it actually sounds like an acoustic guitar!

I have only had this pedal for around a month now and to me it has been very reliable. You can run it on both batteries and the power cable (which does cost an extra ??20) so if your cable goes weird during a gig it will switch strait to battery power so i would advise using the lead but keeping a battery in it just in case. I have played with it at around 3 gigs and i have trusted it without backup.

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I think that overall this pedal is one of the best on the market. Considering the money you save when you buy it instead of individual pedals it is genius. There is so much on here i can vary all of my music so i have a different sound in every song. So i would say it is definately worth buying one if you are looking at pedals.