Boss PS-5 Super Shifter

Sounds great.

I've toured around the world with this pedal for 3 years, and it works as well today as is it did when I bought it.

I make a living playing spacey MBV/Johnny Greenwood type guitar and the Supershifter is by far my favorite pedal. It can pitch my guitar a full 2 octaves up or down and everything in between. The tracking is not perfect at all, but I think that it tracks notes better than the digitech whammy (although the whammy does have a really unique sound that I like). One of my favorite settings is the "T.Arm". In the "T.Arm" mode when you play a note and then step on the footswitch, the pedal will glide up or down to what ever interval you set it to. The end result sounds like a moog with a lot of portmento on it. Another great setting is "Flutter" which is really vibrato. The flutter on the Supershifter sounds almost exactly like the vibrato on the dicontinued and really pricey Boss VB-2. The only problem with the supershifter vibrato is that you have to hold down the footswitch the whole time you want it on. If you lift your foot off the switch it shuts off, but it still sounds great.

Just a comment on the bad reviews below. this pedal is digital sounding , and alot of settings will totally change your tone , some for better some for worse . As for terrible tracking it tracks ok for me , buts its better the newer my strings are for sure . I'm suprised some hate it so much , everyone I play with think it pulls some great sounds . It is definataly for the crazy scientist inside you . If you enjoy getting weird you'll like this pedal . If you want to play classic rock and blues then dont waste time trying it out .

Black panel behind knobs is hard to read and overcrowded. Don't lose the manual with this one, until you've taken the time to get to know it...

...but once I got to know it I realized I had wasted my money on a chemical sounding, tone destroying, gimmicky piece of crap. This pedal tries to do too much, and as a result doesn't do anything well. If you want to lose all your tone and sound like a Japanese cartoon buy this. No don't buy this. My set up? G&L Legacy > PS5 (not anymore) >DS1 >OD3 >CE2 >TR2 (modded) >DD-20 >GT3 >Laney VC 30 or Hughes and Kettner Vortex. I'll give it a 2, coz it was funny for a short while. But totally digital sounding, plastic. Terrible note-tracking. God, and expensive.

You can rely on it to sound bad. Usual sturdy build.

n/a

I play ska punk, country, whatever. A whole bunch of styles. thedrugsquad.net. I like effects, but ones that augment an instrument and make the most of your set up, not totally ruin it. All I could use this for was an octaver. A poor one.

Most of the settings on this thing are dead easy. A couple of them require some musical/scale knowledge to take full advantage of, but everything does what it should.

I'm not sure why people are down on this unit. Actually, I am. If you are a sloppy player, this will not sound its best. Things like the PS-5 and guitar synths get bad raps by people who can't play clean and tight. The little CPU is doing a ton of processing and it can't take into account all those open strings and harmonic clams a lot of people have. Mine has tracked FLAWLESSLY and sounds amazing at what it does... every bit as good as the digitech whammy. All the Radiohead/Audioslave sounds are in there and it can be very sonically pleasing when used tastefully. Didn't appear to effect my tone when it wasn't activated.

It's Boss.

N/A

This isn't for everyone, but if you want those wacky high-pitched sounds or some cool bass sounds this it it. It is surprisingly usable even without the EV5 and all sorts of ambient sounds are available. If you buy one and it doesn't sound like it's tracking well... ask yourself if you are really playing clean, tight, and in tune.

Fairly simple, but you DO need to have a knowledge of scales and modes (and keep your guitar in tune) to use the best feature, intelligent shifting.

DIGITAL. Doesn't do one of the things it's supposed to; that is, make it sound like you're playing in dropped tunings when you're not. Maybe I should have figured that -- how would you take out the original tone and replace it with one 1/2 step lower in real time without leaving some of the original in there -- but it doesn't do what it was advertised for.

That said, the whammy effect is cool (sounds great on the solo to Audioslave's Like a Stone) and the intelligent harmonizing sounds great if digital.

Boss. Built like a tank.

Way too expensive for what it does, unless you're really into shifting.I wouldn't buy it again. Good whammy and harmony effects.

appendage to previous review

just a note, if you want high quality shifting (best for single notes) with the expression pedal, it's best to use the harmonist feature. Basically just set it so it's only the harmonized note, not the original, and you get the sound quality of the tremolo arm effect, except for use with expression pedal. Some guy complained that if you want to use the exp. pedal w/ tremolo arm, you'd have to keep one foot on the PS-5 and one on the exp. pedal. That is true, but you don't have to do that. Just use the exp. pedal with the harmonist, mix 100% shifted, and it's the same thing, one foot operation. No problem.

Haven't had it long. A few options to get through, but I tried it out in the store and found what I wanted pretty quickly. If you're using the harmonize function, it does help to have a bit of theory under your belt to understand how the intervals will react, or you can just experiment and see what you get.

Some "ring modulation" when you go to the lowest notes on the lower strings.
Definitely a bit artificial sounding, but that's part of the game. While Pitch Shift an allow you to play chords, the "zippering" distortion to the tone made that option unusable to my ears. The tremelo arm effect sounded good to my ear (attack set to its slowest). With the 2octave setting and the dry signal mised in, you could get an approximation of an Octavia sound. At one octave, mixed underneath the dry signal, the tone comes alive, almost like an exciter. Nice sound, but you could get a dedicated exciter pedal to do it better, but it's nice to have the option if you find you need it in the studio. Liked the detune function also set to fatten out the dry signal.

I only really use the Harmony setting at 1 or 2 octaves set to the comletely wet signal only. I was surprised at how strong the tracking was, and there was almost zero "zippering" effect to the sound.
I run it just after a compressor set to moderate volume boost, low compression, and kick that in to fatten the tone of the shifted sound whenI want.
From there, I run it into a PedalworX Tour Pro Toggle (no compression) and into a Barber Direct Drive SS. The main guitar is a Brian Moore i21 with a Duncan Alnico2 Pro neck and Pearly Gates bridge combination, tone rolled down mostly on the bridge pickup.

With this setup (only into the POD set to a clean amp sound so far) it does a very good job of emulating a Roland G 303/Pat Metheny synth solo tone. I found that the neck p/u sound had a bit of a "honk" to the tone. you should expect that from transposing the Alnico 2 Pro up an octave (it's not a bad thing, just something to watch out for). The Pearly Gates bridge with the tone rolled completely off came the closest to emulating the Roland tone. Pick articulation and judicious use of a trem bar will get you very close to that sound.

Also tried using the Roland Expression Pedal. A good trick is to set the the pedal to a 2 octave shift, and with a tuner, set the lowest end of the pedal with the trim knob so the rocked back position yields a 1 octave tone and that will allow you to have the original tone, kick in the pedal for one octave jump and rock the pedal forward to sweep up to the 2nd octave. Note, the olwer octave setting wil not necessarily be exactly on pitch and will most likely drift sharp or flat (just like a real analog synth used to do). Does a nice whammy effect.

At 2 octaves, volume rolled way down, no overdrive, ot does a pretty good fluty, "piccolo-ish" synth lead sort of tone, very touch dynamic.

It's a Boss, built like a tank. Should last

It doesn't do everything "great," but it does some things well. As a pseudo guitar synth, it does a good job for me for a whole lot less than it would cost to try and track down one of those old Roland Synths on ebay or the like. I went for the Super Shifter because space was an issue. If lost or stolen, I might try the Whammy 2 reissue the next time and see how that one fares.

Fairly easy to someone who's used these kinds of things before. Otherwise, you'll need the owner's manual (which is good, by the way).

Well, it all depends. You have to set it correctly. It can sound good, or it can sound like crapola. I traded this for the earlier version, the Boss PS-3. I liked the PS-3 for the synthy sounds it could produce, but the actual pitch shifting, especially at radical settings (one octave above, below) wasn't quite up to my standards. Basically I like the PS-3 as much as the PS-5, but the PS-3 is better for synthy sounds (reverse pitch shift), and the PS-5 is better for classic pitch shifting tones, ala Rage Against the Machine, The White Stripes ("There's No Home For You Here"), and early Radiohead ("Just").

My favorite setting is probably Tremolo Arm, as it provides realistic, single note shifts, even at radical settings. It will work with chords too, unless you want to hold the chord at the shifted tone... then it tends to waver between the target pitch and one close to it like a teenage boy whose voice is cracking. Basically, it will give you the sound of a chord diving or climbing to a set interval and returning, as you would with a real tremolo arm (but with more radical interval options). If you want to hold that interval, though, it's best to do so with single notes on this setting. You can also control the speed of the shift, so that it can either zip up or down right away, take its sweet time, or any speed in between. Nice.

The pitch shifter setting is better for chords, though not as realistic at more radical setting, especially with single notes. I have the optional Roland EV-5 expression pedal, which is nice for on the fly control and gradual shifting. Highly recommended.

The harmonist is kind of cool, though not the reason I wanted this pedal. It can give some pretty harmonies that track very well, provided you are in tune (single notes only). It's fun to play with. I might be more likely to use this with vocals. Nice quality effect.

The detuner basically doubles your sound and gives an interesting chorus effect. I like it, but I doubt I'll use it much. I use an Electro Harmonix flanger for that kind of thing.

The flutter effect is interesting. It dives or climbs to a certain interval you set, then goes into a vibrato, similar to SRV's "Lenny." I probably wouldn't use this a lot, but it's not bad. Not as good as the real thing, obviously.

One thing that this pedal has over the PS-3 is ability to adjust overall volume. I found that with the PS-3, going from regular pitch up an octave (via expression pedal) would result in a volume drop. No drops with the PS-5, therefor making it a good candidate for more professional pitch shift sounds (ala the artists I mentioned previously). You can get pretty high quality sounds, but you have to have the right setting. The wrong setting will sound like crap, which I suspect is the beef of all the reviewers who gave it a "1".

By the way, the reviewer below me who said you can get higher quality pitch shifting effects via computer was correct. I have a $70 program called Audio Studio Delux, which can really make a guitar sound exactly like a bass. Very real-sounding at various pitches. But that's after the fact (ie you apply the effect to an already recorded track). You can't exactly use that live, can you? There is a bit of digitalness to it at extreme settings, but all in all it is convincing.

So, as far as pitch pedals go, the PS-5 is a good one. Similar to Digitech Whammy as far as I can tell (just from listening to the sounds of Rage, White Stripes, and Radiohead, which all used the Digitech pedal). I've never tried the Digitech Whammy, but I can get similar sounds to what those artists have done using it. Hopefull that all made sense.

Never had problems with other boss pedals.

This is a good match for various styles of music... it's a fun toy. Very expensive, I wouldn't have bought it because it's prohibitively expensive for me, but since I found a guy willing to trade, I thought, why not? It's a good pedal with limitations. Find the right settings or you will be disappointed. I'd suggest trying before you buy it. It's probably not for everyone.

A bit difficult because pedal thinks that it is smart. :)

It sounds worse even than simple software "stompboxes" such as Guitar FX Box! Toy "digital" FX kill sound of any guitar.

BOSS pedals never break.

not needed

Thanks to God, i've tried this nasty blue pedal for a week before buy it! Full s**t!!! It costs about 180$ but it sounds worse than any software FX. Worst stompbox of the century! If you want add to your guitar some "synth" sounds, buy CH-1, OC-3 or any others chorus/octaver/delay pedals. But if you really like such nasty "digital" crap, better buy for 20$ used SB Live! sound card and use it for digital FX.

Easy to use once you understand all the controls and functions . Getting good sounds is easy , you must be careful with the amount/level of effect that you dial in ,this probably why some people do not like the sound of this unit. Editing the sounds is easy however the small size of the unit makes it hard to see what functions you're dialing in. The manual is brief and straight forward .No PHD required to navigate the manual or the machine.

I have been using this unit usually in conjunction with several other Boss pedals ( delay , eq and tuner pedals)through the effects loop of usually a Rivera duo-twelve or Bogner Shiva combo amp , primary working guitars used are usually contained to a Godin LGX or EC model Fender Strat (both set up to accomodate a roland synth).

I orginally bought this unit to create little diatonic harmony parts .I play with a variety of different singers and artist so having a little versatility with harmonized parts is a great bonus . This aspect of the unit works quite well . Obviously you must know what harmony interval you want to achieve (thirds, fifths,etc. ) before you can expect to possibly achieve a usable/musical harmony part . You must also play accurately and in-tune( sloppy playing habits will not work here, it will not track crap!) .Also it helps to keep the primary ( un-effected) part in the foreground of the mix balance ,this keeps the aliasing/digitizing artifacts of this technology from sounding readily apparent in the overall mix, a common complaint voiced on this review site. Use it tastefully it will sound tasteful.

As written by several other reviewers it does a great job a copping an Allman Bros.'(think: Jessica, Ramblin man) third or fifth interval harmony part.Also if you know how to apply other modal harmony transpositions you can also set the key range switch in a key other than the key you are playing in for other harmony applications. This box is not a do-all "expect to hit a switch" and start jinnin',bad ass harmony machine , Like Bush said, "not gonna do it" . You must do some planning and careful calculations.This is probably why this feature gets low approval ratings .

I find that the detune feature is absolutely awesome and as good as some of my rack boxes when used in conjunction with two amps to create a lush stereo spread( on amp # 2, use the power amp only section of the amp, bypass the preamp it will sound and work much better than plugging into the "front-end" of the amp". As with the harmony feature you must use taste and discretion,when dialing-in the amount of "bend" and level of effect . Too much effect sounds very harsh /strident and uncomplimentary .However I find this particular application to be true with any piece equipment regardless of price or popular status when used in this manner.

To me noise has never been an issue with any of the Boss stomp pedals I've used throughout the years ( I have a suitcase full). Most objectional noise comes from gain stages accumulating between other pedals causing a "gain stage mismatch". Of course most time -based pedals( delays, chorus, flange,etc) will usually be much quieter in the effects loop of your amp because the signal to noise ratio is much much better.....Learn more about this concept, it is the reason some players will rate a pedal as dead quiet and another as a buzzing mosquito from Arkansas . I run any overdrive pedals that might be used ( tube screamer, tonebone, etc) into the frontend of the amp and everthing else in the loop with negligible noise issues.

I find most of the features on this unit useful and musical , Chorusing effect can be acheived easily, the whammy stuff works as good as my old diditech whammy pedal. Swithing back and forth between the different functions can be a daunting task however especialy when playing live and under the gun. But all-in all it'a fun little pedal and a good bit cheaper than an Eventide harmonizer.

I'll give it a 9 rating, it's a great compact and versatile little pedal and a good bang-for-the buck investment . Is it the cats-ass?No it is not, but nothing ever really is....... . But for mature responsible pickers that are already familiar with Boss stomp-issue products ,I'm sure you can dig something you'll like about this pedal

I've been playing on Boss stuff ( I'm also a Roland Synth user ) for years professionally .This stuff has had rain , beer, coke, etc. poured into and onto it, Stomped to hell and back and I can say that NONE of the stuff I've ever purchased with the Boss name on it has ever given me any doubt that durability/dependability is a concern or issue.Don't lose any sleep over this stuff folks , it's tough .

Except for dealing with some roland synth issues I have never seen or had the need to have a repoire with the Boss folks.

Boss stomp box designs have led the industry in innovative , inexpensive , musical and dependable merchandise for decades ( many pros use this stuff on the road for good reason )

I buy this stuff, use it, and usually forget about any further corporate involvement . Only dealt with Roland Corp a few times on some synth parts that I needed for a repair job on my personal stuff . The process seemed pleasant, the staff was friendly .

I own an electronics remanufacturing company myself , I can tell you that usually the quality of support and friendly service you get from your vendor or manufacturer is in proportion to the attitude and professionalism that is given ......

I have been playing for years and like many guitarist out there own a ridiculus amount of amps, guitars and fun boxes to numerous to mention .

Concerning this particular pedal, and like any other piece of gear that I own( I own some nice stuff ). I can tell you that the real magic is within yourself . A great amp, stomp pedal,slice-o matic, guitar, whatever.... will not make YOU great. You and only you can make you great. Don't get caught up in the hype. Believe and be true to your music. Use the gear that will compliment you and don't worry too much about it .Get some rest, someday you'll need it .

Like the old man said to me years ago, "how bout spending some money on some lessons! "............