Boss PS-5 Super Shifter

This is why I bought it from the firt place.
The access to the playing key is right in front of you and by dialing a knob you change it (in compare to a multi effect that you need to enter to a menu and change it).

The manual is very good (and now it is on the web).

I have the TC-Electronics the G-Force that can do two pich shifting at once (in compare to just one in the PS-5), and I'm telling you I use the PS- much more then the G-Force PS, the sound is amazing, set to Harmomnist, set the Pitch one step to the right, vol balance at the mid (50%) and set the playing key, and you have a two lead guitar playing.
(place a distortion before and stereo delay after).

Never place a distortion after, it sounds disaster.

It is a Boss effect, I have more then 22 of them in my rig and no problem so far.

I give them 6 becuase now they are starting to place the manuals on the web.
Otherwisethey would get 0.

They should place all the manuals on the web.

Go fot it, this is the versatile effect that I have.
A shifting in a foot press.
I wish I had several one for each function (Harmonist, T. arm .Detune)

More complex than most , A little theory (keys and modes ) will help alot. But not hard to get your head around at all

All the features are well covered below . So I'll keep mine short and sweet . I eyed one of these of for a while but wouldnt consider it at $600 , which was retail. I got it at a sale half price, which is still not a cheap pedal . I'll break it right down . This is a digital pedal, dont expect it to sound perfect . It does what is says it does and does it pretty well in my opinon . If you like wrestling alien mutant noises out of your guitar then it's a solid and fun tool . If you worry about your tone so much that you lose sleep because a pedal doesnt have true bypass and you cry because you can tell an effect is on then you will hate it . I care about my tone and keep my effects chain to the minimum of pedals that can acheive sounds I want to make . I love this thing . If your playing is a little outside the normal thing and your prepared to lose a little of your "natural" sound then you will probably love it too .

its easy if you understand what function your are using. Some theory helps understanding which key/pitch to use. the knobs themselves are easy to use.

ok - everyone who complains about the warble and inconsistent harmonist.... true its not perfect, but the manual explicitly states that you need to make sure your are totaly in tune. Also, you really have to hit the notes dead on, if you have perfect technique then this thing will work great. If your a sloppy player, then forget about it. Also, if you set the wrong key youll get tones you dont think sound right. The DETUNE is great, and the Trem is fantastic too. I havent tried to Digitech Whammys, but the PS5 will give you the expected Boss/ preocessed sound. It not tube driven, but its sound as good as you rig will. If you are anal and criticize tone more than you are talented, then you wont like this.

boss, no probs.

if you know what you are doing, then you will be able to get the sounds you want. Its very versatile and will add a lot of color to your rig. If your a sloppy player or have a guitar with bad intonation /stability then dont buy this.

Rule one, read the manual. Once read everything is rather straight forward. If you can't read, you're in trouble. Some basic music theory helps. None the less it's relatively simple to get cool sounds, just be prepared to play with it for a while.

If you want realistic guitar sounds, forget it! For harmonised leads, you're better off getting a second guitarist. For every-day 'normal' guitarists who want sweet tone, it's better used as a weapon for throwing at hecklers at gigs.

For weirdos, such as myself, who want to make their guitar sound like it's been fed on Owsley's finest acid - it's a winner! To quote a previous review: "two octaves above sounds like your guitar's had an accident and breathed in tons of helium" - how cool is that?! You can make it squeal, sound like a chewed up tape, and much more! A very necessary pedal if you want to achieve psychedelic bliss.

Being a Boss pedal, it's strong enough to hammer nails with and still work as expected. Extended use as a hammer would void the warranty and chip the paint to buggery.

Never used it, and probably won't have to.

Let me start off by stating that I play heavy acid rock, the aim of which is to do people's heads in by smattering and befuddling them with sound. I play through an arsenal of pedals, and the weirder and more blatant the effect is, the better. Effects these days are way too civilised and this isn't one of them.

I work in a music shop and, in a fit of boredom, plugged it in and gave it a whirl. Almost immediately, heads turned as if to exclaim "What the f*** is that?!" I immediately fell in love. I bought one days later. If it were lost or stolen, I'd definitely buy another.

I've been playing for over 10 years and mainly use a Les Paul Deluxe with P-90 pickups into a Laney VC-30 class A tube amp. I own a heap of effects by Boss, Electro-Harmonix, Jim Dunlop, Ibanez, MXR, and a few I built or modified. The road to psychedelic bliss is paved by pedals.

Basically, if making your guitar sound twisted and bizarre is your thing, this pedal is a must.

I researched the product before I bought it, and mostly understood what it offered, so I have been able to dial in most of what I wanted. There's a decent amount of customization which always means complexity. It is not a device to be tweaked much during performance unless you have night vision goggles with a zoom lens. Although I am giving a 5 rating, this is a good thing as I expected and wanted a 5-type of pedal.

The only way to appreciate what the PS-5 can do is to run stereo out of the PS-5 into two different amps, separated by at least 6 feet. I have it just after the compressor in my chain. Got that in place? Ok, it is the absolutely most fabulous sound fattener in the Detune mode. Leave the pitch knob just left of center, and center both of the balance knobs. That "just a tiny bit of pitch shifting" running into the second amp works miracles. I run one amp clean and the other in clean or scooped grind. I also add effects into individual amps post PS-5. Tremelo on the grinder, but not on the clean, for ex.

One other use: I put the thing in pitch shifting mode and select one octave down, so I have a bass doubling my lead. I like this for boogie woogie things. The harmonizer is amazing, but I have not found a real use for it. BTW, don't use the harmonizer for the one octave down work, as it has a tracking problem compared with pitch shifting mode. Not surprising because harmonizing has got to be a load on that little cpu running the show. Also, importante, always use a power adaptor, as this thing inhales batteries; that may be the source of some of the other people's comments about crappy tones. I don't use any of the other settings. 10 rating for the settings I do use.

Rock solid.

Never had a reason.

My music selection is eclectic. But whatever I'm playing, I run the PS-5 in detune, as described above, continuously. I plan to buy another one or two or three. Boss/Roland has created another great modulation product, in my opinion, which has entered my permanent collection.

Requires a litte reading, but you can also experiment with the knobs to figure out what each one does.

For the most part this thing sounds like shit:

Pitch shifter:This is the main feature that they sell this for and it sounds horrible! What the hell are they thinking??? You get a wide range but no matter what you set it on, you get these "warble" noises, sort of like a tremolo or a chorus but unfortunately this warble sounds bad too! It sounds horrible for power chords or even any chords and sounds bad soloing too. the ver high notes sound like a robot or a computerized violin. Good for making robot/metallica sounds if that' your thing. And no its not where I put it in my chain or how I use it; I read the manual 20 times and tried putting it in every spot in the chain and no change at all.

harmonist:I don't use it and never planned on using it. It's pretty stupid to me cause even the harmony notes sound like a horrible computer midi sound. And you can't even play more than one note at a time.

Detune:I read "detune" in the pitch in mag's for this and that sounded cool cause I like to play stuff in keys of e and Eb. But no, this thing detunes the note not even half of a note down! Its stuck somewhere between E and Eb-what's the freakin point? It just pisses people off

tremolo effects:The only saving grace of this pedal. I use these sometimes. Its fun to hold the pedal down and solo one or two octaves higher than normal, but it sounds like a midi computer sound like everything else. And one octave below sounds worse than a digital bass used in cheesy techno music. Fun to play around with but not worth 150$.

Can I depend on it? Sure, its boss. But don't depend on the paint job they used on this pedal. The FIRST day I got this and was fooling around with it, my guitar head lightly hit the pedal and off went a little ding of the creamy paint they used. The paint DOES NOT stay on good at all. be careful.

NEver tried, prolly never will.

I play any music but write alt/rock/psyechelic/spacy/grungy music(think radiohead meets alice in chains meets smashing pumpkins meets weezer). The tremeolo effects on this can create some very orgiinal stuff, especiall combing with delay. But otherwise this thing is useless and I'm prolly gonna sell it soon. DO NOT BUY this unless your rich and want every possible guitar effect you can get ur hands on.

Very easy to understand, but sometimes gets annoying when using it just with your feet. If you want to change just a little thing, then you have to bend over and do all the neccessary adjustments. But for figuring out how to use it, it is like a high schooler trying to do 4th Grade math(althogh that is hard for some High Schoolers)

They suck. this product is terrible at everything. u cant do much and when u do u get a shit sound. I run ESP KH-202>Boss MT-2>THIS>peavey transtube studio pro. This doesnt emulate a bass, even when the balance knob is set all the way to an octave down effect. I get a crap sound than emulates a dying donkey.

It wont break-duh-its a boss. I threw it on pavement(which was stupid) and it still didnt break.

duh what?

It is kinda fun, but it is shit everything. Im takin it back to get a pedal worth having. :(

I'm no pedal expert, but I had no trouble figuring out this creature, even though my manual is all in Japanese (only because I bought it in Japan, of course!).

I think here I'd better address some of the 'problems' some people have had with this pedal.

I can't stress this enough:

*** PUT IT FIRST IN YOUR EFFECTS CHAIN! ***

This is important, and I think it's mentioned on the website. If the pedal comes after distortion, it will have to work doubly hard trying to process the different harmonies.

*** USE THE HARMONISER FOR SINGLE NOTES! ***

This makes a hell of a lot of difference. It's not that important to choose the correct key - it is intelligent, after all. Just choose the interval (3rd, 4th, 1oct etc). I only use the pitchshifter mode for chords or if I want a more electronic sound. You can get a great 12-string emulation using the pitchshifter, but only if you pay attention to your settings (a bit of chorus or reverb helps, too!).

As with all pedals, how you use this thing makes all the difference - if you say the sound is poor, then you aren't using the settings right, your setup is wrong or you simply haven't understood the limitations of a pitchshifter. In terms of sound, this thing is the equal of the Digitech Whammy (I tried them out, side by side). I think the intelligent pitchshifting (there's nothing intelligent about the heavy-handed Whammy) makes it a better pedal, providing you're not too hung up on the expression pedal.

I expect it's indestructible

My Japanese isn't so good, so hopefully I won't have to test that. Though I'm sure BOSS UK would be happy to take my call if neccessary.

Considering the size, price, amount of features and above all the funky metallic turquoise colour, I can't give this anything other than 10. The best pitchshifter for the home user.

This is a box you HAVE to read the book to use. Once you have, theres no problem. Very versatile but I have to make an enlanged scanned image of the front panel from the minute manual in order to know where everything is for stage use.

I use a number of guitars through Peavey Stereo chorus.
Sound quality seems better when I use a distortion pedal & clean channel, using the Distortion in the amp, the harmonies sound a little "muddier"

I've never had any reliability issues with Boss or any other effects for that matter.

I bought this primarily for the harmonist mode...the need for a second guitarist in the band has now been "replaced" by this unit...need I say more.
The whammy setting is a revelation (our drummer couldn't beleive his ears when my Les Paul did a Van Halen dive bomb !!

Overall a brilliant piece of kit but you have to put in a bit of homework & make some "stage notes" to get the best out of it.

If you dont know anything about REAL music... (scales EFGABCD minors majors ect) then this pedal is semi-difficult. It took me some time to fully understand it even knowing all the above. The style is simple, as all Boss is, but 13 year old garage bangers... i don't suggest you come near this thing.

The pedal is absolutely awesome... assuming you play one note at a time... try a chord.. get some freaky action. I'm not really complaining, i've used this glitch in a song or two, its a really nice effect if your band is like mine. By glitch i mean, it jumps amongst the notes your playing all at once, it cant shift more than 1 at a time.

Boss... need i say any more?

Never had to use it

Once you learn how to make it, this baby whales. it can make all sorts of nice tones and noises... It gets a 9 only because the shifted tones arent as good as a second guitarist playing by your side. The shifted notes are very obviously fake. But i like that anyway so....