Korg A5 Guitar

very easy to use.. no need the manual

ah sound quality....

hum well the distorsion/OD is crap...
the other effects are pretty good but the flanger seems to have problems to support big OD (troubles of big noises appearing from time to time (?).....)
u also have a "cut" (no sound..) when switching from one bank to another...

hum well 25 presets that sounds like crap and only 5 users... u'll have to choose your sounds...

bough used.. never had a single problem whith it!

i play metal.. this is a good choice for a begginer's cheap multieffects, that allows u to have a decent clean sound...
don't even think to use the OD or the distorsion...

buy the same?? hum not now... (i bought it when i wus broke, now i got enough money to buy a better multi effects..)
missing wah .. too bad..

the last thing...
u have 6 banks of 5 presets each... but u cannot switch from a bank to another with your foot.. this is a SHAME!

the effects are very easy to use it has a good delay and distorton
you only have one bank for editing patches which is a bit of a problem. the manual was very easy to use and straight forward.

the board sounds good with my vox amp and gives of a good sustain. i have created a good effects for brian may, steve vai and hank marvin. but as being in a band i have to have surten effects to suit my songs.

in the time it has been in my household it has had no work done on it.
i would not use it with out back up due to it has not got a repeat delay or octave in it.

It's very easy to use. You don't need even a manual.

This thing sounds really poor. I didn't found any of effect useful. Distortion sounds like a a bee. It has 5 different flangers and choruses but not even one is useful. They don't have any briliance. It has also 6 different kinds of reverbs, one delay but I still use my Marshall reverb. Compresor? Don't even think to use it. I have an Ibanez RG-570 guitar and almost any sound I tried on Korg has too many noise and input gain was overloaded all the time. You can't go over 50% of input gain because you get a very very noisy sound. Only with equalizer you can really change the sound of the guitar but I didn't found any sound really good. This thing has 25 presets and only 5 user banks. And presets are - no comment. I tried really hard to fill those 5 user banks with somekind of "useful" sounds. But all was in combination with Marshall's gain and reverb.

Otherwise it worked every time without any problems and the pedals are also quite hard so you can't break this thing so easy.

I play all kind of music - from jazz to metal. And I would never buy this model again. If you're a beginner and you don't have money - for this price you can't get even a single effect. So maybe is good enough for the very beginners but don't go with this thing on stage or in studio! I use now BOSS GX-700 - feel the diference :))

Very easy to use. Designed for beginners. It's got loads of pre-sets, it's just a matter of pluggin' and goin'.

Errmmm... I said it was for beginners: it's for skint beginners. The sound is, put it simple, very low-end. You get what you pay for... The distortion part of it is really the most dreadful. Apart from people who are really into lo-fi crap distortion, I couldn't see anybody liking this stuff. The effects are marginally better, but still sound weak and unconvincing. the only good sounds I managed to get out of it was when I f**ked around with the knobs and managed to get some sort of My Bloody Valentine kind of over-chorused distorted sound. But apart from that, it's a poor man's thingy.

It's plastic fantastic, and if you've got heavy foot and bootz, you might get through the board! However, I never had a single problem with it (except the das sounds)

Don't know about that.

I wouldn't buy it again. I was happy to have it in the first place, as I was playing a cheap guitar and even cheaper 10W Marlin amp, so it was a good way to have access to different effects in a cheap, one-box. But now I'm playing a '60 Jazzmaster along with a Hiwatt 100W amp, I just use a Tubeman H&K valve booster as well as a Boss Delay pedal, and I can't see myself coming back to this stuff! The conclusion is: if you're REALLY skint and desperate and you're a beginner, it will provide you with some fun for some time. And it will make you feel like saving your dosh for buying decent gear!

Patches are easy to set up and edit once you get the hang of resetting the controls to the stored positions each time you bring up an effect's parameters (not difficult, but can be tedious). The manuals are enough to get started with, but don't look for deep insight. The A5 isn't a real brain-buster to use, so this isn't a big deal.

Overall, not bad. The compressor, which rarely gets used, is very touchy. The Distortion/OD section sounds, well, like 5-year-old DSP. It's tolerable at low volumes but doesn't stand up when really amplified. The EQ section has an 8-position sweepable mid band which makes it much more useful than a regular 3-bander. The flanger, chorus, reverb and delay all sound reasonably good. There's also a NR/Noise gate section which cleans up after the noisy compressor and OD; when playing clean I keep it set to its lowest setting. The 25 built-in patches are not very usable, and only having 5 user spots doesn't help matters. The built-in headphone amp isn't an ear splitter but is satisfactory for practicing. I've done a couple of patches for bass that have worked pretty well, too.

It hasn't burped once in the five years I've owned it. The sound quality isn't up to par for gigging, but I might use it as a backup. It isn't built for heavy use but has stood up to being tossed in the goodie bag and hauled around to jam sessions.

Never had occasion to try them out.

I'd buy another if it were five years ago and I were on the same budget. At the time I compared it with a similar model from Boss which I didn't like. I'd love more patch spaces or the ability to clobber the presets (something I think the A4 took care of). This was my first outing beyond stomp boxes; I've since outgrown it and will probably buy a rack unit soon.
Short Answer: Not a bad box for driving a small amp around the house, but not something I'd record or perform with.