Korg AX1G Guitar Multieffects

I bought this pedal roughly 10 years ago, i recently brought it back home since it's been sitting in a friends basement for a few years. Guitar multi fx's have come a long way since this one came out so I'm trying to review this pedal in the light of what's available today.

Editing is fairly straightforward once you get the hang of it, however it's not as hands on as units with knobs to twiddle. The selection of parameters to edit could be better though, most algorithms only have one tweakable parameter. For example delay feedback is a fixed parameter and only time and level can be edited.

The expression pedal is a nice addition and can be used to control a fair number of effects, not just wah and pitchshift but also phaser and tremolo rate. On the downside, the travel of the expression pedal is way to short, it's still usable however but a longer travel would go a long way towards making is a more usable pedal.

It actually has a fairly exhaustive range of effects and algorithms. Including some more exotic ones like pitchshifters, ringmod, drones, s/h filter and primitive looping abilities.

There is a slight background hiss on my unit, not incredibly important but loud enough to be noticeable. I'm running mine in a true bypass loop to get rid of the noise when I'm not using it.

Distortions are absolutely horrible. Stay away from them. Particularly in a band setting, they can be tweaked to sound ok for bedroom playing but in a rehearsal room they're useless. Absolutely no definition that cuts through the mix, just sounds like white noise.

The eq is ok I think, I haven't used it too much.

Modulation effects are actually really nice, smooth and spacious phasers and choruses, not that full of character but nice sounding. I compared the phasers in the AX1G to a Phase 90 clone and they certainly hold up well soundwise.

Pedal effects are somewhat mixed, wah is decent but the short travel of the exp. pedal is somewhat limiting. Ringmodulation is freaking awesome, considering how inexpensive they are today the ringmod alone it worth the price.

Pitchshifters are ok, it's not a whammy though. And the looping and sampling effects are a little hard to use and suffer from rather short sampling times, a few seconds at most.

Delays and reverbs are again ok but nothing spectacular. The delay where you can change delay time using the expression pedal is cool and can make some weird noises.

It's plastic but seem to be well built. I've had it for 10 years and gigged with it and put it through a fair amount of use and it has never crapped out on me.

Never dealt with them.

I'm still using this together with a bunch of other pedal on my board. It makes a nice addition as a decent wah, tuner and good modulation effects. It certainly takes up a whole lot less space than if I were to replace it with individual pedals.

Positive sides: good value for money today, great modulation effects, decent timebased effects and some weird stuff (ringmod, step filter etc.)

On the negative side: Bad drive effects, a bit noisy and the travel on the expression pedal is too short.

Not too bad. Editimg is a bit of a pain. Def need to peek at the maual. Getting to the built in tuner is a pain on mine as the patch buttons have minds of their own. You end up going up a patch, then down, then up then maybe they'll register a simultaneous hit and open the tuner!!

Rather good. I stick it between an epy LP and a Vox pathfinder and it does well. The distortions are nothing to write home about but the other stuffs pretty darn good (if a bit limited sometimes)It surprised a friend of mine whos a music teacher who thought i was using some fancy acoustic guitar sim while doing some mellow stuff and was shocked i got such a good sound out of "that thing"

Had it years. Been to hell and back and apart from the cosmetic dinks it works like a dream (apart from that darn tuner!!)

Never had to use them.

I mess about with just about every style there is and it has something for every one. Very good value. Am thinking of getting a new unit but will always keep the AX laying around.

Plug it in and start pushing buttons! The factory presets are as easy as making mud, customizing requires a few minutes of (ugh!) reading the manual.

I've used this with a Gibson sonex-180 and a Ibanez sa160. It definitely likes singles over humbuckers IMHO, as you start to get some weird fuzz on the HBs.

Is it gig quality? Not unless you're gigging in a pretty small place. It's perfectly adequate for practice and as a backup, but you're not going to replace your pedal board with this.

So far, so good. It feels lightweight and plastic, but I've dropped it and have put my whole 250lbs on the expression pedal! So, I guess I need to say it's pretty solid!

n/a

I like playing a variety of stuff, and this one unit allows me to do that. Where this comes into its own is on the road. I can run it off batteries, connect headphones, and be totally portable. Hotel, boat, car, wherever!

If you see one for a decent price, you'll probably find it fun and useful.

Use of pedal effects is easy and simple and the colour coded lights (green, orange and red) divide the effects into three sets of 10 allowing you to know where you are in relation to other effects. Editing the patches is quite tricky and you need to really follow the manual as you can get lost within the menus.

Sound quality is good, good range of effects and the pressure pedal works nicely with wah, volume and phaser effects. Overdrive and distortion effects are nice but i prefer to use the settings on my marshall amp for overdrive and distortion.

Owned it for 6 years never had a single problem, been droped and stood on several times (by accident ^_^) Still working as new

N.A

I play a variety of music dependng on how i feel or who im jamming with and this pedal provides a great range of good quality effects that allow you to experiment and be creative in playing your music. Would buy again if broken or lost as its simple, effective, durable and sounds great.

If one just uses the preset than it is pretty easy, but if you want to change the patches than you'll have to resort to the manual (available at the korg website). Relatively speaking, changing patches isn't really that hard.

The reason that someone will use a multi-effects unit is not for sound quality, but for convenience. It's obviously easier to tote around one pedal than 6 or 7 pedals with a board and wires. The downside is that there will have to be some compromise in sound quality.
The setup that I use this pedal for is for my church rig. I use a myriad of different guitars through a simple GK single speaker amp. I can carry everything from my car to the platform where we play in one trip. With just the ax-1, I'm set up in about 3 minutes.
The patches that I use are the more atmospheric patches (violin is an especially good patch) that can facilitat volume swells. Other that that, I've just programmed a couple of cleaner sounds that use the processor's reverbs and compressions, neither of which are great, but good enough in a musical setting where the guitar won't be out front.

Never had a problem after using for about 5 years (and since it was purchased used, who knows how long before that). It's only plastic which seems to me a bit iffy, but it's held up being dragged in and out of my bag 2-4 times a week for those 5 years.

NA

For what it does, it's extremely serviceable. Again, it's not for any one great effect but more for a convenient smattering of many different decent effects.

Easy to set up and get started.
The manual was fine for the basics but when it came to editing, I was lost and gone.
However I need to add that I have to get my teenage son to sort out my mobile phone, so I think it's a generation/application thing.

I use a tele or strat through a Vox AC30 or a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I bought the unit about 4 years ago because I'd joined a bar band after a 10 year layoff and needed to add some new colours to the dry sounds I have (and am happy with).
Plus I needed an onstage tuner that was hands-free and offered a mute function. I don't use any other pedals.
The unit has dozens of pre-set sounds which I have no use for - I'm very old school - so maybe it's more than I needed in the first place.
I use a handful of the pre-sets (2 wahs, one distortion, a chorus, a tremolo, a 'Stevie Ray' sound, or a plain bright - one sound per song) or bypass it altogether.
I haven't noticed any extraneous noise from it. I'd like it if there was more range/depth in the wahs and the tremolo.

In 4 years playing on stage in pubs and clubs never had a real problem.
It's plastic, but I look after all my gear and keep it away from trouble and drunks.
However I'm on my second 9volt power unit simply because the crappy power leads short out from flexing. I think the unit should have an AC power lead. I would never use batteries.
A couple of times I've hit the wrong button (because I don't know how to edit it - duh - it's still factory set up) while changing banks onstage and in the dark I haven't been able to work out how to undo what I've done! The unit is probably for someone a little more sophisticated than me.

Never had a need

Been playing for 30 years, I love the tough, clean sounds I get through my guitar/amp combinations and only bought the Korg because I needed some variety for the band i'd joined. Whenever I play my Gibson ES-135 semi I bypass the unit because it's not at all compatible.
I play in an acoustic outfit too and use the Korg as an onstage tuner and just bypass it - expensive tuner, I guess.
I've noticed other people complaining about the quality of the sounds - I'm happy with the sounds I use and don't bother with the rest. Pub crowds aren't that fussy. The Korg does what I need it to do, but I'm not emotionally attached to it. Now my Vox - that's a different story!
I didn't try any other pedals - my Godson had one and it looked like an easy and affordable way to expand my sound palette without taking up any footspace! If mine disappeared I'd just run dry until I could find a used one, or maybe I'd see what else has been invented in the last ten years! There's always something new to make you go Wow!

No knobs to turn whatsoever - hard to get used to. But workable. I always hated to have to program a patch and was glad when I was done. Esp. the EQ sucks and totally unusable. To change patches you can easily miss. It feels like a toy. Cant use it live since it changes patches not on time! For home use its ok I guess. What I definitely liked about it: Runs also with batteries. Used it on trains and buses on vacations. Low budget equipment...

The distortions are decent, overdrives fail completely. Nice phasers. Forget loops etc. One prepatch was the one called "SPACED". This one rules! The delays and reverbs are crap. Use it with headphones its a little better...

It held up so far, dont use it too often though...

dunno

Kind of a metal machine. Good enough for nu rcok etc. No usable overdrive, hard to control, fails in live situations. ok for backup at home. Was my first effect ever, years ago. The only I reason I keep it is I wouldnt get any money for it anymore...

The interface on this thing isn't the easiest in the world, and definitely not the fastest to edit. Using the patches is pretty straightforward, though. There's not a lot of room for custom patches. Only 30 writeable programs, with little flexibility on-stage.

The user manual was pretty clear.

Sound quality, for the most part, is terrible on this thing. The distortion is mostly like white noise, changing the drive level didn't really make it better. The compression (as well as some of the reverb and echo effects with clean tones) pops a *lot* when you hit a string, more than is normal with compression. Stereo effects were good, and the unit offers some interesting effects. Several effects are in stereo, which made it cool in a lot of ways.

Using this thing without an amp or some amp modeller is not recommended. Usually, when you get a floor processor, it's expected to have amp cab modelling. While it does (the "size" feature), it's not very good at all.

Very reliable, always used it without backup.

Not good for distortion, but good for clean sounds and effects. One of the worst things with this processor, in my opinion, is the output. It has stereo effects, yet to utilize them, you'll have to have a stereo cable instead of two mono cables, which means you'll have to most likely have to have a stereo-mono splitter, which is what I ultimately ended up building for it.

Bought this unit used. I've just started to really learn how to play after having a guitar around for several years and I've found this unit to have some really good, usefull sounds for the stage I'm at. It's easy to edit, and you defenetly have to fine tune it to your set up. No manual came with it, but it was easy enough to find on line. Once I read through it a couple times, it all made sense.

I put it through a Peavy Rage 158 amp and play on a Washburn Idol wi14, so I know it will never sound like a Les Paul through a Marshall, but it does sound pretty damn good. I get some noise through some of the pre-sets, but if you torque it, you can really cut out a lot of the noise. The effects really do depend on your set up, some weak, some almost too much, but I have been able to get some really good distortion and an awesome sounding clean through mine. The special effects are kind of weak, pedal doesn't travel al that much, but you can make so really cool sounds.

It is really kind of hard to see the display, so if you don't have a couple patch's real close together to switch back & forth to, I can't see using it live. Then again, most guy's would only be using a couple of setting anyway. It's never gone out or anything, so yeh, I'd use it live.

never used them

I play a wide variety, rock, country, metal and I've found it useful for all those styles. I don't know if I'd replace it if stolen, I'd probably shell out some more money and get something a little newer.
All in all, excellent in giving you a sound to be confident in playing with. Once you hear that you CAN sound like you know what your doing, it really opens up your playing and builds your confidence.
For what I payed for it, it'll always be in my bag.

You must create your own patches with this to fit your style. It is easy but takes time. Keep it simple and don't try to jam all the effects into each patch. I think some of these people are shredding,crunching, and swirling every patch and then wondering where their tone went.

Nothing matches a Fender twin or a roland JC 120 for clean, bright sound [ OOp's forgot about the new Rogue amps.] But for dist., phaser, compressor, flanger, this beats them all. Again, adjust the patches.

I would'nt play Symphony Hall with it. Parties, clubs, jams, it is a blast. Mine is old and used. Still works like new.

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I play mostly rock at parties and small clubs. I have crafted each patch with the most " mind-blowing " effects imaginable. Sure there are tiny bits of hiss or static here and there on some of them, but nothing you could possibly hear with the rest of the band playing. The Behringer XV AMP is comparable but does not have the sampler/loop function that I like.