Korg AX30G

Fairly easy to use - doesn't have a lot of knobs so the one has to do for lots things. Has two modes of editing - easy and detailed. Changing patches on stage is OK but there is a delay. The presure pedal is a pain but you can rig up any volume pedal as an expression pedal by using stereo jacks and the wiring in the manual. If you want to use expression do this - the presure pedal is a fun toy but not for real work.

I use it most with my Takamine and a Fender 25R on clean. Also with a strat and various odds and ends - I find humbuckers take the fx better than single coils. The noise reduction is good, the distortions are OK if you like mega crunch - a subtle break-up is something I can't find. The chourus, phasing and flanging etc is good, delays seem OK but max at 500ms(?) - good for its time but it is old technology!

I do (who backs up fx?). The weak point is the wall wart and conection. I have taped mine permenantly to the unit as the cable broke at the connector.

never tried

I've had this several years. I mainly play in church, this fills out the accoustic sound nicely. The distortion and heavier funk effects are nice but I don't get to use them except at home. If you can find a cheap one 2nd hand - grab it!

Looks more complicated than it really is. editing takes an hour or so to get used to using intuition. (forget the manual apart from a quick glance, it only complicates things). Trial and error works best!

I originally used a Carlsboro stingray with a cheapo Hohner Rockwood Les Paul. But I now mostly play acoustics (Takamine EAN12G) with a Laney acoustic combo. The laney is nice for a small and low priced acoustic amp, BUT, the mic channel is totally clean. No tone or reverb. The AX30 is (beleive it or not) an awesome vocal processor!! Using reverb, delay and 3band eq, I can get more out of this than I can out of cubase. Occasionally I use chorus, trem and compression also. I rated the ax30 quite well as a guitar fx, but as a vocal processor it beats the crap out of many dedicated ones I have used

plastic but seems indestructible. been dropped and battered but still fires up every time

never needed them

play anything, I'd die if I lost it, to me this is one of the better early digital processors. More user presets would be nice.

Awsome controll, if you f*ck up a setting its not so hard to retrace your steps. the digital controlls make it heaps easier to remember settings. If only it had more banks. The pressure pedal is ok to work with but doesn't allow you to leave it in a set position other than off.

With my shitty $300 dollar ibanez and my sountech PA with a heavily scooped EQ and the right settings on the pedal I sound exactly like Kirk and James from Metallica. You couldn't tell the difference. email me dougie_rock_head@hotmail.com for the settings. the delay between pedals and baks is a bit anoying, but press them at the right time and you'll be fine.

If only it also ran on bateries :(
other than that it's the adaptors that f*ck up on me

second hand job

Metal machine this is. clean, distortion, wah, etc... it's all good. I can even use the bender for drop tunings which is it's main function for me.

'Easy Peasie' Love the editing, perfect menu structure. Only gripe is when changing the module block, the effect settings dont stay the same.

Distortions. - Forget it.
This is getting dated now...with all the pods and everything out there, better look somewhere else.

Lots of werid effects, brillant creative stuff here.

Mod/Delay section. Now, - this is the only area i use, and like...Maybe it's personal, but i love the Korg delays...look at the SDD seriis...the mod delays are great. Again, let down is that the stereo MOD delays only got to 250ms. Also, in the Moddelay section, they only go in increments of 10. Normal delays go in increments of 5ms, which is a little better, but, as i said, mod delays are my thing...ive got a digitec rp20, but this korg kicks ass.

2 out of 10 for distortions
8 out of 10 for mod delays

very small, very rugged, very lite.
Brillant at gigs.
So small, so compact, lots of fun
i Dont' use pressure pedal though....it may break...
Would like midi to back it up.

Have dealt with before, (korg UK) and they sent old manuals, etc.
There good.
Then again, the tech support team could be a bit more 'specialised'...

I actually had this unit when it came out, and i recently bought a AX300g i found used as i love this unit.
Multi effects has gone a bit pot from korg, - this seems like one of the last serious units.....

Couldn't be bothered to spell check, but i love this place, it's helped me alot, so hope this is helpfull to you!

it's really easy. i dont have to read the manual book. but it took me about a week to figure it out. because there are too many acronym.

im using a marshall JCM-900. this shit is sound really great, but the delay is actually bad. the resonance, the depth, the delay speed, are not giving any effects to delay sound [it has delay, but the volume is so small]

its fucked up. got slammed, kicked, and under a heavy things. its still works [watchout for getting under heavy weight things, it might get broken]
but u really need to pay attention on the adaptor, once it has problem, YOU'RE DEAD! or you may find another adaptor.

its really hard on getting this stuff. i need to go around jakarta to find it out.
but i've got it.

i use it for playing all kinds of music. however, for some reason and style of music it has something lack. could be the sound effects [delay, distortion, etc].
but it really kicks ass. for playin nu-metal music like korn, it's really dependable.

I found this item hard to use at first, You really do have to sit down with the manual and study it a couple of times over to get the jist of it.
After reading it you soon get the hang of it.
The preset programs are ok to start, then you can program your own weird & wonderful sounds in.

I'm using this just on some cheapo guitars and practice amps as I am just learning,I'm getting some excelent sounds out of it.
Theres some good rock/grung sounds plenty of distortion and it has the bonus of a dolby system which reduces the background noise if you like and you can set it to any level.
I find all the sounds great, cant wait to try it on a large amp with a decent guitar.

Have not had it long but have given it some hammer and seems robust enough.
If I was giging I think I could depend on it.

Never dealt with the company, never had to.

I'm playing all sorts of styles as I am just learning, I have been playing for about 8 months and it's coming slowley.
If it were nicked I'd find out who nicked it and make em buy me a new one, if it were lost I'd deffinatly buy this item again.
Some of the programs I'll probably never use but it's nice to have them just to try them and when you get bored you can have a mess about with it and get some real weird sounds out of it.
If you had to buy all the stomp boxes to get the sounds that this reproduces, it would cost a small fortune.
Cant really fault it, deffinatly worth a try.

At first i found this thing very intimidating, then after a year or two i read the manual and discovered it was a breeze to use. I found a couple of sites that had patches on the net wich i found very easy to input however, when i try to write my own patches they sound like shit.

I use a Gibson Les Pul and a Fender Tele, at times i think the sound is cool from the machine and at other times i cant really be bothered with it.

This machine has been kicked around, flung off wallsand had mant different types of alcohol spilt on it and the bastard still works.

Never used.

I like this machine, ive went to get other effeccs pedals in the past, played with them in the shop, went to the pub to think about which one to buy and got drunk, spent my money and been left with my trusty Korg AX30G. I am still happy to be stuck with it. If anyone has patchs they would like to share get in touch.

It's true that the Korg AX30G may not be the most user friendly effects pedal around (it's getting on a bit, and knobs are the big thing these days!) but I'm pretty sure that no other FX pedal has the same depth of programming, plus the Individual Pedal mode that allows you to use it as a set of stomp boxes. The manual is good, but out of interest (or my ignorance) I could never work out what some of the patches were meant to be based on. Not that it really matters when tone is your thing, but all suggestions gratefully received!

The reason I'm resubmitting a review after many years of owning this AX30G is this: I bought an old 70s Fender Twin Reverb last year, and initially tried it out - using my trusty Strat - with my newer AX1000g. Not bad, but as often happens, I decided to dig out the old AX30G out of curiosity...what a find! Not only is the AX30G as silent as it gets in terms of background noise, but the tones were far smoother and richer than the AX1000G. I know the Fender MUST take a large portion of the credit, but I really had to sing the praises of the old pedal! The distortion still leaves something to be desired at times - too overcooked - but current owners should try Ambichorus in Individual mode and hit switch 1 for solos. I'm still not able to tame some of the wilder patches (eg JimiWah - any tips?)but I play covers, so versatility is the key, and I would disagree with those who say the Chorus is weak - not with a Twin it ain't!Anyway, the AX1000G has been sold on - newer isn't always better!

My first ever AX30G went back to Korg when the Pressure pedal went, but I gather that was a design fault. When I got the replacement I then bought a Korg Pedal (hideously over-priced) and it's been excellent as a wah, volume, swell, expression pedal. The AX30g has been danced on, soaked in beer frequently (it's safer on a stage!)and shipped around Europe. It may not look the biz but it's alive and well. Just take care over the "wall wart"! Never used a backup.

After the glitch mentioned above, never needed them. Thought the Korg website was a little user-unfriendly if you wanted info: but there are plenty of websites with patches, although sadly these are a little old too!Time for a reunion...where's Chad and Josh?

I'be been playing for over 30 years, and have used Peavey, Marshall, Fender and Tech 21 amps, usually with Strats. I've used Colorsound, FuzzFace and Dunlop pedals, but I've also had the Korg A5 (not good) before the AX30G. I sometimes hanker to buy "famous names" pedals, but cost and convenience are factors, and like the sounds I get now.

This pedal is great to use, it is simple to get the hang of and looks very impressive if someone is watching you set a patch or something...

I use this with a gibson SG and an old tube driven peavey amp, and it always sounds great, i play a wide variety of music from experamental noisy stuff to full on punk and it deffinately delivers. I've never actually seen (or heard) another pedal that sounds quite like this...

I've put this pedal through some hell, and still it works as good as the day i got it, it took me two minutes in the shop to decide to buy it!!

I've never had the need to deal with them...to tell the truth if it broke i'd probably fix it myself...

I would deffinately give this top marks, it offers a wide variety of effects for a wide variety of music...if it where stolen i'd deffinately get another...

Being my first processor, this unit took a bit of getting used to. Read the manual (30 some pages) and it's a snap. I initially put this thing away after using it for 2 hours because I was unhappy with it. I pulled it out 2 weeks later and have used it ever since! Editing patches is easy if you know what all the values mean. If not, read the manual.

I play a 2001 Epiphone Les Paul Studio with a Crate GFX212T amp (i know i know, i was short on cash). Before I was given this, I used a Boss BD-2 Bluesdriver for my vintage sounds and the amp's distortion for metal. With the AX30G i can kinda do both. The BD-2 is far superior for vintage tube-like sounds, but you don't buy a digital box for that anyway. Noise is not really a problem.

Most of the effects sound good, but they will require tweaking. Search the internet and you can find some great patches (that's how I got started). The effects that i can't make sound good are the ones that I don't know how to use. I can get anything from tweed-style light overdrive, to AC/DC bright crunch, to muddy Boogie style distortion (if that's what yer in to, personally i'm more of a crunch guy). I bet with some tweaking you get close to almost any sound.

Seems to be sturdy. The "Pressure" pedal looks kinda cheap. If anything was to break, I would suspect that first. Fortunately, there's an input for an expression pedal (a real one). So it ain't that big a deal. I doubt I'd gig with this, but it's not because I don't trust it. You see, I'm planning on buying a REAL amp in the near future, and then a nice rack processor for effects. So this will have been replaced before I will be gigging at all (I'm just not to that stage yet as a guitarist).

Never dealt with Korg.

For free as a Christmas present, why not? I play tons of stuff, from Classic Rock (The Doors, Hendrix, Zeppelin) to hard rock (AC/DC, Van Halen) to contemporary grungy stuff (Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots), and even some blues.

I've been playing for 9 months. If it was stolen or lost, I might be a little upset that I couldn't sell it. Buy it again? Nah. I'm really not into this processor stuff. This was a GIFT from my brother, and i didn't ask for it. I like the ability to access a wide variety of sounds with the press of a button, and the ability to create chains of effects and stuff like that. I dislike that it was given to me. I really wasn't ready for a processor, and it shoved my beloved bluesdriver out of the spotlight for a while. Oh well. In a year I'll have a kick-ass half stack anyway (tube, of course), and I won't need this. Isn't that what they all say.