Lexicon MPX 100 Dual Channel Processor

This is an addition to my last review. I bought this unit for $70 dollars, and wasn't pleased with it. The effects sounded thin and tanky. After one reviewer talked about upgrading the caps, I went ahead and did the same. WOW! It totaly transforms every effect. The reverb, echo and chorus are now full and smooth. I replaced the caps with sprague orange drop. The input caps are .22 and are undersized. I replaced them with the gigantic .47 orange drop caps. I had to file the leads until they were thin enough to go through the holes. The other caps I replaced with the same values. So for $6 dollars worth of caps, you can transform this thing into an inexpensive quality sounding effects unit. Why didn't lexicon do this? With their bulk discount these cap upgrades would have probably cost $2. Why would they risk their reputation on a couple dollars?

Quite easy to use.

Sound quality is ok. My rating for this product reflects the price I paid. I bought this unit to work through the effects loop of several guitar amps, which have acutronics reverb(but not tube). I mainly was looking for a nice, soft reverb. I am not into heavy effects. This unit is a disappointment. It lacks headroom. Unit clips at a very low volume.

After fidling with it for a long time, and tweaking all the reverb settings, I decided that both my amps cheap reverb sound better. So much for Lexicons claim to fame. Some of the rest of the effects are OK. Some are useless. However, for less price than a single pedal($70), I wasn't expecting much and I don't think you could find a better unit price wise.

So far so good.

If it were stolen, I would either buy a better unit, none at all, or a unit that does one effect to a tee.

Pretty simple stuff, if I can work it out most can!

Purely used to add reverb to vocals on home recordings and I'm happy with the results. Have experimented with delay on guitars also and again the results are pleasing.

mmmmmmmm. Thought I could but. i inherited the unit from a mate, we tend to share alot of our gear, it had hardly been used and within 2 months of receiving it it the power supply packed up. It took me 6 months to get hold of another (Lexicon apparantly do not ship outside U.S) by persuading a local music shop to sell me a power supply from a new MPX110! Which cost me #30.
The unit now powers up beautifully, only problem is the LED's all stay on and the unit is totally unusable. i have tried all of the reboot tecniques described on the Lexicon sight with no success.

Unknown as yet! However very interesting to see that this seems to be a common problem and thus one could conclude a manufacturing fault. Lets see if Lexicon are humble enough to admit it.

I had been looking at other Lexicon products. i doubt whether this will happen now!

this unit is quite difficult to use becus it dosent have many knobs ,so all the programming is done using internal menues

nice sounds the delays are good but i did not like the reverb

pay attention - if u want to use this unit live thier is along delay time when your switching effects

dident have any problems with it

nice sounds -- very bad for live performing

Easiest rack processor on the planet.

Excellent tonal quality. I especially love the rotary speaker presets and the delays rule. Chorus and flange presets don't suck either.

Here's the rub. I've had my MPX 100 for almost four years and it has always been flawless, until about three weeks ago when it went belly up. When the unit is powered on ALL the lights on the front panel come on and stay on. I checked the Lexicon web site and followed the prcedure for reinitialization with no success. Anyone out there had a similar problem? If so, please post a remedy. I doubt it would be worth the cost to ship it off to Lexicon and pay for repairs. Thanks.

I haven't contacted Lexicon for this problem, but they have always been helpful in the past.

I've loved this simple yet awesome sounding machine for almost four years. I'd like to get it up and running again, but I probably won't replace it because I have tons of other gear (POD xt, Boss VF-1, Lexicon Vortex & JamMan, plus a bunch of pedals).

Simple and easy to figure out. The manual is direct and helpful. I haven't done much patch editing with it, I'm pretty happy with how the factory presets.

I use this unit with a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal, NS-2 Noise suppressor pedal, and run everything through a BBE DI box. I play an American Fender Tele and a Rickenbacker 360 through this setup. I use a Fender Blues Junior tube amp. I love all of the effects on this unit. I made my own pedal that I can plug in the back of the unit and control my delay settings and bypass the unit from my floor pedals. This is the best thing that has happened to my setup. I've played professionaly with this unit for over a year now and just love it.

Very dependable. I keep it in an SKB rack unit case and take very good care of my gear. I would not hesitate using it without a backup.

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My friend who is a sound engineer had this unit in one of his racks and let me try it out with my guitar. I was floored and bought one right away. This is a basic unit for a good value but with great legendary Lexicon sound and quality. If I were to ever upgrade to a different unit, I think that I would get a Lexicon unit with some more patches and editing features.

The MPX100 is fairly easy to use, especially if you do what a lot of people do, which is to dial through the Presets until you find a sound that's close enough to what you wanted. Editing the patches isn't too difficult, but I like to go deep into my effects, and the MPX100 is pretty limited in that regard. The fact that Lexicon only allowed for 16 User patches suggests that they intended the MPX100 to be used primarily for the factory presets.

I've always liked Lexicon's manuals, the layout, the info and the wire binding; for most manuals you need a music stand. Having said that, this isn't the first Lexicon manual I've read that leaves out some vital information. For example, many of the SFX presets are Dual Programs, which means that you can tweak them with the Effects Lvl/Bal knob, as well as the Adjust knob; the manual doesn't mention this. Try tweaking the Effects Lvl/Bal knob on SFX like "The Abyss" or "Dream Sequence" to hear what I mean. The lack of values for Reverb Decay time is also kind of a pain. Is the longest Decay time 10 seconds, 18 seconds or even 32 seconds? The manual doesn't say. I guess you either trust your ears, or buy a stopwatch. There are some other omissions of this type.

I don't know if there ever was a software revision for the MPX100. The MPX110 came out so soon after the MPX100, it probably is the upgrade.

A Les Paul Special SL and a PRS Santana SE are my main guitars. I tend to use A GT-3 instead of an amp, but when I need an amp I use a Roland JC-90. In either case, I use piles of other effects, although I'm constantly swapping things in and out of my signal chain for different sounds. I bought the MPX100 primarily as a clean, dedicated Reverb, but I do use some of the other effects. Usually, it winds up at the very end of my signal chain, unless I'm using it for the Pitch Shifter.

As other reviewers have noted, it's way too easy to redline this thing. I've noticed that some other Lexicon devices (like the JamMan) have this same problem. I haven't encounted the raging digital distortion some reviewers described, or I would have returned the unit. A Volume pedal near the end of your signal chain is always a good thing to have, and with the MPX100, it's damned near essential.

The effects are a mixed bag, as far as sound quality. The Pitch Shift effects aren't what I expected from a Lexicon device, and I've always found Lexicon's Flanger effects too subtle for my taste. Even the Reflex, which had deeper programing power, never gave me the jet roar of my favorite analog pedals. The Chorus effects are very nice, but again, I wouldn't mind being able to dial in a little more swoosh and swirl. I liked the Tremelo effects just fine, but the Rotary effects were the least impressive to my ear. I was able to get some decent Phaser-type sounds with the Rotary presets. My favorite presets to tweak have tended to be in the SFX group.

I'm also a Bill Frisell fan, though I don't claim his level of skill. I haven't tried to create any sounds that emulate those of my favorite artists, but I can see how someone would be able to dial up some decent Frisell/Belew/Andy Summers-style sounds with this box. I give it an 8 only because I expceted a bit more from this box; for clean sound, I would probably give it a 10.

I certainly hope so, as I don't exactly have a backup. I tend to treat my gear well, so if it breaks down, it won't be from road abuse.

I have a few Lexicon boxes, and have had to contact them a few times. Lexicon's people are among the most helpful I've dealt with. The manuals aren't cheap, but that's not the fault of the support staff.

I play weird, twisted guitar, and thus, I have plenty of really weird and nasty effects processors; the MPX100 isn't really one of them. I bought it mostly for the clean Reverbs, which it delivers, and consider the other effects bonus material. The S/P DIF Out is a nice touch, as well.

I've been playing too damned long, and have a pile of effects boxes, which I mix and match for different sounds and textures. Some players collect guitars, I collect sounds. If something happened to my MPX100, I would probably move up to an MPX500, or maybe a TC Electronics M*One. I used to have a Reflex, and would certainly grab one of those if it came my way.

I have a sort of love/hate relationship with the simplicity of the MPX100. It's nice to dial up a simple Reverb when I need it, it's a pain that the Dual Programs are so limited. My favorite feature may be the Digital Out.

Price, overall quality, and the Lexicon name were all factors in my purchasing this unit. Over time, I've been replacing my old ART and Digitech gear with Lexicon effects, mainly because of sound quality. (My old Multiverb II put out a louder hum than my amp.) Anything lacking from the MPX100 is probably available in one of the higher-end units.

The MPX100 does what I wanted from it, so in that sense it helps me make music, although I find it less impressive as a sound-sculpting tool. The high-dollar MPX1 is probably closer to what I'd like, but price is a major factor. Anyone looking to get their hands on Lexicon sound for low cost should check out the MPX series.

As simple as they get.

This unit sounds so ugly I thought it was broke. Then I realised the inputs were distorting and started to adjust levels. This baby has got NO headroom whatsoever, be warned. To get rid off distortion, you have to back off so much signal that you cant hear anything going through the unit. Set at full wet, adding signal until you hear any effect will make the "signal" and "peak" LED's lights up almost exactly at the same level. When you get signal, it peaks... and distorts very badly.

I rely on it do sounds as shitty every time, and it does. But I don't wanna give a 10 for that.

Lexicons rep is totally screwed with this unit, this was actually the first I bought without testing. Lexicon's don't need to be tested, they're the best. Yeah, right... they suck. As someone else said, they have exchanged their rep for fast cash, not so smart.

The knobs/use of the MPX 100 is easy. The hard part is remembering the presets w/o the manual. But the manual is easy to use, and once you get the hang of it, it's not real hard. Nice that there is no menus to scroll through. And the different knob parameters do give plenty of flexibility to sound.

I think it sounds great. There is no noise from the unit itself, any noise I get is from tube distortion, if I'm using my Zoom 9150. If I use my digital distortion (Digitech RP100)-it's very clean. All the effects are great and have a good range. Subtle to extreme (weird) if you need. I like the pitch-delay setting best, can get some great textures from that. The reverbs are great. Very different sounding than my Digitech DSP256XL--those have a gritty-ness to them that I like at times, the MPX 100 gives me cleaner/clear sounds. I like to have choices, and the 100 gives me plenty. I only wish it had more of the special effects-16 seem too few, those are fun to play with. But overall, the range of sounds/use/application are very good.

seems well built. it's pretty small (not very deep) and light.
hate the wall-wart--that's the only thing I worry about.
But the knobs seem pretty rugged.

unit seems pretty strait-forward.
their web site is handy, i checked it before i bought my unit.
read all the reviews on it-they were all good for the most part.

I bought this after reading the Bill Frisell article in GP earlier this year. I figured it it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me. My only complaint is the 2nd I bought mine (Jan '02), they came out with the 110. But I think this is a very useful piece of gear for music. My only complaint is that the 5.5 sec of delay doesn't have a 100% regeneration or loop ability. So that is the only downfall, but I have other (loop) gear to compensate. I'm sure some may feel that the lack of controll over all the delay perameters is bad, but I think there is enough variations to keep most happy. Over all an easy piece of gear to use, at a decent price and it sounds good.

Facil de usar, tiene un solo control (tweak) de efecto.
Excelente manual, claro y bien escrito.
Un aspecto negativo es que el I/O es no-balanceado, entonces al
utilizarlo con mi Mackie 1604VLZ, tengo que ajustar las ganancias
de modo de reducir el ruido producido por esta unidad.

Lo utilizo como reverb principal, es decir es la reverb con que mezclo
los temas en mi estudio casero.
Es un poquitin ruidoso, pero no demasiado, en la mezcla no se nota.
Por algun motivo la reverb NO produce una mejora sustancial frente a la nanoverb de Alesis. Las reverb del MPX100 son gruesas y centradas en el rango medio, entonces el resultado es que la mezcla resulta un poco "entubada", como en un tunel.
Quiero evaluar una MPX500 para ver si mejora el resultado.
Cuando la compre pense que la calidad del sonido era mejor.

Ningun problema.
Se ve y se siente bien construida.
Solo ha sido utilizada en mi estudio casero.

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Mi estilo de musica son variaciones de Rock, blues, progresiva.
Siempre he utilizado este efecto en la mezcla final por lo tanto se agrega en peque?as cantidades, diferente es el caso en que el efecto se aplica a una pista (track), ya que alli es posible utilizar al maximo y de maneras exageradas los efectos.
Si se rompiera, no compraria otra. Probaria la MPX500.
Esta bien construida y es facil de utilizar.
No es un efecto que sorprenda o enamore, pero nunca he dejado de utilizarlo.
Hace 3 a?os que compre el MPX100.