Lexicon MPX-1 Multi-effects

I am a programmer by trade so I cannot comment on what someone else's idea of ease would be but it didn't take long to learn my way around ( I have not investigated the MIDI mapping capability yet however ). Sit down and give the manual a good read cover to cover first before you do anything. You'll get a lot more out of the unit, be able to take advantage of the many, many features the unit has to offer with greater agility, and generally be much happier with your purchase.

Top notch. Excellent. Particularly the reverbs ; I bought this box primarily for the reverb after I heard it in the store. For digital recording I use: 44.1K out of a Kurzweil into the Lexicon into the SB Live into Cakewalk PA 9.0 out to MP3/RA G2. For this price point / quality ratio nothing comes close. Period. I know people with 150K worth of gear under their roofs and they're finished product doesn't sound any better. I'm not a digital chorus fan ( prefer to double the tracks with different patches and takes for a truer effect ). I found the delays extremely clean and some EQ pathes ( i.e. PCM 60 room ) particularly excellent for drums / bass. If you play keys / use samplers / write classical or instrumental music just turn the board's effects off and use this. You'll be very very happy.

In my opinion, This piece of equipment is designed for home / pro recording studios and not for gigging. I guess you could use it for gigging but I would be a little wary of taking it on the road for any length of time. Road worthy gear typically weighs a lot more than this baby due to the armour casings. I won't take my K2000S on the road anymore either for the same reason. Just being mildly paranoid.

This isn't a stomp box / point-and-shoot piece of gear ( if that is what you are looking for look elsewhere; don't complain if the quality of the sound later is nothing like the MPX1 though ). This is a fairly sophisticated piece of equipment. I would hope some reviewers would recognize the distinction.

I had to do a hard reset once and found it in their FAQ on the site. ( ver. 1.1 ). That was it. Never had a problem with it in over 2 years. Hope I never do.

I would give this piece of gear a 10. It does everything I expected it to do and more( and my expectations are high ). For home / digital recording studios I highly recommend this piece of gear. The most overlooked aspect is the fact that you can digitally capture any analog signal.

Virtually every parameter one could think of is adjustable including effects placement. This is good and it is always going to be a bit confusing when you have this many available parameters to set, but I find that it is more confusing than it ought to be. I think the manual could of been layed out better as well as the front panel.

80% of the presets are poor sounding. You will need to make adjustments to get good reverbs.
The reverbs are good but not excellent in general. I can hear that they are made up of tiny echoes on some settings so they aren't as smooth as I wish they were. By tweaking some parameters I can minimize this greatly and get some better sounding reverbs. I've heard much, much worse reverbs before. Without a doubt, you can get some good reverb sounds out of this unit, but it's full of presets that sound horrible.
The quality of the chorus is poor and the flange is horrible. I've heard better chorus and flange on much cheaper units.
The delays are excellent and offer a lot of parameters.

The reviewers who claim that 24 bit conversion is not necessary and 18 bit does just as well for guitar are mistaken. 24 bit conversion yields significant increased resolution in the digital reproduction of your tone over 18 bit conversion. People who say otherwise don't understand digital audio basics. Not only that, the 44.1k sampling rate is also outdated. ALL manufacturers of digital effects processors should be making the move to 24 bit 96k (and eventually 192k).
As for the drop-outs when changing patches, they ARE there and they ARE annoying. I expect more from a unit that originally cost $1000 when first released.

It seems very dependable.

I wouldn't buy one of these now. They are outdated and probably won't even be around much longer. Lexicon needs to release a new unit in this price range that is 24 bit 96k, wihtout the drop-outs when patch switching and is more user-friendly.

It's not as easy as stomp-boxes, but it's a pro-product and some professions ain't easy. Read the manual.

I think it's great sounding. At first I was planning to run it in a parallel effects loop, but this is the first machine I can live with using in the serial loop. And I did try a lot of stuff, like the "not as good as it looks" G-force.

The quality of the effects is great, but I reckon the quality of Chorus and Flanger is a mather of taste. I don't like to hear a single (or double) sine-wave. Makes me car-sick. I like the lush sounds of the Lexicon Chorus.

Reverb is much better than the G-force. Same for the delay. And most important: No software-bugs so far (unlike the G-force)

10 years ago I purchased a Rocktron Intellifex. It was a great tool for that time. Twoo years ago I purchased a G-force, and it was a big disappointment for me. I never really liked the sound of it. In fact.... I like the GT5 better!

But now I purchased the MPX-1.

If you really think every 24 bit AD or DA converter is better than a 18/20 bit version: Buy an other product and never look into a mirror again. Otherwise...buy the MPX1

Takes a while to get the hang of editing programs, but after soaking up the manual for a week, I'm starting to get the hang of it. The options on this unit are absolutely staggering! While it's not anywhere near as easy as multiple stompboxes, once you learn its functions, you can do 100x more than you could with pedals. I have Version 1.1 - getting the R1 footcontroller this week - if you're a guitarist, the R1 is a MUST HAVE to get the most out of the MPX-1

OKAY, HERE I GO . . . All of the reviewers who gave the MPX-1 the crappy reviews & retarded analogies below - I echo the other guys on this forum - YOU DON"T KNOW SH*T!!! You guys need to stick with Boss pedals, because you obviously don't know ANYTHING about the unit! Start off by reading the manual, I bet every negative reviewer NEVER did, or just don't know how to read. All the long dropouts you hear about are utter B.S! This unit is utterly transparent in the loop of my guitar amp, but I'll bet most of you have Mesas, Peavys, etc. Those companies make horrible effect loops, they don't work, they sound like ass, so of course a processor run in a crappy loop will sound like . .. crap. All the effects can be tweaked to sound incredible. The reverbs are to die for. The best in the business. The delays, choruses, flangers, eqs, etc., etc. sound rich, dynamic, and huge. All this talk of 'only 1 effect at a time' is a joke. I can get sounds that blow a hole in the stratosphere. Effect Processors don't sound any better than this. Oh, contrary to other's beliefs, you CAN edit ANY of the factory presets, what are you guys smoking?!?

Haven't had it long enough to say.

So far, so good. they've helped me out with tech questions & other matters.

Been playing 20+ years, most of 'em professionally. Have owned & played it all (almost . . ), the MPX-1 has allowed me to retire the pedalboard of 8+ stompboxes & get BETTER sound! FYI - I was a hardcore 'analog stompbox junkie' of the vintage/boutique variety UNTIL I tried this out. For multiple effect changes, amp channel-switching, pristing sound that reacts to your dynamics, unlimited routing possibilities - the MPX-1 rules. Oh yeah, for the record: this unit KILLS the TC G-Force,G-Major, etc. (not the 2290 - different story). For the price I got it for, it's the best gear purchase I've ever made. All you MPX-1 whiners - keep playing with your toys, cause that's ALL they are! Can't wait to hit the road with my new rig!

Not too hard to get a good sound. Some of the presets are pretty good; just a little tweeking gets them up and running nicely. You need to read the manual and learn the architecture of the unit, it probably doesn't take any more time to do that with this device as it would any decent rack unit. I was getting around on it pretty well in a couple of days, and was pretty efficient at setting things up within a couple of weeks. An a year and a half later, I'm still finding new ways to manipulate it.

It's very quiet and the sound quality is pristine. I've used it as a stereo guitar multi-effector although I'm starting to use it for recording as well.

I'm playing a Fender Strat, an Ibanez RG550, and a Hamer archtop through a Tophat Embassy. I run a line out signal from the Embassy into the MPX-1 for a post power amp signal. I then send a stereo signal from the MPX-1 into a solid state Kustom power amp and into a couple of cabs I had sitting around.

Reverbs and delays are great. I like a number of the EQ settings, I have 5 or 6 different ones that I use with various reverbs. Flanges and choruses are decent, nothing extreme here, but they do the job. The pitch shifter and the phaser are pretty basic, I wish the phaser had some additional steps. It sounds fine, but it's kind of limited. And I wish they had had at least a basic harmonizor for this unit.

If you want extreme, organic phasing, flanging, etc, buy a high end analog stompox, like a Lovetone or something. On the other hand, this does some detailed, subtle stuff that is useful, even playing live.

Lexicon wisely limited how many effects that you can run on this unit at one time so that what gets used has sufficient processing power to sound good. You might not be able to add a flange in with that delayed' eq setting. However, single or dual effects are very present and tweakable.

And even the few patches that do allow you to run a bunch of effects at once, sound decent. There's some loss of high end perhaps, but you're always gonna get some sort of sonically confused sound anytime you have a bunch of effects running at the same time, even if they run independently.

The effects do drop out for a moment when changing patches, but I rarely find myself having to do that. Why does anyone need to change from patch to patch to patch within a song anyway?? You can turn effects within a patch on and off immediatly as you'd like. Or you can use the expression pedal to change parameters, or the switch under the pedal or the a/b switch, or other internal or external switches...lots of stuff you can do.

It's been relliable in the time I've had it. I am gigging without a backup. If I have the extra bucks sometime, of course I'll get a backup. You should always have a backup on hand if you can. Duh.
On the other hand, there are few songs that I couldn't play without it.

One caveat: when changing patches within the Midi map on the fly, be very careful. If you accidently hit the wrong button, it will delete the Midi map (the assignment of your effects to your pedalboard) WITHOUT EVEN ASKING YOU "ARE YOU SURE"? That sucks. Lexicon, you need to fix this next time you upgrade the software. It's happened to me 2 or 3 times, and then I need to go back in and put all of my patches back in order. It can make for a pretty stressful situation.

Pretty good. They usually respond quickly, and if it's a critical issue, they come through pretty well. They have ignored me on a couple small complaints I've made.

They have walked me step by step through a couple problems. I came up with a glitch once they had never realized before, but they came up with a solution.

I play rock, blues, funk, and stuff like that. It's a very good sounding processor for the money. I tried a G2, and thought it sucked hard for all that money. This is nice and (relatively) simple. I'm not using digital distortions, just time delay effects and eq's. I A/B'D this against an intellifex, a roland unit, a rocktron unit and a couple other units when I was trying it out, and it sounded clearer than any of them, hands down.

I''ll buy another one when I can.

My ratings are conservative, ( I don't think I've given anything a 10 on Harmony Central) nothing is perfect, your mileage may vary. But I like it.

I'd like to corroborate the Anonymous posting complaining about some of the user reviews for this product. While some portions of these reviews are opinions, some contain significant factual errors or omissions. For example:

"In a nutshell, I think you could get the same sound quality and much more flexibility if you lined up a bunch of Boss stomp boxes."

"Also, the ADDA conversion specs, 18 bit in and 20 bit out, how long ago was that competitive? And they're still the same today. Think about it. It might explain some of the shortcomings in the sound quality-dynamic range with those converters is like 10-15 dbs less than 24 bit. Sometime I'd like to SPDIF the MPX 1 through a 24 bit converter to see if the sound gets better."

I am appalled at the sheer ignorance indicated by these comments. Put simply, the people who wrote these reviews should not be writing reviews on harmony central. Converters are important, but someone who only uses an MPX 1 in a guitar/amp rig and/or clearly has such limited knowledge of pro audio is not qualified to pass such sweeping judgements.

Very easy to get great sounds Reverb, Chorus,Delay & EQ spot on The Leslie FX is poor. Patch edit takes some time to get into, however you don't have to go into deep at first, but it is worth getting into. Manual is large but is quick reference card is included. Version 1.10

I am using this unit in a project studio as main mixdown reverb. However as a guitar player I have used this for FX for tracking etc; If you mike up amps/direct amp simulators etc; and use th MPX1 for FX only you can get a great sound recorded. I think the guitar presets if modified are good, much better than my Zoom 9001 advanced studio processor rack unit. I can get sounds ranging from hendrix/curtis mayfield funk to Byrds/Stone Roses/JohnnyMarr Jangle! You couldn't use the overdrive/distortion for metal/hard rock( the Wah Wah is cool though!) but I believe this unit is aimed at recording musicians primarly. I don't think the MPX1 is noisy at all

Very well built, it is a expensive unit to take to a gig! but it would be reliable, no doubt.

N/A

Music I play is Guitar Pop/Soul/Funk. I feel a lot of equipment in the marketplace is aimed at Heavy Metal/Rock/Grunge etc;. Have been playing Guitar(mostly recording/ vocals lately!) 16 years & have Project studio at Home. I would consider this unit again, unless something better value waas released. I compared it against the TC M2000 at the time. I love the Lexicon sounds my own presets & the plate / chamber reverbs. There sould be more room for user presets/or a storage card. I've made my first solo album/CD with the MPX1, it bought the quality FX I needed especially for Vocals/Drums. I know that it's not a Lexicon PCM80/90 but for the price it's outstanding. People who use it for Guitar FX only do not realise how good this unit is in the recording studio. I have recorded in other 24 track studio's with much worse processors/FX than this unit.

Just a quick comment on the 4 or 5 reviews below. Either you guys are not talking about the right product, or you don't know shit about effect processors.... Some of you also seem plainly dishonest. First, a bit of technical rant. The MPX-1 HAS indeed the lexichip in it. If you knew something about signal processing, you would know that such resolutions as 18 bits input 20 bits output are plainly sufficient, even superfluous for a guitar, an instrument that doesn't have a huge dynamic range... All the 24 bits products you see popping out every day are just marketing bullshit, only worth in full-blown mixes and very special situations like the huge dynamic range of an opera singer or something like that. To the guy who talked about the flexibility : read the manual again and maybe you'll get it right this time. Every parameter are fully tweakable, much more than on a run-o-the-mill TC M-ONE or G-Major. Saying that you can get the same quality with a couple of boss stompboxes is utter bullshit. About the dropout between presets, you must have defective units. I timed it on mine too and it takes between 0.1 and 0.4 seconds in the worst case (6 effects at the same time whis obviously is rarely the case).... And stop bitching about the presets.... They are only demo presets and like with every other processors, they are not adapted to your particular needs. Wake up, it is not a stompbox. It's a full pro unit and you are meant to create your own programs (of course, that means reading the manual and actually understanding it). All I can say to all the people that may have been frighten by those dumb reviews, try it for yourself and see what you think. IMO, it's the best value along with the G-Major in that price range for now. I prefer the MPX-1 because unlike the G-Major, it has a 5 band eq, the reverbs simply sounds much better and using the dedicated pedalboard is a breeze. To sum up : fantastic value for the price.

It's not a hard processor to get around if you read the manual. What I'm referring to is the flexibility of the processor. The programs in this box are not designed to be manipulated to any great degree. In some cases, the MPX-1 simply won't accommodate even slight modifications. Mine is the 1.10 software version, which basically means that some presets have replaced other presets to become a little more guitar oriented and can facilitate use with the MPX-R1 midi controller

My MPX-1 is hooked up to a 5150 II which drives a Mesa Recto Cab. My guitars are Ernie Ball and Strats.
The delays are, for the most part, quite good and the reverbs are real good and a little more flexible than the other effects seem to be. The chorus seems a little muddy. Certainly, they could take a lesson from t.c. electronic. The flanger is quite weak to the point of being not useable as a flanger. There is one phaser preset, and it sounds very buzzy.
In a nutshell, I think you could get the same sound quality and much more flexibility if you lined up a bunch of Boss stomp boxes.

I've owned it for over a year, and has never given me a problem, as far as operation.

Never dealt with Lexicon's customer support.

If you're looking for an upper-mid quality level of effects where price is an issue, you may consider checking out the MPX-1. Out of the 200 presets, only about a third of the presets are designed to be guitar oriented. The MPX-1 is the only Lexicon rack that Does NOT have the Lexichip built in it, so that effects sound quality and flexibility. Admittedly, my 5150 head does not have stereo capabilities, so I can't make full use of the MPX-1, so that makes sound quality and flexibility all the more important for me. Presently, I'm saving up for a G-Force.

This review is for guitar rig applications, so if you had another use in mind for the MPX1, my recommendation might be different. Some things are easy and others are not. You have about five or six things to remember in order to edit patches, if you're buying an effects box, you should be able to handle that. Trying to set the bypass level is a cumbersome, stupid process that I can never remember. Some of the presets that are supposed to use a pedal require you to actually have to create the patch or activate the pedal or effect mix. It's a PRESET guys, come on! That's really dumb. Kind of shows how much they care about their low and mid-range product line. They upgraded at one point with a 1.1 version chip, basically changing some presets and adding some footcontroller accommodations. They didn't change anything substantial. The manual is good, a little confusing. The MPX1 is a stereo unit and the manual recommends using a two into 1 jack for mono effects loop applications, although you can set it up as mono. Again, come on guys! I have to jerry rig your product to work properly in a guitar application, when you say that's what you designed it for? One reviewer on this page said he got better results setting it up for mono internally, I recently tried it and for simple effects I'd have to agree. Thanks buddy.

First there's the time lag, waiting for presets to change somewhere between 1 and three seconds. A digitech RP6 from the same year performs better on this. It would be forgiveable if they upgraded, fixed it, and sold new units that worked properly. But five years later and the unit they sell...still the same. Jeez! Also, the ADDA conversion specs, 18 bit in and 20 bit out, how long ago was that competitive? And they're still the same today. Think about it. It might explain some of the shortcomings in the sound quality-dynamic range with those converters is like 10-15 dbs less than 24 bit. Sometime I'd like to SPDIF the MPX 1 through a 24 bit converter to see if the sound gets better.

Reverb is great, provided you get the setup balls on right, and good luck with that. EQ is good, real nice. Pitch is adequate. Delay is good. Chorus is good.

The rest of the effects sound really good, but they lack depth, particularly the Phaser. Want to sound like Keith Richards? Forget it. The phaser sounds like a strong chorus, really. Adjust the parameters? I could've worn out the friggin knobs adjusting the parameters. It's nice that you can choose between a cry-baby or vox wah, but did I say wah? I meant blah! Again, no depth.

Yeah, its reliable enough. Sometimes it spikes and you have to reboot it, which takes two minutes.

Need a good reverb and low key effects for your studio? If you already have a 24 bit device and can spdif, you might get one of these. For a guitar rig, get something else. Too many disadvantages.