Lexicon MPX500 - Dual Channel Processor

Extremely easy to use. Spend a few minutes with the manual to get a general map of the system. Then as you get used to navigating its simple layout explore the unit deeper. For instance, you can set up the presets to load automatically as you turn the dial; or have the selected preset load by preseing the "load" button, while keeping your existing preset intact. This unit seems a perfect mixture of tweakable parameters- not too many, not too little. You can concentrate on making music instead of studying the manual. Thats not to say that getting into the editing sessions does not have its joys.

The sound quality is excellent. While the presets are impressive, its always best to go in and create your own for maximum use. Once in a while with a few presets you will get some hiss. I have found that rolling off the highs in the edit mode rids of this. The reverbs are top notch. I own an eventide eclipse and the lexicon is equal to it in quality, but of a different character. The Lexicon is thicker and dark, compared to the transparent and sparkling eventide eclipse. Add a little chorus and eq to the Lexicon and you imitate the eventide for a fraction of the price...about $150 on ebay, give or take. The delays are also great. From simple repeats, to complex rhythmic delays. The pitch shift is excellent. Some reviewers were not impressed, but I think its because they did not explore them in depth. I have been able to create super-otherworldly sounds with it that imitate and go way beyond the Digitech Space Station XP300. I have used the Lexicon PCM series in the past. I really cannot tell the difference in sound quality- especially when you start tweaking. I run my Godin Solidac through a Mackie Onyx 1620. The Mpx500 is connected to the effect sends/returns. Then the signal goes to the monitors. No amps in my setup- just the pure sound.

Original models sometimes had a problem with the dial selector for dialing in presets. It would skip and be erratic. lexicon addressed this problem with the V2 chip upgrade. It is available free of charge if you have certain serial #'s on your machine. Mine happens to have this defect, but it has not caused any headaches, and I have not gotten around to contacting Lexicon for the chip because it really is very seldom for it to happen. Other than that its been great.

Lexicon is the only company that has ever responded to my inquiries besides Cakewalk company. One was a general question about their products and the other was a technical question. And the response was punctual and informative.

I play mostly deep ambient music and also delve into some psychodelic jam/blues stuff. This unit has served me better than the eventide eclipse with its ease of use and sound quality. I would definitely get another and am actually thinking about getting another to add to my setup. Their is no sacrifice of sound quality and the price is unbeatable. The only thing I wish about it is setting up the decay times on some of the reverbs. You can only select increments- not specific times. But the range from milliseconds to decays over a minute long, so the options are many and most proccessors would never allow over a minute of reverberating bliss.

I've been using this processor for about 5 years. There was somewhat of a learning curve on the System Pages, but after some trial and error, it's no problem to use.

I bought a $50 upgrade EEPROM in 2000 which added compression. Easy to upgrade, but honestly don't use the compression feature very much. I suspect the release of this chip may have been a response to "overload" complaints from customers who were typically running too hot of a signal into their 500.

Currently, it's running through the FX loop of my Eden bass amp. I've used it in many configurations, including the SPDIF port for home studio recording and it's very quiet. If you have noise problems, it's probably an impedence mismatch with the rest of your rig.

Excellent Chorus and Flange. Pitch shifting is sub par. Reverb, as you might have guessed, excellent. Stereo Delay, excellent. Looping is good, but I would have liked a bypass setting that would allow me to play beside the active loop.

Highly reliable! I flew to Europe with this thing and a baggage guy dropped my rack out of the plane. The MPX500 was severely dented but continued to work. Very impressive workmanship. I'd like to put an 11 in this category.

Good support for $50 compressor upgrade.

Play indie, alt, blues, anything. It's a good clean effect unlike some of those hip-hop boxes that are out there. You've seen them, neon yellow with names that start with "Phat". MPX500 is a very high quality instrument. Just wish I had enough cash to buy their new PCM81.

pretty easy...although making a small change to one of the user programs and saving it as the same program means you get kicked to the first empty user program. then you have to dial down to the user program you were on to 'replace' it. kinda dumb...

i have an ibanez rg-something into a pedal board with a tuner, wah, volume pedal, chorus, plus an a/b switch to switch between the delays and clean (no delay) sounds. this goes into the mpx and an old boss analog half-rack delay that i LOVE (they rule!). it finally ends with my mesa DC-5 combo. the mpx isn't noisy if you turn it down on the master volume 'system' setting. i use an old ibanez chorus instead of the mpx chorus because sometimes i want to use delay and chorus at the same time, and i can't do that with the mpx...the delays are great BUT - and this is my biggest gripe with this thing - if you're using a MIDI pedal (i use a MidiMouse - great pedal) to change programs, the 'tap' speed doesn't change with the program! it changes when you use the mpx's front panel knob, but not with a foot pedal. i've called and emailed lexicon, and in the end it turns out you just can't do it...STUPID!!

it works fine, just the tap thing boils my blood...

great. all emails answered within a day, phone guys were nice...

as soon as i can find something else, i'll get it. although the tap thing is pretty common at this price range - TC Electronics has a unit that has the same limitation and i've resigned myself to this limitation. anyone know a good delay/phase/chorus rack unit that lets you change speeds?

Very Easy to configurate and to edit sounds.
Don't need manuals

Music Man Silhoette-Effect Board-Alesis Compressor-Engl PreAmp-Digitech Harmonizer HM4-Rocktron Hush SuperC-Lexicon MPX500-Alesis Midiverb3-Engl Poweramp Stereo-4x12 Cabinet
get great sound like Lukather and Beck!
the time to load the sounds by switching the midi pedal could be some
miliseconds quicker.

When you plugg in a mono jack into the bypass switcher it mostly leads to reset the whole setting...

I was some years a day before christmas - german lexicon service was
great!!

I am playing for 23 years now - different styles of Rock, Fusion,Jazz etc.
I would buy the same thing cos it sounds like the big brothers PCM 70/80 for less price!!

This is a followup review. I know this isn't a chat area, so I'll bve brief.

I finally decided to contact Customer Support about the spastic master dial (patch changer). They wrote me back right away and said there was a fix. I sent them my serial number and they said the fix was in the mail. It was a new rom chip. Came with easy to follow instructions, antistatic strap and a chip puller. 20 minutes to install it, and yes, the dial works correctly now. Apparently the chip takes care of some other problems too.

Wish I'd contacted customer support earlier.

Pretty easy to use. There are better/easier layouts, but not awful. Nice amount of control without being too time consuming. Manual is same way - there's better/easier, but it's alright.

Setup: Les Paul and/or Ibanez RG-760 -> Rocktron VooduValve -> MPX500 -> Alesis QuadGT -> BBE -> Marshall 50/50 tube power amp. [Other setups tested... see below]

The good: Absolutely great sounding reverb and chorus for the price. I was finally able to get that Robbie Blunt guitar ambience (early, post-Zep' Robert Plant). It does color tone more than say TC or Roland units, but not unpleasant. Worried I might miss my own sound after a while though.

The bad: Noisiest piece of equipment I've ever owned. Horrible noise even for this price range. Hear all sorts of digital hash and "blips" when the unit is sitting idle in an unbalanced guitar rig. Usable I guess, but too annoying for my tastes. It's noisier than any of my tube preamps/amps! Tested with several combinations of gear, but always and only obtrusive noise when MPX500 was in the chain. Advertised (and manual states) 100dB+ dynamic range, but the noise floor is around -84dB balanced, and -72dB unbalanced. That's with the unit in dry-bypass mode, input terminated, MPX500 output connected directly to the test gear, and yes, with the I/O level set correctly for +4dBu/-10dBV too. Also of note: there's a lag when changing presets, so not good for live guitar rig unless just switching bypass on/off.

Bottom line: great sound, but not much use if I have to wade through noise to get to it. OK, I'm not paying thou$and$ for a PCM series, but c'mon, it's way noisier than most other gear in this range. Maybe the published specs matched the original prototyped design, but certainly doesn't match the junk they're cranking out of China. Sadly, Harman International is trading Lexicon's former reputation for some fast, short-term cash.

Didn't keep unit, so no telling. Main selector knob does feel light as other reviewers stated, but I didn't have the program skipping problems some noted, at least while I had it. Chassis is very light-weight, loose-fit, mostly plastic. Feels like you could crack it open bare-handed.

Actually, better than many. They answered all of my emails, usually within 24 hours. Was annoying that they never seemed to read beyond the first few lines, and never remembered what was said earlier, despite case# and attaching previous email text, but hey, I'm long-winded anyway.

I've been playing acoustic and electric guitar for about 15 years, dabbling in all kinds of styles. Use moderate effects, mainly chorus/reverb. Monkeyed with a bunch of sub-$1000 effects boxes over the years.

If it were stolen, I'd of bought something else with the insurance money. Instead I returned it for a Roland SRV-3030D, which sounds beautiful, quiet, transparent, and is $85 less (OK, because it's on clearance)!

Wish MPX500 had better analog section so it didn't color tone so much, or have so much noise.

If the noise wasn't gnawing away at me like a starved coyote at the liver of the last Plains buffalo, I could really of gotten into some song writing with those effects.

Moderately straightforward to program. The master knob initally was a pain, but there is a fix, read on....

Good. Definately the "Lexicon sound". Compaired to my TC M-One, it's different. I wouldn't say better or worse, it's different. For the same reasons I have a Meek and a Focusrite, I have an M-One and a MPX-500. The early reflections seem more pronounced on the Lexi. For my use (Vox and drums) the noise level is unnoticable in the mix.

No problems so far. Seems well built.

Incredible! Answered my e-mail the next day. Sent out the software upgrade at no charge. This fixes the master knob issue!! See their web site for more info. The EPROM is straightforward to replace (they even included an EPROM puller and a grounding strap).

For the money, it gets a 10. I use mine strictly for recording and the results are very good. I've read some reviews that say the unit is noisy, but in my (real world) expierence it "sits in the mix" quite well and noise is not an issue.
If I had it to do over, I'd probably buy this unit again - although I would prefer a PCM-91 (who wouldn't) but I had to consider that I'm recording to a D-160, so would a PCM make a whole lotta difference. Probably not $1600 worth.

Very easy to use and to program.

For the price it's sound amazing. Very close to high end studio quality.

It seems solid. Except the master dial...

They answered my email the next day.
I also called them for a quick question, they were very helpful.

For the price, it's a fantastic value. I would definitely buy another if it was stolen. Fot an incredible low price, it bring professional sound to your mix.

Pretty easy to use.

Good quality. I have a PCM 81 and it's not in that league, but it is very respectable.

I'm disapointed in the built quality. The first one I brought home had a faulty master dial. When I changed patches it jumped backwards and forwards spastically, so I took it back and got another one. Less than a month later it developed the same problem or perhaps it was already infected, and I hadly use it since I have the PCM 81. I should have just bought another PCM 81. I just don't have the time to mess with problems like this. It's very frustrating, especially from a company that sets the standard.

Well, if I'd spent the time sending the unit to be repaired instead of writing this review it might have been fixed. Perhaps I'll send them a sessage on thier site.

Nice sound quality for the price. I chose it over the TC Electronics unit in the same price range, because it's a Lexicon, con, con.

The mpx 500 sounds good for the price I think that the reverb is the same as my Lexicon G2. So if you are looking for a good reverb unit this is the best for the price.

I use this with a Lexicon G2 into a Mpx 500 then into a alesis 3630 compressor. So this would be for a guitar setup. But it also work well with any setup. Although it is for a guitar. I use this as a direct sound precessing unit as well.

It is all basically digital which is more reliable than most units. You would be better off using these effects live.

Lexicon always answers all their e-mails with in three week days. It is also fairly cheep to do a full reverberation on this unit. It costs $90 or so to have it fully repaired regardless of the circumstance.

It is the best FX for the price as far as reverb but the effects are best used as a 2nd processor....