Vox Tonelab SE

I've used a variety of mulitFX units direct to the board over the last 10 years in both live and recorded situations. The benefit is that they are both compact and versatile even if second rate to actual tube amps. The average audio consumer doesn't know the difference and multifx units sit well in the mix once you've had time to tweak them properly. I spent most of the last decade using a Roland VG-8EX, but I've also had opportunity to use a POD xtlive, Boss GT-8 and Boss ME-50 as well.

So, I picked up a used ToneLab SE to replace my aging VG-8EX. The biggest sell-point was the layout. I've found the only useable patches with units like this in band setting can must be created on the spot. Anything that sounded good at home did not work in live setting. So I wanted a unit that isn't difficult to tweak on the fly. The ToneLab fit this bill relatively well, IMO, better than the Boss GT-8, that's for sure.

The problem for me was switching from one patch to another, switching from A/B in each patch, engaging/disengaging the FX selector for each one, etc. I felt like I was doing the RiverDance everytime the band played! It was ridiculous, so much so that I decided to get rid of it. The wasn't the only reason: I think I've had my fill of multiFX units after a decade of continual use. I've just had my fill of them. I sold the unit and stripped down to a Fender HotRod Blues Deluxe, ToneLab Sparkle Drive and a Boss DD-3 delay. Last weekend was the first time I used that new setup and I had better sound than I have for a long time.

To my ear, these units are all pretty much on par with each other. The Roland VG8-EX served me well for many years. I've got nothing but good to say about it. The Pod XTlive, to my recollection, had a sterile, overprocessed sound to it that I didn't like. The Boss units were good, perhaps with a forte for heavy rock and metal type distortions. The ToneLab was warmer, an more suited for classic rock styles. All of them cover the full gamut of time based effects equally well and they are a great tool for learning to use effects. I'm not looking down my nose at them or people who use them. I think I've just naturally progressed to another level in my own development as a musician. I probably would have gone over to a tube amp / pedal arrangement earlier, but I've got a young family on the go and the money has had to go elsewhere. Right now, I've got a pretty basic set up, but I can make it happen with that and I'll add to it as I'm able.

The ToneLab SE is as big as a surfboard and solid as a rock, as are most pedals of this sort. I'm sure it will last a long time, but I didn't own it more than six months, so I don't think I can rate this category.

Very easy, if you have used any amp/effect prosessor before this unit is a breeze, if not you might want to read the manual to get an ide for the sound the different amps/effects they try to emulate.

The manual is OK, i guess copyright issues prevent them from telling what amps and effect boxes the try to replicate but this info you can easely find elsewhere.

I use this unit in several configurations:
1. Effect return on a Mesa/Boogie 50W combo
2. Directly into Mixer/PA
3. Into my PC recording system trough a mixer
In my opinion is sounds great in all configurations.

I mainly use modified Musicman guitars (axis, sub1 etc.)

The main reason i use amp modellers is the ease of use, like any normal human beeing i hate carrying stuff around.
Up until now i have used a Pod 2.0 for its ease of use and light weight.
Im not at all a sound "geek", to me it has to be simple and practial.
The reason i got the TLSE was that i needed a backup system in case the Pod should die on me in a live situation.
Instead of bying a second Pod i wanted to test something new.
A got the TLSE and could not be happier, the amps are much more natural and its layout works well on stage.
Now the Pod is my Backup.

It looks and feels very solid.

No opinion

I have been playing for about 20 years and i no longer have the urge to drag heavy tube amps around anymore, so for me the amp moddeling technology is god sendt.
Thank you VOX for creating a great product, now i can travel with my guitar in one hand, my TLSE in the other and consentrate on the music.

I have the tabletop version of the Tonelab (not the SE that has an expression pedal and foot switches for changing programs).

The amp isn't as easy as it could be to save your preferences, but most other features are easy to access and figure out. I had to read the manual in order to learn how to save and delete program banks. However, now that I've done it, I think I could do it again without help. Luckily the manuals are available online in PDF form because I bought the item used.

I use this mostly as a headphone amp and also to do some recording. The tone doesn't *quite* match the excellence of a good tube amp combo or tube head on a stack. However, this does much better than all the competitors I compared it to. I was shopping around for a while checking out everything available and came to the conclusion that this was the only acceptable "amp modeler." The X-factor: it uses an actual (and replaceable) vacuum tube. I'm a tube snob and none of the purely digital or solid state modelers have a desirable tone for me.

Although only boasting one tube, you can get pretty versatile sounds. I usually opt for one of three main sounds: (1) glassy, clean tone used with my single-coil neck pickup, (2) a bluesy tube sound that is also pretty clean but has a little more edge and growls when you push it, and (3) an overdriven rock sound like going straight into a marshall stack.

As you can see, none of my "go to" tones use much in the way of effects. Generally, I don't use chorus, flanger, phaser, tremelo, rotary, wah, or any other special effects. I'll leave it to others to review those features. I do, however, use the reverb and it is usable. Nothing spectacular, but it does the job.

I'm a music gear junkie and have bought some stuff in my life that collects a lot of dust. This is not one. I'm very happy with my purchase of it. It doesn't replace having a real tube amp, but it's the best I can find in copying that sound. Plus, it lets you play through headphones so you're not stuck with solid state sound when practicing or recording at home.

This thing seems very well built. I believe most of it is aluminum construction. It feels solid and I don't anticipate anything breaking.

Haven't had to use customer support, but they do have a lot of downloadable materials from Vox's website, so that's a plus.

I play a variety of music, but lean towards alt/hard rock (think Guns n' Roses or early Pearl Jam) and modern blues (think SRV, Buddy Guy, Clapton, etc) and this suits the sounds I want well.

I never thought I'd care, but the built-in tuner is pretty convenient.

It is pretty feature-rich and a lot of the sound effects I don't even make use of.

A few different features or designs I would have preferred:

1) A 1/4" jack to support generic foot switches (like cheap piano pedals, etc)

2) As far as I can tell, the "Tap" button for setting the speed of the echo always flashes. Always. I almost never use echo so it gets annoying. I just wish it wouldn't flash when echo wasn't on.

3) I could go for more preset reverbs.

4) There should be a USB interface to plug into a computer so you can tweak all the settings you want on a computer and just upload them to your Toneamp..... AND it would be an added bonus if you could run the audio output via USB to a computer so the amp acted as an audio interface too, but that's asking a lot out of an amp modeler.

5) It would also be cool to be able to model bass amps in the same device. Out of curiosity, I tried my active bass through the Tonelab, but no tweaks made a usable sound. Not that I expected it to, but that would be nice to have.

Overall, there is room for improving this amp modeler, but by my ears, Vox is heads and shoulders above its competitors in creating an amp modeler with pleasing, realistic tone.

To readers: if you have any questions about my gear or experiences with the tonelab, feel free to email me.

follow up review, I just bought a virtually new SE on E-bay so that my
much used gig'er can retire to home use.They are starting to fetch more money now as nothing else comes remotely close to the sound or usefulness of this classic pedal.Snap em'up quick when you see em' guy's
they will never be beaten. The chorus/delay sounds are to die for. I don't get the revue's that slag'the tone's, if you have any nous' you can make these sound fantastic.Just show's that ears are everything in the music biz.

Much easier than my former Digitechs but still needs some effort to reach a good level of sound programming.
I normally use the green and red channel so that I program the green = cleaner channel at first and copy the settings to the red channel with a little more gain and a small sound adaption.
e.g. clean fender sound + nearly clean fender solo sound etc.
I use the second pedal for chorus amount or pedal gain but not from 1 to 10. I always adapt the range - that's really a great option.
I do not like that the general volume pedal level is not programmable.

Lot of guitars and amps, but main guitars are a tuned Parker Fly and a tuned Fender Tele Special with 3 Joe Bardens inside.
The sound quality is very good as long as you stay in the clean, low or mid gain area. All amp models have their special range where they work really fine. Do not expect that every model works perfect over the full gain range. I like the Fender clean and Vox crunch best.
The only thing where POD and BOSS are better - is the real high gain range. This is the only thing the Vox tonelab SE cannot provide.
I had big problems only for programming a fat solo sound like Gary Moore.

ALL comments saying that this unit has no bass and is too trebly are correct for high gain sounds.
The good thing is that for all low gain sounds this unit is the best you can get and it is very responsive to pick and volume changes.
It helps when you dont turn the bass to 10 if you want bass. Search for the range when it starts being enough. In this way the bass stays much tighter.

Keep the settings low and simple. Your sound will massively improve.

Perfect still after years of use.

The perfect LOW GAIN all in one unit.
Metalheads - please go somewhere else.

I really checked out everything else in the last years and nothing comes close for low gain sounds.

I gave up hoping for a software upgrade as they brought out the new but castrated tonelab LE.

There is no other unit where you can get so many different sounds with stepping around on the buttons and pedals even within one patch.
GREAT.

very easy to use made the sound that I wanted to hear.love the A and B channels I can switch back and forth from clean to destortion.

the best I've had from a board!I play though a pv mace and duece and it sounds great.the tube is the sound! these amps are hYberd tube and solid so It makes a big sound.presets need some adjustment but not much.very happy with this thing.I Have the desk top model too1!to bad they don't make these anymore.I found one new in the box on 12/23/08 and I ain't telling you wear.I've had the desk top for a year and half and love that too.

too new.but it seems to be a tank of a board.

same here;but I here they are good and back there products up.

I play skyard and outlaws and alot of ozzy stuff allman bro's marshall tucker.this handle's it all.tried all the other ones this is the best.......

Easy. It's basically set up like individual pedals on a pedalboard... each effect is even tweaked by such knobs, appeasing people such as myself who are too impatient to scroll through menus and whatnot. =\ Programming stuff seems easy enough, too... though admittedly I haven't done that despite having the thing for a couple years now (see comment about being impatient, and add "fickle" to that) - I'd just want to keep change them more everytime I used them.

I basically use it like a chain of individual pedals - no presets - and it works wonderfully! I do program the expression pedal, though... mostly the change delay time, flanger depth, etc... Pretty easy.

Right off the bat, the amp modeling is crap. Well, it's not that bad... It's nice for playing late at night with headphones, or quickly plugging in to record and idea. But I wouldn't use the amp sounds for serious recording or live, unless you also have a line of pre-amps, EQs, etc... before and after (and even then I'm not so sure). It does sound kinda thin/weak. Better than Line 6, though.

That said, some of the effects are really great.

* The modulation effects are all good or great... better than most (but not all) individual pedals. The bi-phase especially is wonderful, though I rarely have a valid reason to use it. The tremolo is actually surprisingly warm sounding for what it is. The flanger is kinda meh, but not bad if it's all you have. The Filtron's OK... If you plan on using filter effect religiously, you might not be pleased. But I rarely use it, so when I do it's fine. Pretty much never use the choruses... but they're thick (the stereo chorus is especially nice). The pitch-shifter is useless, as are all pitch-shifters.

* The delays are good for the most part. Definitely digital... but frankly, no one except anal guitarists can tell the difference anyway. And in all fairness, the analog delay actually sounds pretty good (if not artificially fattened up... but sounds close, and it's nice to be able to use a long delay time with analog sound - not possible on my UE-405), and the Echoplus is also a favorite. Both are better than most every digital delay I've ever heard. The Multi-head is good, too.

* The reverbs are very good. Not great, but better than just "good". They're all a bit too practical for their own good, though. It's nice 90% of the time, but that 10% of the time you just want an ultra wet/saturated swoosh there just aren't any good options.

* Some of the pedals are nice. The phaser, Univibe, and wah are all really good (though I rarely use any). I like the "boutique" pedal a lot... it distorts so little but thickens up the sound so well! You can conceivably have a clean sounding guitar with the power of pummeling distortion with it. The acoustic simulator is an acoustic simulator... best to avoid. The compression is really good. Not as warm as my UE-405 or other such analog units, but still very smooth, realistic, and easy. As far as compressors go, I'd certainly have no qualms about it being my only one if need be. The distortions and octave things are kinda meh, though... But it might just be I don't like the sounds they're trying to replicate and less to do with the quality of the sounds themselves. Actually, the DS-1 simulator isn't bad.

* The noise reduction is GREAT. I actually use it for doing vocals. Ha!

* Volume pedals are the best thing ever. I'm so happy the Tonelab has one (though I think the newest version doesn't... which is really lame). I know, it's so simple... it's just volume. But it's one of the most usable pedals ever (not just on the Tonelab, but in general).

* The amp sounds (may as well discuss them)... They're not awful, just really thin and weak sounding compare to real amps. If you boost the hell out of the mids they're kinda usable, but... Again, nice for late night or quick sketches, but not good for any serious application. That said... the Tweed 4x10 with clean tone is alright. and combining the US High Gain amp with the Vox AC30 cabinet and upping the gain to almost max actually creates some pretty amazing distortion, which could probably be used with GREAT results in a serious application if you run it through an EQ.

Overall, nice. My beloved UE-405 sounds better, but the Tonelab is much easier and more versatile (and has way more effects), so I mostly just use it for compression and EQ (not delay - sounds great, but the Tonelab's has longer time. I still use my Big Muff for fuzz and amp for distortion/drive, though... the Tonelab doesn't compete. I also prefer a separate flanger, but when I'm lazy, the T

It's the size of some keyboards and metal. It's probably indestructible. Given I'm not terribly rough with my equipment, and not usually clumsy, but I just can't imagine doing anything to damage this thing short of dropping it from the top of a building or dropping a 40 lbs + amp on it (though both of which are entirely possible, I guess). I guess running it over with a car might do it (though I'm not certain about that).

I've had it for a couple years without a single problem... and it's one of the constants in my set-up.

Never needed it.

Overall, the thing is great. Some effects sound poor, some sound good, and some sound great... and the vast majority range from good to great - much better than any other similar unit, and really any multi-effects units sans some racks that are $2000+ (but those are a bitch to use, so who cares about them anyway?). It's EXTREMELY easy to use... I never even read the manual and figured it out in a matter of minutes (try that with an Eventide!).

If you're someone who wants to add a few effects to your arsenal in a compact and affordable package, this is great and you should definitely check it out. If you're someone who wants tremolo, flanger, reverse delay, rotary, filter, wah, chorus, etc... effects on stand-by to use occasionally but don't want want to invest in buying each individual pedal for rare/occasional use, this is probably the best you can get. If you have kids or live in a cramped studio apartment with thin walls and want to toy around into the wee hours, this is also probably the best you can get. If you're just starting out playing, on a tight budget, but looking for a bevy of pedals to ape Billy Corgan or Kevin Shields or the boys from The Church, then this is probably essential!

follow-up to previous review, I flirted with a Boss GT-10 for a while and got excited, but my old love (S.E.) waited faithfully for me to come back which I have. I will love this forever. Ease of use on gigs
is tops.

Its the sound that can't be beat, and the way you can set 2 patches on every channel with on/off for each effect and two pedals .Run into Bose-mixer and L1,it is all I need. Now running a Godin LGXT and a Roland GR-20 synth , a custom variaxstrat, a 6120jr (love it) and several of my own custom guitars as sale's demo's

I have replaced a f/sw. and also valve but it is simple to strip and fix. Never let me down yet

When you can talk to them ,they sort things quickly and are very friendly.

I am an all-rounder playing most styles and this is my dream pedal apart from the limited effect section that gives compression or wah,
or o/d.It really needed a second effect path ,but hell all you do is set up another patch with the sound you want in the same bank and toggle
between.After all it has 96 patches in 24 banks to load with your own choice of sounds and effects.Why on earth did Korg ruin a good thing and make the L.E. to replace it? Like breeding the best race-horse and then cutting one leg off and calling it progress.I scour e-bay for these now and make sure I have a spare.No-one has made a better multi.

Very easy to use unit and fairly quick too. I would suggest reading the manual when you need to i.e. as a referance.

The two foot controllers are so handy and I find it strange that the new LE model now only has one pedal!! What a pity.

I love the fact that this thing is guitarist friendly and not menu driven like the old effects floor units of the 80s & 90s. Therefore it is easy to edit patches on the fly.

If you can use stomp boxes then you can use the Vox Tonelab SE.

I love the sound quality of this unit. I own around 200 vintage and boutique effects pedals ( as I have been collecting them since I was a kid) and own KOT v4 and a couple of Klons, Mesa Lonestar Special 2x12 etc.

So I know what sounds good (well I believe I do and I get lots of complements on my sound). The Tonelab SE has a really good solid sound and is easy to match up to both single coil and humbucking guitars.

I have used it with my Strats (all very tasty and using either Fender Custom Shop Pickups or Lindy Fralins), Les Pauls (all three are loaded with Bareknuckle Pickups)and Parker Fly Classic.

No excessive hum and I use it live, in the studio and with my Mesa Lonestar Special 2x12, Peavey Classic 20 and even my ZVex Nanohead!!

It is so easy to get a good tone from this unit. I'm well out the honeymoon period as I have owned this thing for over two years now and so have found sounds I can use and built lots of very cool core guitar sounds.

Sits really well with other effects pedals and is easy to record with also, which is a massive bonus for me. I love the fact tghat I can roll up at a gig or a studio and justy bring a guitar and the Tonelab SE and I have a very cool sound straight away.

Sounds beat the Line 6 stuff hands down every time in my opinion and many other guitarists in the know! Buy them now they are cheap[ and learn to program them well as I reckon they are a future classic in the making.

Discontinued now as all the GAS merchants are out hunting for somrthing new and Vox have unfortunately updated to the LE version which is missing that extra foot controller... pity.

Built like a nuclear bunker and designed to be used by guitarists on stages in the real world where punters spill beer on your equipment.

I have gigged without a backup on many occasions.

Pretty good, loads of info on their website and even a free PC / Mac editor available.

Never hads any issues so cannot comment on the phone support.

Easy to use. So even our singer can work it out!!!!

Well built.

Good useable tone.

Lots of variety

Wish it had those really bright blue LEDs as I like them and are easy to spot in gig conditions.

Good.

I love the sound. I prefer to use my V847 for wah-wah and my phase-90 for phaser but that's just personal preference, the tonelab does everything else very well.

I've gigged with it for about a year now and it's endured bumps and scratches, but without any effect on sound or function.

Dunno.

I prefer using single units to multi effect pedals, but the tonelab se is one, so far the only, multi pedal I trust with sound quality.