Yamaha FX550

I think it is quite easy to use. I never had to look to that stupid manual which came with the processor. It is easier to try and find out rhather than reading from the manual.

I use a crate 30 amp with this device. Its performance is better with a Marshall. It is a little noisy (there is no effect loop in my amp) but the sound is good. I could get a sound which is close to Rhandy Rhoads. Distorition could be better for heavier sounds.

I have been using it for 2 years without any problem

I didn't need any support.

I usually play blues, heavy and trash. I think it is best for heavy.
I have been playin for 3 years. I have a cry baby. A friend of mine gave me his zoom 1010 to try. I can say that fx550 is much better than zoom 1010. But if I had the chance I would buy a boss. please contact me if you have got any patches

some words in english but I'm french !! Very easy to use because it's a logical approch. Good manual gives you all answers. Easy access editor. Unlike other brands, the 50 preset are interesting.

I use an american Strat Fender , a peavy basic 60 amp ( for bass !!!) and a SANS AMP GT2. modulations are good, delay reverb too but it miss some fat "body" . very accurate effects. There are 5 kind of distorsions: 2 disto (good), 2 saturations (good) and one crunch (very good for playing the Stones ). In 1992 when they create FX 550, digital distorsions were bad. In the FX 550 they are good but do not compare with the GT2. Good limiter/compressor. With a lot of time , I succeed in making a beautiful Fender Twin sound or an Van Hallen disto.

Very good. I use it since 1994

No problem

Good item for rock , hard rock, clean sound but not for blues. Excellent for vocals and studio mixing. The price I paid was very low (the store closed definitively ). I tryed a Rocktron Chameleon but i was disapointed (good speaker simulator) and I resold itimmediately.

I bought this unit in 1993 and when I was first using it, I pretty much had to learn what all the effects and parameters meant, let alone did. The manual is ok, but there are that many parameters on this thing ! It took me a solid year to learn how to tweak it into submission.

There are 4 main groups of effects : Compression, Distortion, EQ, Modulation and Reverb/Delay.
Compression : Good, in fact very good. I know this by analysing waveforms on PC sound editing software. When the Compressor is set high, the waveform is near perfect and the guitar still sounds natural. It offeres parameters such as Attack time, Sustain and also limiting.
Distortion : In a word, crap. Digital distortion is always going to be crap, and unfortunately at the time this unit was made, digital distortion was new and a lot of units were using it. The main problem with it is that it's incredibly noisy. There are many differnt settings and types, all of which suck. This is definitly the biggest problem with the FX550, but there is a solution - read on...
EQ: Fantastic ! It's a 3 band full parametric.
Modulation: You got Flange, Phaser(rotary speaker), 2 pitch shifters, chorus, Pan, tremolo etc... The flange and chorus is quite good as are the tremolo and pan. The pitch Shifters are unbelievable. I havent heard better ! The only effect which I did not like was the Phaser. It just didnt sound like a real phaser. All Mod effects have loads of parameters to play with including delay times and filters.
Reverb/Delay : Awesome ! The best thing about the FX550 is the Reberbs and Delays. They are all digital, but sound so natural and warm which is uncommon for a digital processor.
There is also a great amp simulation section which I used alot for DI applications. You get 4 types including a Marshall, a fender combo, and a full blown stack.
All effects sections have independant level adjstments and low/high pass filter parameters. They also have a "mix" control which allows you to set how much each effect is mixed in with the signal sound.
I used this unit for alot of differnt applications. I originally bought it to get some good reverbs for Multitrack recording with a 4 track, but as time went by I used it for all sorts of things such as DI guitar recording , Processing vocals, Enhancing pre-recorded music etc... In the final days that the FX550 was mine, I managed to get a great sound out of a crappy Peavey combo I own. I ran the FX550 through the Effects loop with a little reverb and compression, and set the amp simulator to a stack. I achieved a Marshall/Mesaboogie distortion sound. I shit you not !

Well, what can I say ? It's "rock" solid. Not a single scratch appeared on it in the 6 years I owned it, and I took it to gigs, rehearsals, studios etc...

I never needed any support or service so I can't comment.

It's a great peice of equipment. As you should have gathered, the distorion/overdrive section is the only let down. I recently sold it to a friend and bought a Digitech RP-7. This was mainly because I wanted some killer distortions and the RP-7 has a Valve in it as well as being a pedal type unit which is easier to use live.
I would have kept the FX550 for use with recording vocals ( I had some amazing patches made especially for this with perfect compression and reverbs) but I figured if I could duplicate the same patch into the RP-7 there really wouldn't be any need for the FX550 anymore. All in all it's a studio quality FX processor which although is intended for guitar processing, works equally as good with anything you plug into it. It's an all rounder ! I guess these units are probably hard to find now days, but if you are considering getting one, email me and I would be happy to send you some sound samples I've made over the years. By the way, on my bands first cd, I recorded all the quitars with a combination of the FX550 and a Digitech RP-6. All the vocals were recorded through the FX550 too ! Oh, I almost forgot, the solution to overcoming the lousy distortion is simple. You can either run an external distortion unit before the FX550, or place the FX550 into an amplifiers FX loop path. Just remember to turn off the units distortion!

Fairly easy to use. 50 out of the 100 patches come preset, and would these 50 cover a wide range of styles - something for everyone.

All effects sound very good. Noise gate is useful.

On the road up to 8 times a month. Four rehearsals per month. It gets knocked around and beer spilt over it. Totally reliable. Nice touch is the low voltage power lead clamp which stops the power leads getting pulled out during a gig.

Never had to go back to the supplier/importer.

Excellent live and for home studio. The only thing I've found that beats it, is the Chamelion (retails for #1000 in the UK - three times the price).

To get a good sound depending upon what the player prefers, It'll take a little work at going thru all of the parameters. Editing patches is quite simple, just push one of the five effects buttons and change the indvidual effects parameters. The manual is self explanitory.

The sound quality is on the most part really good considering that it is made for the normal musician, I mean it's not a top end professional device. The effects always sound superb. All of the effects are good.

This processor is very reliable. I would use it when ever and where ever I played.

I have never nedded customer support, so I have no opinion.

This small half rack processor is one of the best that I have ever heard. I won't play through anything that isn't up to my sound standards. I compared it to everything that I have ever tried out in a music store, and the only ones that ever compared were the $1000 and up processors. I do wish that It would of came with a midi pedal, so as to ease the transitions from clean to rythum, to lead, and any where in between. I usually try not to by japanese products, but this time I just had to have it.