Yamaha GEP 50

Great bit of kit. Old, dated, rugged, great.

Very simple to use. A quick flick of the manual and a few button and presses and you are away.

Sure, it's not some super whizzy tube watsit pre-amp, but it does a great job.

Decent 'verbs, and delays. Nice chorus although not quite as "lush" as other units but very usable.

There's a lot of snobbery about distortions but I find these quite usable.

Pity you can't chain effects. Chorus + reverb would be nice.

Seems prety rugged. No probs here.

Not dealt with them but had lots of their kit before. No probs.

I've played guitar for ages (30 years) and played lots of kit. I like this unit. Nuff said?

Pretty straight forward easy to use

Decent preamp that doesnt color amp sound. Works great with 2 amps mono in and great symphonic stereo out plus it has an effects loop to add additional effects. Good for recording. I use it in my marshall loop and have several patches set up. Distortion needs other effects to enhance it but i dont use it anyway, mostly phasing and reverbs etc. Built my own foot switches to scroll through my user settings.

Well built, well laid out, keep it in my guitar rack with several others. Do miss it when i dont have it.

Wish they'd put the manual on line like most manufacturers do.

Too bad you cant chain the effects, also have it boot to where you shut it off at. still havent figured out what a few buttons do but over all it does its job a hell of a lot better better than any of those stomp boxes do. I move on stage and put on a show and rely on a good rack unit to get the job done. This one does it.

Easy to use, edit. It's a BARGAIN if you can find one for just good old FX processing.

Distortions pretty much are "zoinks!". But ignore that, and use this little workhorse for everything NOT DISTORTED and you've got an incredibly QUIET, USEFUL piece of gear! These were pretty "gnarly" back in the day, still cool, and super cheap to get!

So far so good.....no problemo muchachos.

No clue.

Get one....forget the spendy FX processors....this puppy will cover you in all areas except distortions. Buy hey, that's why we pay the big bucks for those must have tube amp, hand wire jobs right?

Got it with no manual, but only took about 2 minutes to figure out.

For $50, can it be anything BUT a 10! Really though, all effects are great as far as I'm concerned. Effects 'snobs' might give it something lower. But, I grew up in the 80's, and this thing is what dreams were made of back then. Distortion is mainly for CrazyTrain type metal, but you can really dial in other tones between the distortion level, the input level on the GEP50, and you're Amp settings. I use a Carvin with Dual Humbuckers BTW.

Mine looks like it's been rode hard and put up wet ... still sounds like a champ though. No hisses, static, or popping.

Check out E-Bay and you can get these things for $75 and lower all day. You absolutely can't beat that.

As easy as any other rack processor. I got it without a manual, but very easy to learn.

I mostly bought the unit for a couple of the settings; The early reflection and the chorus settings. And I bought the unit beacuse it has that low-bit sound that older digi-processors have. I send drum sounds and others from my computer through it to get a vicious dirty reflection which can be very tight and punchy or grainy and spread out(depending on how you set it). The backwards version also has alot of depth. The chorus setting are suprisingly good.

dependable

For the two effects I use it is invaluable.

The edit function is fairly easy to understand and I was lucky to pick up a used unit that had good patches entered as a basis for my tweaking. I wish I could simply tweak ALL the programs as Digitech
does and then give me the option of returnng the setting to original defaults. Frankly, the manual is well laid out, even if you don't speak French or German. Missing are all the grammatical errors I've seen in other Japanese product literature. The optional pedal was missing and I'm anxious to locate one. The tone was maybe a tad "sterile", however it sounds much more natural than other digital units I've tried. The trigger and release settings allowed me to dial in a great overdrive without any annoying digital "clutter".

I went out on the road last year with a set-up built in St. Louis, totally solid state and that was very dependable, however I missed the warmth of tubes and snapped up a used Yamaha T-100 in excellent condition. I personally play a style similar to Satch, but I wanted to get a more vintage tone this time out. I haven't run the full set-up together yet, but I will loop the GEP50 through the T-100's send/return. The overdrive and distortion will let me dial down the amp's preamp section and avoid the noise I've been getting when I crank the amp. I will use a JS-1 and my trust EMG-loaded Strat! I know if I get the right blend of delay, chorus and overdrive; I will sound pretty much like I want to. The guitar's volume pot lets me tune down the "heat" of the set up and the GEP50 responds nicely to subtle volume changes, just like I wasn't using any digital effect!
I have to agree with others regarding the flange setting, I simply don't use flange much, but it'll be there if I need it.

If I use this without a backup, I will be screwed! My next gig is on a cruise ship and I won't be carrying anything like this. So it must be dependable-the amp itself simply won't cut it. I will let you know what happens.

I've chatted with the midwestern rep for Yamaha, and he is nice enough. If I were them, I would put the T-100 back into production, at least now they have a nice looking, but way overpriced, 4X12 cabinet to sell along with it!

I'll admit it, I am a bit of a relic myself! But I bought this unit when the store couldn't get a different unit, a new one at that, to work. I told the saleman I was looking for an effects processor to give me chorus and delay and I had read the broken model had an overdrive feature. I guess I'll never know, the manual didn't mention it. But since I didn't want to make the long trip to Chicago and this unit was in my price range, I thought, "Oh what the hell".
Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. It takes alot to impress me in the overdrive department. I used to daisy-chain pairs of Fender heads back in the 70's to get the sound I liked, played though Marshalls and used Crates for a long time. I would buy another, and I could wait for that special ebay price. I want a floor control and I have a hard time beleiving its nothing more than a piano sustain pedal! The scrolling feature will have to be worked out with my new set lists. If it had something more flexible, it would be perfect. All the new processors feature other types of voices. And if I wanted a drum machine, I'm sure I would buy one.

Extremely easy to use. The presets are good and there are many parameters to modify to taste for tweaking. The manual is helpful but not necessary. If you've ever used an spx90, then you already know this machine.

Excellent sound quality for any quitar rig. Essentially, its an spx90 with the effects voiced for guitar. It has the same chipset as the spx90, and it takes the stable of spx99 effects and adds distortion and overdrive parameters for the guitar. The reverbs, early reflections, delays, pitch shifters, and parametric eq are really quite good (like an spx90's). The distortions need to be eq'd to get the best out of them, but, if you put in the time, you can get great results. These units are a great bargain when compared with the prices for spx90's.

They are built as well and are as reliable as the Yamaha spx90. The backup battery (3 volt lithium)is the only element likely to fail, but it is easy to access and replace it by soldering in a new one. Otherwise, it will probably outlive your career in music.

Yamaha will answer your email if you ever have a question on the unit.

I've been a player for 30 years and have more equipment than I can keep track of. If lost or stolen, I would buy another or would get another spx90. The beauty of the gep50 is that it has all the functionality of the spx90 without the price. Some people think the distortion effects sound too digital (cold), but the gep50 has all the other great spx functions that can be used without distortion. So, if you don't like the distortion, you don't have to use it.

The steps take a little getting-used-to, but if you have the manual handy, it's a piece of cake once you finish your assigned reading. Click and go, a nice straightforward rack unit.

You know, I think I like this one. Older set of effects, less arranged by music style (as Zoom does) and more by actual classification. I find the chorus a little thin (I'm spoiled on the Boss CE-5) and the flanger downright limp, but the Symphonic chorus is right up my alley. Distortions are nice for early digital types, the overdrives are rather cold and artifical though. Where this unit excels is in its versatility of unusual effects. The Early Ref. effect, the echoes and delays, the gate effects -- these are nice touches, and sometimes give your sound that extra little tweak that it needs. As an exercise in early digital effects, it's a beauty.

Owned and abused. Left out in a hot car for three days in the desert. Left in storage for a year. Left in a basement that got flooded, retrieved waterlogged -- and it's still working beautifully. Not a glitch to be seen. This puppy has got to be the most durable since since a Boss pedal.

Never talked to them.

As a vintage piece of history, I say it's a must-have. I love early digital gear, and this is it. Sterile as all hell, overdrives and distorts emotionless walls of crisply processed noise. If you want rich, hot distortion, I urge you to look elsewhere -- this is Mr. Roboto of effects gear. No soul here. Sometimes, this can be good. I used it for a hard-rock/industrial cover of "The Sound Of Silence" that I did, to give the impression of a huge, clanking, lifeless machine.
The subtler effects are the ones which allows life through, and these are quite good. Reverbs and echo effects are nice, and those unusual gate effects are really cool to play around with. If you can get this one cheap, and you like cold digital gear, go for it.

This was my first step into digital effects and it is as simple as it gets.It is easy to scroll thur the effects parameters and change them. Although I found myself wanting to combine certain presets with other presets you are limited to the 50 choices in the factory settings. The reverbs are excellent,I've used them for guitar and vocals, live and recorded.The distortions are good but...

I play a G&L ASAT and a Peavy Nitro into the GEP50 then into a 66' Fender Bassman w/2x15 cab.The Bassman is only 50 watts,but is more than enough for most clubs.The GEP lets me turn down the output so I can get a good sound without high volumes. Although you can hear the noise gate cut in,it has not been a problem live. Reverbs combined with a distortion pedal can make you sound hugh.The chorus is barely adequate but pitch shifters are very good.If only I could combine the pitch shifters and reverbs...hmm

I've used this unit for 6 years now with no problems.Hope that battery doesn't run down. Never leave the house without backup!

Never dealt with them.

I've played rock for 25 years with many different bands.If this unit were lost or stolen, I wouldn't search for another, but if I came across one at a good price I would buy it.I love it's simplicity,after 6 years I know the unit well.

Not too bad, Individual patches (50 preset, 50 user) can be edited, but no effects added to them. Can only step thru menus one way.

Somewhat noisy in effects loop of my amp. The sounds are great, especially considering this is 7 year old technology. I especially liked the flange and the early reflection - very 50s

No problems.

Got the manual mail order, bought the unit used. No problems.

It was a great place to start, but I've got all the distortion I need in my (tube) head, now I need a unit that's silent in the effects loop. I'm going to miss that ER patch, though. Anybody got suggestions for a quiet unit, killer verbs/phase/flange/chorus/ER/delay, compression and distortion less important? Email me...