Boss ME-80 Guitar Multi Effects Pedal

Fretwired

Surprisingly good and not bad for £229 - http://www.andertons.co.uk/multi-fx-units/pid32053/cid693/boss-me80-multiple-guitar-fx-processor.asp?playVideo=KmTVAqUYGQA

guitarcookie1

Even better for £229...

That could be the multi effects unit I could manage to use.

Fretwired

guitarcookie1 said:

Even better for £229...

That could be the multi effects unit I could manage to use.

A typo .. just corrected. It's the first Boss ME unit I've though I could use.

ChrisMusic

Price pointed against the Fender Mustang and Line6 / (Yamaha?) HD400, good marketing by Roland Boss.

Shame there are no control outs or ins though.

Nice unit for the money, shame they didn't get a better jam to show it off at the end of the video, I'll bet it sounds much better than that.

Fretwired

ChrisMusic said:

Price pointed against the Fender Mustang and Line6 / (Yamaha?) HD400, good marketing by Roland Boss.

Shame there are no control outs or ins though.

Nice unit for the money, shame they didn't get a better jam to show it off at the end of the video, I'll bet it sounds much better than that.

Wait until Alex Hutchings gets his hands on on - he's my favourite Boss demonstrator. But if the Glimmer Twins at Andertons can make it sound OK them Mr Average should be able to as well.

MarkGAK

We just put up our demo of this. Matt had the unit over the weekend and worked out how to really get the best out of it. So far, everyone at GAK is REALLY impressed with it. The video is here:

We also had Jamie from Boss in to talk in depth about the ME-80 on our podcast this week. If you fancy some REALLY in-depth chat about it, it's probably worth listening to the podcast: http://gak.podomatic.com/enclosure/2014-01-15T00_00_00-08_00.mp3

Lixarto

I loved the ME-50, just what I needed for live use.

Colour me interested. I'm not watching a "Monkey Lord[1]" demo though.


[1] Jesus wept.

markslade07

Some good sounds there, but I'm still yet to find a single use for 'ring modulation' in any situation!

monquixote

Shame it has and expression pedal on it or it might be the perfect multi I've been looking for.

Kebabkid

I like this and similar concept to the ME-50 and ME-70 (owned both). They were good sounding and easy to use, particularly the ME-50, and they seemed to have addressed the issues/shortfalls of the previous ME units.

The GT units had too many pages and the programming was too in depth. Also, IMHO, each new model sounded progressively worse (GT-8 was ok).

kelvinburn

My ME-50 is on the brink of death. this could be well timed

Fretwired

Lixarto said:

I loved the ME-50, just what I needed for live use.

Colour me interested. I'm not watching a "Monkey Lord[1]" demo though.


[1] Jesus wept.

@Lixarto .. have to agree ...:-)

Drew_TNBD

Massive fail imho.

ChrisMusic

Why so @Drew_fx, what would you have done differently or liked to have seen on the ME-80, given it's market position, target audience and £229 price point.  Genuine question.

Lev

Another decent demo video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5BXrfgMO6o

If you stick with it past the cheesy 80's intro it does show some nice sound combinations available on this unit. I think combining the Terra Echo, Multi Overtone and the Freeze effect could be fun for creating big sound scape effects.

Fretwired

@MarkGAK - nice demo. When are they likely to be in stock?

Drew_TNBD

ChrisMusic said:

Why so @Drew_fx, what would you have done differently or liked to have seen on the ME-50, given it's market position, target audience and £229 price point.  Genuine question.

I can't tell if your typo of ME-50 is a joke or not. But even if not, this unit really doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table. May as well buy an ME-50!!

The footswitches look awful to me. Both visually, and they don't look like they'll be easy to use. Too close together.

I know it doesn't offer the WYSIWYG aspects, but when you can buy a Zoom MS unit that allows freely assignable effects slots that can be any type, offers more FX slots, for less money, I am unconvinced by this.

ChrisMusic

Cheers Drew, d'oh typo indeed - but lol for the reply to that.  (edited post to save further embarrassment)

I get where you are coming from ref the Zoom.

I know it either adds to the costs or makes it less WYSIWYG  (world's most horrible acronym?), but assignable block positions, a assignable loop, and midi would have been great, and maybe line out without the speaker sim. Not sure if you can do the shim-verb thing? but it does offer a lot for the cash, as does the Zoom.

Front / back is easier for close switching than side to side, so I think it will work.

So maybe a good addition as a 'do all' pedal?  That will need some consideration.

Great demo vid Lew, nice chops and shows it off well too.

I am with Fretwired on the Alex Hutchings demo, looking forward to that, just good to hear him play, wish he would get his album(s) sorted.

I googled this and it came up with your post as the fourth item, pretty good going.  No demo yet though.

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=alex+hutchings+ME-80

It came up with demos of the ME-50, so probably why I did the typo !

57Deluxe

MarkGAK said:

We just put up our demo of this. Matt had the unit over the weekend and worked out how to really get the best out of it. So far, everyone at GAK is REALLY impressed with it. The video is here:

We also had Jamie from Boss in to talk in depth about the ME-80 on our podcast this week. If you fancy some REALLY in-depth chat about it, it's probably worth listening to the podcast: http://gak.podomatic.com/enclosure/2014-01-15T00_00_00-08_00.mp3

I think though, that once you got over the buzz of sounding like a Milk Float on its rounds at 4am (@14:56) it could get a bit annoying that you have to wade through all the wonky stuff to have a good honest, 'live' tone to work with...

MarkGAK

Fretwired said:

@MarkGAK - nice demo. When are they likely to be in stock?

As far as I'm aware, they'll be with us around the middle of February. 

monquixote

Drew_fx said:

I know it doesn't offer the WYSIWYG aspects, but when you can buy a Zoom MS unit that allows freely assignable effects slots that can be any type, offers more FX slots, for less money, I am unconvinced by this.

Got to agree with Drew on this, I think the Zoom G series have moved the game on. 

There are several ways this pedal could be used and I can imagine one of the main ones is in the loop of a decent amp as a purely mod/delay/verb machine and in that function having modules dedicated to the rather unconvincing sounding Amp and OD sections doesn't really make sense. 

I'm pondering using my G3 as a delay pedal ATM because it's so versatile it's actually a really good alternative to the Flashback X4. 6 simultaneous delays

Also I just don't think from the demos it really sounds all that great, but then the Zoom stuff didn't in a lot of the early demos so I'll reserve judgement.