A *** sound processor
By Rocky marty on May 15, 2020 Music Background: Lead gitar player ..singer songwriter ...frontman rmatrd WE ARE OKAY
The boss me - 50 is more or less a happy sound processor for the gitar....made by and for happy people....i have such a happy little sound processor in my studio...and when i m happy..i like to play...when i was young...i had a roland...sound processor.for my gitars..i have not yet decided which brand is more happy..boss or roland.....although roland did charm me very much...if you happen to buy this happy boss me - 50...it s not a waiste of your money...you will have some fun with it
Awesome Piece Of Machinery
By JP from Sandersville, GA on September 20, 2008 Music Background: Ameteur Guitarist
This is the top of the line equipment. It may be expensive but its worth it. It does every thing. It has 11 differnet types of distortion 11 different mods and 11 different delays plus an expression pedal and reverb. Its also got a function where you can make a single coil sound like a humbucker or vice versa you can also make it sound like a semi-hollow guitar. The only thin bad is if u play a heavy riff then wanna do a gut-busting solo with the reverb you have to bend down and turn the knob. Also dont be to quick be cause it also has a tuner and if you try to turn on distortion and mod the tuner will come on. But overall its a sweet multi-pedal.
ME-50 insights from the past 9 months of using it
By JCM2000 R.I.P. from South Jersey USA on September 13, 2008 Music Background: ex- Sarcophagy
I got the ME-50 specifically because I did not want to have anything to do with menus, or amp/cab sims. I had been using the legendary but antique RP-1 for about 15 years but it was on its last legs. I had just bought a Marshall DSL50 and wanted to work WITH its tone, not push it out of the way. The ME-50 is very, very versatile despite what some people have said to the contrary. It is a sleeper of a unit, meaning I don't think a lot of people realize its value. I think the average person will not notice a significant difference between the OD/distortion emulators and the actual pedals (IF you properly adjust the ME-50). The Modulation and Delay effects are only lacking if you want to be a snob about it. Don't buy it if you have been using vintage, analog units from the 1970's like the Echoplex and demand the same from the ME-50. Don't buy it and then complain there's no "turbo" switch for the OD-2 emulator. Don't buy it and then complain the wah doesn't perform like a Morley. It is an adequate wah and expression pedal. If you don't like the Tone Modify setting, get an EQ. Or better yet, there are tone controls on your amp, remember? And to each his own, but if you are using more than 3 tones in 1 song, either listen to Appetite for Destruction for some guidance on this or get a different unit. If you are playing through a crap amp, don't expect the ME-50 to make it sound like a Plexi. Get a GT-8 for that. I need direct, real time adjustability on my effects. Not, category-parameter-select-value-oh the song's done. For all of these reasons and more, the ME-50 is perfect. It looks like I could give someone a beat-down with it then plug into it and rock out. It is not flashy. It doesn't claim it's anything other than some popular stompboxes that got chained together, and it delivers on this masterfully. It gets some points taken because for $300, it is a crime not to include a power adapter. But that was a sales dept decision, not an R&D decision. Buy this and enjoy all the rock-out time automatically created when you don't have to scroll, select, scroll, select, etc.
finally!
By Oldenkrusty from Austin Tx on August 13, 2008 Music Background: gigging musician
As a gigging musician for 40+ yrs, I have played a variety of rigs- american and british amps, high and low end guitars, a plethora of effects, both pedals and racks, etc. I sometimes grimace when I think of some of the efx boxes I have owned in the past but have let slipped through my fingers. I have owned the me50 for 3 yrs, and it is the box I have waited for roland/boss to make- a pedalboard that was designed to work with a guitar amplifier. Many of the pedalboards are designed to plug directly into your home recording rig, and many include amp modeling. I happen to like the sound of my amp, so modeling does not appeal to me for this application. what I wanted was a cost effective, good sounding, one piece solution to add some color/flavor to my amp, and the me50 delivers. One of the pitfalls of other units, including those made by roland is disproportionate gain structure. the output of the device is much hotter than the output of a guitar, which affects tone. sometimes in a not so pleasing way. I have had much better results with the me50 in this regard. when you consider how much you would spend on individual pedals (which I would prefer, but do not want to afford) to acheive the same variety of sounds, the value is noticeable. I use a fender hot rod deluxe for gigging around Austin in a classic rock cover band with some other middle aged men, and the me50 has been great. It has some feaatures that I do not use - for instance, I do not use the preset patches. I have it set in manual mode which allows me to kick individual efx on and off via the individual switches, and I do not run it through the efx loop on the amp. I run it inline between the guitar and the amp. I do not run the compressor, gate, or reverb because I choose not to. I like the fender spring reverb sound, and am probably just too lazy to fuss with compressor and gate settings. It took some trial and error to find the eq setting to match my instrument - I play a mexican tele with duncan vintage hot tele set of pickups and found the 'fat' setting works well with that guitar/pickup combination. On the occasions where the venue has their own sound man, I consistantly get compliments on tone and articulation, defination, and the ease of mixing/blending with the overall band sound. Is it perfect? of course not. Do I have a wish list? you bet! I wish I could run tremolo and another modulation effect at the same time since my amp lacks a tremolo circuit. The distortion sims are more than adequate for my needs. I usually run the tube screamer sim, chorus, and delay, with occaisional changes to the modulation effect - tremolo, univibe, leslie ( great leslie sound for the bridge in "Badge") and the tremolo gives a great swampy vibe to creedence stuff. the univibe works great on cream and hendrix tunes. I prefer the tube grind I get with my amp, so I use the distortion only when I need a different flavor. sometimes it is a cool thing to blend the odd harmonic distortion from an effect with the even harmonic distortion of a tube. I like the me50. as in all things musical, your ears are the final say, but for me, my rig, and what I do, this was the piece I selected above all the rest.
Big Sound, Big Value
By jfox1 from Somerset, KY on July 11, 2006 Music Background: Praise and Worship Guitarist
This is the idea multi-effect box for those of us musicians that love great sound, but don't like to learn computer programming to get it. This Boss product provides effects adjustments at the turn of a knob. Everything is simply laid out and in no time even the novice can dial in great tone. I have owned this product for a while and all my buddies loved mine so much they are buying them. This is money well spent.
Boss me-50
By Chris from Point Reyes Station, California on May 31, 2009 Music Background: A gigging and recording musician for 30 years
I have used this pedal for 5 years now and must say that over all its very versatile and user friendly.Yes you can not use more than one modulation effect at a time but that doesnt effect what I need it for.I use the expression pedal strictly for volume pedal which is great in a band situation.One tip for people who use the expression pedal effects, you can set the expression on/off switch 1-9 to help with unwanted activation or deactivation of pedal.Factory default is 5, I set mine to 9 so as it never turns any effect on, consult your maual for easy directions on that operation.At year 5 I started chaining some of my favorite pedals with great results.I added my top three overdrives and distortion a morley wah and a boosta grande, mounted all to a 32x16 pedalboard.Now I never bend down in perfomance to change distortion types. I never used the memory mode because of the switching delay and the difficulty in equalizing the volume.I do love this pedal and now that they are being phased out for the new me-70 i am watching closely to pick up a back up, many stores dont carry the me-50 anymore.Hope this helps you folks and enjoy experimenting with your me-5.
Ignore the gear snobs - superb value for money and amazing for real-time editing
By Jim Burton from near London, UK on April 11, 2009 Music Background: Lead guitar in rock/grunge originals band
I've been playing guitar on and off since I was 7 (I'm now 25) and have been through three multis: a Zoom GFX707, a Digitech RP250 and a second-hand Zoom 8080 Super Player.
Each of those was an improvement on the last, especially the incredible-sounding Zoom 8080, but I got so frustrated with the patch-and-bank system of multi FX that I sold it and planned to buy individual stompboxes instead.
However, I tried the Boss ME50 out in a guitar shop and was duly impressed - it was exactly what I was looking for! I tend to use a wide variety of effects at a low, subtle level just to round out my sound, so this was perfect.
You can switch between effects and tweak the rate/gain/balance/depth etc on the fly using the rows and rows of knobs on it. No more fiddling about in menus and saving your settings to memory, just dial in what you want! It has a patch/memory mode as well, but I don't even bother using it.
Any cons? I suppose if you're looking for a top-whack phaser, tremolo or whatever, then you might be better off going with individual boxes - this is something of a "jack of all trades, master of none", if you like. For example, there's just a 'generic' tremolo with adjustable rate and depth, but you can't choose between square-wave or saw-wave trem. You also can't mix multiple modulation effects, e.g. you can't have chorus and vibe at the same time.
But all the effects, including the distortions, are good enough to complement the gear I've already got and I'm very happy with it. If you've got a decent enough amp and want a broad palette of effects just to add a little extra depth, this will do nicely.
I use an external Morley wah so I can reserve the ME50's single expression pedal for octave effects, but with the right settings the ME50's wah can sound lovely. Tweak it right and you can get a very pronounced/full sound rather than the pathetic little "quack quack" you often get with the wah on a multi-FX.
(My rig: Epiphone ES-335 "Dot", Morley Bad Horsie Wah, Boss ME50, Marshall AVT50 Valvestate combo)
Incredible effects for the price
By Dogman from Flagstaff, AZ USA on September 19, 2006 Music Background: Church Worship Team
Bought the ME-50 about a year ago and still using it on stage. Incredible endless effects! I'm still finding new sounds and effects. I am using this with a Fender Showmaster solidbody electric guitar and with the Seymour Duncans pickups, the sounds are clean and smooth. The wah-wah gets a bit getting used to but once you master this aspect your doing Jimi Hendrix. The knobs are a bit loose and I would like them to be tighter but, I'm being to pickey. You can't beat the Boss for the price! Oh, one other thing that is the best, is the built in electronic tuner, to handy, it's perfect and is right on the money for tuning! Great job Boss people!
Boss ME-50
By HOTHEAD from Canada on August 7, 2006 Music Background: Active musician - Classic rock, Blues and Metal
Well I fell guilty only giving it a 4, It's a great little unit. For me it works well for recording to cool edit. delivers a nice thick rich textured sound through my computer speakers,,, but doesn't sound so great through my amp a Randall rg75,,, It's easy to understand, easy to create patches and it is solid.
I would have liked a longer record time, 8 to 10 seconds would have been better but that aside if you want a bunch of effects in one unit this thing delivers. You can spend alot of time tweeking and changing patches (which is fun, but wastes alot of
time)my advise is find a few great sounds that inspire you and stick with them. Bottom line it's a great unit.
ME-50
By Verlyns Four Wheel Drive / 1 man band from Granite Falls Minn.,USA on December 27, 2008 Music Background: Semi Pro Entertainer 50 yrs.
I use This unit all the time so I dont have all the single petals to worry about. The sounds ar not as good as the Roland single petals but work. I run two EV-5s to switch from one bank to the next in the song .The thing I dont like about it is when you switch from one sound to another you loose your sound for a spit second. How can I correct this ???
Has it's Pros and cons
By Dr Axe from Cincinnati OH on February 9, 2008 Music Background: Gigging Musician for 20 years
Major Pro- doesn't color the sound of the amp when not in use. Rugged as all get out. Uses batteries- once my AC adapter died in the middle of a gig, I was back up after a quick trip to the all night quickie mart.
Cons- the delays tend to clip the signal. Some of the effects, such as flange, add volume and modify tone when enabled. Wah pedal, same thing. All the distortions sound very transitor-y, not at all like the pedals they're named after. One of the least impressive chorus's I've used- either un-noticable or so warbly it sounds silly. Flange adds way too much treble, no ac adaptor included. Overall I find it very hard to control levels when playing live.
It's very simple to use for sure, but if you're picky about tone, test this one very carefully before spending $300 on it.
The effects were good
By Mike Jones from Penticton, BC Canada on January 8, 2006
Great Pedal
By Bob G from Springfield, MA on November 1, 2005
I love this pedal. It has a great collection of sounds and is very easy to use. I own 5 electrics, including three Les Pauls (one Epi copy, a Les Paul Special Faded, and a Les Paul Standard with the fat 50's neck) an Epi Dot Deluxe 335 copy, and a Fender 72 Thinline Tele with Humbuckers - they all sound great going through this pedal. I run my ME-50 through a stereo tube rig - on the left, into a vintage Fender Bassman head and cab for big bottom, and on the right, a Fender Hotrod Deluxe for my highs and mids, and the tones are ridiculous. Two things I don't like - the expression pedal has some kind of auto on/off switch that activates without a click or hard push - this means that when you are using it, it just might shut off, which turns it into a volume pedal instead of a wah, which in turn will make you turn yourself off in the middle of a crazy wah solo, or whatever. It's a real p.i.t.a, not knowing when it will happen, so I bypass that and use a Morley Bad Horsie 2 for wah stuff. Also, there is no switch built in for switching between banks - either hit the tiny unlit button to bank up or down, or go out and buy another seperate pedal for $30. Or, just turn the knobs where needed, as needed, like I do. After a year, I still haven't bothered to build any preset sounds. Overall, it's definitely a really good pedal. You could go spend another $150 and get the GT-8 - that will solve the problems I have with the ME-50, but adds the complexity of programming and endless tweakability. I'm sure that months are needed to get used to the GT-8, whereas the ME-50 can be learned in a few minutes.
me-50
By Anonymous from gulf shores on June 1, 2005
i have never owned this but everyday when i went to school my band teacher had this and he let me play with it and this thing is the best it sounds great and the wah sounds awesome
Boss ME-50
By Dave C from Biloxi MS on February 1, 2004
This muther screams! It's been a long time coming to have a multi-effects unit that is easy to use and sounds good. Most of us are used to the simple no-frills 3 knob design of the Boss pedals and this one doesn't disappoint. What's so nice is that if you don't like something, twist the knob, done. No menu surfing... this thing will be great on stage. Too much wash, not enough shred... twist two knobs, boom, instant success!
ME-50
By Valdi Kaldi from RVK Iceland on January 1, 2004
This one rocks, great sound :)
