funkydoug

I know what you mean @eude. The 'fatigue' is not about being anti-digital; I welcome having the benefits of digital 'under the hood' but the benefits of analogue on the surface. Yes, that does come with compromise and constraints but I am happy to make that trade-off and I think Boss has made a really good set of choices with this one. It is a bit of a 'less is more' unit, and I'm onboard with that, but there really are so many great sounds in there that are easy to find and play with that it doesn't feel like much of a compromise for those of us who want to use it.

I own one and am very happy with the sounds. Boss has been using MDP as the ‘brand’ for its more advanced digital effects for a while and the MDP based adv-drive and M-comp are excellent. There are plenty of other options onboard too, of course. The AIRD preamps are also boss’s most up to date ones. I think you’d need to have golden ears to hear inadequacies, I can’t hear any. They will be slightly different to other flavours of amp modelling of course. no latency at all that I can hear, or feel. That is something of an obsession of mine so I am pleased to report that the unit feels very alive and interactive. The ‘env filter’ is a mutron clone and sounds great to me, as does the octave, which has the same 3 controls as an OC2. In summary, I like boss bass stuff. I loved my old Roland DBass amp and my old Bass cube. I love the LMB3. I love the newer MDP compressor pedal they have. So I was always going to be happy with the sounds of this thing. I’m of the view that line 6, and other units including those from boss, all have great sounds in them. I’ve learned the hard way that the interface really matters in terms of how you use it, enjoy it and get the sounds out of them. That’s why this is my forever pedal 🤣

I appreciate that these are concerns for you, but I won't use on a pedalboard, it is my pedalboard. I don't use patches, just manual mode. It works for me - hope you find something that works for you, there are certainly plenty of options to choose from!

I had an ME50b, and I'd say this is just as solid. Obviously it hasn't yet lasted 20 years, but I'd bet it will!

hi, I've had a pod go, used a full-fat helix, had a Boss GT Core, and looked closely at others like headrush. Had GT1b too. My main goal was to have something not too large and very immediate to work with. I don't use presets at all and wanted to get away from screens and overthinking / overplanning sounds. I much prefer to use this as a series of really good and flexible stompboxes. I find I feel more relaxed and the musical / creative parts of my brain can 'play' and my planning / thinking brain can stay at work! I'm also not worried about jumping from sound to sound. The closest thing I am aware of to this is Pedalboard mode on the GT1000. Might want to look it up. That might be the best of both worlds, but I don't want the option of both worlds!

I have one. I love it, but I knew I would! It does everything I would want in a pedal board and is easy and immediate to use, no menus or complications, really good tuner, and of course it sounds wonderful. It isn't a large unit (@eude) and is around the same size as a small to medium pedal board. It certainly doesn't feel like one of those spaceship units (big helix, GT1000, kemper etc) in size or complexity. I'd have no trouble with it being on a tight stage or in the studio. One big advantage over the ME80 (its guitar -based predecessor) is that there is some overlap with the effects on each block so I can have the following available at the same time and instantly tweakable in manual mode (everyone is different of course): Wah Octaver Envelope filter (can swap that for phaser if I want to) Compressor (on the Mod block) Dirt Preamp Chorus (loaded into the delay/reverb block) Tuner Not much I can add really, although as you can tell this is not a forensic or unbiased review! I'd go as far as to say that this is a 'once in a generation' unit for bassists, in that it's been over 20y since they launched the ME50b. Did I mention I love it??

To those puzzled by this product, and who think it is dated… remember that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder ! To me this is the perfect product and far better (for me) than any screen based multi-fx. I’m not visually impaired, I just like this interface. Horses for courses ‘n all that.

I’ll take full credit for this then! Ha! Seriously though, this is the exact pedal I’ve been hoping for. Thanks for spotting it and posting here.

I'd agree with your management. As well as whats been said above, who actually books you? The couple. They are probably 25-35 yr old. What gets their attention (musically!) enough to make them book you over other bands? Your manager knows the answer.

My favourite buy of the year is an old ABM and I’m really happy with it. I’ve had a 600 previously for comparison and personally think that the ‘older ABMs are terrible’ nonsense is exactly that, nonsense.