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Fender Downtown Express multi effects


Muppet

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@LukeFRC exactly the point - it may be an absolute turkey and then it makes no difference is single or multi effect - it’s all postulation based on no real knowledge, except that Fender pedals have for the most part been pretty good, the man Alex involved in design and EQ is fairly decent and it looks pretty good!

All the debate has been on definition on a name pretty much, and the old aux in and aux out debate, which to my mind is not a game changer. Most people on here esp will have some form of combo, other pedal, iRig and garageband etc which does that

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15 hours ago, Osiris said:

According to my battered old Oxford English dictionary the literal definition of Multi is more than one. While it is often understood to mean loads in terms of multi-fx units that offer dozens or even hundreds of effects, it is still a perfectly apt and reasonable description to this single pedal that offers 3 different effects. Yes, pre-amp would probably have been a term that would have sat well with more us than multi effects, but it is still literally and grammatically correct. 

The argument about cheaper multi-fx doing way more for much less money also applies to things like your beloved future impact too. Just sayin' :P

I politely disagree on both counts 

As the OP said (whom I do agree with on this!):

On 25/01/2019 at 14:37, Muppet said:

... Not really a multi effects pedal 

If you go down your definition then pretty much every pre-amp is now a "multi-fx" pedal if they do EQ plus just one other thing (tuner, dirt etc). With due respect, that's bollox.

I think a MUCH better definition (obviously from a different less battered dictionary to yours) of "multi" is "a prefix to signify many" and that is certainly the one the industry has been using to date. We had the very same discussion elsewhere and at length about amp makers using non industry standard definitions (in that case of power output e.g. peak rather than RMS) which most of us agreed, I think by about 9:1, was misleading, particularly for newbies.

My point about about cheaper multi-fx doing more for less money is about me recommending an MS-60B to a newbie looking for a multi-fx rather than this Fender "multi-fx".  It was nothing to do with getting an FI as an excellent synth pedal (which I would also happily recommend).

But I've said my piece and all's good. I've had a look into this Fender pedal and it's not going to be for me...and having concluded that I should properly leave the field for folk who are serious about getting one to discuss its merits :) 

Edited by Al Krow
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2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

My point about about cheaper multi-fx doing more for less money is about me recommending an MS-60B to a newbie looking for a multi-fx rather than this Fender "multi-fx".

Bizarrely for a newbie I think this sort of thing would be better. For someone who knows the basics then I agree with you, but first bass and a ME60b gives a whole range of ways to mess your tone and gain staging up without knowing why or how 

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44 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

Bizarrely for a newbie I think this sort of thing would be better. For someone who knows the basics then I agree with you, but first bass and a ME60b gives a whole range of ways to mess your tone and gain staging up without knowing why or how 

Truth. Menu diving can be an incredibly uninspiring (and confusing) process at the best of times, let alone for a newbie. If I have the option of a unit with a “what you see is what you get” knob-per-function top panel, I’ll take it every time. There’s a reason why my pedal collection Has a very heavy bias toward set and forget analogue pedals - the Line 6 HX Stomp being a glaring exception but hats off to Line 6 for making great sounding products with a well designed UI which isn’t a pain in the balls to use. 

To Fender’s credit, they’re making sensible design decisions with their range of pedals. Features like the position indicators on each knob being backlit is very useful if playing on dark stages - and if you don’t like the backlit knobs, you can switch the lights off from the back panel! Everybody’s happy. Add to that selectable signal routing for the DI out and all top-mounted jacks (always welcome, especially on larger pedals) and it’s actually a pretty well thought out pedal. There are no glaring “mistakes” as far as I can tell. Obviously the quality of the drive and compressor sections remain to be seen...

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On 27/01/2019 at 12:52, LukeFRC said:

Bizarrely for a newbie I think this sort of thing would be better. For someone who knows the basics then I agree with you, but first bass and a ME60b gives a whole range of ways to mess your tone and gain staging up without knowing why or how 

I very rarely find myself in disagreement with you Luke - I pretty much find you're spot on with your posts, but on this one I'm in the other camp :) 

I don't think you need to understand details of signal chain theory / gain staging to enjoy an MS-60B any more than you need to understand the engineering behind a car to enjoy driving!

An MS-60B allows a newbie to muck about with many different fx without breaking the bank e.g. delay, flange, chorus, tremolo, bit-crush, dirt, octave up and down, hpf (and with a useful tuner and EQ thrown in for good measure!). This allows folk to get a feel for whether any of these particular effects are for them and then they can consider getting dedicated pedals if they want. Well that's how I would approach it, anyway.

Edited by Al Krow
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....aaaaaaaaaand this unit is not trying to compete with that. It has its different effects which are very easy to change and access on the fly, which by your own admission whether its on your bass or not, or on your amp or not has the most commonly used things a bassist would use,with LED lights to see the dials.

Yep the MS-60B has loads of stuff, but as a user and a gigger  of it how many of the various effects did you use on it playing live, then scroll through easily, change any parameters to suit the situation, and how easy was it compared to what the Fender is offfering? I think that is the main question here or comparator  if you could shed light on it

Sat at home trying out which plethora of effects in the grand scheme work for you - of course the MS-60 has more to offer, but as a simple, powerful gig ready (or home ready tool) it is well worth a cursory look.

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1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

I very rarely find myself in disagreement with you Luke - I pretty much find you're spot on with your posts, but on this one I'm in the other camp :) 

I don't think you need to understand details of signal chain theory / gain staging to enjoy an MS-60B any more than you need to understand the engineering behind a car to enjoy driving!

An MS-60B allows a newbie to muck about with many different fx without breaking the bank e.g. delay, flange, chorus, tremolo, bit-crush, dirt, octave up and down, hpf (and with a useful tuner and EQ thrown in for good measure!). This allows folk to get a feel for whether any of these particular effects are for them and then they can consider getting dedicated pedals if they want. Well that's how I would approach it, anyway.

:) I guess I’m influenced by having spent the last 3 evenings trying to get somewhere near unity gain on my B3n and work out how the bloomin compressors are coming on...

 

edit: I actually agree with you that 15 year old me would probably enjoy the zoom multi effects more and create all sorts of crazy fun sounds. I guess maybe now I’m old and boring and played more that I think there’s a some things that are good to do to get a good bass sound that fits in the mix well... and that the pure power of digital interfaces often make it hard to learn some of that. I’ve seen the same with newbies on digital desks vs analogue - where before all the eq choices for the mix were visible in one (long) glance now there’s often a different screen for each channel... the ability to do something a bit odd in one place and then spend ages changing everything else to try and fix it without seeing the original thing is a bit odd (eg  “my bass sounds right odd in my IEM” “sounds alright to me”... I have a look at my eq settings “er I’m at +6db from 20-70hz and then -18hz from 100- 300hz “ (PA been equalised to room already) )

 

Edited by LukeFRC
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1 hour ago, Cuzzie said:

aaaaaaaaaand this unit is not trying to compete with that.

I think this statement sums up the entire debate.

Fender aren’t trying to trick musicians into thinking this unit is a Kemper or a Helix. Or a Zoom multi. They sit in a totally different portion of the market.

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6 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

I think this statement sums up the entire debate.

Fender aren’t trying to trick musicians into thinking this unit is a Kemper or a Helix. Or a Zoom multi. They sit in a totally different portion of the market.

Spot on. If Fender hadn't named it as such and if I hadn't raised it initially, we'd probably be debating the qualities of the pedal itself! I wouldn't complain if it was Rumble based including the overdrive circuit. I think it looks nice too.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 3 months later...

I bought one last month. 

Easy to use pedal that has fixed all my tone problems. 

DTE has replaced 3 boss pedals on my board- ME50b, LMB, GEB. And ironed out all the crinkles that I couldn't achieve with the boss pedals. 

Nice smooth warm tone through a Stingray and Thunderbird. 

No buyers remorse here!

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  • 1 year later...
3 hours ago, BassAdder27 said:

Update .. good pedal but didn’t give me anything more than my basic amp can provide - sending it back but it’s an itch I got to scratch 

Yeah agree with you there. I’ve still got mine unused in it’s box. I thought I’d keep it for use as a DI as it actually sounds pretty good,  but then I got the Ashdown OriginAl pedal which is brilliant and not looked back. 

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