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johnnyseven wrote:I've been put off multi-effects ever since I had a Zoom 505 in the 90's. I guess technology has moved on since then though but i've never had the opportunity or desire to investigate. I like the idea of the Line 6 M9/13 but reports of people having them and still using stompbox OD/Dist/Fuzz pedals would kind of defeat the object of me having one.

thats the zoom pedal I was on about earlier, I couldn't remember it's name. I use quite a lot of modulation and delay effects so if modern multi fx are any good it would save me having to lug quite a few pedals to gigs and i could have all the delays and stuff for each song stored to a patch to save tweaking time during songs... but still use my favorite dirt pedals as digital dirt don't sound right

johnnyseven wrote:I've been put off multi-effects ever since I had a Zoom 505 in the 90's. I guess technology has moved on since then though but i've never had the opportunity or desire to investigate. I like the idea of the Line 6 M9/13 but reports of people having them and still using stompbox OD/Dist/Fuzz pedals would kind of defeat the object of me having one.

This is pretty much the way I feel as well. I'm sure the technology has come far, but I still have individual pedals from the early nineties that work and sound as good now as they did then; multi-effects units from that era now sound like absolute dogballs.

If I have to replace a multi-effects unit every ten years to keep up with technological advancements, I'm not sure there's a benefit to any cost or space savings that may result. They also aren't terribly easy to service on one's own should anything go wrong, but I guess that's true of any DSP-based system.

While I agree that a multi can be limiting, if you get a good one that makes sounds you like they're great value and very practical. I used to have a ton of pedals and sold them all to buy a GT-6 which only cost half what I made from the pedals. Never looked back. I now have a GT-8 and it's great for gigging, especially when connecting to a bunch of different amps. Just whack it into the effect return (or clean input if necessary) and you get the same sound every time. The only drawback is a lack of OD options, but I've recently got a couple of stomp boxes to fix that.

I have a pair of the 90's Zoom 505's that I use to play around with, but I'd never gig or record with them. They're like a fake rolex: They're kind of neat, and make some of the right noises, but I'd never take them anywhere that mattered, and if something happened to them I wouldn't cry, cause I know I could get another one on ebay for $10.

The new higher end Line 6, Zoom, Vox, and TC electronics ones are awesome. Still kicking myself for not buying the TC one when it was one sale last year. I would check out the new Mustang one as well but I have no experience with it as it just came out.

In general, they never work as work as having individual pedals because they are a bit harder to tweak on the spot. That said, there are a bunch of benefits to a good multi system.

Convenience, price (compared to a load of pedals at least), flexible, tons of options, you can run them direct and get decent tone out of about any amp with a clean tone or even directly into the PA.

My only issue with them is that they can have a steep learnign curve and be hard to change parameters on the fly. Some rooms sound different and you wanna twaek the tones a little bit but some multi effects that is not easy to do quickly on a dark stage, etc.

While on the topic of multi-effects, Boss have just announced their latest effort: http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetai ... uctId=1187

The appearance is a lot better than the GT-10 although there's still not as many knobs as the GT-8 (6 for that matter) for instant access to the main settings which is the main reason I never went to the 10 in the first place.