A welcome trend: like several processors these days,
more knobs seem to be appearing in place of buttons
and menus, as is especially true for the ME-50
shown here. Note the per-effect stomp-pedals and
their knobs, fashioned like a pedal board.
I've never been a fan of guitar processors. One good reason
for that has been, of course, that I never actually play
(any of the guitars lying dormant in my possession that
I may have bought on a whim or 'borrowed'). Another reason
could be that I was spoiled early on by such wonderful
things as a
Fender Bassman
(which, as I recall was fed by an nameless
antique PA valve amplifier). In fact, back at home (and I
am referring to Chennai) the last amp that used to clutter
my room was a similarly salvaged valve driven PA, and I'd
never moved the knobs on it after I'd figured out the
sweet spot: very bright, warm and ringy sound from a
Strat-ish single-coil guitar that also used to clutter
up my room.
The only stomp-boxes I ever liked were the Boss OD-1
and (though I never owned one) the Tube-Screamer.
Of course, I am referring to overdrive here; all the
other stuff - delays and chorus effects were another
matter, but even then I rather liked the stomp-boxes
compared to those nasty early guitar processors with
their knob-less menu-and-mode-driven digital interfaces
and displays.
This is why though I'd been in Japan for long enough
(and this is where you can get almost any processor
in existence. If you are a guitar enthusiast and have
not discovered Ochanomizu yet, you should),
I'd never sunk the cash for a processor.
However, a few days ago, for no apparent reason I
found myself window-shopping at this guitar store
in Shibuya, and even more surprising, a little
later I found myself buying a guitar processor. I
had never even asked to plug it in and see how it
sounds. (Then as if to add one more tiny notch to
the unexpectedness of the whole thing, I cycled
home with the large box precariously half-stuffed
into a bursting backpack)
It was the styling, the knobs, the 707-cockpit-like
appeal of a very analog looking, metallic, clunky
yet intuitive interface: meet the
BOSS ME-50 Multiple
Guitar Effects processor.
Essentially a stomp-box pedal-board, only that it's all in one single unit,
and no fussing with inter-pedal connecting cables and
unwieldy power supplies. Construction is extremely
rugged and the expression pedal feels great. The idea
behind the interface (all knobs) is that you have a
familiar, all-at-a-glance view of the settings on
all the effects as you fiddle around for the sound
you want. I imagine this is amazingly easier than any button-ridden
processor, where each interface needs to be 'learned'.
Of course, the amp-modelling
sucks (I'm sure it is
fantastic and all that, it's just that amp modelling never appealed
to me), but in a while I found great overdrive tones
(the overdrive panel has an OD-1 mode) that suit me
just fine. Oh, and delay is awesome: just like having
a Boss Digital Delay built into a chunk of the unit;
after just a few minutes of fiddling, I even figured
out how to do the 'Slang' stunts (i.e., Jaco Pastorius'
improvisations over a delay-looped 'rhythm track', as
performed live in the track called 'Slang'). This
is of course, meant to be a 'live' processor - that
you plug into traditional amps, where most of the
overdrive actually happens. Consequently, the amp-modelling
is not the focus (which suits me fine). In the
meantime, it sounds great through open-air
headphones!