Best Guitar Pedal Kits (2024 Update)

For the price and fun of saying you built it, this is a great pedal. Anyone with moderate soldering skills can hammer this build out in no time. All together took probably only an hour to put together and test. Pedal sounds great and acts as two pedals in one, first a really nice clean boost and second a great overdrive that goes from subtle to fuzz. Plays very well with my Carvin tube amp.Ben

I think this kit (my first attempt) is very well designed and has a great vintage feel to it. My only problem is me! I took my time, but it so far the red LED lights up when I switch it on but all it does is dead silence… is it possible to put in resisters backwards?? If so – I think that is what I messed up on. Any way- I WILL get this working! Then I'm buying a tube amp from these guys – cause these kits are certainly fun to build – and I think I can only get better!!teezzur

Easy to put together and reasonably priced. I modded it a little and put a 9V jack. The distortion won't win any tone awards but works well as a boost. I use it last in the effects loop chain to goose the output tubes.Felton

The first step in putting this unit together is to install the 1/4" connectors. right out of the gate, the holes milled for the 1/4" connectors are to close to the top of the box, and the connectors are not able to install and sit flush against the side of the box. the only fix is to oval out the holes, or maybe drill new holes. the only reason I gave 2 stars is that it still might sound good, and it's cheap. I'll revisit the review after i get it together.dickieziggen

I purchased this with the intention of modifying the original circuit. I used a 2n3904 and a nte123ap in a cascaded darlington configuration and I used a germanium diode with red led instead of the provided pair of silicon diodes. It functions as a dirty boost but when pushed, it has a raspy aggressive distortion with asymmetrical clipping that closely resembles early Led Zeppelin tones.Josh

Super easy to build and sounds great! It likes single coils and humbuckers! Throw this in front of an already driven amp and drive it some more…or put in front of a clean amp and get a nice rich overdrive. This pedal is on my pedal board now! Can't beat the price for a great pedal and a fun experience!Clint

I've had this pedal for about maybe 5 months, great pedal. The best thing to do is to always read your manual because this particular pedal shuts off. That feature is to save you battery power, or just being on too long when you walk away. I hadn't gotten use to that at first. It pays to read the manual to figure out how to do it. But the Selections in where the layout is for the different tones, for rock and roll, blues, heavy metal, and R&B is it great pedal.astringmusic

It' easy to blow an afternoon exploring the wide variety of sounds this pedal can produce. While many of the effects are great there are quite a few duds mixed in there. You just have to play. There doesn't seem to be that much logic as to how the effects are grouped. You really need to write down your favorites. Out of 100 effects I think almost anyone can find 20 that they really like. Great pedal for the money.Lenny G.

I was looking for a good multi-effects pedal option and found this Flamma FM10. It's loaded with a bunch of different amp models and effects. I was able to dial and EQ everything. The expression pedal can also be put to use as a volume pedal, wah, gain control, and several other things. I was able to create several personal patches and have used them all in live settings. They sounded great. Which means a lot coming from me because I am EXTREMELY picky about gear and tone. Other benefits are that it functions as an audio interface, it has stereo outs, a headphone out, and aux in. It fits in a backpack and a gig bag. Depending on where the show is and how a musician needs to get there, this effects unit is going to travel well in all circumstances. Seems like a really great option for any musician (especially traveling musicians) who need a small multi-effects unit. I like it and I'm going to be using this quite often moving forward.Paul

The results were surprisingly good, after using some acoustic guitars as my samples and then using a cheap single coil guitar to recreate them. It even captured a passable sitar sound. I'm going to build up a good selection of various guitar samples for future use. All in all I'm very pleased with this versatile pedal, it was well worth buying and it's so useful.Reviewed by Andertons Music Co.

You can certainly change between generic guitar sounds easily. A start will not sound exactly like a les paul but certainly gets in the ball park and captured tone can be tweaked with the excellent tone controls before saving. Only down side is its not easy to change between the 7 patches while its on the floorReviewed by Andertons Music Co.

My comment is about the PileDriver circuit as I did mine as a DIY project. I used mine with my custom passive J-bass at a jam session, the bass rig is set up for a P-bass with Quarter Pounders (hot pickups compared to my J-bass pickups) … I adjusted the PileDriver to get my bass signal up the the level the amp was set up for then I could plug in and play and not even touch the amp. A friend has a USA Strat with Vintage noiseless (toneless) pickups, using the PileDriver he could switch from his hot P-90 Casino (straight in) to the Strat with the PileDriver without completely changing the entire amp's settings … we brought the treble down a number or two … that was the only amp adjustment. Recently I gave my DIY PileDriver to a friend who plays violin/fiddle, he has a Barcus-Berry bridge and with the PileDriver can plug straight into a mixer at a jam session and have decent tone because of the signal buffering (the output impedance works with a mixer a lot better than the piezo pickup).Rock_Mumbles

While I had fun listening to music out in the garage putting this together, I wouldn't use it to make music. There was a barely audible boost in volume when in use and it only occurred in the last 1/4 turn of the knob. Additionally, the foot switch made a loud pop through the cabs when engaged and disengaged. On the plus side, I have a nice pedal enclosure for future projects or to re-house some old plastic pedals.Plectrum72

This kit was super easy to put together, and sounds great with no noise. I personally would have preferred at least an option for an AC adapter, but the circuit was simple enough to modify it to fit my needs. The instructions were very straight forward and easy to follow, and the diagrams are clear and simple to understand. This is a great introduction to building pedals, and for the price, I might buy a couple more of these to use as the start of my own circuit designs. It's a clean boost, not a lot of features needed here. Since it's intended to be run on a battery, I assume there is no LED to conserve power, in addition to simplifying the circuit by not including it. I went ahead and wired it up for use with a power supply instead of a battery, and it works very well that way, but I have some experience with electronics so I can't speak to how simple that would be for true beginners. Everything seems to be of decent quality, especially for the price. I might experiment with a different potentiometer in the future, though. The included pot seems to only affect the level once you get up past half-way, but that might just be a matter of personal preference. It's a pedal for a price comperable to what I've seen people charging for just an enclosure this size. You can't beat it for an entry into the world of DIY effects pedals.BJRory

Helix is fantastic for all studio musicians. You can construct so many different sounds with it. Since 3.0, the Helix is a complete package as far as guitar processors go: you have all different amps, cabs, effects, acoustic sim, synths, polyphonic transposition, harmonization, oversampling. Lots of in/outs, lots of ways to route it. The workflow is great: you have the computer editor. You can back up/restore your Helix, email the backup to yourself, etc. The Helix can absolutely replace your entire signal chain and be used as the only piece of gear to process your guitar sounds. The same could not be said about the Helix when it was on earlier firmware versions. Now, the Helix itself is very cheaply made. I thought I'd purchase one and never need to use anything ever again– wrong! After about a year of light use, the buttons stopped working reliably, then an LED stopped working. Helix is assembled using cheap Chinese parts that are tiny! For example, the footswitches are not what they appear to be–there are tiny tactile microswitches underneath. The Helix will not withstand nonstop gigging for more than a year, unless it's regularly serviced/cleaned, etc. It's a real shame because it can sound great, but something is always failing, or about to fail.Dimitri

Overall: I just received the Helix Rack yesterday so I only have a few hours in the drivers seat but that's enough to learn how truly awesome this thing is. I've owned a lot of Line 6 products over the last 20 years, in fact I still have a spider V240 and a POD HD Pro X but the Helix is so far out of their league they will probably never get used again in my studio. The design is sleek, easy to navigate, user friendly and just all around beautifully designed. The large full color screen is not only eye catching but makes navigating the menus effortless. Even though I'm modeler savvy, I've had no previous experience with Impulse Responses, in fact, I hadn't even heard of them until I started researching the Helix Rack and quite honestly I didn't think that I would care to use them… Well… I was wrong. It's amazing what these things do for the quality and authenticity of my tones when recording. As I mentioned earlier I only have 2 days under my belt at this point but most of that has been recording scratch tracks just to hear the result of these I.R's. I also love the fact that Line 6 still adds all of the necessary physical knobs and controls to their equipment in the days of everything being digital. The idea that I can play almost uninterrupted while tweaking many different parameters on the unit itself without a pedal is always a selling point for me. Not taking anything away from the foot controller but when I'm seated in front of my rack, using my hands to adjust the unit itself is just somewhat more convenient at times. Next, the user space… I thought that my POD HD Pro X had a lot of space for user presets but It has nothing on the Helix. I will probably never fill all of the user List's or even come close to it but It's always better to have something and not need it than to need something and not have it. Also, let me jump back to the large screen again, I have a laptop on which I keep all of my editing software for my studio equipment. I always plug in my Spider V240 and POD and use the Spider V Remote and POD HD Pro X edit software respectfully because in most cases sitting behind my recording console and tweaking my sound is just much easier to do with the computer apps than the equipment. The Helix is the first and only piece of equipment I've owned where the display is laid out and organized in a way that is very similar to a computer or tablet app and so even though I have the Helix Edit app running on my computer right next to me, making adjustments on the front of the Helix Rack in many cases is actually easier and faster than grabbing a mouse and using the comp app. I could write much more describing my total satisfaction thus far but I will wait 'till I have used it for another month or so and update my review at that time. I will leave you with this thought. While conveying my total happiness to my brother last night regarding the Helix Rack, I went so far as to say that I feel that this could be the last guitar processer I ever buy and if not it's pretty close.Fred

This is my third Mod Kit build, and the second overdrive (I posted reviews on Thunderdrive, and my subsequent mods to make it a Thunderdrive Limited). The Saturator was actually an easier build, at least in part because of the larger chassis/casing, which gave more room to work inside. This made for a nice afternoon project, instructions were clear and easy to follow. Finished pedal worked first time I plugged it in, and sounds great! Smoother drive sound than the Thunderdrive, nice and thick without being gritty. This was the first build I did with ModKits brand graphics on the box, I kinda liked the idea of being able to do custom paint jobs and graphics, visually it doesn't come across as "DIY". Totally worthwhile project for the electronics project experience, and a very usable pedal.Larry

I use this pedal for my guitar and ukulele. It is very user friendly and easy to learn. Besides the power supply and USB cable sold seperately, the only negative that I can think of is that you have to scroll up or down to access your memory banks. The preprogrammed effects are cool, but very easy to reprogram to your liking. The tuner and loop work like a charm. My favorite feature is the ability to switch from volume control to wah on the pedal. It works fast for reggae music.Jeff

I bought this little devil for my classic Roland GR-500 analog guitar synth and found everything about this efxs great for the price, love the feature of it's headphones out, always 've liked Boss products but this one definitly takes the lead for the compact size! I no longer need an amp to rehearse, create or warm up my fingers, still haven't try the loop but it is good to have it, nice wha wha and killer distortion with amp modeling! it too comes with the Sonar LE USB studio but has limitations… ok the only thing I really think needs is a direct memory selection for faster access! I do own for years a Roland GS-6 rack mountable which I use for studio and performing live which has a foot controler to select banks and patches while playing, but hey I did pay 5 times more for than one who rivals this ME-25! Great gear! I told a friend in L.A. yesterday and today he bought his!exavierdotnet

The Boss ME-25 does pretty much everything you could ask for in an effects pedal, each effect can be tailored to suit your tastes. I recommend downloading the free ME-25 Edit program which allows you to see all of the settings that can be changed. It also has a built in looper and tuner that work very well. I cannot think of any cons so far as it does exactly what I want in a pedal. Sadly they are no longer available. However, they can be picked up from auction sites or private sales for a reasonable price.g4tvk

This is a great pedal and a great kit. Fantastic instructions. Probably not the best choice if it's your first kit as there is some tight soldering required, but for anyone who's done point-to-point kits or assembly before it should be quite doable. The range of tones this pedal puts out is wonderful and it's really fun to experiment with different tubes.John

pedal sounds awesome! made a mod to adjust the tone, to flip between the darker original sound to a less dark sound… has a nice natural overdrive sound.Timsgarant

This is the first time I've built a guitar pedal that did not have a PCB. It made things a tad more challenging (making sure you don't ground out the components, etc.). That said, I loved building this pedal. It was really tons of fun. Took it to band practice. Me and my brother really put it through the ringer testing it and all the tubes. He loved it so much he commissioned me to build one for him. So, I bought another one. Hopefully will be here for the weekend. I cannot wait. TL;DR – This pedal was fun to build and sounds fantastic. DO IT!jajoyner

It's a nice pedal as utility pedal for only needing the one effect. Enjoying the tremolo, reverb, flangers. You can set the effect to a preset (up to 24) and flip through them on the fly. Renaming the effect is a pain, having to use the dials! The distortion effects are weak but can be used with your dirty channel to be usable like using a fuzz otherwise it sounds thin and not usable. I'm not having any grounding issues and I have it powered through a pedal board brick. I have it running in front of an orange tube amps.BJ

About 100 pedals models for less than £100. Some in stereo and can be output in stereo or mono. Straight out of the box some models sound very good to me, I especially like the tremolos, some of the reverbs and delays. Also I quite like one of the chorus models (an effect that does not usually use) and one of the overdrives. Have to try tweaking the uni vibe and phasers but I'm sure there will be useable sounds in there My rating for sounds reflects my view that I find some bad and others excellent. It has plenty of features, is well made with a sturdy metal enclose, comes with its own power supply and is easy to use. All in all I think it is worth the price and worth considering if you want access a wide range of effects. Probably better for recording rather than using live.Reviewed by guitarguitar custome

This pedal is perfect for anyone who is running their complex delay/reverb/ambience stuff in an effects loop, but needs a 'swiss army knife' pedal for effects that need to go in front of the amp (distortion, wah, phaser, etc.). I was playing in the pit for our local HS musical last fall (they haven't had any electric guitarists…or bassists or drummers for that matter… in the student population for the last 7-8 years…I blame vocalist-centric reality TV shows….but I digress). The show was "Sister Act" and, unlike the R&B tinged '92 movie, the (2006) stage musical is all late 70's disco style. Needless to say, I needed a wah-wah pedal. Instead of shelling out the same amount for a decent 'one-trick-pony' wah pedal, I opted for this unit, as I have been looking for a multi-function 'in-front-of-the-amp' pedal for a while, and I already had an expression pedal for my keyboard. My expression pedal was the dirt cheap M-Audio plastic one that, according to Line6's own website, shouldn't work with this unit…except it did. Yes, even when toggling the "M-Audio/Other" switch on the underside of the pedal, at first It either didn't work at all, or worked backwards. But then, I discovered the genius programming built into this little gem. If you rock the EXP pedal either fullup or full down, you can manually set the heel/toe values for ANY of the 5 adjustable parameters in a given effect. SO…….In the tube/tape delay effect, for example, I have it set so the repeats, drive/gain, and "wow/flutter" all increase (each by individually set amounts) when I rock the EXP pedal from heel to toe. Add to that the fact that this is a dual stomp switch pedal with a dedicated tap-tempo switch, and you have an ultra-controlable delay unit. My only niggle is in the auto-wah/'tron' department. While they have a few dynamics-based filter effects models, only one is a dedicated Mu-Tron/envelope-filter type effect. What's more, since they only have the one model, and only 5 adjustable parameters, they decided to allot some of those 5 precious parameter knobs to things like "high-/low-/band-pass filter" and left out the crucial "sensitivity" setting. My rig is old-school; vintage non-master-volume amp + tube screamer + THD Hotplate. All my gain/distortion is controlled via my guitar's volume knob. The problem is, with no 'sensitivity' setting on the 'Tron' effect model, you only get decent results if your guitar volume is full up on or near 10. Unfortunately, most of the situations where you want to use this type of effect are with a relatively clean tone. But, since I can only get said cleaner tone by rolling back my guitar's volume, I don't have enough signal to trigger the wah effect. Instead of including some of the 'cool-but-of-limited-usefulness' models like "Comet Trails" in this section of the pedal, I wish Line6 would have had multiple 'Tron' models (high-/low-/band-pass) with sensitivity parameter adjustments all 'round. Full disclosure; what with my fore mentioned rig, I have not at all explored the distortion section of this pedal, and thus cannot comment on it's quality or lack thereof. I have at least dabbled in the modulation section, and done extensive exploration in the filter, delay, and Reverb sections, and found them all adequate to superior in tone and 'controlability' (OK, maybe not a real word…yet). And, c'mon, for $130? You really can't beat this!mikeoxmal

I purchased this one pedal to be all the pedals I don't want to buy as single units. I have an extensive pedal collection but I have grown tired of hauling around a pedal board filled with effect units I only use every now and then. I decided that a good way to remedy that would be to add a pedal that could function as simple delay, reverb, boost, and modulation. I have greatly reduced the amount of pedals on my board thanks to this unit. The weakness of the VOX Stomplab IG is in the distortion/overdrive/amp selection. I didn't find any that I found pleasing to my ears but I didn't expect to. I did find a few low gain overdrives that were acceptable but nothing I loved. I intended to keep my overdrive and distortion pedals my board anyway, so I wasn't worried about it. The compressor is solid, but a bit noisy. The delays and reverbs are quite good and I consider those alone, worth the price tag. my pedal board is now just a few choice pedals and the VOX stomplab IG serving as single and multi effect pedal. Overall I am very happy with it.Mesa Ari

I am trying really hard to like this. With regards to the preset effects, some 9fnthe sound pretty good. But some of them, it's like they are non existent or pretty horrible sounding. The other issue is you are supposed to bypass the effects. But of you do, your volume reduces so significantly that I either have to turn up the volume on the amp, or disconnect this thing all together and connect directly to amp. The last issue is that creating your own defects is pretty hard to understand. The instructions are not very helpful and it is pretty hard to understand the abbreviations used on the box to figure out what effect you are working with. Oh btw, you have to hold the power button down for a couple of second for it to turn on. If you don't it will seem it is not working. So, this thing is not horrible, but the verdict is out as to whether it is something that will end up collecting dust in a cornerJohn, G

Sturdy unit full of good quality effects. This is the first "cheap" unit that has impressed me with its pre amps. It even manages a passable vox sound that others at this price point fail to achieve. My favourite things about this unit are as follows : 1. The amount of usable presets out the box. Even the more whacky ones can generally be quickly tweaked into something usable. Other brands tend to fill their presets with ridiculous over the top high gain, and what I would call low budget sci-fi sound effects. Boss have done a good job with the GT1. 2. Ease of editing. While you can access the effects chain easily through the menu system, the buttons along the top physically represent a typical effects chain. Press and hold for a second on any one and you are straight into the effect behind it for easy editing or changing to a different effect. Negatives: lack of an on/off switch. It switches on by plugging in an instrument cable – minor annoyance but that's just me. Only other thing is no battery indicator, and I seriously doubt the 7hr battery life claim. The supplied ones died after about 2-3 hrs and the duracells I replaced them with haven't fared much better. I do have a power supply but wanted to see how the battery's would hold up if I had to do a gig on them. Probably wouldn't trust them and would carry two sets as backup rather than one.David B.

This is overall a great pedal. This will give you a wide variety of tones and effects that you can personalize for whatever music you play. Other pedals will offer maybe one tone and you may have to try different ones and might not be happy with them or have to buy multiple ones and spend lots of money to have a well set up pedal board. You can literally spend all day picking out distortion pedals and feel lost on where to go. With this you can go through a wide variety and set it up however you want and save the settings. This isn't some plug and play kinda pedal. You will need to spend time with it and get to know it. It is kinda confusing and there are YouTube videos that help as well. I got more e set up with a clean tone and then a click over to distortion and and anther click on and of for a wha effectErik

The sounds are decent for the price. I downloaded all three pdfs are they are basically useless when it comes to setting up patches, adding an external pedal and the overall operation. I gave up on trying to assign functions to the FS-6 I bought with it. There are no real explications how to use the 6 assignment functions. I think the headphone output is mono as I can only hear in one ear. You can get some decent patches off of tone exchange I'll probably sell it .Kenneth

Recently downsized my Fractal (Axe-fx) live rig into this little unit. I've had it now for about a month and i'm really happy with it. It does everything i hoped it would and the tones i'm able to pull are great. The built in presets are a really great place to start and you can dial in your 'sound' even more with the many effects available. The touchscreen is an awesome feature but i'm really happy with the computer editing capabilities, as that's what i'm used to. The build quality is actually really strong and the built in exp pedal is super solid too. And it's small, like.. smaller than my keyboard! Perfect for carrying around to shows! I was also able to get this really cheap compared to it's competition. There's even an Ampero gig bag that you can purchase separately that is fantastic. Cheers!Barak B.

I have been VERY impressed with the Hotone Ampero so far. I have no idea how they were able to create such an amazing product for such an unbelievable price. It's like a Helix LT shrunken down for about 1/5 of the price and it has the same dual DSP SHARC chips as Helix! The unboxing is similar to an Apple product. Build quality seems very solid. There are tons of AMPS, EFFECTS, and CAB Sims in here! And so far, they all sound great. I've only been through a small % of all this stuff. But I can't wait to see what I can do with it. P.S. I had a great experience with Sam Ash! I was able to negotiate a better deal which made things even better! When's the last time you negotiated a price drop while in your Amazon shopping cart screen?!?!? 😉Dolf M

I usually use mics, but this unit sounds good run directly into the mixing board thanks to the better than average amp/cab emulators. The overdrive/distortion and chorus algorithms are particularly noteworthy, and the reverb and delays are also more than adequate. Definitely one of the best overall multi-effects pedals I've used, especially in a direct to board capacity. The interface is easy enough to operate, the menus intuitive and , again, the sound is really good. -Better than most, actually.DAVID

Best price in town on a great little piece of equipment. Honestly, it's amazing what tech is doing these days. This unit is fully staged worthy and has nearly everything anyone could want. There is a learning curve to the unit but it isn't too bad. It isn't perfect out of the box but can be tweaked to preference. Many of the presets are great and as good launch point for sounds you are looking for. As for delivery, my unit came very fast. I think i waited 4 days for my order (which was 5 days earlier than initially estimated).Jeffrey

The GP-200 is a very flexible multi-effects/modeler whose price may suggest something of lower quality, but it's actually a great-sounding and fun unit. I play acoustic and electric guitar with an Acoustasonic Telecaster, and the GP-200 works great for both sounds. You get what's probably hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of amps, effects, and cabinets for a fraction of the cost. The factory presets probably aren't for most people, but the fun is in creating your own anyway. I definitely recommend using the PC/Mac software for this, as it's a little easier on the eyes and a bit more intuitive as far as the interface goes, but working with the unit itself just takes a little time and experimenting to get used to as the documentation isn't as detailed as it could be for the depth of options available. The acoustic guitar IRs are helpful for buffing up a standard piezo pickup; they won't fill anyone into thinking that your $200 guitar is a vintage Martin or whatnot, but they do bring a bit more depth to the sound. I find them a bit brittle-sounding, but perhaps with more EQ tweaking I could minimize that. I highly recommend this unit for people who want a good, flexible modeling solution without paying thousands. I haven't had the opportunity to play with big-name modelers, but this will definitely do the trick for most.Josh

I have an Xotic AC Booster and it is one of my fav pedals. At the start of my chain – after the buffer – I have a Compressor, then an old DOD Preamp 250, followed by my AC. I like the sound, but had this setup for a while and was just looking to shake things up. I thought the RC ver 2 would be a great replacement for the DOD as what could be better than 2 xotics in series? Well, not this! The Comp (Wampler Ego; another pedal I like alot) did not play well with the RC. The sound was muddy and lost all definition. The RC alone was OK, but not great. Found the effect of Gain 1 to be pretty darn subtle and really not much better than my old DOD gain pedal. Had to crank RC Gain 1 to full CW to hear much – a very different pedal from the AC which is super responsive. I also found the adjustment for the RC Gain 2 pot to be very awkward for a quick adjustment onstage as is occasionally necessary between songs. So, I was pretty bummed out as I love the AC and I use an Xotic EP booster for regular lead boosts. Just did not work out for me. Hard to decide if I would recommend the RC. Personally, I am very picky about effects, usually use only 2 at most at one time (e.g. Comp + AC; EQ + Delay, etc.) . So I think i would say that I do not recommend…but you may like it.BCY123

I'm surprised at how much I use this pedal. I bought it to boost the signal of passive basses and it does that and a lot more. The EQ points are right where you need them. And because you can preset those as well as the volume, when you switch to a passive bass in the middle of a live performance there is no time wasted fiddling with knobs trying to match the sound of your active bass. Also it's useful as a clean boost on active basses for those times when your hands are busy and you can't adjust your amp in the middle of a song. Just pre-set the pedal to a little boost and any time you need it, you've got it with a quick stomp of the foot. The third use I find for this pedal is with effects. You can use it to put a little boost before any overdrive/distortion pedal it will increase the gain. I love this because I like the sound of the Morning Glory pedal, but it doesn't get quite dirty enough. Most pedals that get as dirty as I want don't sound the way the Morning Glory does so this is perfect for me. And the other way it's useful is to add bottom end to distortion pedals (which are famous for not supporting the low end very well). Preset a little bass boost and when you stomp the overdrive/distortion pedal also click on the Xotic RC.PDGood

I had and have high expectations for this unit. So far, it has been able to do nearly everything I've tried and I'm assuming some of the things I've failed at will be possible once I'm more familiar with the unit. So far I've done the following: 1. connected 3 midi devices (note: you will need probably need a midi thru box which is another 50) and send messages to each to turn on or switch their programs when I change patches on the es-5. I also have assigned CC messages to the assign button so I can do things like the divebomb effect in the Black Keys' Lonely Boy without using a pedal (just hit the channel switch, and it bombs until I let up the switch and it returns to pitch – this is achieved by connecting to my Whammy DT). 2. Connected 5 pedals in the loops and have dozens of patches created to turn on and off individual ones. I've also created many patches that allow me to hit the channel switch and turn on or off multiple loops at a time (guitar solo). 3. I've set up my banks to all be 1 bank per song. On some, I've created completely different sounds going from patch 1 to another. In others, I've created different options (turning off and on different patches on midi controlled pedals so I have different sounds to choose from for a song depending on what sound I like that day). In others, I've created versions of the 1st patch but bumped up and down by 3dB when I'm not sure how it will sound in a group environment (so I can quickly bump up or down the volume based on the patch). 4. Reasigned the 5th patch in each bank to mute. Things I haven't been able to do: 1. Fender 2 button amp switches have a resistor that controls whether the channel or reverb is being turned on/off via a mono cable. There appears to be no way to incorporate this in the es-5. 2. I have a boss EV-5 clone and tried using it to control various effects on my Mobius, Boss ME5, and Line6 M5 but failed. 3. No group switch (I reassigned the mute switch to group up).macjohn

Overall: I can't tell you how long I've been using BOSS and Roland products, but somehow I haven't thought of anything to say. Even though I've enjoyed their products throughout the years performing and recording with them. Well first it's affordable. After scouring the internet looking for a innovative, powerful switching system where the price was right, I finally came across the BOSS ES 8. Even though it arrived a little late in the pro switching system game, their incredible features and a doable price was just what the doctor ordered. Second, it's built like a tank and can handle the road for extensive touring. BOSS never makes flimsy products IMHO. An important feature I admire the most is that no matter where you place pedals on your pedal board, the ES-8 will allow you to place each pedal in any order. Because of that and it's powerful MIDI features, I'm able to assign any of my fourteen pedals in any order in any patch and bank. Yes, fourteen. You don't have to settle for just eight pedals on your board because you see eight programable switches. As with all of there products, even though the programming is easy, the possibilities is limitless. After I've spent some time with it to see how best it could serve my needs in the studio and during live performances, I came to the conclusion that I've made the right choice purchasing this product. It's a beautiful tool that will be in my arsenal for some years to come.Clifford

Overall: So…I am blown away at how versatile this thing is! Far more than I expected. First, it does what it is supposed to do, turns effects on and off in any order as you would expect. Second, you can change the order of your effects without moving pedals, run them in parallel when the input of one pedal would adversely affect the next pedal in your chain (priceless IMO), and switching is fast and quiet (no popping or delay). Third, You can use the MIDI function to control amp channel switching (I play through a Marshall JVM 410H). Every function of my rig is literally one step away. The best of a rack system without the rack and the simplicity of a pedal board. These cats thought of pretty much everything. You can even use the mute button as a bank up or down button so you don't have to run through the banks 1-5 before you can get back to the bank you want. Takes some reading to get going, but once you figure out the first patch the rest is pretty simple. Much more to this thing than meets the eye. I was pleasantly surprised!Keith

If you like classic fuzz sounds and items that can fit in your pocket, this pedal is fantastic! It definitely makes your guitar sound like 60s rocky sounds! You will get many smooches from hippie girls if you play loudly near them. Rock out!fancyjoe