Best Guitar Stomp Boxes (2024 Update)

I was looking at purchasing a Helix LT and upon researching I came across the Pod Go Wireless. It does everything I required from the Helix but at less than half the price, size and weight. You can dial in some great tones, I use it through an 80w Marshall combi straight into the FX return (turning off the cab sim on the Pod) and it sounds very impressive. The amount of effects to choose from is incredible and you can tweak so many variables to get that perfect tone. The wah treadle is very good but it’s not so great when used as a volume pedal as it doesn’t seem to gradually increase/decrease the volume, it’s almost on/off. The wireless feature is very good, I’ve not had any connection issues and don’t have to worry about treading on my cable, which I’m very prone to. Overall, for what I need in a jamming/garage band capacity it is perfect and I’m very, very pleased with the purchase. PMT delivered the next day, it was very well packaged and was the best price I found on the internet.Martin M.

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

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

Overall: After purchasing – and being mostly disappointed with – modelers from other brands I was hesitant to spend the considerable sum on the GT 1000 core. But after extensive review of specs and sounds on Youtube and a good deal from zZounds I went for it. I purchased it solely for the presets because my past ventures into programming haven't been good. I haven't gotten through all of them yet but unlike all the other units I've tried that have only a very few actually useful preset patches, the GT-1000 has a considerable number of them, going straight into my studio console, flat EQ, no additional processing or effects. The verdict so far: I don't think I'll ever again have to use a microphone to record most guitar parts. Additionally, Boss has kept the noise levels surprisingly down on the hard overdriven patches, also unlike the other units I've mentioned. The only drawback I've found – and it isn't major – is that there is a dearth of straightforward Fender clean sounds without effects. I'm sure there's a way in the internal programming to deal with that but I haven't found it necessary yet. The effects are pristine – very well done. All-in-all, worth the money.Jerry

I sold my Line6 HD500X multi fx board and bought this because there were some effects I wanted, like autoswell and some other aspects of this that I preferred, like the smaller size and the ability to add 2 extra expression pedals was great (the inexpensive Nektar pedals=great). I was able to get sounds I liked, but was frustrated by some limitations to how many duplicate effects I could stack, and there were times when I got frustrated with it. I had an instance when trying to record with a friend when it just wouldn't pair with my MacBook Pro for recording through Logic. And other times when working with effects there would be some non-intuitive things I'd have to relearn how to do. I've been working with similar units like this from back in the day with rack effects, and owned many models of DOD, Digitech, LIne6, Rockman, and Zoom but this was my first Boss multi-effect unit. I tried to love it, and the form factor and size is great, but ultimately moved to the Headrush Pedalboard full size unit. It was between that and the Helix, but the Headrush got me. It's got the best user interface of anything out there, with the touch screen and custom naming for each of the footswitches, and the hands-free editing mode (so easy!). If I could give the Boss GT-1000 3.5 stars, I'd do that, but ultimately, I can't recommend it because for the money, the Headrush blows it away for usability: speed of creating presets, adjusting on the fly when performing, and ability to name the footswitch so you know what each one on a given preset does. The Boss has the advantage only for size and weight and the double external expression pedal jacks. As far as effects, I guess that comes down to personal preference on the specifics, but I'd say they are more similar than they are different. No effects unit out there can compete with the software plugins I use for recording and mixing, so for me, it came down to the best for live, spontaneous control, and that's where the GT-1000 lacked.Matt F

I originally tried the Headrush portable effects unit, and although it was simple to use, the sounds were not as close to the original petals as I was hoping for. I then switched to the HX stop, and although it had great amp emulations, again, most of the pedals did not sound that close to the originals to my ears. Upon switching to the GT 1000 core, the user interface was not as simple, but the tones were by far the closest to the original pedals that I had found. I do not use it for the amp emulations much, although those sound good too. But where this pedal shines for me is saving space on my pedalboard, by being all of the modulation pedals that I could ever want in one box, and they sound very close to the original pedals to my ears. I use it for the Boss chorus CE-2, the tape delay, Space Echo, plate reverb, phaser, flanger, harmonizer, pedal bend, and pitch shift. For all of those it is fantastic and sounds much closer to the originals than the others I tried did. It does have a slightly bigger learning curve to get everything set as compared to some of the others out there, but once you have it dialed in it is super simple to switch back-and-forth. And tone wise it is by far the best for me.S

I could spend all day yapping about this pedal…In my travels i've tried countless pedals, but got tired of having 'too many' pedals. The weight, the time it took to hook it all up. I also busk, or play where electricity isn't available, and wanted a setup where i could make one trip with everything, and keep the weight down. I've always been a fan of ZOOM products, so trying out the Multistomp series was a no-brainer for me. The 50G met all my requirements, and exceed them all after i got one and started using it. Tones that are as good as any higher priced pedal, the versatility is second to none, and the price is killer for what this pedal can do. I would say the the Bluetooth version was my favorite, then the 70CDR, then the 50G, with the 50G's new 3.0 update, the 50 G is now my favorite pedal…period. The 50G started with maybe 50 patches, now it has 172, and best of all it has the Exciter patch, which to me is required on any pedal board. All i can suggest is watch the countless demo videos of this pedal. I would recommend this pedal for any level of guitarist, i would also recommend the MS-70CDR, watch the demo videos of the 70-CDR vs Strymons…amazing I cant say enough good things about the 50G, i believe it's near the perfect all around pedal. The Multistomp series are easily, in my opinion, the best bang for the buck pedals madeLocorogue

The MS-50G pedal is first class. It is every bit as clean, quiet, and well built as the Boss pedals. It is not a replacement for the Boss line. Zoom pedals have a character of their own. Personally, I like the Zoom tone. But I'm not a guitar player. There is a great ~15 minute YouTube instructional video for the MS-50G. I got over the learning curve for writing and storing effects by watching this video, then I bought pedal. It replaces several pieces of my high quality studio gear when I need fast results that are of high level audio quality. Zoom delivers with this product. After I watched this video I purchased the pedal. I also like my G1X as a companion to this pedal. The G1X has a nice volume/expression pedal.Sean

I needed something for my living room and practicing while watching TV late at night without a full pedal board or multi-effects box. This along with a Boss RC-3 and a mini mixer for my wireless headphones provides everything I have in my studio at a mini level. The sounds are good enough. There are enough options in sound to play most anything. Eventually I'll try this little beast as a sub for my full pedal board and see how it works in a live jam. One pedal to do everything. It's not perfect but it is great. I wish Zoom would provide updates to it and a better manager. It's pretty old by today's standards and if Zoom provided updated files they would sell even more if these great little boxes. B&H had the best deal available and as always they provide excellent service. Thank you B&H. I'll Be Back, lolThomas 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

Amazing what it did for my bass rig can dial up any tone on earth I love old school metal I can save presets my tone is always consistent now finally done with tinkering with my old board I love this thing so much on itMike

Overall: This is a heavy duty pedal with so many different great sounding amps and effects that I don't even know where to start. Well built is an understatement. The build of it screams professional. from the chassis to the knobs and expression pedal this thing feels Pro in every way.The amps are fewer than most companies offer but BOSS went the quality over quantity route here. From crystalline cleans to all out brutal and everything in between. The drives are excellent and so are the modulations, delays, and reverbs. I find them superior to my Helix actually. There's not enough room in this review box for me to go over everything I love. A couple things I do not love..There's no poly pitch in this unit. The assigns can be confusing at times especially when it comes to assigning the expression pedal. It was ok once I wrapped my head around it but it was definitely and obstacle I had to overcome. Overall this unit is well worth the 599 price tag. I have owned many modeling units for many years and this is one of the best I have had.Robert

Very good product but stupid upgrade programming by Line 6 and the manual is rubbish. (Even Andertons could not follow it !)Reviewed by Andertons Music Co.

Great pedal. Easy to modify sounds and save them (VERY easy). Easy to navigate, once you get your bearings. Sounds are excellent. I run mine thru a Fender amp backstage, mic'd thru the mains. No hum (except on the overdrives) great board for any guitarist. Just don't get to happy with the boosters and comp drives. They get a little buzzy even with my PRS custom. Take your time to learn your way around it and you will be happy with it.Ez37

Excellent and easy to use with great sounding effects. My one niggle though is updating the software is ridculously difficult and you have to buy additional cables. I am going to have to ring Line6 as I can't seem to update my unit. Bit of a niggle on an overall great piece of kit.Reviewed by Andertons Music Co.

I picked this up at the Guitar Center in Boston while I was staying there for my guitar sessions camp at the Berklee College of Music…and I do not regret that decision. If you want to play Livin' on a Prayer, Man in the Box, Beverly Hills or anything else like that, this is a must!!John

I bought this for my sons band and was pleasantly surprised at the quality feel of this unit. It is very easy to set up and use,has a good sound,and seems way more intuitive to use than a wah pedal for musical expression. I expect we will see many years of service out of this piece of equipment. Having the patch cables come with it for the same price as everyone elses listing was also a nice value.novoiceofreasontoday

I boulght the heil talk box in december not knowing about these. It turned out, you need another rig to hook it it up. Its basicaly a speaker cabinet. Worked awsome but hated the second amp. The danalectro had an exelent concept with mic input to amp direct ( first of its kind )But is very underpowered.Basicaly a toy.I returned it.The banshee has poor construction, a folded over piece of aluminum with steel sides crudley bolted on, leaking sound evrywhere. I purchased the mxr today and just tested it….. It has PLENTY of volume,, ( 18 volt power )I only needed 4 on the volume,, however if you wish you con rattle your teeth ( no joke )with this bad boy !! It has a VERY solid , heavy, and compact design, taking a minamal amount of space for such a great effect,also the instructions are very helpfull in breaking down the alphabet into different categories, and explainig how to pronounce them correctly, resulting in true guitar speach.The heil has an light thing you screw on,, yet there is no light in the unit???? Didnt make sense tome, maybe i didnt buy the light, or wire it in ? However, turn the mxr on, the led comes on and you know your hot.So basicaly,, its the real deal with a coulple of improvements,the volume, tone, and gain controlls reaaly expand upon the original concept, no amp needed, led refenc light for operation, very rugged enclosed constuction,and well… it just looks cool as ,,, you know. Hope this helps !Scott Jones Productions

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

Very easy to use and built like a tank. I had to watch a few demo videos to learn how the controls worked and interacted but it didn't take but a few minutes. Playback quality is very good with tons of storage for created loops. My only issue is with what Boss calls "Drum Tracks". There's only 10 of them and their sound quality is piercing. You can load your own via the usb connection though. Also, it only stores wav files from external sources so converting songs you only have as mp3 etc. to wav is an extra step I could do without. I might just be nitpicking because otherwise it's a great looper with more features than most people will ever need. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.ethan1957

I bought this to compare to my ditto pedal. Its not nearly as simple to use, despite what people say. Okay, it might just be me, but the ditto is more intuitive to use. After you record the first loop, it automatically begins recording the overdub. With the ditto, it goes to pause when you complete a loop. So, yes, its a Boss pedal and built like a tank. But for me, its 50/50 with the ditto. You have to make your own decision about this one.jonaha650

Have been nothing but pleased with the Boss RC-1 loop pedal. I currently use it in conjunction with my Digitech RP1000 and it has really allowed me creative freedom while practicing. I bought this since the RP1000 only has a 20 second looping feature, while this one can go as long as I need. I like how you can easily layer riffs on top of one another, delete when you make mistakes, and stop altogether with just the stomp of the pedal. It's amazing. Nothing else to say. You will not be displeased.lmeach00

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.

Amazing little pedal, set the internal DIP to flat and not the "vintage" roll off (my opinion) even if you use zero level boost the overall buffering and sweetening to your signal is just better. Once on, you will forget about it (end of chain, after drives) only when you switch it off you'll realize, "oh yeah that makes everything sound better". What it does to the EQ and overall signal tone is unlike any other pedal I have used including all so called "based on EP3 boost circuit" stuff. Had mine on the board for years now, still nothing has bumped it. The GOAT always on pedal! Try it.Paul

The line boost really brings out the amp's potential tonality. Cuts through the mix and really enhances the amp's tonal character. Currently running it in front of a Blackstar 100 watt tube head that is paired with a Marshall 1960 Vintage cab equipped with Celestion V 75's. The sound is great. The pedal's choice of using a 9V battery or direct power plug makes it even more versatile compared to other pedals that only run on a power source. Great little pedal.ZenCat

This is a great boost pedal, no doubt about that. I bought this used for less than half the price and while it does exactly what it should I have used boost pedals that are nearly identical that are at half this retail price point. If you have a lot of money to burn and are looking for the best boost this very well might be it, however this money may be better spent on a pedal that is more versatile and more noticeable in the overall sound of your pedal chain. This pedal is a clean boost and only flavors your sound slightly, and what it adds sounds very natural and very good; the build quality is top-notch aswell. So my rating is based on the fact that I feel such basic circuitry shouldn't cost as much as this does, and I would highly recommend buying this on the used market if you can get a nice discounted price.Rareintech

I used to think that boost pedals were dumb and that I would never use one. But after watching dozens of videos and seeing several big name endorsements, I thought that the Spark might be for real, and it is now EASILY my favorite pedal. Simply put, it just makes your tone better, no matter what kind of guitar or pickups you run through it. The sound quality and versatility are the best features. It gives you a great boost, but it's extremely amp-like, in the same way that clean channels on good tube amps break up if you crank the gain. And the little toggle switch gives you three different "clean channels" with which to work. The middle position has the most clean headroom and is the classic boost, but still breaks up a little if you max the gain. The Mid and Fat sounds add beef to your tone in fantastic ways, and I use those most often. Do you think that single-coils and/or jazz box guitars sound thin compared to solidbodies with humbuckers, like me? The Mid and Fat settings will fix that for ya. I love my Strats and my jazz guitars so much more now. Turn up the gain and the Mid and Fat settings will give you a great overdrive too. The best part about cranking the gain on the Spark is how well it makes your sound hit tube amps. It gives you glorious saturation at any volume level. This is the perfect pedal to put first in your drive section. Your other drive pedals will greatly benefit as well. Worried about tone? This is the most transparent pedal I've ever used, even more so than TC's other drive pedals (which I also love). The two EQ controls are fantastic and give the pedal a huge advantage over nearly every other boost pedal. Whether fully down or cranked, you get usable sounds in great frequency ranges. Simply put, this is the best pedal I've ever heard. Having volume AND gain, plus two great EQ controls, plus THREE voices to choose from puts this pedal above every other boost on the market. Seriously, just buy it already.T. Slice

Another drive/boost pedal. The ability to switch between fat/clean/mid modes is a nice feature. Separate bass and treble is handy too to sculpt the tone. Only 4 stars though because the foot switch is terrible. Why can’t TC put the same switch as they do in the polytune?Reviewed by Andertons Music Co.

Took a bit of a flyer on this as I sort of have an end result in my head and im not entirely sure how to get there. i have a hybrid amp that has a touch of valve harmonics that im trying to exagerate. this is a step in the right direction (and with some fiddling might even be the thing) i think what i was expecting was more like a compressor, but this is more or a transparent drive type effect (at least with my amp). however it is first drive pedal that ive loved without faffing about with the dials for hours. am getting nice bluesy /seventies blues rock tones using the clean setting on the toggle, and the gain about midway. the fat setting starts pushing into proper overdriven sounds, but with a nice natural tone. so despite not being exactly what i was looking for (my fault) im really pleased with this pedal. so much so i might gift one to my kid. theres a tiny bit of noise when the level knob goes up high, but i get much the same from my SD1 so either its just the nature of the beast, or my set upReviewed by guitarguitar custome

I bought this used through Guitar Center to boost the output of my Eastman 815 acoustic-electric mandolin, which has an internal microphone but was too quiet. I'm a hobbyist but play in worship settings. I was able to EQ the output to sound like the natural mandolin tone and to boost the volume which was important to me, since, on occasion, I play outdoors or in a large church sanctuary. The tuner is a great asset, making clip-on tuners unnecessary. The tone boost gives the mandolin even more volume for those times when you want to play a solo. The unit runs on a 9V battery or a 9v DC adapter. I happened to own already own a 9v DC adapter, and it gave the unit much more power than the battery, which was great. I definitely recommend getting a 9v DC adapter. This was a good buy!Jamie

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

Bought this as a upgrade from the pod xt. With an effects loop, balanced line in and ability to run two amps at a time is what attracted me to it. I really like the dr z, fender and Mesa models and when it worked recorded well. Works in the front of amps and also 4 cable method. Decent passable tone if you want that. Issue is the line 6 monkey and updates. These include firmware patches that will lock the footboard and delete your stored custom patches. There is a way to do a factory reset and I did 6 times over two months. Now my board can't reset and is stuck on one channel. Line 6 has terrible online support and a number of listed service centers that either went out of business or non longer service line 6 products. I have went back to my pod xt while not as good sounding will still work with my daw.503roofdesign

After much consideration I chose the Boss GT-100 over the HD500. The HD500 dominates the Boss counterpart in the direct in/recording… the I/O on the HD500 is far better than the GT-100. However, i rely on amplitube for preliminary recording and reamping for the real thing. I needed to find a floor unit that could run good sounding amp models out of a tube amplifier. I ran a GT-10 into the return section of my 6505+ for a couple of years. For those who don't know this literally bypasses the amplifiers preamp section and is now fully controlled by the GT-100. This is where the GT-100 shines, my live sound unparalleled, most guys with ENGL and mesa mark series amps are asking where I got my 6505+ modded. I don't bother with the four cable method, but regardless the GT is miles past the HD500 when you add a tube amp to the mix. I almost thought about getting one of the new HD PODS anyway, just to have for when i visit other studios and lay down tracks that I do not have the time to sit there fidgeting with my tone, because it really is that good for direct recording. But now that Fractal Audio has released the AX-8 I think I will do a little more saving.Ricktalyf

Pod HD 500x is an upgrade for me of pod XT live. Id had that for ten years and maybe I had the focus to learn learn learnt. Right now I have teens and life is busy, however tho I haven't out the time in with pod hd500x you can make stereo rigs (one amp on ear panned ear/side of the stage thru PA or two amps) and if you put some slight milliseconds of delay on one side of that it widens the sounds completely. It is loaded with amps, like pod XT was, and effects and more effects in the case of 500x AND it has greater sound quality throughout as well as a looper – a short looper and useful extra, tho definately not a replacement for a real looper AND when you learn how, using the stereo amp setup you can set up two guitars (one needs to be a variax and one a quarter inch input, or an xl mic and guitar, or a variax and guitar AND they can have DIFFERENT rigs each, that is, different amps or preamp plus effects for each instrument. Therefore POD HD 500x is like having 2 pod XT lives AND a looper AND better sound quality and diverse output options. However, if you don't want to read manuals OR tweak much, watch videos on how to make patches and read the manual to see if you want something so complicated and deep. In my opinion it's worth the work, though I am only starting to realise what I can do, but I don't think you need to understand everything in this tool box to get value. This was cheaper new with all the extras and plus shipping than a pod XT was 12 years ago or whenever I bought it. Consider well. Amazing tool. Great value.aidanpoulter

The Headrush gig board boasts great sound in a affordable and smaller package. With every amp, cab and effect on the market at your fingertips, you can’t help but find the tone your looking for. You can’t go wrong when choosing the head rush gig board, or any Headrush product really. You will never find an end to the possibilities this rig can produce.Joseph

After having this for a few weeks I have to say that I am fairly disappointed in it, but not enough to return it. The touchscreen is awesome and really is the single best feature this pedal has to offer, and the ease of use and variety of signal chain is great, and these are the reasons that I am keeping it. The amp modeling is okay, certainly miles better than my old GNX2 from the early 2000s, but still miles away from the real thing. For me the real let down was seeing just how limited the number of models is. The listed number of amp models in deceptive in my opinion because there is quite a bit of redundancy. How many different vintage Fender tones do they think we need? The effects also seemed incredibly limited in this price range as well. There are more rotary models than reverb and delay put together,… how does that make any sense? To be fair though the rotary models sound REALLY good compared even to many standalone rotary pedals. Some of the models are really bad too, like the Whammy pedal,… it is practically useless. The spring reverb is horrible as well. Like most multi-effects units it does clean fine, ultra heavy passable, and struggles horribly with anything in between. I hope they come out with some firmware updates that add some more models and effects to the unit soon, but I am not too optimistic. If your main concerns are ease of use, this IS the multi-effects pedal for you, hands down,…. but if sound quality and variety are of greater concern,… keep looking.Livinginthewoods

If you are looking for a good practice amp modeler that is compact and has quite an array of effects and amps than the Pocket Pod should do the trick. I gig regularly and felt the Pocket Pod would be ideal for gigs where I didn't want to haul my tube amp around. Sound wise I'm not disappointed in hooking my pocket pod up to a sound board. However, where this product ultimately fails is there is NO On/Off switch! To activate the pod you plug your guitar directly into the input jack and it comes on. Once on you pretty much have to leave the guitar plugged in for your entire set or risk getting a loud pop through the PA system. And leaving the pod plugged in makes the pod get very warm and drains your batteries. I have a circuit breaker guitar cable so I can switch guitars without getting the dreaded pop in the PA system. I'm sure the people at Line 6 cut out the On/Off feature to save room. But I've never seen any piece of equipment that can't be turned off with a button. Satisfactory sounds but more headaches than it's worth for gigging musicians.O'neil Blues

Its great i love how it has all kinds of sffects and i can use both my guitar and phone as i play along. Great for portable playing so i dont have to bring the big head amp everywhere i want to take my guitar. Also the battery life is amazing if there's a new version of this i would so buy it.Hector

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