mattkw80 said:
Anybody else have a chance to compare the emulations to the real
thing on this unit ?
MAtt
I own an ME-50 and a few of the more esoteric pedals (non-boss and boss) that it claims to emulate. the stereo chorus pedal it emulates is perfect, and the me-50 has less noise than the real pedal (I hate the whooshing hiss in the background of the real pedal). I also own an original tube screamer and the me-50 does a decent job of emulating it's tone, however it's not "perfect" (the original tube screamer has a tiny 5 ms or so delay built in to thicken your tone (most guitarists don't know this, you have to study the schematic to see it and I was always able to hear it for some reason), it seems to be missing from the me-50). Unfortunately since the best thing about a real tube screamer is using it to overdrive your tube guitar amp like crazy in that uniquely tubescreamerish way, the me-50 can't do that even if you crank the output of the entire device (it sounds different) and since if you crank the output the pedal won't be switchable since the output will still be cranked for your guitar signal at all times. I've tried cranking the output of the tube screamer setting only but I just get digital distortion and crap, which is to be expected based on the me-50 design.
So I'd say that it does emulate pedals really well that do completely independent signal processing, but if the gold of a particular pedal is in it's interaction with your amp, the me-50 wasn't really designed to work like that and doesn't cut it. Actually surprising that they even put in overdrive pedals with the me-50 - overdrive pedals need to be driving your amp directly, pushing it into tube saturation at the input stage. Unless I'm mistaken, I haven't figured out how to make the me-50 do that while still keeping decent levels of other effects and allowing bypass of the overdrive effect that brings the level back to standard unity gain guitar level.
I also find that I lose a tiny bit of bite from my les paul when running through the me-50 even with all effects bypassed, which sucks, but it's very subtle. Therefore for certain songs I don't use the me-50 at all (go straight to
my vox valvetronix for amazing pure tone), buth when the effects are wanted I love that I can have anything at my disposal in one obvious, dumb simple box that sounds sooooooooooooo good!
Other effects I own for guitar:
chandler tube driver (which I love but would be willing to sell for around $400 canadian if anyone is interested),
yamaha fx-500, a handful of original pedals (duped in my me-50), a quadraverb (good for guitar and other things), an original vox crybaby pedal (different from the wah in the me-50, nice to have a classic wah like that even if it's freakin noisy, eats batteries and needs regular maintenance and doesn't have true bypass), and I'm sure other things I'm forgetting about. The me-50 is my first goto box for effects now in the studio or live, just so damned convenient!
Sorry, that's long winded - I'm sick at home so bear with me if I'm a little feverish hahaha
Don
