budget guitar multieffects worth a look?

[GaryG]

bit out of the loop guitar hardware-wise, was looking for a simple tuner and found loads of sub-£50 (~us$80) guitar multi effects nowadays.

have they improved much recently? i had a zoom 707 a few years back and it sounded dire imho, very nasally with lots of digital artefacts.

I guess I'm thinking for not much more than the price of a tuner i could have a handy little headphone, practice tool too. I'm more interested in a decent clean sound (not compressed to hell) for practising. Battery powerable would be very cool.

Units i've noticed: korg ax3g, zoom g1/g2x, behringer x vamp, digitech rp50/100, alesis ... something...

any opinions would be cool.

another option is to build a little preamp based on a gt2 schem i found, cram it in an altoids tin with a headphone amp or something.

probably cost just as much though...

cheers.

[Ian B]

Hi Gary,
I've got a Digitech RP50 gathering dust (well, the box is anyway) I no longer use if you're interested (please pm me for details/price if interested. Comes with psu) For the price, it's pretty impressive, the only reason I don't use it anymore is that I've replaced it with a Toneworks AX1500G and a couple of fx boxes to use with my Microcube.

Back to the RP50, the inbuilt drum machine is great for practice and while the sounds/fx are not top drawer, they are not bad at all. You could do a lot worse than get one of these imo.

[GaryG]

Cheers Ian, is the RP50 very programmable? Or is it a kind of effect where you choose the 'best fit' program? Don't want to sound like a tonefreak or something but i've played with a few that were pretty annoying in that you'd get a sound that was sort of ok but couldn't tweak it that crucuial final little bit. I'm sure you know what I mean.

gary

[dreibel]

check out Digitech's new RP line: the RP150, 250 and 350. The audio engine is much improved, the reverbs are amazing, and all three are USB, so not only do they function as soundcards, they also have Windows and OS X compatible editing software so you can deep-edit them. I bought a 250 last month, this thing is insane (comes with a rocker pedal and its metal construction, it has a Whammy pedal model as well as excellent wah models).

[RunBeerRun]

I have a Digitech Rp50, I'm not too impressed, best thing is you can get them for $20 and a built-in drum machine.

I have a video of it on Youtube if you want a little sample.

I own the Behringer V-Amp, totally awesome, but only thru headphones. Into an amp it sucks so for you, don't buy it.

My favorite multi is the Zoom 3030, you can get them for $40-50 ebay. It's really cool, while my opinion on the new G2 series is:really dull.

[Ian B]

Cheers Ian, is the RP50 very programmable? Or is it a kind of effect where you choose the 'best fit' program? Don't want to sound like a tonefreak or something but i've played with a few that were pretty annoying in that you'd get a sound that was sort of ok but couldn't tweak it that crucuial final little bit. I'm sure you know what I mean.

gary

Hi Gary,
It comes with 40 factory presets and room for 40 user presets. The main drawbacks are,

1/ You must start with a factory preset when creating your own, there's no 'blank' prest to start from scratch. There's plenty of tweakability available tho'.

2/ The small size of the unit makes it a touch awkward to edit presets (my poor eyesight doesn't help)

There's an input at the back for a expression pedal, I don't know how good the inbuilt pedal is on the RP50's bigger brother, the RP80, but a pedal of any kind will make the RP50 a whole lot more usable.

Am I right in thinking you're UK based? If so, another drawback may well be the supplied psu, it's the 2 pin shaver attachment type.

The RP50 isn't a killer unit, but at the price it's better than you might expect.

'EDIT'
All that said, I've just received the latest Thomann flyer, they're doing the new RP200A (with expression pedal) for £55, and tbh, given the choice between a used RP50 and a new RP200A, the latter wins easily for not a lot more money. I'd have to practiacally give my RP50 away to make it worthwhile someone taking it.

[GaryG]

Thanks all.

@dreibel: the new USB on the new digitechs is tempting... haven't got an interface for my laptop yet so could be really usefull.

@RunBeerRun: You can get the pedal v-amp for ~£50 here in the uk and it's another contender for sure. I think it uses the same models as the desktop (just less knobs) and I hear good things about the clean (fender twin-a-like) sounds, you concur?

@Ian: Thanks for the thomann link, muddys the water with another option though... Crazy price though. So how's the Toneworks working out? Read good things about the REMS malarky.

I used to have a johnson j-station a few years back, generally pretty good but with a really heavy bass end (I think it was a 'feature' of later models...) Maybe that tech is making it's way to the digitechs now (maybe it already has with the rp50-era units?)

[Ian B]

Hi Gary,
The Toneworks AX1500G isn't a major step up from the RP50. It's better for sure, but 'realism' isn't it's strong point if that's what you're after. Again, the expression pedal isn't the greatest, but it's still a damn sight better than the Behringer HB01 wah pedal...........but that's another story. If you're ever tempted by the great price on this pedal, think about this post.
Back to the AX1500G, Thomann are now selling them for £117, which has gotta be a bargain

I had a V-Amp 2 some time back, it wasn't the greatest, but along with the editing software and oodles of downloadable user patches, this was also a good deal at the price. Better still, they're even cheaper now.