The Boss ME-25 multi FX pedal is an entry level pedal for guitarists of all abilities, but how good is it?
The music industry, in particular guitar players, have slowly been moving away from analogue to digital tech in order to be able to both create fantastic sounds and combine the ease of recording with workflows.
Not many people know that I have been playing guitar for nearly 30 years, self taught and dabbled in all aspects of recording and producing my own material for no other reason than because I can. I used to use a Digitech RP155 MFX that I got from Canada about 10 years ago, it was getting old and tired, so I bought myself an early Christmas present last year. Now after using it for a few months, I can now tell you exactly how good it is.
The ME-25 on the surface looks very impressive. The most obvious advantage over many other MFX (multi effects) pedals is the expression foot pedal, similar to a wah wah, but much more advanced and does so much more which we will get into later.
On the bottom is 3 stomp pedals, and on the top is an LCD display, 6 buttons for the sound library, a knob to control the various effects within the library, a super stack button to split the incoming signal, to produce left and right variances of the output sound, and finally 3 more knobs to control the library selections even further.
On the back there is a socket for a USB 2 type B so you can connect to a PC. 1 jack for a pair of headphones, 2 output jacks for left and right signals. And AUX in for an external preamp or other FX,, an input for the jack lead from your guitar and finally a 12v DC power socket for the included power brick.
How it Works.
The pedal comes pre loaded with 60 different sounds in which to choose from using the 2 left most stomp pedals, and each one can be customized to your sound preferences and saved in any order you like.
Holding down the 2 left stomp pedals will turn on the bypass/tuner so you can get a clean tone from your instrument and you can tune it using the LCD screen which tells you what note each string is tuned too, with indicators to if it is either sharp or flat to the note you want.
The ''Solo'' stomp pedal has multiple uses, when editing your sound, if you are using a delay effect for example, tapping the pedal lets you determine its tempo, but also works with other effects too. When you are no longer editing the sound, hitting the pedal once will increase the signal gain and brighten the tone, depending on what effect you are using, so you can solo over the top of other instruments as a solo should be.
The expression pedal is also used for a number of things, but only works with certain effects. It has a gain control so you can go from silent to loud by pushing up or down, it has a Wah and works as Jimmy or slash would expect. It also has a Whammy effect prebuilt in too, and works identical to the Whammy pedal, changing the tonal note from a base to a soprano by pushing up or down. Listen to ''Bad Horsey'' by Steve Via or Devin Townsends Ziltoid album and you will know what I mean. The expression pedal can also control other effects too like phase, delay, drive and so on.
Lastly the Library, which is extensive and every aspect of each effect can be manipulated however you like. When in the edit mode, you can select from up to 6 sounds, each have 10 variants in which to choose from by using the variation knob. Once you have selected the sound you like, you can manipulate it further by using the 3 knobs on the right, Drive, Tone and Volume.
Now you have a sound, you can now start adding various effects to that sound, again, you have up to 6 effects to choose from, compression, modulation, delay, reverb, preamp and more, each have 10 variants to choose from using the variation knob, and each can be manipulated more using the 3 right knobs to change how the effect works.
The limit of the library is almost endless with thousands upon thousands of combinations to choose from. So if you cant find the right sound, you should not be playing.
How Does it Sound?
Recording and output signals are all at a full 44.1khz and at 24 bit for true lossless sound and it does sound awesome, it took me a while to figure out the basic controls, but once I had my select sounds dialled in I was recording like there was no tomorrow.
My taste in music is fairly aggressive as I do like Hard Rock and Metal, but on the odd occasion I do play some mellow music from time to time. So I have included some links to some of my tracks I have produced using this pedal.
For those that want to know. No amp was used, I recorded direct via the USB, using my sound board to monitor via studio quality headphones and twin active monitors. The guitars used are my own personal Wraith Custom Guitars, Valhalla 7 String Baritone, and my Odin 5 string, multi scale, 38-35” scale Bass. For everything else I used virtual instruments, VST's inside the Cakewalk Sonar platinum software.
Sound Cloud, Gonch - Pain Train - No Vocals
Sound Cloud, Gonch - Inbread Machine - No Vocals
Any Extras?
Yes, the Software included with the pedal is actually quite intuitive. Everything you can do on the pedal, can be also done via the software when you hook up the pedal to a PC. The advantage of this is you can also back up any custom sounds you have made. If the pedal ever resets itself, you can restore your sounds. Also you can connect to the Boss tone central.com library and you can download other peoples custom sounds, including famous guitarists, then simply upload them as a preset onto your pedal.
Conclusion.
Only one problem that I don't like is the fact there is no noise gate included as one of the programmable effects. I like to have a very tight crunchy sound in my songs, and to record I have to rely on either an analogue pedal or software based noise gate to soften the background noise and buzz you typically get from most equipment when recording or live.
Everything else is spot on, the learning curve to be able to fully use the pedal might seem big, but is in fact very simple to use. The positioning of the stomp boxes and expression pedals are all very comfortable to use when either standing or sitting down. The chassis is very tuff and sturdy, so you could smash the pedals with your full weight, not that you should, but it could take that sort of abuse.
After 4 months of use. I will probably never use another brand of MFX pedals again, although in the future I may upgrade to one that does include a noise gate to simplify things further for me.
Thanks for reading.
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