finally! 
by Oldenkrusty from Austin Tx, August 2008
Music Background:  gigging musician

As a gigging musician for 40+ yrs, I have played a variety of rigs- american and british amps, high and low end guitars, a plethora of effects, both pedals and racks, etc. I sometimes grimace when I think of some of the efx boxes I have owned in the past but have let slipped through my fingers. I have owned the me50 for 3 yrs, and it is the box I have waited for roland/boss to make- a pedalboard that was designed to work with a guitar amplifier. Many of the pedalboards are designed to plug directly into your home recording rig, and many include amp modeling. I happen to like the sound of my amp, so modeling does not appeal to me for this application. what I wanted was a cost effective, good sounding, one piece solution to add some color/flavor to my amp, and the me50 delivers. One of the pitfalls of other units, including those made by roland is disproportionate gain structure. the output of the device is much hotter than the output of a guitar, which affects tone. sometimes in a not so pleasing way. I have had much better results with the me50 in this regard. when you consider how much you would spend on individual pedals (which I would prefer, but do not want to afford) to acheive the same variety of sounds, the value is noticeable. I use a fender hot rod deluxe for gigging around Austin in a classic rock cover band with some other middle aged men, and the me50 has been great. It has some feaatures that I do not use - for instance, I do not use the preset patches. I have it set in manual mode which allows me to kick individual efx on and off via the individual switches, and I do not run it through the efx loop on the amp. I run it inline between the guitar and the amp. I do not run the compressor, gate, or reverb because I choose not to. I like the fender spring reverb sound, and am probably just too lazy to fuss with compressor and gate settings. It took some trial and error to find the eq setting to match my instrument - I play a mexican tele with duncan vintage hot tele set of pickups and found the 'fat' setting works well with that guitar/pickup combination. On the occasions where the venue has their own sound man, I consistantly get compliments on tone and articulation, defination, and the ease of mixing/blending with the overall band sound. Is it perfect? of course not. Do I have a wish list? you bet! I wish I could run tremolo and another modulation effect at the same time since my amp lacks a tremolo circuit. The distortion sims are more than adequate for my needs. I usually run the tube screamer sim, chorus, and delay, with occaisional changes to the modulation effect - tremolo, univibe, leslie ( great leslie sound for the bridge in "Badge") and the tremolo gives a great swampy vibe to creedence stuff. the univibe works great on cream and hendrix tunes. I prefer the tube grind I get with my amp, so I use the distortion only when I need a different flavor. sometimes it is a cool thing to blend the odd harmonic distortion from an effect with the even harmonic distortion of a tube. I like the me50. as in all things musical, your ears are the final say, but for me, my rig, and what I do, this was the piece I selected above all the rest.

  Has it's Pros and cons 
by Dr Axe from Cincinnati OH, February 2008
Music Background:  Gigging Musician for 20 years

Major Pro- doesn't color the sound of the amp when not in use. Rugged as all get out. Uses batteries- once my AC adapter died in the middle of a gig, I was back up after a quick trip to the all night quickie mart.

Cons- the delays tend to clip the signal. Some of the effects, such as flange, add volume and modify tone when enabled. Wah pedal, same thing. All the distortions sound very transitor-y, not at all like the pedals they're named after. One of the least impressive chorus's I've used- either un-noticable or so warbly it sounds silly. Flange adds way too much treble, no ac adaptor included. Overall I find it very hard to control levels when playing live.

It's very simple to use for sure, but if you're picky about tone, test this one very carefully before spending $300 on it.

  Incredible effects for the price 
by Dogman from Flagstaff, AZ USA, September 2006
Music Background:  Church Worship Team

Bought the ME-50 about a year ago and still using it on stage. Incredible endless effects! I'm still finding new sounds and effects. I am using this with a Fender Showmaster solidbody electric guitar and with the Seymour Duncans pickups, the sounds are clean and smooth. The wah-wah gets a bit getting used to but once you master this aspect your doing Jimi Hendrix. The knobs are a bit loose and I would like them to be tighter but, I'm being to pickey. You can't beat the Boss for the price! Oh, one other thing that is the best, is the built in electronic tuner, to handy, it's perfect and is right on the money for tuning! Great job Boss people!

  Boss ME-50 
by HOTHEAD from Canada, August 2006
Music Background:  Active musician - Classic rock, Blues and Metal

Well I fell guilty only giving it a 4, It's a great little unit. For me it works well for recording to cool edit. delivers a nice thick rich textured sound through my computer speakers,,, but doesn't sound so great through my amp a Randall rg75,,, It's easy to understand, easy to create patches and it is solid.
I would have liked a longer record time, 8 to 10 seconds would have been better but that aside if you want a bunch of effects in one unit this thing delivers. You can spend alot of time tweeking and changing patches (which is fun, but wastes alot of
time)my advise is find a few great sounds that inspire you and stick with them. Bottom line it's a great unit.

  Big Sound, Big Value 
by jfox1 from Somerset, KY, July 2006
Music Background:  Praise and Worship Guitarist

This is the idea multi-effect box for those of us musicians that love great sound, but don't like to learn computer programming to get it. This Boss product provides effects adjustments at the turn of a knob. Everything is simply laid out and in no time even the novice can dial in great tone. I have owned this product for a while and all my buddies loved mine so much they are buying them. This is money well spent.

The effects were good 
by Mike Jones from Penticton, BC Canada, January 2006

Great Pedal 
by Bob G from Springfield, MA, November 2005

I love this pedal. It has a great collection of sounds and is very easy to use. I own 5 electrics, including three Les Pauls (one Epi copy, a Les Paul Special Faded, and a Les Paul Standard with the fat 50's neck) an Epi Dot Deluxe 335 copy, and a Fender 72 Thinline Tele with Humbuckers - they all sound great going through this pedal. I run my ME-50 through a stereo tube rig - on the left, into a vintage Fender Bassman head and cab for big bottom, and on the right, a Fender Hotrod Deluxe for my highs and mids, and the tones are ridiculous. Two things I don't like - the expression pedal has some kind of auto on/off switch that activates without a click or hard push - this means that when you are using it, it just might shut off, which turns it into a volume pedal instead of a wah, which in turn will make you turn yourself off in the middle of a crazy wah solo, or whatever. It's a real p.i.t.a, not knowing when it will happen, so I bypass that and use a Morley Bad Horsie 2 for wah stuff. Also, there is no switch built in for switching between banks - either hit the tiny unlit button to bank up or down, or go out and buy another seperate pedal for $30. Or, just turn the knobs where needed, as needed, like I do. After a year, I still haven't bothered to build any preset sounds. Overall, it's definitely a really good pedal. You could go spend another $150 and get the GT-8 - that will solve the problems I have with the ME-50, but adds the complexity of programming and endless tweakability. I'm sure that months are needed to get used to the GT-8, whereas the ME-50 can be learned in a few minutes.

me-50 
by Anonymous from gulf shores, June 2005

i have never owned this but everyday when i went to school my band teacher had this and he let me play with it and this thing is the best it sounds great and the wah sounds awesome

Boss ME-50 
by Dave C from Biloxi MS, February 2004

This muther screams! It's been a long time coming to have a multi-effects unit that is easy to use and sounds good. Most of us are used to the simple no-frills 3 knob design of the Boss pedals and this one doesn't disappoint. What's so nice is that if you don't like something, twist the knob, done. No menu surfing... this thing will be great on stage. Too much wash, not enough shred... twist two knobs, boom, instant success!

ME-50 
by Valdi Kaldi from RVK Iceland, January 2004

This one rocks, great sound :)

Write Your Own Review!
We all love gear, and we all love talking about gear with our friends and bandmates. Why not share your thoughts with the hundreds of thousands of customers who regularly visit Sweetwater.com? Write your own customer review on this product! To begin, just Click Here!