assquatch20
Well-Known Member
First off, a merry Christmas to you all.
Ordered this thing used last Saturday, arrived Wednesday and I got home from Knoxville a day early to beat the weather and make it home for Christmas. It has been very, very cold but I've stayed warm in the house and fortunately the electricity never went out here.
Okay so what is it? It's a multi-fx unit that's also a loop switcher. It can patch in a block of 3 loops/pedals of your own, in any combination (though you cannot reorder them), along with six internal effects at once. These six effects can be routed on either side of the 3 loops or on both sides. Over 100 internal FX I think and 200 patches organized into 50 banks of 4. Also has a noise gate and some other tricks.
It can channel switch an amp for you via the control out or MIDI if your amp has the capability. Has stereo outs with some stereo effects onboard. And of course you can also control MIDI pedals without them even being in one of the Boss loops.
This began with wanting a MIDI controller and reverb in a small package for my small board to control a DSL40CR. Had to be cheaper than something like my Empress reverb as well in case someone spills a beer on it.
I'm working with a Nano+ board for this which isn't huge, so I figured multi fx with MIDI out might be my best bet. So I did some searching for such a thing and found the Boss was affordable and small enough, while also being capable enough to do this. The pedal loops are a nice bonus but I'm only using the first one to run effects in the front of the amp and within the FX loop via the 4 cable method.
Here's a pic of the planned board. If this goes well I may get one of those D'Addario expanding boards to begrudgingly fit an amp sim/IR pedal of some sort for gigs where the Marshall isn't welcome.
That pedal on the right is a fuzz that has a remote latching switch ability. What that means is you can place the fuzz before the MS-3, thus avoiding the internal buffers, while still engaging it and the octave up effect that's in it via the Boss' control out port using a TRS cable. So you can make it part of your patches, with or without octave and any internal FX you want. The left pedal is just an expression pedal for whatever, be it volume, wah, whammy, delay mix, etc.
Finally some clips. The first one is the internal 60's fuzz model with the univibe and delay as well. The overdrive quality surprised me a bit but I'll probably still prefer a real fuzz along with the Marshall doing most of the gain staging, but I've put a few of these overdrive type models to use in the Boss.
The next clip was for a friend who's interested in the MS-3 for a small board as well. It's some effects he typically uses, he says. Rotary, delay, flanger, some overdrive... I thought it was decent. I suppose you might be able to set a switch or expression pedal to ramp up rotary speed, not sure though.
This last one is a preset I called Cosmic Country. It's compressor, clean boost, phaser and delay. Not the right tone for that solo maybe but I was in the mood.
A confession, though: these clips were not recorded using the Marshall as a buddy has it for now. They were taken using a Lexicon Signature 284 amp into an ADA vertical 2x12 with an SM57 on it. All of the effects and even all of the overdrive is coming from the Boss.
Once again, merry Christmas to everybody here. I hope Santy Claws brought y'all some good stuff.
Ordered this thing used last Saturday, arrived Wednesday and I got home from Knoxville a day early to beat the weather and make it home for Christmas. It has been very, very cold but I've stayed warm in the house and fortunately the electricity never went out here.
Okay so what is it? It's a multi-fx unit that's also a loop switcher. It can patch in a block of 3 loops/pedals of your own, in any combination (though you cannot reorder them), along with six internal effects at once. These six effects can be routed on either side of the 3 loops or on both sides. Over 100 internal FX I think and 200 patches organized into 50 banks of 4. Also has a noise gate and some other tricks.
It can channel switch an amp for you via the control out or MIDI if your amp has the capability. Has stereo outs with some stereo effects onboard. And of course you can also control MIDI pedals without them even being in one of the Boss loops.
This began with wanting a MIDI controller and reverb in a small package for my small board to control a DSL40CR. Had to be cheaper than something like my Empress reverb as well in case someone spills a beer on it.
I'm working with a Nano+ board for this which isn't huge, so I figured multi fx with MIDI out might be my best bet. So I did some searching for such a thing and found the Boss was affordable and small enough, while also being capable enough to do this. The pedal loops are a nice bonus but I'm only using the first one to run effects in the front of the amp and within the FX loop via the 4 cable method.
Here's a pic of the planned board. If this goes well I may get one of those D'Addario expanding boards to begrudgingly fit an amp sim/IR pedal of some sort for gigs where the Marshall isn't welcome.
That pedal on the right is a fuzz that has a remote latching switch ability. What that means is you can place the fuzz before the MS-3, thus avoiding the internal buffers, while still engaging it and the octave up effect that's in it via the Boss' control out port using a TRS cable. So you can make it part of your patches, with or without octave and any internal FX you want. The left pedal is just an expression pedal for whatever, be it volume, wah, whammy, delay mix, etc.
Finally some clips. The first one is the internal 60's fuzz model with the univibe and delay as well. The overdrive quality surprised me a bit but I'll probably still prefer a real fuzz along with the Marshall doing most of the gain staging, but I've put a few of these overdrive type models to use in the Boss.
The next clip was for a friend who's interested in the MS-3 for a small board as well. It's some effects he typically uses, he says. Rotary, delay, flanger, some overdrive... I thought it was decent. I suppose you might be able to set a switch or expression pedal to ramp up rotary speed, not sure though.
This last one is a preset I called Cosmic Country. It's compressor, clean boost, phaser and delay. Not the right tone for that solo maybe but I was in the mood.
A confession, though: these clips were not recorded using the Marshall as a buddy has it for now. They were taken using a Lexicon Signature 284 amp into an ADA vertical 2x12 with an SM57 on it. All of the effects and even all of the overdrive is coming from the Boss.
Once again, merry Christmas to everybody here. I hope Santy Claws brought y'all some good stuff.
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