Guitar Multi Effect Pedals: Finding Your Sound With One Pedal

Like they always say, you get what you pay for. Except in this case, you get more.

Just saying "multi effect pedal" a few years ago would have got you thrown out of most bands, but oh, how times have changed. My first guitar multi effects pedal was the Zoom 505. Honestly, it was a piece of hissing, digital crap, but it made me realize the potential that lay there within its cheap, semi-transparent blue housing. I actually brought it to one of my band practices, and I can tell you, that pedal combined with the roaring power of a cranked, 70's Fender Twin Reverb was painful to say the least, especially for my band mates. So I went back to my "snake pit", home-made pedal board consiting of the usual guitar pedals (distortion, tuner, delay...).

Then, last year I started researching new guitar pedals on the internet, and found a new opinion developing regarding multi effect pedals. Experienced guitarists, with a large collection of expensive, boutique single effects pedals were starting to sing the praises of multi pedals by brands like Digitech, Line 6 and Boss. Either these players had reached an advanced stage of hearing loss, or they really liked these multi effect pedals!

I was particularly surprised with reviews of the new Digitech RP line of pedals (RP500, RP1000). Guitarists were going off about how great the sound was, the quality of the effects, and the ease of use. None of these qualities had previously been associated with a multi effects pedal. These pedals (and others by Line 6 and Boss), have such a wide palette of great sounding effects, that its hard to understand why you would buy single guitar effects any more.

With this thought in mind, I did a little research on single effect pedal prices. I picked 9 of my favourite single effects, that are also produced by most new multi effect pedals, and priced them out. This is what I found:

Dunlop Crybaby 535Q multi wah: $125.44 Visual Sound Volume Pedal: $139.95 Proco Rat Distortion: $67.49 Boss CH1 Super Chorus: $89.00 Boss FRV-1 '63 Fender Reverb: $129.99 Boss DD7 Digital Delay: $169.00 Boss RC-2 Loop station: $189.00 Boss TU-2 Tuner: $99.00 MXR M-102 Compressor: $69.95 Total price: $1077.83

This would give you a pretty impressive pedal board! Especially in size. My old pedal board had half this many effects, and it was a beast to deal with. You would be looking at 11 patch cables, 9 power connections, and the board itself.

I now own the Digitech RP500. It has all of these effects built in, with a total of 125 effects, a looper, all metal construction, and stereo output. But honestly, the best thing of all is its ability to shut off all digital modeling, and simply become a pedal board. This feature, through my old Fender Twin Reverb tube amp sounds awesome. Better than any single pedal, or combination thereof I have ever owned. The only thing that sounds better than my RP500/Twin Reverb combo, is an RP500 through two Twin reverbs in stereo! Huge, lush, shimmering sound. All that, for $300 bucks (the pedal that is).

So if your looking for a single, or multi effect pedal, do your research. Despite their digital sounding names, the latest in multi effect pedals can produce amazing sounds, at a reasonable price. They simply allow you to explore more creative sound ideas.