Very digital and occasionally useful rack unit

I bought this one on sale from some middle aged surfer dude. When I took it home, I figured that at least some of the presets would be useful. Well, only a few truly were. This unit was primarily directed to hair metal guys, hence the abundant number of patches prepared by axemen from Judas Priest, Dokken, and more. Want trebly distorted guitar with a hint of cheese? You got it. Lots of it. Still, that particular sound (like the genre) becomes kind of a dead end after a few minutes.

At the other end of the spectrum, my inner dream popper rejoiced at what I could get out of this unit. The rack offered some neat little Leslie simulators. Of course, they were nowhere close to the real thing, but that wasn't the point. The best way to exploit them was to max out the parameters and maybe nab some swirling Cocteau Twins tones. Lush reverbs are definitely possible when tweaking this rack unit. On other settings, you can get very long sustained cathedral sounds that are just gritty enough to stand apart from today's outstanding algorithms. Remember, this is fairly early consumer-grade digital. Oh, I should also add that it has a pretty neat Reverse Reverb setting in there somewhere. Stack a Big Muff after it and you'll get something approximating an MBV tone.

Anything else? Well, the signal chains are predetermined on your patches, so forget about customizing and tweaking. Also, the noise gate is generally always on. Not all patches allow for FX Loops, but some do. The unit also offers "Speaker Simulators" which are honestly just goofy EQ settings.

I rarely use this one since the internal battery is dead and it reverts to factory settings every single time I switch it on. It should be a simple fix; I'll get around to it at some point.

So, should you get it? Only if you're a shoegazer or a hair metal guy. Or both.