HeadRush MX5 Compact Quad-Core Multi-Effects Guitar Pedal and Amp Modeler

I honestly have no real complaints. Love the touchscreen, love the ease of use, love the capability of using 3rd party IR's. I could keep going.

I've had the MX5 for about 10 months now. I use it in conjunction with analog pedals. Pros: The amp models, reverbs, delays, and most of the modulation effects sound great. It works for both electric and acoustic/electric guitars. (I haven't tried a bass yet) MIDI capabilities allow for the addition of extra switches if you need them. Really good looper. Cons: I didn't like any of the overdrives (hence the analog pedals) Needs actual MIDI jacks instead of the 1/8-MIDI adapters. Worst con: The volume pedal has to be recalibrated quite often.

The smallest, most reliable, live performing pedal out there, for now. I'd be surprised if Line 6 doesn't try something new soon just to compete with the MX5. If they don't HeadRush will just continue to reap the benefits of their negligence. Awesome Job HeadRush!

I genuinely loved this pedal. It allowed limitless creative expression and because of this I found myself playing my guitar more. However, after about 3 months of owning it, one day it started freezing up and the screen started going black. The whole device would become unresponsive until unplugged, and it would happen every time. I did factory resets, and everything else one could do from home, but headrush agreed I needed a replacement. However, it took headrush a week to respond to my customer service request email, and they have had my device for over 2 weeks now and still haven't shipped the replacement. I have gone about a month without the device at this point, though admittedly about 10 days of that was my fault for waiting to grab a shipping box from storage, but I shouldn't have had to mail it back in the first place. Headrush has a replacement period of 2-4 weeks, which is just wild to me. It didn't take me 2-4 weeks to pay for the product, so why should I have to wait that long for a replacement? I'm genuinely conflicted because I LOVED this pedal, but at this point it's hard for me to recommend the product. Headrush has been very professional and courteous, but I want the device I paid for.

Disclaimer: I am an amp and pedal guy and this is my first multi-effects unit. It was super easy to get started with the unit. One cable and a pair of headphones and I was making noise. The touch screen is very intuitive and driving through the menus with the one knob isn't bad once you figure out when to click and when to turn. There is a ton of factory preset sounds loaded on the unit. The presets are adjustable so you can modify and existing setting or you can create your own rig from scratch (it's kinda fun). I like that you can also use external pedals and incorporate them into your rig. I still use an amp so I just run the output of the unit into the FX return on my amp but if I was going to go direct to some other system (especially on a stage) I would like to see actual MIDI plugs or XLRs instead of the little 1/8" plugs and MIDI adapters. Overall it's pretty good for the money.

The MX5 is the third modeler/multi effects processor that I have used for recording and playing live. In my opinion the overall sound quality is a bit underwhelming. On the positive side, the clean tones are excellent. On the negative side, the overdrive tones are satisfactory at best. To be completely honest, I'm very disappointed with the overdrive/distortion tones. It will take a lot of tweaking to get a desirable crunch tone if you are a True Tone chaser. I am not alone with this opinion. Check out the YouTube reviews of the MX5 and the reviews from those who are not affiliated with HR marketing. There are some honest reviews that point out the good, the bad, and the ugly. I unfortunately did not pay attention to those before I purchased this pedal. If you are not a tone chaser and you are new to modeling, this may be a good pedal. It has a great looper. It is easy to use. And it gives the user plenty of options for exploring different pedal tones (not to mention the ability to split the signal chain). But if you are serious about high quality sound, compare this with others before you buy. Not to mention, this pedal has had its share of firmware bugs. The good news is that HR is pretty good about fixing them with firmware updates. Good customer service too.