Boss MS-3 - anyone use it with Mark V?

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Tuna141

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I've been playing without effects the last few years, but have been thinking about adding some basic effects for a few songs. But I don't want to lug my G-Major/GCX Switcher/midi pedal rack to gigs, so am thinking about a basic, but good quality multi-effects pedal. The Boss MS-3 caught my eye. I'm essentially looking for a good delay, some reverb capability, maybe some compression and flange/chorus type of modulation effect. A built-in tuner would be nice too - the Boss has that.

Has anyone used the MS-3 with your Mesa Mark V or any other Mark series amp? What are your thoughts? Any other multi-effects suggestions?

Thanks.
 
I think the MS3 is just a switcher. It doesn’t actually produce the effects. For that, the ME-80 or something might work though I have never tried it.
 
Thanks for the reply. The Boss ES-5 + ES-8 are switchers. Both ES & MS pedals look similar in design, but are actually a different. The MS-3 has some limited switching capabilities and loops like the ES, but it also has multiple effects built-in.
 
Yes. I see now... Thanks for pointing it out. I haven’t tried it (of course) but it looks nice and Boss is sure to be good quality.
 
I actually purchased an MS-3 a few weeks ago. The effects are perfect for my needs, and I am not using any of the loops. I wanted a pedal based multi-effects unit for a few simple effects and didn't want to drag a rack to gigs like I had in the past. I primarily use the delays, phaser, wah, and compressor which are nice. The distortion/fuzzes/OD's are decent, but I never use them and prefer to use the amp's.

I purchased the Boss dual expression pedal too and it works well and primarily use it for a wah with the MS-3. The pedal defaults as a volume on most of the factory patches.

I am running the MS-3 in the Mark V loop and am not using the 4CM. I found that for the effects I use, it didn't make enough difference tonewise and wanted to eliminate the hassle of the additional cables and simplify the programming.

I originally had hopes of using the MS-3 in place of the Mark V footswitch, but you can only switch 3 functions. The MS-3 switches all three channels in Mark V fine. But I didn't want to give up the EQ and Solo functions, so I continue to use the Mesa footswitch too.

I recommend the MS-3, especially if you want to simplify your pedalboard and want to utilize the loops. I just wanted a basic pedal with decent effects and a tuner, and the MS-3 works great for my needs too. It's very versatile. Since I don't use the effect loops in the MS-3, I wish I was able to program them as switches to give me two more footswitchable functions for the Mark V, which I'd use for the EQ and Solo functions, so I could leave the amp's footswitch at home.
 
I use one with my MarkV. I connect it with 4 cable method. Works great. The only drawback is a slight delay
when changing patches. The effect are really good and you can arrange the order of the effects pretty much the
way you want to.
 

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