Gone Fission wrote:Boss never go full-on digital tweaky madness in their compact pedals, and any serious tweaker already knows this. I certainly wasn’t ever expecting or hoping for that to change. I really think that their compact pedal market doesn’t really want that except for a very tiny minority.
But most of the pedal market will find even this one pretty damned tweaky. Basically for someone who was looking for a new Slicer but was never going to even acknowledge an MD-200/500 as the answer because, egad, menus.
I could probably do 10,000 words on why B/R's leadership is so disgustingly frustrating and how that reflects on the disappointing nature of their products, but I'll try to be more succinct.
There's now (at least) 4 options for getting the Slicer sounds (OG, 500, 200, compact---maybe more if the GT-1 & 1000 have Slicer sounds), and all of them miss the mark. It's not like they're offering S/M/L/XL t-shirts or lime/lemon/orange soda---something for everybody, no one gets left out. Instead, it's more like everybody gets short-changed. I'd liken them to an apparel company that only sells S/XL/XXL---there's nothing there for people who wear a medium or large. This product crystallizes a lot of the things I hate about B/R---their products are just so unbalanced. They either strip things down and leave out essential elements, or they make bloated stuff with a bunch of junk that's unenjoyable.
"A new Slicer?" Who was searching for that? There are already thousands in circulation. It's not a vintage rarity. If you want that sound, you can already get it in 3 other iterations (2 without menus). This seems like such a redundant product.
original Slicer (
pro: complex sounds, unique character & 50 patterns
cons: shitty implementation of MIDI with no internal or external storage. it has 50 combinations! by the time you get the ideal sound, you're cursing BOSS for not giving you presets.
MD-500 (
pro: lots of sounds
cons: lots of menu-diving, far pricier than most modulation pedals, likely holds a lot of algos/features you'll never use.
MD-200 (
pro: no menu-diving, the display shows parameter depth. you can dial in sounds with greater immediacy than other versions. 4 internal user presets. more via external MIDI.
cons: again, it's a bit of a mixed bag. you're not getting the best or the weirdest from BOSS---no ring modulator, a fairly tame phaser. you won't get an exotic phaser or a BF-1. it's like the blues lawyer of modulation pedals. there's only 4 internal presets, so you'll have to splurge for expensive accessories. I tried to look up how many rhythmic patterns are offered, but the PDF manual doesn't even say. it's not on the manufacturer's product page---typical BOSS half-assing their way through things.
Slicer compact (
pro: it's more compact. hooray? it adds more rhythms. was that really what people wanted? I never heard anyone say, "50 rhythms is great, but I wish it had 88 patterns instead." No, I heard a lot of people complain that it's a complex pedal and it's hard to revisit your sounds.
cons: it has less surface control than the original. no wet/dry levels. no MIDI out, it doesn't appear you can save your entire preset---just the rhythmic pattern, not your waveshape. it's fairly expensive for a digital trem. I think this is a total dud. It doesn't pick up where the original left off and go forward. it's a step backwards.
They consistently deliver products on every tier with obvious shortcomings. The problem with B/R is that they can throw 3 darts at the wall and miss all 3 times. I find their products to be so unbalanced. Lower tiers---obvious limitations, missing vital features, too stripped-down---go up, however, and you've got products that are expensive, bloated, and inexcusably unfriendly to the user. At the upper tier, you get more sounds, but you're also weighed down with a bunch of superfluous crap that gets in the way of making music.
Over the last 30+ years, I see a company with subpar leadership and questionable creative talent. People just tolerate their mediocrity, because they're a big name and their stuff is always circulating. BOSS is like EHX, but more boring with better build quality. They seldom innovate, and they shamelessly coast on their former glory. It's not 1978, make something new. I find that pathetic. They just regress and devolve over & over again. They can take their 30 digital Juno tributes & shove them.
I have always liked the idea of the concept but I find the way it is controlled infuriating. What I don’t like mostly is it’s the way it’s set up is you have to write a song or part around it instead of something to effect something else you are already doing.. if I was to ever get anougher thing like it I would want something that had all the control capabilities as knobs or have the control be via usb on an app or program… 
