Boss ES-8 Effects Switching System

Awesome!

This product has Boss renown build quality and so far in the short time of use, it has ticked every single box of my requirements. Not too heavy in weight either which is a plus side for big boards like my current application.

There's also a lot more feature that I still have to read up on, a Hard copy of the manual included as standard along with mounting screws and rubber feet for all you pedal board junkies out there.

Switching patches and modes is seamless and the audio quality is not degraded when switching. Input/Output buffers can be disabled but so far I haven't seen this on a per loop basis. Plenty of patches and banks available for any configuration you like. Would have liked some form of external editor in case you need to archive all 800 of them. I have read that data can be dumped via midi but haven't tested this yet, maybe it can be dumped back in.

Re-order your pedals on the fly - Big tick!!!, no more manual re-patching of the cables either.

The unit comes with a EU version of the Boss PSU to power the unit so (UK Customers) I would recommend sourcing a UK version of the PSU - Thomann did supply a free UK/EU adaptor plug but the PSU does not fit correctly into this. (Aperture is too small on the adaptor)

A good read of the manual and playing with at least two pedals on a desk before attempting anything is well recommended. I am an audio techie by trade and the features I'm still finding you can do with this unit are continuing to blow me away.

I was a little apprehensive about the price to start with but in comparison to other 'switcher' units on the market in relation to price, i think the feature set you get is definitely worth the £E$....

With this thing I can control all my pedals and my rack effects at the same time, plus my preamps!
The only thing that I do not like is that when you use the parallel routing feature the signal level drops drastically. The 6dB internal boost is not enough to rise the level back to normal, so I have to use a stereo EQ after the outputs as a booster (switched on by the ES-8 only on the needed patches).

Aside from that, it is a great piece of gear, I only want more stereo loops...

After a month of usage the main outputs stop working(buffers???).Send it back to thomman where they repaired it . It took 40 days to send it to germany and received back. After the first repair , it work ok for an hour and then the same problem occured again. This time i asked thomann to send me another unit. And they did. The new unit had exactly the same problem. Worked good for a couple of days and then no sound from output 1 and 2. I just stop bothering about it , changed my presets so that vol send becames output..problem solved..