Yamaha Magicstomp MKII
Price : RM990 (Retail) RM800 (Street)
As we all know of recent, the multi-effects processor market has been the central of attention in the guitar world, with companies like Line 6, Digitech, Boss, Zoom etc releasing their own unique models. Hence in 2004, Yamaha joined the crowd by introducing a new multi-effects stompbox Magicstomp, which joins its older siblings : UD Stomp, AG Stomp & DG Stomp. Yamaha claims that the Magicstomp combines all the sound features and versatility of ALL 3 stomps with some from their SPX racks, and more.
The unit I have here is the new version MKII and the amazing thing about it is how simple the interface is. Like the Magicstomp I, it has 3 stomp buttons (Up, Down & On/Off), a master volume control, 3 parameter knobs, input jack, l/r stereo output & USB midi out. With the USB out, you could connect the MG to the computer for further editing & save/load your patches, however the software bundled DOESN'T support OSX (Works with OS9 tho, if that matters), which is a shame really. The software interface is very need but IMO, has lots of room for improvement, again a shame. Anyway, as you can see in the following screenshot, the pedal offers great flexibility of the sound you're looking for, all of them ARE EXTREMELY tweakable!

Anyway since this is the MKII, what improvement did Yamaha put into this??? Well first is the headphone jack, a cool feature for late-night practices. Secondly, deep-editing capability, with the MG1 you're not allowed to edit the parameters of a certain patch on-board but the 3 you assigned to your knobs. Thirdly, feedback eliminator for acoustic patches, AG Stomp feature.
SoundHere's where the MG shines, and I'ill divide this part to a few categories :
Amp & Cabinet Modelling 5/10
Alright, the thing here is that the Magicstomp is supposed to emulate the DG Stomp. Some may find great sounds from these patches but to me, they sound pretty bland and too digital.
Distortion 6/10
Again, digital-sounding however, some of the sounds are usable if you put in time to tweak it. Lots of EQing as you're gonna run this in front of your amp! Surprisingly, the MG has some nice usable fuzz in it.
Modulation 10/10
All I can say is WOW, great job Yamaha!!! The chorus is very lushy & the symphonic chorus is just, unbelievable! I've compared this to one of the Boss chorus boxes and the Boss is far inferior to the MG. And the same thing goes for flange, phaser, & tremolo effects! Plus, they're very tweakable! Kudos to Yamaha!
Delay 9/10
Anybody remember the UD Stomp, designed by the amazing Allan Holdsworth??? It came with the 8 band parellel/series delay??? That was amazing and very tweakable right??? The good news is the MG has the UD living in it. The bad news is, no tap tempo.
Reverb 10/10
Rack-quality reverbs.
Pitch Shifting, Ring Modulator, Rotary, Filter (N/A)
All these effects are seperated because they can't be combined with other effects. Pitch Shifting soundsd pretty good but I wish it could be operated with an expression pedal ala Digitech Whammy. Ring Modulator, not sure how it sounds compared to analog ones but they're usable. Rotary, not bad at all. Filter, not as good as the analog ones but quite usable.
Acoustic 9/10
We all know that Piezo pickups sound plastic-y and sometimes awful (Even though you have a good acoustic amp). The purpose of these patches are to emulate microphones to get rid of the plastic sound of those piezo pickups. I would say Yamaha, again, has done a great job bringing the AG Stomp patches into the MG! My borrowed acoustic sounds beautiful with added reverb and some light chorus. Kudos to Yamaha!
VerdictYamaha has created a very unique yet amazing sounding multi-effects stompbox. The point of the MG is to eliminate the need to have individual stompbox & it's quite true as the effects sound very very good. However, the MG does kill you guitar tone a bit but if you really love your tone, get a looper!
True, the MG is not for everyone, I've seen 2 groups of users online. 1 being the ones who love their MG to death (One of them owned 4 MGs!) & the other hates it as much as.... well I dunno.... but nonetheless, it's worth a try if you get a chance to do so!
Pros : Versatile, great sounding effects, highly tweakable, compact size.
Cons : No tap tempo, kills bit of your guitar tone, doesn't support OSX.
