Review: The New Yamaha Magicstomp!
Stomp
Posted 2004-03-25
Years ago, we used to dream about the days when MusicGearReview.com would have good working relationships with the major gear manufacturers. We had visions of receiving any newly released product to test and getting to see the hottest gear on the market - up close and personal. Zoom forward a few years and now we're living that dream. Problem is, that so many products are so similar to each other and the sheer number of products we receive is overwhelming. Everything starts to look the same and not too many products stand out anymore. Once a manufacturer comes out with a unique idea, everyone rushes to copy it, up the ante or feature set a tiny notch and rebrand it. This vicious cycle continues year after year and makes for a deluge of very similar products.
That is why, when something truly unique and interesting comes along, we really stand up and take notice. Take the new Yamaha Magicstomp for instance. When Yamaha contacted us to see if we'd be interested in reviewing the product, we accepted but may not have been terribly excited initially. After all, we just figured the Magicstomp would simply be a rehash of the former stomp units with all of the pre-existing patches thrown in together and a shiny new paint job on the exterior. We were about 5% right.
Although the Magicstomp borrows from previous "Stomp" line successes, Yamaha has taken the product to the next level with additional functionality, a cool new look and "user interface", web / PC based patch editing and upgrading capabilities, USB compatibility and more!
A blurb from a recent Yamaha press release details the following about the Magicstomp:
Designed for electric or acoustic/electric guitars, the Magicstomp provides effects from the Yamaha UD, AG and DG Stomp programs, plus a number of digital effects from the Yamaha SPX family in an ultra-compact "stomp box" format, including pitch shift, filter programs, lush reverbs, amp, speaker and microphone modeling, expansive delay programs, custom spatial effects and more.
A total of 198 sound programs (99 preset/99 user) include vintage and new amp models, studio-quality effects, and speaker/microphone models, using powerful 24-bit processing.
The user-friendly interface contains hot-rod plum and brushed aluminum bodywork, an easy-to-read LCD, three surface multi-function parameter knobs, increment/decrement and on/off switches, and volume control. Popular parameters are available in real time. In addition to USB, connections include balanced ¼" stereo outputs. Accessories include a 9-Volt phantom power supply and USB cable.
As you can see this little unit is loaded with functionality.
For our testing purposes, I put the Magicstomp in-line between a Strat and a Fender Cyber-Twin head sitting on top of a 4x12 cab. For my adventure through the various patches and models, I found a 58 Bassman configuration on the CyberTwin and figured that would be a good match to start exploring the Magicstomp with. A warm, basic tube tone allowed me to really enjoy even some of the more distorted or "creative" tones on the Magicstomp and really made some of the tube based settings creamy and velvety smooth. Further testing made one thing apparent - my favorite feature overall with this unit is it's utter simplicity. I remember testing the Stomps (AG, DG, UD) of the past and the sheer number of buttons and other functions was kind of overwhelming. The Magicstomp shines in that you have 3 footswitches, 3 dials and a volume. That's it! Simplicity at it's best. After several hours reviewing the product with the Fender rig, we also spent some time exploring the Magicstomp with an Ovation Celebrity Acoustic / Electric we've had here in the test rig for years (time for an upgrade, Yamaha, got your ears on?). For this test, we ran the Magicstomp straight into our Mackie 808S Professional Powered Mixer. I can attest that we had just as much fun going through an acoustic repertoire as we did going through with the electric.
Editing patches brings an almost endless variety of tone to the Magicstomp, and years of added value. In the CD-ROM that comes with the Magicstomp you'll find some patch files that contain patches in addition to those found in the MAGICSTOMP’s resident memory. You can select any of the patches you like from the library and transfer them to the Magicstomp's user patch section (U01-U99). But the real kicker is the "Sound Editor for Magicstomp" software app that let's you edit and configure all the parameters that you just can't get to through the Magicstomp user interface on the pedal. This way, you can create your own concoctions. We found the sound editor to be pretty easy and intuitive which indicated some real thought went into this from a usability standpoint.
The primary qualities that make this unit shine are the virtual plethora of tones, the simplicity of use, the flexibility and the hot looks. There are other features though, that one might easily leave out while being mesmerized by the rest. One of those features is the tuner. The tuner mode is especially handy. Although our CyberTwin amp head has one built in, it's a little touchy and I found the tuner mode of the Magicstomp much easier to use. For this reason, I've been consistently using that as my inline tuner during this testing process. It just goes to show you how a simple feature like this is even well designed and easy to use. Not just another "throw-in" designed to up the feature set for the product spec sheets.
It just wouldn't be a review, however, if we couldn't find something to mention as an opportunity for improvement. Seriously, folks, this isn't really a complaint - merely a suggestion perhaps for a future revision of the product. What is it? Connectivity. One thing I would have loved to see on this unit would be an optical digital out or S/PDIF connector that would allow the flexibility to pipe your axe-grinding straight into a mixing board, desktop multitracker or into a PC digitally. With the flexibility and variety of amp and miking simulations on the Magicstomp, those of us who enjoy home or project studio recording and songwriting could have used this unit similar to the Line6 POD series. You know as well as I do that more and more folks are recording music on their PC's and other desktop digital recording workstations these days. However, I guess we'll have to settle for miking the guitar amp cabinet for now or taking the analog outs and running them straight into the mixer.
Summary
The Magicstomp is loaded with the best of the previous "Stomp" series from Yamaha, combined in a housing that is as solid and rugged as they come. The functionality and sheer number of tones provided in this unit will keep you busy for years, but the learning curve is such that you can get up and running right away. It looks great, it sounds sweet, and it's built very well. Other than the digital out we would have liked to see for recording purposes, we can't think of anything else that even could have been jammed into this little box. Nice job Yamaha.
Chris Bereznay
MusicGearReview.com
