I Play A Legendary 1980s Multi-Effects Processor.. Does It Still Rock? || Yamaha FX500

[@kurisurokku]

This man's ability to go from 3 seconds of noodling to get himself started and then just blaze for 3 or 4 minutes on the perfect song / progression is amazing.

[@joesatchton212]

Great idea Jay, similar to what RJ has been doing. Here's my own view on this kind of thing, especially quality digital gear: if it sounded good/OK back then, it must still sound good/OK today. The gear didn't change. WE DID. Our tastes. Our expectations. Our comparisons against newer, improved gear. But that does not mean the original sounds bad. :)

[@JayLeonardJ]

100% truth. Great gear doesn't have an expiry date.

[@osatchema3598]

The soft focus and monk akka patches make it worth it alone to me, those are some amazing sounds

[@larryb3946]

Very cool Jay! You can totally hear that 80's gated reverb on preset #4 that totally sounds like "Time after Time" and possibly the clean tone on Dokken "Alone again". Or maybe my ears are giving out, but I felt a bit of nostalgia when I heard that sound. Thanks Jay

[@JackPeloquin]

As that’s the song he was riffing on… (time after….)

[@mojotronix3994]

With your infectious positive personality, and extraordinary guitar skills, I expected to see at least a million subscribers for your channel. Your ideas both (verbal and musically) keep me entertained. More so than some other dudes that have millions of subscribers. I usually get bored pretty quickly. Your parents did something right.

[@JayLeonardJ]

I really appreciate the kind words (I sure my folks would too, haha)... Rock on and thanks for watching!

[@dogfalcon]

Oh My gosh! I think I'm going to take mine again... Used to use one back in the early 90's. What a unit! Inspired me so much! Tks for this video. So nostalgic to me!

[@tremelo68]

Amazing. First chord on Soft Echo and I immediately thought Time After Time and then you played it! So funny. I have had one of these since 1992 or 1993 and used it a lot in those days for Soft Focus mostly, sometimes stereo panning two amps. Nice demos, as always.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Great minds think alike, haha

[@Ambientnauts]

Bro I love how you present with a relic looking guitar that looks like it's been through a zombie apocalypse, and then just purely blaze on it. And soft focus , well, the Strymon Big Sky of the 90's.

[@jeffreyp1855]

The FX 500, was my very first effects processor, back in the early 90s and I loved it!. I'm going to pick up another one soon. 🤘🏻

[@christopherguzzi1316]

That is one of the coolest Telecaster's I've seen in a while. Great demonstration of this cool piece of gear!!!

[@JayLeonardJ]

Thank you kindly!

[@jaskiniamestwa]

I always enjoy the energy and love for the instruments you play...not to even mention sick skills. thanks!

[@JayLeonardJ]

Thanks :)

[@ricardorodrigues4277]

Super my man! I've been using by myself old gear, specially from 80s. Never forget that time was the golden age of our beloved instrument 🎸. When I remember "Always with me, always with you" was recorded with a Rockman cigar box, every theory about good tones has been debunked.

[@ExilesGate]

This has to be a guitarists ultimate gear review! What a cool guy! Beautiful playing! I just ordered one from Japan!😎✨👍❤️ I'm hearing 1980s Northern Pikes!

[@JimWalkerMusic]

80s gear is right up my alley as I am an 80s kid! A multi fx you might want to check out is the Digitech RP1. I bought one when they first hit the shelves and used it well into the 90s when I upgraded to an RP5. Then just a few years ago I picked up another RP1 off of ebay really cheap and boy, did it take me back! I since traded it off but enjoyed the flashback. Thanks for all you do Jay. Love the Channel!

[@cmdrsocks]

From the first chord I could feel the spandex and see the pink neon shining through a mullet with enough hairspray to stick an elephant to the ceiling. I miss the 80's.

[@JayLeonardJ]

I was barely in the 80s and I still miss it, haha

[@richardleveille3254]

Very cool! Back in '89 my friend (keyboards) and I (guitar) rented one of these for a weekend of recording (or maybe a month - we would rent gear once and a while as we didn't have much cash to buy) on a 4-track cassette recorder. Anyway, I have a demo cassette with a song called Monk Akka that must have resulted from this session!!

[@UjjayaEthnoambient]

You must get away from the factory presets to know this beast . It's really made for ambient / experimental music .You can push the effects beyond the pale (especially the flanger) and have some really strange and spatial effects . The patch Delay + reverb is amazing . It push any sound out of this world . Have try many reverbs since the mid-90 and always get back to the yamaha fx 500 . I've got 2 (one is for the spare) . The fx 550 is cleaner and have some pictch-shifter but is really inintersting because you can't push the effects so deeply.

[@AnalogFlava]

Is the spx90ii similar?

[@UjjayaEthnoambient]

@@AnalogFlava don't know, but the fx500 should be more powerful (it was built in 1989, and the spx90ii i, 1986, even if the delay is 2s long (and only 380ms for the Fx)

[@AnalogFlava]

@@UjjayaEthnoambient i see thanks, that would make sense then. It sounded good to me. But for a good price i dont think you can go wrong with either

[@rob550]

I love how it sounds and also how it looks like a head unit it'd stick in my old EG Civic.

[@Dr_Satan]

Just call it "Jay Plays". It's short, it's simple, it conveys the message.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Love that one!!!!!

[@jjcale2288]

You get real music out from any box be it digital or analog! This is what I call a demo. You could be a valuable asset to any music gear producer/seller/advertiser.

[@xboyertownx]

Agreed, I’ve owned this for years and this by far is the best demo of it ever made.

[@CraigCrider]

OMG, I HAD one of these! I totally forgot about it. Have no recollection what I did with it. Thanks for cranking up the wayback machine for me. #15 Power Leads was my jam!

[@raycochrane3971]

My wife bought me one of these when it was 1st released in Australia. She went to the store to buy me a flanger and left with this machine that cost an HUGE AUS$600 back then. I've used it ever since. It's great for recording BUT I always mute the distortion and use an overdrive in front of the unit instead. It's a brilliant, if very 80s, tool. I've tweaked about twenty of the presets and stored them in the unit. Some effects, like brass burst, are meant for things other than guitar...keyboard horns, mic'd sax etc work REALLY well. I also have the full rack version of the follow up iteration.

[@gazeunderthesunmusic]

The soft Focus is the definitive shoegaze patch for me, that's one of the reasons why I bought one because on the 40th patch

[@JesseJuup]

At some point, around 1991-1992, I had the Rocktron Pro GAP, a Lexicon LXP-5 and this Yamaha FX500 (borrowed from firend) in my rack and it was pretty damn sweet. Controlled them with the Rocktron MidiMate footpedal + Expression pedal. 🎉❤

[@neonether]

That Time After Time was so sweet!!

[@JayLeonardJ]

Thanks!

[@sons7429]

I still have this unit and it still sounds great. Also, you got the best rhythm hand in the biz man.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Thanks so much :)

[@bloemundude]

I bought my FX500 used back in the early '90s. I totally forgot I have it in its box in a closet somewhere. The presets were good, but you could adjust everything. That's where the real power lied.

[@alheeley]

love this - mine is still going strong from the 80's :) you missed out my favourite Lush Strings

[@JayLeonardJ]

Ah, should check that one out!

[@chrisrussoroos6091]

Dude- you are great! Playing and attitude/insights. Thank you 👍🏼

[@mythcrab6047]

I love this thing. And your playing is so fun!

[@cchavez248]

Oh snao, I remember those!!!! Man, I wanted one, but alas, I couldn't afford it back then! For those 80's sounds, I think this still sounds great!!! 😀🤘

[@nowgearthis]

Yamaha did some great effects in the 80’s and 90’s. I had a GW50 effects processor for years. Thanks for the throwback!

[@narvul]

I don't think I told you before but anyway: you're an incredible tasteful gitarist and I know a few.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Thanks so much!!

[@narvul]

@@JayLeonardJ You deserve it Jay...!!

[@um3899]

that sitar setting sounded awesome, I would totally use that on some recordings

[@chrishansondc]

You should play those tablas for us sometime! Great playing, this was a lot of fun.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Haha, I might just do that one of these days!

[@raulvalderrama6720]

Bravo jleonardgear... 🤙🏻🔥🔥🔥🤙🏻

[@rickymangum8977]

I own one and I bought the midi foot pedal which could operate off of batteries. I found making my own presets sounded the best. You can almost get that boston tone. Lots of fun but sometimes very digital. You need to adjust but this Guy (JayLeonardJ) does an excellent job.

[@TheJesterboy1969]

Had one of these... not built very well. Great for the slowdive stuff.

[@MarkFromHawaii]

OMG, I had one of these! When I bought the FX500, I also got the midi foot controller for it. There was a a very noticeable delay between preset changes when using the controller, probably attributed to the unit's processing limitations. I also found the distortion totally unusable. What I loved were some of the modulation and reverb/delay settings. I especially liked the "symphonic" modulation as I recall. At the time I was using a Boogie MkII and tried putting the unit through the effects loop. It worked but because the old loop was unbuffered, I'd lose a lot of volume. I also tried using some of the vocal settings through a rack PA, but it sounded aweful - it just created a lot of hiss along with a nasal quality to the sound. Jay, tone must really come from the fingers, because you really made it sound good.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Thanks so much. After spending more time with it, I do think the Symphonic modulation is the star of the show. Too bad it didn't work with your setup. I should experiment with the effects loop on mine and see how it reacts!

[@MikaFastfinger]

Heyyy Jay! It’s been a long time! Love to see you with FX500!!! I got it part of my main rig. Use it everyday. Got it mainly because of Symphonic, but I love it for flangers and stuff too! I got dry + stereo setup so FX500 doesn’t mess with my precious dry tone while gives me stereo fx.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Hi!!!!!!!!! Long time to see... You rocking the FX500 in 2022 is proof enough that great gear doesn't have an expiry date. You are 100% right though, the symphonic is a bit of a scene stealer on this one. Great idea with the stereo idea too :)

[@MikaFastfinger]

@@JayLeonardJ Yeah, yeah. So good to hear from you. I love the idea of combining old stuff and new stuff. Something fun about digital vintage. Always in love hearing your playing! I got to return to your channel more ofter. Wax on! btw. If you want to take a quick look at my weird rig. (the only addition that came to this lately was R1 reverb Walrus audio, great combo with FX500) kzbin.info/www/bejne/iWq8XoR8f5iMmqM

[@guenterbortz5957]

Name that series "still alive?" - and pls do the L6 Pod 2,0 or those Zoom pedals for us poor tiny studio'ists. Pretty good idea to let us old players have a look back 😉😄 love it, thanks for that❤

[@guitarelaxed]

Neither the FX500 nor the Boss SE-50 / SE-70 were meant to be used only with guitar in mind. They were multi purpose tools for your budget home studio. So you would find presets for guitar or bass as well as studio fx for vocals and keyboard tracks. Brass burst for example sounds great if you feed it with a synth brass patch from a Juno 60 or a JX8P. Many of the earlier synths didn´t have a built in fx processor.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Yeah, I started realizing that as I was digging deeper into the presets! I originally thought this was an all guitar box!

[@mightyjb5261]

I used to have its big brother, the FX770 (19") and although the amp models were less than convincing, it did have a pleasing sound.

[@fazalkmd]

LOL…I used to have this! TBH, I was glad when I replaced it with a POD.

[@andyjett]

There was also FX550 released later in 1992, also very good unit.

[@zaxx3369]

You' re really great! And yama souns magically! I have an ask for you, please: do you know fx550 and differences ? I'm buying one of them. Which one for yor opinion ? Thanks a lot ! Hug you

[@brysimm404]

“Digital”, yes - but a little box of magic nonetheless. Picked one up online about 10 years ago for $80 (with power supply). It IS “satisfying” and definitely a keeper forever! Note: All the FX500 units I’ve seen have a lighter gray color plastic face - maybe the unit here is a later version with the same darker face like the FX500B (for bass) model? Interesting 🤔

[@claudecat]

How is this channel not huge? So many inferior competitors doing essentially the same thing: selling us pedals. Sure some of 'em are fun despite bad or boring playing, but nobody touches Jay for getting the best sounds out of whatever's being demoed, not to mention sheer technique and fire. Proof positive that either people are dumb or algorithms are mostly garbage. Probably some of both. As for this thing? Well, it's Yamaha. They do not make bad things as a rule, and this is no exception. Sounds as decent as anything else from that terrible, awful decade of music (Prince notwithstanding). Let's face it, Jay could make that guitar you ran over with the truck last year and used duct tape to repair sound amazing. ** edited to add that I really enjoyed the sitar setting, which had more of a koto feel at times. Loved the quote from "Inner Light", my favorite George tune ever!

[@JayLeonardJ]

Really appreciate it! Might not be the biggest page ever, but I wouldn't trade our subscriber community for anything :)

[@Nirolevy1]

Anyone knows specifically what year it came out? I've searched for Yamaha product timeline and found none.

[@jwstout007]

I feel obligated to say that Jason fella sounds like a pretty cool guy! RJ's recommendation (Sharp Chops) sounds like the gated drum reverb that made the 80's era sound. After hearing a few of these presets, I bet this was used on more than just guitar, I bet that brass burst preset might do well on a brass instrument. Great playing through this unit, my dude! Series name suggestions: "Does it still rock?" "What's that sound?" "Weird gear" "Retro tone" & the aforementioned "Jay Plays Old Gear for the First Time on KZbin Live but not really Live." Gear you should seek out to play: an actual Leslie rotary speaker, or Yamaha RA 50 (or 100, they're horizontal Leslie units), a Gittler Guitar, anything double necked (standard / slide / 12 string / etc...), & maybe a Danelectro Backtalk (reverse delay). That was cool to see the process put together, thank you!

[@chickenlickin3820]

I have a 1963 leslie cab as well as this FX500.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Double neck guitar would definitely be a fun one! I've actually never even played one!! Thanks again man :)

[@MikeMcDonald32]

thanks for this. i own and use two one for pa and one in my home studio.

[@TheGmcFilms]

The FX500 is a timeless pedal rather than a pedal for the times if you see what I mean. The reason its a bit pricey is behind the mechanics of the pedal is the intelligence level of the people who designed the machine. The scope and vision they achieved with the FX500 is peerless in my opinion, The schematic was and still is visionary ...G...

[@BLOODFLY1]

Tear it up Jay!

[@JayLeonardJ]

:)

[@ilmisxx2]

I would love you to check out Digitech GSP2101 tube preamp/processor some time in the future

[@guitarelaxed]

I still have THREE Boss SE-70 processors and many of the sounds are pretty good. (Scott Henderson still uses it live for delay, modulation and reverb in a parallel loop.) The only thing that is only very rudimentary is the assignment of effect parameters to a ctrl switch / exp pedal. I also bought a ZOOM 9050, expecting similar sounds, but it just sounds awful in comparison.

[@chickenlickin3820]

i have one had it since the early 90's whenever you play through it it sounds like Van Halen lol..

[@JayLeonardJ]

It makes me want to play Van Halen, haha

[@pangloss9]

Here's a suggestion: Tech21 PSA-1. Back in the 1990's these things were in a lot of pro racks. Great idea for a series btw.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Another one I haven't heard of! Definitely look deeper into this!!

[@steverherb]

I still love my PSA-1, a Great analog preamp

[@richc.9273]

Time for me to pull mine out of the old gear trunk in my closet and hook her back up, Brought back memories, thanks.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Always fun to rediscover your forgotten gems! Have fun :)

[@slimsantilli4476]

Some modern effects are trying to emulate these tones. My friend had the ADA MP-1 back in the day. Many of the tones sounded like this Yamaha

[@Furtheronmusic]

I had one of those in my recording rack for many years. I'm sad that it went the way of much gear back sone years back. Brilliant bit of kit, I used it with a Boss gl100 rack unit. Soft Focus was I went to more than once

[@JayLeonardJ]

Surprised how many subscribers out there have had one before! I just found out about it but it seems like there is a pretty big subculture of FX500 users out there :)

[@SSquirrel1976]

Next up look for a Lexicon Vortex. Believe it was the first rack that could morph between effects and stop partway thru if u were using one of the expression pedal inputs. Full stereo, lots of interesting stuff

[@JayLeonardJ]

Vortex you say... Looks like I have some Google learning to do...

[@tonyscardaci2089]

@@JayLeonardJ I had one, it was very cool, yet...I never found it useable for my stuff, and no-one else of any notoriety used them on anything hot. Cool, unusual, inspiring, yes. Usefulness....you must obtain all the external switches and pedals to utilize it correctly, and at the time I was interested in oddball stuff, but too broke to have the whole setup. It may be great for Ambient stuff however, unusual sound devices are great for experimental stuff generally....great show !!!

[@EgoShredder]

Editing on this unit is a breeze, very simple and quick. The FX900 is the more pro version and that does have way more extensive editing, better reverbs and cleaner DAC output. I own both models.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Might be worth checking out! Thanks :)

[@WarrenPostma]

Could you find those early floor board multi effects from the late 1980s and early 1990s that are long before the Pod and Pod XT, Digitech made a bunch of them, boss, etc. Man I love how you play. Great job.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Original red bean Pod might be a great next choice!

[@gomerhanger2285]

plug it into my amp and the volume is really low. I have my amp volume 10 that's how low it is lmao Does anyone know why ?

[@JayLeonardJ]

Weird. There is a switch in the back to change the output level if that helps. You can also make sure that your input knob in the front it high enough to barely hit the peak at your absolutely loudest notes.

[@matttorrence2900]

Is this the Slowdive machine?

[@stephenszabo3299]

yes

[@rocker5344]

Or Jay’s VintaJe gear?

[@ordinalkirk]

The 80s ruled!

[@JayLeonardJ]

Definitely :)

[@TedSchoenling]

that sounds so '80s and it isn't so bad

[@JayLeonardJ]

Definitely :)

[@dezionlion]

Sitar is cool!

[@Bryn-w5z]

This or the EMP100?

[@ericajohnson7535]

I see your true colors tone...

[@thomasd9237]

LOLs gotta love it 😂 👍👍

[@agzagadoo8598]

i know "JLJ now on Vintage"

[@ericskinner7355]

I still have a silver one. Some of the sounds are ok. Might be cool if you were doing a lot of overdubs to get a contrasting sound. I do remember liking the soft focus for cleaner ambient stuff.

[@JayLeonardJ]

There is a silver one 😍

[@prw139]

Sounds awesome! Can you run this in front of the tube amp?

[@JayLeonardJ]

Definitely!

[@DTension]

I'd buy that Lauper jam.

[@JayLeonardJ]

Haha, thanks :)

[@jason3000tt]

hi, AWESOME DEMO! Does this unit have balanced input?

[@JayLeonardJ]

It can take a balanced or unbalanced signal if I remember correctly!

[@AlbertoDiogo-r8q]

i´m a lucky 30 year fx500 owner. :)

[@rocker5344]

Or Jay VintaJe J?

[@JayLeonardJ]

Haha, yes!

[@thomaslthomas1506]

“Bad Gear”. Oh wait someone beat you to it.😎

[@hellvulcanoh]

Nice stuff im own 1

[@rocker5344]

How about just VintaJe Live?!

[@TelipatiEvolustions]

Looks like car radio?

[@JayLeonardJ]

YES!!! haha

[@user-nu7xx7pc1d]

great video!! like and susc!!

[@JayLeonardJ]

Thanks so much! Really appreciate it!

[@AuralDeviation]

‘Horror’ has two syllables.

[@mightyjb5261]

Whore house! LOL

[@dezionlion]

Sounds too processed

[@JayLeonardJ]

Haha, definitely a poster child for 80s Squeeky Chic.