Line6 M5 Stompbox

Do not be mistaken, this hasn't got anything to do with the movie. Although you don't get to play with Daniel Radcliffe you do get to mess around with the hundred of effects this incredible pedal has to offer.

Sometimes when musicians hear the word "multieffect" they run away and seek for shelter. They are a good tool if you hold a degree in pedal nobness or you're just an adventurer of new sounds, but in the end they lack that organic and warm feeling only a mother (I mean, a pedal) knows how to give.
The Line6 M5 offers a wild variety of sounds which will keep you entertained for decades. They range from fantastic to horrible. Some are great replicas of other pedals while others simply suck. That kind of goes away when you start changing the parameters of each effect with the dedicated knobs, but still some sounds retain unusable.

The pedal itself is indestructible. When the apocalypse comes, cockroaches & M5s will rule the world. So fear not dear stompers: you can kick the s*** out of this pedal and it will still refuse to die on you. The footswitches are not so practical though. They are ok to turn the effect on/off & tap tempo (you can also hold the right footswitch to activate a surprisingly good tuner) but when you want to activate a preset (yes, you can create many and even name them as you see fit) you need to press them both at the same time. Being one next to another you must use your feet in weird ways or kneel to it to use you're hands. It's not a big deal but it can be frustating if you're aiming for precision and using different sounds in a set. Keep in mind that you cannot use multiple effects at the same time, you have its bigger brothers for that (M9, M13)

Overall buy this pedal. Line6 M5 doesn't pay me to say any of this but if you give it a chance you'll find a very affordable and awesome machine with even more awesome features. Sure you'll sometimes feel retarded when pressing it and it has a bit of a learning curve which can be overwhelming at times (manual comes in handy), but in general you won't feel disappointed and even if you buy single stompboxes you'll want to keep this one on your pedalboard.

This pedal emulation processor can replace a lot of pedals in pedalboard. Personally I'm using this device for efects only (choruses, was-wah, harmonizer, whammy) not for the gained sound, and it works pretty well!
Works well with Boss FV-500-H expression pedal - personally I'm happy with this combination.
Also, works well as MIDI controlled device.

One thing you should have in your mind - it can emulate only one effect at the time. So, use can use only chorus, or only wah-wah, or only dist, or only Whammy. But not chorus and wah at the same time! To me it's Ok.

These are still a solid multi-effects choice: while new stuff has a lot of bells & whistles, a lot of the M-series effects sound great (especially in a live context) and the sheer variety of choices this unit offers is staggering - there's a reason you'll still see these on pro pedal boards still. This is a great purchase for someone looking to have access to lots of classic fx for very little money. Like always, the distortions are not particularly good (hence my 4-star rating) but the modulations, delays, and reverbs more than make it a great value.