Boss - ME-10

This pedal came in as it wasn't producing any sounds. It is a common problem with this pedal.



This pedal was released in 1992 and run for only two years. It followed the ME-5 and was followed by the ME-X. This multi effects pedal is often viewed as the best Boss had to offer before they went to the COSM way. This is mainly because this primarily digital pedal has a complete analog section with an analog compressor and different analog overdrive pedals. This feature makes this effect sought after by users and can still fetch decent prices in a working matter. Usually you find the pedal not working. 

A lot has been written on this unit. This 1992 article describes the pedal the best.


The circuit

This pedal is housed in a known Boss multi-effects setup with the big numbered switches on the underside and controls on the top. The pedal is quite heavy and looks like it can withstand some abuse. The order of effects is preset and can be followed easily by following the effects path on the front of the pedal, Each effect has a blue square around it's name and all possible controls of this effect are located underneath this name. By touching the effects name a LED is lit and the effect is selected = turned on (or off when it was already engaged). When a control is selected (by pressing on that control) a little LED is lit and you can alter that specific control of the pedal. This altering is done with the huge knob on the right side of the pedal. You can only de-select a control by engaging another one.

Other controls on the faceplate are a 'Bypass' switch to bypass all effects. A 'Tuner' is available and with this the sound is muted. You have a 'Master Volume' knob to control the overall output and a 'G-lab simulation' knob to turn on the speaker simulator when this pedal is used with a PA or headphones. Last you can change the range on EXP pedal 1.

On the back of the pedal the in and outputs are located. You have a single input but two (stereo) outputs. There is also the FX loop located, a headphone output and two EXP pedal jacks: one for controlling the Pitch and one for controlling the volume (this last one is located just before the modulation effects). Last are the remote switcher jacks (for the tuner, engaging 'Manual' mode and engaging 'Bypass' mode) and the MIDI in and output.

This pedal can be used in 'Play' mode and in 'Manual' mode:

  • Play mode is the standard multi-effects mode. You have multiple 'Banks' of effect settings saved you can switch between. Every 'Bank' can save four settings. You can engage the specific setting by pressing the numbered button on the bottom or change 'Banks' with the switches labelled 'Bank'.
  • In Manual mode all bottom switches are connected to a specific effect and with the switch the effect can be turned on and off. This is more like a typical pedalboard.

 





 

The effects order is:

Compressor -> Overdrive/Distortion -> Noise suppressor -> Equalizer -> Phaser -> Flanger -> Pitch shifter -> Delay -> Stereo chorus -> Stereo reverb. Between the Noise suppressor and the Equalizer is an FX loop located on the backside of the pedal. This FX loop can be turned on and off by pressing the designated button.

The pedal has 10 different effects housed inside this pedal.

  • Three pedals are fully analog: Compressor, Overdrive/Distortion and the Noise suppressor
  • Seven pedals are fully digital: the rest of the available pedals.

The compressor is based upon the THAT2159 IC and follows the schematic of the Boss CS-3. There are some differences though.

The overdrive section follows the same principle of the Boss OD-2 pedal; OD-1 has a single gain stage made with discrete parts (no opamps) and OD-2 has two of these stages.

The distortion section is different. DS-1 uses a single THAT2159 IC (VCA) to increase the gain and add some compression. DS-2 though uses a M5207 IC to do the same but simply has more gain stages after it. I couldn't find any similar Boss pedals that shared this topology.

The Noise suppressor uses a M5207 IC and looks similar to the Boss NS-2.

 

 

When this pedal is opened you notice a crowded PCB with a digital section and an analog section. There are a lot of electrolyte caps.With two ribbon cables the top (with the switches) is connected to the other board. The service manual can be found here.




 

The fix

In my search for fixing this pedal I found that the problem lays in the electrolyte caps. The fix would be to replace all electrolyte SMD caps with other caps to get the issue fixed. I first tried to change all the electrolyte caps in the audio path and voila, all sounds came back again. Yet, there were too many noises to make the pedal work again. I simply replaced all other caps too and now, the pedal is dead silent, responds quickly and sounds amazing again.

I've replaced twelve 1u caps, thirty 10u caps, six 47u caps and twenty-seven 100u caps. This makes the total (with some caps replaced with different values) over 80 electrolyte caps!!

To replace all SMD caps, simply twist them to get them off the PCB. Other ways are presented in this video


 

The sound

This pedal has a lot of useful sounds! Yet, it also sounds a lot like the time it was invented and used. My biggest gripe is the gain section. And although the analog part makes the overdrives stand out, it still lacks a lot. My biggest complaint is that the controls don't react like a real analog pedal. The overdrive pedals only start to add overdrive on the last section of the numbered scale so a lot of useless settings are available. This gives the impression they are tame and not well sounding but with a lot of tweaking you can find some useful sounds in them. The Distortion models are pretty loud and in your face! The DS-1 has the mids cut a bit and make it rather useful if the amount of gain could be tamed. DS-2 then has an abundance of mids but is too compressed and gainy over the whole scale making it perfect for some 90's heavy bands. The EQ section is then the saving of this pedal: where you don't enjoy the overall sound of the gain pedals you can make it better with changing the EQ. The compressor reminds me a lot of the CS-3 and gets squishy quite soon. Yet, it can also be used as a beautiful OD sound with some controls cranked. 


The digital part has some great things happening! The reverb section sounds sometimes perfect with a great range of reverb sounds and a lot of controls to alter the sound. It can overtake your sound sometimes easily but with some tweaking it can sound pretty natural to me. The delay can be set pretty wild but will always be a normal, digital delay. And I did love that feeling of it getting me back to my DD3 days. The other modulation effects are standard and don't give world changing sounds, yet they master the sound that is pretty common. 


Links

 



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