VE-500 Vocal Performer | Advanced Vocal Multi-Effects Unit for Singing Guitarists | Powerhouse Tools for your Pedalboard | Auto Harmony and Pitch Correction | Guitar Input | Vocoder | Looper

I've used the VE-500 for a couple gigs and am getting comfortable enough with it to write an initial review. I was a little hesitant about this ( and other Boss "pedals" ) as a keyboardist but have found that the setup is easy and my typical usage of foundational voice enhancement and then changing to a harmony setting ( w/ my hand ) within a song, is very workable and effective. There's so many features I feel like I haven't yet used 20%, but many of the defaults are perfectly usable for me w/ minor tweaks on the gain and compression. Overall, another great Boss product!

After a Year plus I’ve reassessed my review. I also own the T.C. VoiceLive Play and I actually like this unit about the same but for different reasons. I Also have owned the VoiceLive Electric which is also in the same class. This Boss VE does have guitar input to hone you voice but not any guitar FX effects. The Boss I feel offers more control over everything but it makes for higher difficulty in achieving the final output. The unit is smaller and makes for a better foot pedal because of size. I do believe it's over priced for what it does and I'm always looking for something that can do more. I believe the Boss is newer to the market than the others and there's not many review comparisons but I feel it's equals T.C. Helicon and can beat it if you’re willing to spend the extra time making adjustments. The T.C. is better in ease of setup and I use the unit a lot because it’s easier to get acceptable results. The Boss VE-500 and T.C. VoiceLive are both good unit but I’m leaning towards the T, C. because its priced much better.

Another amazing Boss product! Easy to connect to any setup. Awesome features. Fits well in any studio and the vocal settings are top notch stuff.

Quick and easy vocal improvements, lots & lots of room for vocal customization. 😎

I am so bummed to have to write this review. I'm a professional touring guitarist and singer that has been using the TC Helicon Harmony Singer for years. I loved the idea of stepping up to this new Boss VE500 pedal. The Boss pedal seems to be the most customizable and powerful harmony pedal on the market. In a sense, yes, it is very customizable and has a lot of great features. That is why I gave it the two stars. The problem is the HARMONY. The TC Helicon is more of a set it and forget pedal. It picks the notes and intervals to sing unbelievably well. This pedal, no matter what setting you try to settle on Chord1,CHord2,Scale1,Scale2 it seems to always be a little off. It may pick the right notes for one song, but if you switch to a different type of progression it starts choosing very questionable notes. I suppose you might be able to program your own intervals for every song and have a different patch for every song to make sure the harmonies were accurate. Yikes! what a headache. But even when it seemed to be the right setting...it still was off occasionally. Ok, I know there will be people reading this review saying "you don't know how to use the pedal! You didn't try all the settings! Something must be set wrong!". I can ASSURE you I know what all the settings do and have tried them all in various combinations. Again, I am a professional touring musician (just need to stress I'm not a newbie that can't sing), I am out of work due to Coronavirus and have lots of time on my hands to test EVERY LITTLE FUNCTION this pedal has to offer. I've spent about 3-4 hours a day tweaking the pedal and trying to discover every little bit of what it is capable of. Insane? yes. My conclusion....two stars. I am plugged directly into the pedal, it's not because something is interfering. It's not set to hybrid mode(although I tried that too). It's not set to midi control of key. Etc etc etc. The TC Helicon automatically figures out what key and scale you are in and picks great intervals. No matter what the progression. This one, not so much. I have the key settings on instrument, auto, etc. I've tried setting the note sensitivity to high, medium, low. I've tried turning doubling to normal, deep. Hell, I've even tried using the, gasp, pitch correction to see if maybe it's me! Ugh! I'm so disappointed to say this. But this pedal is not worth $400. Before the pedal arrived at my house I downloaded the manual and read it cover to cover twice (I always do this, and suggest you do too if you're an avid buyer of music technology equipment). I watched every review video. As soon as it arrived I dove head first into all the settings. For a few days I was loving some of the vocal effects you can assign to midi controllers or using my external boss footswitch. Hmmm...The harmonies were off...no problem, I'm sure it's just a setting that is not perfect. I'll find it. 3 days of working on it, 4 days, 5 days, 6 days, a week. Every day singing into this thing and tweaking settings! I just could not get it to pick the right harmony notes 80% of the time. That's the goal...80%! I'd say it picks the right note about 60% of the time. Not good enough. The TC Helicon picks the right interval about 85-90% of the time. Any higher than that would probably need a real human being that knows the song. Conclusion...don't buy this pedal if you want a harmony pedal. Hopefully TC comes out with a compact stereo harmony pedal with effects. Ugh. So bummed...I'm RETURNING IT! NOooooooo

This little guy (and it is little) packs a big punch. Each patch has a separate sections for an enhancer+compressor+de-esser+EQ, pitch correction, harmony/vocoder, 4 dedicated FX slots with 20 effects to choose from, reverb and delay. The bad news...the screen is tiny and the user interface isn’t very intuitive. It also doesn’t ship with a USB cable to connect to a computer, which you absolutely want to do so you can use the editor software available from BOSS-it’s very easy to use, especially compared to the interface on the unit itself. MIDI implementation is a little strange until you know what you’re doing. Patch changes are straightforward, but CC messages have to be assigned on a per patch basis. This gives you a lot of flexibility in deciding what you want MIDI to do to the unit, but you have to do quite a bit of programming on the unit beforehand. All in all this is a great little processor with more power for the money than anything else I’ve seen, albeit with a steep learning curve. But if you have the time and patience to figure it out and do a little work on the editor it’s worth it.

Sounds were underwhelming imho, but even more underwhelming was the user interface. Couldn't be any more annoying and complicated. Difficult to make on-the-move changes, forget about doing it live. Mic sensitivity is buried underneath cryptic menus. Why couldnt they make a more intuitive interface and a bigger screen!?!?

it was a really good purchase. I highly recommend it.

Way better than others I've tried. Bit of a learning curve though.

Prodotto molto valido e versatile, comparato con un altro brand specifico per gli effetti voce, ha grossomodo tutte le caratteristiche. L'editor gratis è pratico e basta poco per ambientarsi. Unica pecca (molto comune) ha qualche difficoltà a rilevare gli accordi della chitarra, anche dopo un'accurata taratura del livello del segnale.

Just got the unit and tested it. The sounds are amazing. but you need to RTFM. The Manual is not very detailed, and it will take some time to learn it all. The best way to program the unit ( before actuall performance) is by using the computer app. make sure you assign the VE-500 both to in/out channels. Make sure you use high speed USB cable, as not every charging cable is a data cable. It defenetly worth its price, but it is far from user friendly. obviously BOSS sound engineers are doing great job, while the SW devision has way to go ...... As a performer with keyboards, I mostly use the midi channels for harmony. keep in mind you need to adjust the input to the right midi channel , especially if you use an "arranger" keyboard to send the lower chords to midi. The presets on the machine- i couldn't find them usefull. you do need to program it by your own for full utilization of the unit.

Tal vez sea un poco prematuro porque llevo menos de un mes de uso del pedal de efectos, pero hasta el momento, me ha funcionado perfectamente, el producto llegó un día antes de lo programado y en excelentes condiciones, si se lee el manual que viene incluido, es rápido comprender como configurar el equipo, incluso las funciones más "avanzadas" del pedal, la función de armonización automática conectando guitarra en el input funciona de maravilla, me ha sido muy útil para shows y para sesiones de grabación. Al principio dudé un poco porque había reseñas o respuestas de preguntas que mencionaban que no incluía el adaptador de corriente, pero si está incluido ya que este equipo no tiene compartimento para baterías.

Come sempre con Boss non si sbaglia Pedale impeccabile e solido