The past few years have seen incredible advances in the technological aspects of the music industry and Kelvin the keyboard player has his neat programmable MIDI'd synth with a multitude of sounds available at the touch of a button. Poor old Ron the guitarist is still seen lurching around the stage with a string of cheap effects trailing from a curly lead and periodically stopping and jumping on them in an attempt to activate a delay and chorus whilst turning off his distortion and compressor. It's not surprising that Kelvin gets the girls, is it?

It's a strange quirk of fate that guitarists more than anyone have been left at the bar, so to speak, when it comes to programmable effects. Sure any musician will benefit too, but the guitarist's increasing attempt to 'modernise' his sound does mean that, to sound different, more than one dodgy old fuzz box is necessary.

Certainly attempts have been made to provide 'programmable' multi-effects boards before — Boss, Yamaha, Korg and Next spring to mind — but these have only provided programmability in the form of linkage. For example, combinations of effects can be programmed so that instead of pressing three buttons one can be pressed to activate three or more effects at once. That in itself is useful but if you want, for example, two different delay settings it means that you'll need two separate delays. That's expensive...

There is obviously a need for a pedal board incorporating programmability in the form of storing different settings on each effect and this is exactly where the Europa pedal boards from the French company ADM come in. They provide three mains powered units comprising compression, distortion and delay (analogue) plus, on the DP 400C, we have chorus, on the DP 410F we have flange and on the DP 600 C we have chorus and a noise gate as well. Each of these boards digitally stores any combination of these effects plus different settings. While the 400 and 410 have eight memories the 600 has 16 and is the one we chose to inspect. The advantage of these units is that, if you so desire, you can programme up to 16 different delay settings with only one delay pedal!

The 600 C is neatly designed measuring a small 540mm x 200mm, not much different from a rack mountable unit. The five effects are mounted in the board each with an on/off button plus a red LED to indicate on or off. To the left of these is the programme button and a red LED numerical display to indicate which memory you're on. The 16 memories are split into two banks — A or B — and the eight memory selector buttons are situated along the bottom of the board plus the A/B selector, all in easy reach of your foot. The board has a single input and mono or stereo outputs placed on the right side of the unit.

Regardless of the programmability of the board it's the effects themselves which are the important bit. The controls for each effect are mounted at the top of the board and are kept to the minimum. This is what they're like...

Compressor

With two controls — sustain and level — the compressor is simple to operate. The sustain does exactly what it should and also appears to affect the amount of attack of the sound. At zero the attack is almost normal while at 10 the sound dips drastically to create a fade-in effect. The level control takes care of output so that the unit can be used to boost volume for solos or cut it back for a rhythm part. Past around four the level introduces hiss which is a bit much when you get up to about eight. Mind you, four is about 'flat' and when you get to eight the level boost is very high.

Distortion

Quite a vicious pedal this, both the two controls — distortion and level — are quite extreme in their capabilities. Once again, as expected, hiss arrives with the introduction of this effect and past four is very noticable, but then distortion isn't supposed to be quiet. The distortion control provides quite a 'tight' metallic distortion which, thankfully, isn't too 'flappy'. I do feel that a tone control would bean asset here as the tone of the distortion is quite middly — obviously a compromise. Once again the boost level available on this effect should be enough for most people; it is loud!

Chorus

Ah! That sweet, sweet sound. There is no doubt that Chorus is addictive — once you add it to your sound you can't do without it. Certainly this effect is very nice. The obvious controls are depth and speed which I'm sure need no explanation. Noise level from this pedal is negligible through an amp but a bit high for studio use, although useable at a push. Actually the chorus was easily the best unit on the board as far as sound quality is concerned, my only criticism is the reduction in low frequencies when used, although this may be, in certain situations, an advantage. Having just weened myself off chorus dependence I'm now totally hooked again!

Delay

This is an analogue delay with a delay time of 20ms to 300ms and three controls for time, feedback and delay level. I'm a bit of a delay freak and I must say was a bit disappointed with this unit. 300ms is fairly short really and the feedback on this unit was rather vicious and needed very careful settings on the lower delay times. If the feedback is set too high the delay degenerates into an unpleasant click like a manic clock which is unusable. It's very difficult to set a short repeat delay with a long feedback time without the delay getting out of hand. However, for textural delays it's fine, especially when used with the other effects.

Noise Gate

An interesting addition this and one that is necessary, especially with the high noise level of the compression and distortion. With only one control — sensitivity — there isn't a lot you can do with it apart from decreasing noise when you're not actually playing. The cut-off slope is quite steep and it takes a fair bit of experimenting before you can achieve a good result. However, when used with compression some interesting effects can be achieved, again more textural than percussive, but bearing in mind we have 16 memories the gate can be used to good effect.

Programmability

This aspect of the board is very simple. You select a memory number then press the program button and the number shown in the LED display will start flashing. You can then set all the effects and settings you require and when happy press the memory number button, which will stop the LED displayed number flashing, and mean that that sound is now written into the memory.

Now while that aspect of the programming is simple and effective the board has one major problem. Let's say we have set into memory one, bank A, a short delay, chorus and distortion. Now into memory one, bank B, we want distortion and a long delay — easy, no problem. However, we now listen back to memory one, bank A and we feel that the delay is too short so we press the program button and immediately the sounds which are on the effects, ie what we have set into memory one, bank B, now replace whatever we had in that memory. Unlike a synth, when you select a program, you can alter it but unless you write it into the memory it will revert back to its original sound when another program is selected. The Europa board works in a totally opposite way. As soon as you select a memory and press the program button your old sound is wiped and replaced with whatever the effects are set at at that time. Not only is this time consuming if you just want to change one effect in a multi-lineup but bloody annoying if you accidentally press the program button, especially if you haven't selected the correct memory.

Mind you it's quite possible to program in anything you want, you just have to be a mite organised about it. For example, I used memory eight to come up with the sound I wanted and then selected the desired memory and thus stored the program. By always selecting memory eight before I programmed in a sound I was able to adopt a working method which protected my previous programs.

Another really silly thing is that no by-pass switch is fitted, which is beyond comprehension. This means that one memory has to be kept blank which is a waste but more importantly in a live situation you may have to press two buttons — the blank memory number and the bank A/B selector — to get back to your straight sound. Is that stupid or is that stupid?

Conclusions

You may have guessed that the Ron I mentioned in the intro of this review is, in fact, me. In my present band you see we have a number that requires me to change from straight guitar immediately to distortion and delay then immediately back to straight. I can honestly say that I haven't managed it once yet until, of course, I turned up at rehearsal with this board. A piece of cake.

The main problems obviously concern the by-pass switch and the memory protection or rather lack of it. The quality of the effects is good to average and certainly this group of effects provide the basis of 'the modern sound'.

The price, too, is acceptable. I would estimate to buy effects of the same quality individually you'd be talking in the £250 minimum bracket which leaves £170 for the programmability and neatness that this system offers.

ADM also have another ace up their sleeve with the MC1000 board. This has a choice of 14 modular effects, the board takes five at a time with 12 memories plus an external link which will allow other FX to be linked into the system. This won't be available for a while and the cost will obviously be higher, aimed towards the professional market.

However, this board reviewed here, despite its limitations, is a very powerful sound processor for any musician, I just can't wait to throw my old effects bag and leads away!

ADM EUROPA PROGRAMMABLE EFFECTS BOARD DP600C - RRP: £425