The Manson MA Evo With XY Pad | Is It Any Good? 

Glad I could help!

it's fantastic with muse‘s songs

If that's what you want then go for it! Live your best life

Thanks so much. I’m really glad you like the video!🤟🎸

Thank you so much 😁 I'm really glad you like this video! Your support is amazing

Thanks so much mate! 🤟🤟 super glad you liked the video For ages I kept mine at the height it was set as but did have some issues so I dropped the height a bit. Just a bit at a time but I have it how I like it now

Thank you so much! 😊🤟

Good question! That's a story for another day

Thank you so much 🤟

Thanks so much. If it were me I’d want to go the extra mile and get a proper Manson with fuzz factory built in. I’ve only very briefly played a meta series, it’s a good guitar but the components used for it aren’t as good as what’s in a proper Manson. But that’s just me. If you want to save a bit of money and still have a great guitar, go for the meta 🤟

Since making this video I did get myself a Meta series and made a full review of it on the channel which I hope you find useful

amazing!! love that guitar, the pickup arrangement is brilliant! I'm using the KP2

That’s pretty much true. It’s set up to control a kaoss pad and a whammy pedal. But there are tools out there that can take one midi signal and convert it into another signal so I’ve heard. I have no need to use it in such a way as I only use it for a kaoss pad, whammy or plug ins in my DAW. For the live situation you may need to look at how you can have it be so versatile for controlling your effects. There’s ways to do it, but you’d need to do your own research I guess

Thanks for liking the video! that part of the video is demonstrating the midi capability of the guitar. for that particular section, the guitar is connected to a korg kaoss pad and controlling presets. as I say in the video, on its own the XY pad doesn't make a sound on its own the sounds are from the synth series of presents from the kaoss pad

No plans on it right now but that is a great idea so I can for sure put a video together for it

Ermm that is an odd question. What you do with the strings doesn’t affect the midi values from the xy pad. In guessing what you might mean, could you have installs the xy pad upside down?

@@harrychrisrobin forgive me for wording my question poorly. I'll use an example: let's say you're controlling a Whammy in octave up mode, and you wanted to raise the pitch of the note (same as toe-down position on the pedal). Do you slide your finger on the pad from the top to the bottom (going towards your feet), or the opposite way? Anyway, congratulations on the quality of contents on your channel! Muse have been a huge influence for me back in the days, and I wouldn't be playing guitar if it wasn't for their music. We're blessed to have such great instruments available nowadays

@@quiteabsolutely5027 yeah that’s how I’ve used the pad for controlling the whammy. So if yours does that then it’s normal. Thank you for your support 🤟🤟

you can connected it to a whammy pedal as well. if it programmed to send the correct type of midi signal to control a kaoss pad and a whammy pedal. you will need to calibrate the kaoss pad to receive the right midi signal, you will need to get hold of the manual for the kaoss pad to know how to set that up

@@harrychrisrobin ok thank you! In the end it may control any pedal with a midi input or am I wrong?

i connect my pad usually through a boss line selector pedal. it helps me be able to have it in or out of my effects chain. To put it through a pedalboard you'll need to use phono to jack cables (i don't like using the mic and headphone jacks on the pad). You could just put it as part of your pedalboard chain if you want to. I hope that helps! I'm glad the video communicates well to you. Love the french!! 🇫🇷

@@harrychrisrobin thank you! Yeah , i tried to use the mic and headphone jacks but it don't sound good.. Thank u for your answer :)

@@harrychrisrobin so i have to use the phono jack at the back of the kaoss pad ? If you have the time Can you send a link for a phono to jack cable, because i'm not sure of what i find on the web... Thank you for your Time mate :)

@@revoltz3382 just look for a jack to phono cable. They will come up. Or go into your local guitar store. They will know what you’re looking for

Great question. It's really up to you. I have two Mansons, my first one doesn't have an XY pad or fuzz factory built in, I'm more than happy to have my fuzz factory just as a normal pedal on my board. I can't really see an instance where I'd need both the sustainer and fuzz factory on at the same time. combining the sustainer through an effect i can control with midi via the xy pad is much more versatile. Obviously, if you're going to get one with an XY pad make sure you have something to control. the pad on its own doesn't make a sound.

@@harrychrisrobin thanks, well I only have a whammy so i'm quite happy using the pedal itself. I ordered a manson ma evo limited w sustainiac on tuesday, think i got the last one. gota get used to the missing inlays now lol. i guess its good practise

@@Snoopdave2000 i don't use the XY pad to control my whammy, thats much better using the pedal itself. well to be honest i use an expression pedal to control the whammy but still. don't worry about the inlays thing, i don't think they're useful on the fretboard for the player, you still have the dots running up the neck which are much more useful for playing

Oh man thats rough. could you not contact them and look into sending your guitar to them to install one?

@@harrychrisrobin I did a couple times, and living in the US, customs is gonna be difficult enough as it is. But they never got back to me on any questions I had for the installation

@@cosmiclovers oh dear that sucks for sure 🙁🙁

I can’t really say as neither of my Mansons have a fuzz factory built in but the sustainer does stop working when I the the fuzz factory on my board. There are a few ways to stop that from happening. The one I found was to use a boss line selector pedal between the guitar and the fuzz. If you want to know for sure your best bet would be to contact the Manson guitar works team directly who can give you a solid answer

Really depends what the budget is. If you want cheap you won’t get a Manson The meta series is ok. But that’s not the only brand out there. I bought the TE-20 HH from Harley Benton and it’s really good for the price. It was £85 and it’s brilliant. The intonation is spot on. I had to replace the tuning machines because the ones it came with were crap but other than that I’ve done nothing to it. You should do some research, see what’s out there

@@harrychrisrobin thanks man

Nice one! Yeah, just connected it to the whammy. Manson set them up to send the right CC messages by default. As long as the jack is connected to the guitar the XY pad will send data out

@@harrychrisrobin thanks! I tried but no response at all. It works with the Kaoss pad and helix, but nothing with the whammy. Thanks.

@@erwinblondeau that’s weird. I don’t know what to suggest beyond that. It works for mine. Have you tried toggling the hold button? You might want to check what midi messages are being sent out of the xy pad

@@harrychrisrobin The toggle knob works. It's just the pad that doesn't do anything with the whammy, and I've tried 2 whammy's. I don't know anything about midi but this should be easy right?

@@erwinblondeau I don’t know what to suggest. If you have a way of seeing the midi messages being outputted by the xy pad that would be helpful. Or you can contact Manson guitar works for some advice since they built the guitar

Hi Zac, obviously the body is different and the control layout is different. Also, the pickups are different. It's an MBK-2 in the bridge and a single coil sustainiac in the neck. They will make different sounds. Maybe there's some differences in the components used, like capacitors and so on but they're both high end guitars. They're both great guitars I'd say and much superior to the Cort Manson guitars for sure.

@@harrychrisrobin For sure Harry. My Mb-1s was a custom and to save money, I asked manson to re paint a drone guitar black aswell as put upgraded hardware and a kaoss pad (other option was to paint the red alert but would cost more)

thats just the volume control. im using it along with the sustainer to swell in the notes to create a more "synth" like sound than a normal guitar sound. you don't really need the sustainer for that. if you have a delay pedal in your rig you should give it a go if you can. loads of fun possibilities with it

Thanks so much. I recorded the audio for the guitar with Logic Pro

@@harrychrisrobin cheers! It sounds awesome. I saw Muse last Monday in Hammersmith and I believe Matt didn’t have a mic on his Marshall amp. I would be interested to know if you know the answer to a couple of questions: Do you know if he is just using the amp head and taking the direct output signal? Do you know if he still uses the Kemper at all? Thank you in advance, it amazes me how great his guitar tone is

@@beasis nice one! I hope you enjoyed the gig. the amps you see on stage don't contribute to the sound you hear live, its more or less a prop mostly. He might use it to get feedback. It's been this way since pretty much the Origin of Symmetry Tour. From what i've been able to research his tones come from a number of Kemper amps and cabinet simulators which is fed directly into the mixing desk. I hope that helps.

@@harrychrisrobin Hi Harry, thanks a lot for the detailed reply. My final question is, do you know is there is an actual analog pedal for fuzz/distortion somewhere on the rig, or is it just purely computer generated such as your case with logic pro? (I guess with the exception of Plug in Baby or other songs where the guitar built-in fuzz factory is used)

@@beasis he does use analog fuzz pedals still. There’s a fuzz factory and a Ray Gun fuzz pedal in his pedal trays. There might be more but I’ve not seen anything solid on that. He does use pedals in his rig, it’s not completely made up of digital effects

That’s Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz

Manson guitar works

you probably already know, but it's Animals

if you're playing it you don't need the inlays on the fretboard, the neck still has the dots up the side of the neck

Yeah I did. Those videos are way out of date

@@harrychrisrobin Ok

Completely untrue

do it i say!

It's Burning Bridges by Status Quo

If you don’t think it is worth it, THEN DONT RUIN IT FOR OTHERS

@Trootsbloxplayzthemetalfan It's only my Experience with this Guitar.

@@lohsemichael6398 did I ask?