VALETON MES-4

it works ok and does what it's meant to do. just don't expect a miracle. the reverb is not bad but a little restricted due to a single adjustment of level. The real issue is that the knobs on the pedal are so tiny and so close to one another that they are almost impossible to adjust if the pedal is on the floor. Plus, the LEDs are so bright that you can'T read the knob labels while in use, they are blinding. The compressor is useless and the ratio is too high and it pumps. So really it's a DI with a tuner and semi usable reverb. I got it on sale for 111$ and even that is expensive for the quality of the effects.

Happy with my purchase in general. I wanted something that would work as a DI for my active acoustic pickups and a preamp for my passive more alternative acoustic instruments. I experiment with a lot of sounds and this works very well in a full band setting. The reverb, and tuner/mute functions are a huge bonus. Tips: Run it through an independent power supply or it will be very noisy. The tuner works fine, take some time to understand how it works.

Very impressed with the sonic quality of the unit. Very, very nice reverb. Even though you cannot change the type of the reverb they set this one just right. The single knob for the reverb changes wet/dry ratio, and it is very pleasant. Amp and Compressor are also fine. Highly recommended. A night and day compared to that Donner acoustic pedal, which I tried and promptly returned because it sounded awful.I will later try it on other guitars -- various electrics I have, and basses (acoustic and electric). I sense it may be very useful there, too. But the quality on the acoustic guitars make this well worth for me. Been hunting for years for a reasonably priced pedal, and seems like I found the one.

Bought this hoping for an economical way to travel light, and get a workable sound with my acoustic direct into the PA system without hauling all my gear around. On paper the Dapper has pretty much what I need for most acoustic work: preamp, compressor, and reverb. A chorus and delay would be nice, but not really essential for me. Took delivery yesterday and immediately plugged it in, set it up, and tried it out. Unboxing I was impressed with the build quality--although pretty tiny (ca. 2.5"W, 8" L, 2"H) it was surprisingly heavy, speaking to all metal construction. All knobs and jacks are solid, cables fit snugly, paint/labeling is precise, etc. Essentially the thing is built like a miniature tank, and I would expect it survive well with a regular playing schedule.But, how does it sound? Played my Ibanez acoustic (decent middle of the road--great to test things with) into the Dapper, then direct into Soundcraft mixer and out to JBL studio monitors (FRFR). EQ on guitar and mixer all at noon (flat). Here's my assessment:*****BYPASS: With everything disengaged the sound was identical to going straight into the board--what I would expect. I don't know if it has "true bypass" or not, but the pass-through sound was crystal clear.****PREAMP: with preamp engaged and all knobs at noon there is very little, if any, noticeable difference to the tone--again what I would expect. 3-band EQ allows to sculpt the tone pretty nicely, and the volume allows to either normalize levels when off/on, or to set for a boost or cut. The notch filter appears to work as expected, but somewhat difficult to test without being in an environment where it's needed (IE on stage, dealing with competing frequencies and/or feedback, etc.). Overall, the preamp is quite good--it's not on par with very high-end players, but extremely good considering the price.***REVERB: the reverb is simple (sounded like a medium to large hall), but sounds good. Tending towards great, actually. But reverb quality is highly subjective and taste-driven. I liked it. It was clean, had a nice sparkle on the upper end, at the control allowed me to dial it from very subtle to a rather cavernous ambient sound.*COMPRESSOR: unfortunately, this is where the Dapper falls apart. The compressor is pretty wonky sounding and doesn't add anything very useful to the sound. You can get a decent amount of sustain, or dial in a nice "poppy" attack, but all at the price of pretty significant tone coloration. I could see myself using occasionally--probably very occasionally, except...it's really, really noisy. If engaged while not playing, or when playing something soft, subtle, or thin in texture, it produces a glaringly apparent noisy hiss. If strumming hard, or if there's sufficient other sound (IE other instruments) then you don't notice it. But it's loud enough to render it useless for anything tending toward the quiet end of things. It's certainly would not work for recording. This noise surprised me, to be honest, because the preamp and the reverb are both dead silent. (I did not take the time to try a noise-gate to see if I could eliminate it, as this would kind of defeat my purpose. I suspect you might be able to tame it a bit this way, but really you shouldn't have to.)***TUNER: the tuner is a little wonky, but works--very typical of any "3-light" tuners I've used. Hard to be precise as the red (out of tune) lights just flicker when you get close to in tune, and there's no real sense of how far sharp or flat it is. I always fine tune by ear anyway, so this isn't a big deal to me--it's nice to have something to quickly get you in the ballpark and this does that. Pretty much what I would expect from an on-board tuner like this, especially at this price point.****PRO: separate levels for preamp, compressor, and reverb make it easy to get a well-tailored "mix" of the three.OVERALL: I have to give it 3 stars, and I'll probably be returning it and trying something else as the noisy compressor is kind of a deal-breaker for me. However, it's pretty low priced unit, and you do get a lot of bang for the buck on the preamp and reverb end, and if you only needed compressor (albeit a kind of weird sounding one) every now and then when playing loud stuff, then the Dapper would probably work great. And, it would likely last forever, judging on the apparent build quality.Wow...was gonna just make a quick comment on the noisy compressor and this turned into a book. Hopefully it's helpful... Best, -RH

Just used this for one gig, so I'll do another review if it gives me problems. For the price you can't beat it. I play a Brian Moore Electric Guitar, which has an acoustic pickup built into the bridge, Similar to a Godin, except it also does Guitar synthesizer. My acoustic sound has always been ok at best if eq'd really good. Used the Dapper acoustic Mini this past gig and my acoustic sound never was better. The lead singer in my band was blown away by it. Said it sounded like a real acoustic!! And he plays acoustics with expensive footpedals, and is a very good player/singer.. I'm a longtime club player with years of playing at least a 1,000 gigs. For the price you'd think this was meant for beginners in their basements, but to my surprise it sounded great at a local gig just recently.