Yamaha Magicstomp

The Yamaha Magicstomp
is simply one of the best sounding guitar processors ever.
It has a cult following of enthusiastic users who love it because it sounds so good, and Alan Holdsworth, the guitar virtuoso uses 5 or 6 simultaneously. (Live, Allan Holdsworth uses 5 or 6 Yamaha Magicstomps, 1 clean, 1 clean chorus/delay, one for distortion and the others for effects such as pitch shifting. )
The Magicstomp came in guitar, bass, and AG (acoustic guitar) configurations. Patches are editable and downloadable from a PC with 99 firmware patches and 99 user patches being available on each unit.
Dedicated (and superb!) Shadows echo patches are available from http://www.echotapper.nl/stomp_jpatch/index.html
The Acoustic version has an Automatic Feedback Reduction system that really works, and works very well and is a blessing for amplified acoustic guitar players.
With available firmware upgrades, the Magicstomps can become the other configurations. eg a Bass stomp can be converted to an AG, with user patches from the guitar stomp included in the user patches.
These weren't cheap to begin with, but are now more than affordable on eBay.
There are a couple of vibrant and very active dedicated Yahoo groups that provide help from other users, firmware upgrade files,manuals, patches, etc.
These groups are still gaining new members and have frequent postings.
magicstomp_ub99 is a general group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/magicstomp_ub99/?yguid=311128721 whilst John Dale started a complementary group magicstomppro http://groups.yahoo.com/group/magicstomppro/?yguid=311128721 which is more patch oriented, but also has a range of useful files. It makes sense to belong to both groups.
I own two, with one having AG firmware and the guitar patchset in the user patches. The other has Bass firmware with the Shadows patchset in the user slots.
The Shadows patches are fun to scroll through and strum, with each putting me in the mode to play a particular Shadows song.
I've snuck in the "Cause we've ended as lovers" (Jeff Beck) patch onto both machines because it is such a beautiful sound.