SONICAKE Pocket Master-Portable Multi Effects Pedal, 100+ Built-in Guitar/Bass/Acoustic Effects, Amp Modeling, IR Cabinets Simulation, Stereo OTG USB Audio Interface, Rechargeable (Transparent Black)

Excellent bang for your buck, here. Toms of effects and amps, plus the ability load your own NAM and IRs. Sturdy and well built, even though it's plastic. It comes with a clip and is small enough, I often hang it on my strap. No buzz or interference, whether plugged in or running of battery, which lasts forever. Might be the best 65 bucks you can spend on a multi effect unit. Especially considering the amp modeling. You can also pair an M-Vave chocolate plus midi controller for programmable external foot switches. The presets were good enough, but there are also 50 slots for user load outs as well. Honestly, probably worth it as a standalone distortion, reverb, delay, or OD pedal alone. And the fact that is has bass effects, amps, and cabs is icing on the cake. Super versatile, super cheap, super good.

Amp modelers are getting better and cheaper all the time. The SoniCake Pocket Master is the latest proof of that. This unit is truly the latest marvel in that it gives pretty good, believable tones, has a looper (albeit 10 sec.), full multi effects like bigger units and is about the size of an average cell phone. Why would you want this? Well... It will allow you to practice anywhere you can take your guitar - even acoustic or bass. It sounds great and you throw it in your guitar case and go. All of this and the rechargeability makes this whole package a player's dream. The SoniCake represents the fact that an amp modeler no longer has the be big and expensive to sound and feel good. To make it even better, there is a phone app that lets you dive deep into the settings to customize the presets. I've been practicing on this every day and highly recommend it for its sound and quality for what it's made for.

I needed something small for an out of town gig, and this thing delivered big. The amp modeling effects sound excellent, and with so many amps and cabinet options, you can dial in just about any sound. I found a base amp/cab setup I liked, and then added a noise gate and set EQ. I programmed a chorus effect, distortion, delay, and a boost to be turned on and off with an M-VAVE Chocolate Plus. The result was thousands of dollars in gear and a hundred pounds of weight compacted down to about a pound of gear and less than $100. I felt like I could have played any genre needed. Connectivity to your phone is easy, and the interface from the phone is way easier to use than on the actual pedal itself. Connectivity to the Chocolate Plus was also easy, and there are a ton of YouTube videos that can help with this. It took me maybe 30-40 minutes of watching videos and messing with the pedal before I had the basic setup down, and from there it was just tweaking my sound to what I wanted. I directly connected the Chocolate Plus with a usb-c, but it can be done through Bluetooth as well. I left my stuff plugged in for power, but with no power supply I found that it lasts ~3-4 hours with continuous use. Overall, I think this thing is great. I wish this technology existed when I was struggling to afford gear back in 2003.

First of all, let's make sure we set our perception straight. I am not comparing this against the $1000 pedals, effects racks or anything "pro" level. This is exactly great for what I want to use it for. A portable rig that I can throw in my guitar or bass bag/case and practice, create, jam while hooked to either headphones or a speaker. First, let's address the noise issue. Yes, there is a bit of a noise floor on this effects pedal. It has a built in noise gate that takes care of most of it. But its not so annoying that it drones constantly. The gate can take care of it. You're not going to use this as a primary rig to record or play live though. Maybe if you're first starting out, its a great cheap way to get into it, but it passes for a decent rig. Only taking off 1/2 star for the noise. Second, lets address the effects. Are there a bunch? Yes! Are there some good ones? Yes! Are there some bad ones? Yes! Can you get a usable tone out of this? ABSOLUTELY! Will you be able to get an SLO-100 or a Big Muff, or an Ampeg SVT sound? Absolutely not. Can you get in the ballpark? Maybe. Realize that at this price point, you're not going to get the same as something that's 10X the price. You can load NAM profiles with the new firmware. Can it get you closer? A little. 1/2 star reduction for the effects. Passable, some are good, nothing spectacular, but really good for the price point. Next, lets address the best part and the real reason to find value, is the connectivity and portability! As a practice rig, I can play songs through it via bluetooth. I can clip it onto my guitar or bass strap and plug in my headphones and wander around the house without disturbing anyone. As a creativity rig, whenever it strikes, I can connect it to my PC & DAW via USB or to my phone via USB and record. It's got a rechargeable LiON battery so I don't have to keep switching rechargeable AA's or 9V's. Bottom line, its a surprisingly great value to practice, learn a setlist, test out a few ideas, record stuff on the go and whatever else you want to do with a small portable rig.

I've played through a bunch of tube amps. I still own a small one, but now I think that modelling is the way to go. I bought this to use as a walk-around headphone amp, and that didn't work out (see below), but I still like it a lot. I don't play metal, so I can't rate those amp models, but the amp models and effects that I've tried sound good. I haven't tried NAM models. You can play through it while it's charging. The reasons that I don't walk around with it are two-fold. The belt clip bends instead of flexing. It doesn't grip a guitar strap, and if you put it over your belt or the waistband of your jeans it bends, again without gripping securely. The second problem is that when it's on your guitar strap or at your waist, you can't see the controls or display. So if you want to change amps or adjust an effect, you either have to use your cellphone or you have to take it off the strap/belt, make your changes, then put it back on. You can't play your instrument while holding a cellphone, so you have to either set it down or stick it in a pocket. It's about as awkward as just setting the Pocket Master down. So I removed the belt clip and I set it on a flat surface while using it. I have a bluetooth speaker which has a 1/8" input. I often plug the Pocket Master into it through an adapter. This works well for guitars, and provides a (admittedly low power) setup which can be carried in a gig bag and which runs on internal batteries. Since it doesn't need power, you can play anywhere. I've tried the Pocket Master with my bass, using the Fender Bassman amp sim, but the little bluetooth speaker can't reproduce the sound well. When playing bass, I plug the PocketMaster into an inexpensive bass amplifier (with a larger speaker). One adjusted, that sounds pretty good, but you wonder how much of the sound is from the Pocket Master and how much from the amplifier it's plugged into. And of course, the setup doesn't fit in a gig bag, and it needs power. All in all, despite my criticisms of the belt clip, I like the Pocket Master a lot. When you go somewhere to play that has a PA system, you can put this and a charger in your gig bag, and leave your amp at home. I wish that I had a small padded bag for it. I may have to make one.

Let me preface this by saying I own Fractal, Headrush, Nano Cortex and have had many modelers over the years. This does not replace any of those, but this thing holds it own, never mind the dirt cheap price tag. I have less than an hour of play time with it and immediately uploaded my favorite IR’s before even starting. I also uploaded several NAS clones, but have found the preloaded amp are top notch. Since my go to ‘real amps’ are Engl and 5150 variants, this covers them perfectly. This thing is so feature packed I honestly can’t believe I paid what I paid. This has everything the Nano Cortex should have, but doesn’t. The parameters are minimal, but adequate to shape tone. The EQ options get me where I need to be. Again, upload some good IR’s, that will make or break modeled tone. The app is pleasantly great. Makes dialing in so easy and the app looks and performs wonderfully. Way better than the Nano Cortex UI. Zero complaints with the app. Bad? Not really. I’d say it’s not exactly a foot pedal as it is a desktop device. I can’t see the switches being very user friendly if controlled with your feet. Some say it would work live. Maybe. You can get some great usable tone, just not something I’d replace a device I’ve spent literal hours shaping tone on. I personally got it for the portability so I can disappear into my bedroom for a jam session and maybe track some scratch tracks with it, or travel with. I can’t speak on durability just yet, I was just so blown away right off the bat I felt it deserved and early impressions review. It feels like a solid built device. Doesn’t feel cheap. For the price it 100% cannot be beat. I dare say would’ve spent double on it and been equally impressed. This is the right direction into the future. You spend $70 on crap junk food all week long, splurge a little and get this thing. Nothing to loose.

Pitch detection is sharp by about 5-10 cents on my unit. Any octave FX and the tuner are rendered useless due to this. Distortion is fizzy and sounds very similar across all the different models. Pushing the compressor past 25% adds fizz that's quite annoying as well. Cleans sound pretty good, especially without or with very light use of the compressor, there's a bit of high end that gets lost in the pedal but it's not super noticeable. Reverbs are not very natural sounding imo. Other FX are useable but really nothing special. If you lean into the fizziness of the distortions you can create some usable crunch sounds, and it's not as noticeable with higher gain stuff. Still a great value and a great practice tool. Very easy to use with or without the external control programs. Loading NAM and IR files was a snap and they sound good.

The SONICAKE Pocket Master has great tones on tap and outshines many of its competitors at this price point. I am seriously impressed with this little powerhouse. I have tried units that cost hundreds more, and I honestly prefer the tones that this little unit offers. Since receiving the Pocket Master, I have contemplated buying some other units, but I like this thing so much that I have no real reason to do so. It's great for practicing at home or on the go, plus it sounds great when I use it to record into my DAW. Although the effects offered may seem limited when compared to other units, the sound quality it provides makes up for it. If you are looking for good tones on a budget, this little guy delivers!

This is a fabulous multi-effect unit for the price. Fitting in your hand it is the perfect tool for practicing. The range of presets is ample and nearly all of them are very useful . A wide variety of genres is catered for and a few of them are better than the presets on other, far more expensive, multi-effects pedals I own. You can also edit the presets and save your edits. Or make your own from scratch by adjusting a clean tone to your taste. It also has facilities that I am told are the latest in amp simulations. But that's beyond me as I am in the "Old Dog vs New Tricks" era of my life 😁 The only thing missing, for me, is an AUX input that would have allowed me to feed my backing tracks directly into the device without needing a PC. But if you connect it to a computer you can use that as your AUX input. That's what I do when I improvise to backing tracks on YouTube.

Wrong version sent. Ordered the transparent white, received the purple one. As it's for a special occasion, I don't have time to return it. Good product it seems, but I can only hope my kid won't be disappointed.

Love this wee device, sound is really good, with firmware update it does midi via the usb, battery life is great, small sound is good , NAM support and works with the free NAMs, presets are really good, and they are easily modified, works will with headphones too, so you could basically have this mounted on your belt with belt clip, a wee short cable to the guitar, and a pair of headphones. Does not come with a usb c cable, don't know why, but you need one for power or charging, or using as an audio interface. Can connect via Bluetooth to your phone, phone app is good, and you will need to use Bluetooth if wou want to use the full set of drums rather than just the metronomes. Also allows you to play along with music from phone and properly mixes it. The website has all the firmware updates, software, and drivers for Mac and windows, and the unit also can be used for recording to the pc in DAW or whatever you want. Not really played with the looper that much, but it works, it's only 10 seconds but it you can overdub and pause and restart easily enough. Phone app makes life so much easier when using this. Hold all three buttons to put into firmware update mode of for copying NAM files, can hold 5 NAMs at a time. Loads of good videos on YouTube for demos, and reviews, the best 40 quid I've spent on my guitar for a while, might buy some more for gifts for other people. Buttons are nice and solid so you could use your feet, and belt clip is detachable so you don't scratch wooden flooring. Strong, well made, long battery life, great device.

I don't write a lot of reviews but this unit is a fantastic deal. The quality of the available sounds are unbelievable, at this price point. It's a very compact unit that I highly recommend. It sounds great, it's inexpensive and it runs off a built-in battery! I bought it for travel but I'm actually going to be using it at home a lot and it might end up replacing another unit I have, entirely. The ability to load NAM profiles, at this price point, is a welcome surprise. My main interest with this unit was the ability to load NAM profiles. If that is your main interest, here are the steps I took, with my Apple devices. While these are the steps I took, I still recommend reading the manual, first. These steps should be similar for Windows and Android but your mileage may vary. 1. went to Sonicakes' website and downloaded and installed the pocketMaster software on my Mac computer (NAM profiles were added in a firmware update). I also download the firmware update and the manual. 2. powered up the PocketMaster and hooked it up, by USB, to my Mac. 3. used the software to update the firmware. 4. downloaded the Soniclink app on my iPhone. 5. enabled bluetooth on the PocketMaster and launched the App, pairing my iPhone with the unit. 6. went to the Tone Hunt website and looked for NAM profiles to download to my phone. 7. went to the amp button, in the app. 8. under mode, I clicked on the Clone tab. 9. selected "import clone" and navigated to the unzipped folder and choose the NAM profile to import. 10. selected one of the 5 available slots that said 'empty,' in the app, and pressed "import." 11. tried several NAM profiles in the patch patch I was in to see how they sounded. Final thoughts: I'm blown away by the ease of use, functionality and tones, at this price point. I wasn't keen on some of the presets but every unit I've ever tried was like that. It's a a simple thing to tweak, until they sound good. Frankly, my main purpose was to use NAM profiles with effects and I'm very pleased with how that sounds. The effects are excellent. I wish looper was longer than 10 seconds but the drum patterns and ability to jam along to Youtube Videos on my phone, is all I needed. The PocketMaster is selling out for reason.

We truly are lucky to live in these times where gear this cheap can sound so massive. I bought it as I have come to admit that I have an unhealthy obsession with miniature music gear (tiny synths, guitar pedals, etc) that does big things and this did not disappoint! Very nicely built too (it's plastic and isn't a pedal so be careful), and the smaller NN version of the NAM profiles it can load still sound great! Is it going to replace my Tonex pedal or my EVH amp? Unlikely for serious gig or recording, but I would absolutely rock it for a rehearsal that doesn't require me stomping on it.