Hello there, I have signed on behalf of my daughter she has had a bass guitar for about a year and heavily influenced by Flea of the RHCP has begged us successfully for a distortion machine which we got her for christmas. I am totally non musical and my husband is slightly better than I am - she is getting frustrated and my husband getting upset about the amount of money spent on the machine. Seems very temporamental and you have to follow a switching off order and turning the volume down before switching off otherwise it malfunctions and will not work the next time you switch it on. I wondered if any of you guys out there would know this machine or be familiar with it, my husband managed to restore it to factory settings, there is a manual but it is not that clear... Please help if you can and let us know a fool proof way of using this machine at the moment our daughter age 15 is getting scared to use it - probably because of my husbands reaction. Yours Hopefully ..... Fat CAT

holy overkill. don't take this the wrong way but this is like hunting mosquitos with a shotgun.

i've been playing for over 10 years now and i've NEVER needed that much technology (and i was a HUGE red hot chili peppers fan). but i also remember what it was like to be starting out and wanting all the same gear my heroes used.

in all honesty i'd recommend returning that unit, it's WAY more than just a distortion effect, and just get a few stompboxes instead. for the amount of money one of those big units sells for you could get a simple distortion pedal, a flanger, a wah, a bag of short lead cords, a bunch of rechargeable 9 volt batteries and some earplugs for yourself and your husband. and the stompboxes are fool proof, they have a few knobs and a big on/off button that's it, no special tricks, no picky powerup/down sequence, no digital settings to get overwritten.

if you want to stick with BOSS gear their best distortion pedal is probably the 'metal zone' http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/MT-2/specs.html
don't let the name fool you though, you can totally dial in any type of distortion you desire. it's at the pricey end of distortion pedals at about $80 but my roommate has one and it's fantastic.

What panbient said. I would also recommend that you take your daughter with you to the music store and then ask someone who works in the store to help you. Let your daughter tell them exactly what she wants to achieve in terms of sound and they will be ablo to give you some advice on what to buy. Just don't seem to ignorant, or you might get fooled by some greedy idiot who works there.

Usually people who works in these kinds of stores will know exactly what the customer needs.
Good luck!

I think panbient and mjw have given you some decent advice. I can say that when I first started playing I thought that I needed to get all of the boxes and effects and everything to improve my playing but what I really needed to do was just play more. Much of a player's sound is in the strength of their hands...the way their picking/plucking hand grabs or hits a string...and in their fretting hand with the vibrato that they produce and the coordination between two hands.
If at all posible convince your daughter to return the unit and either put the money away for when she wants to upgrade to a nicer instrument or amp OR what panbient said exchange it for a few boxes and whatnot.
If you can't convince her that the return is the way to go...call the store where the unit was purchased and ask them if they have someone who could offer a demo/tutorial on the unit for your daughter because it is either not meeting her needs, not functioning properly or both.