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Boss GT-1B ... Arrogant? Stupid? Definitely unusable live.

#161
The Deep End said:
Pre-ordered this pedal from Sweetwater, and waited impatiently for delivery. In a nutshell, love the delivered sounds and potential for creating new ones, but am shocked at how unusable it is in a live setting. As far as I can tell, you have to scroll thru 100-200 patches one-at-a-time via dial or up/down pedals. Even worse, there is no stomp button for using / bypassing the pedal. You must ALWAYS have a patch selected. This wreaks of arrogance and/or stupidity on Boss's part. It's going back to Sweetwater.

It seems to me that guitar/bass pedal technology is 10 years behind that for keyboards. Using any modern DAW (I use Logic / MainStage), a keyboardist can queue up presets for 100's of instrument/effect settings and switch from one patch to the next via touch pad, foot pedal, etc. Why do guitarists/bassists have to perform a combination Riverdance-juggling routine to make the same thing happen?

Whoever comes up with a midi-controlled standard that controls our dozens of effects and amp settings will be in for a huge pay day. Is it already out there and I've just missed it?
Click to expand...

Um.... are you serious???

For TWO HUNDRED BUCKS you want EVERYTHING????

You can certainly get EVERYTHING you described. You can assign different buttons to different sounds. You can not only bypass, but have a volume pedal. You can control with midi. You can stack sounds. There are literally THOUSANDS of things you can do.

Guess what. It'll cost you about sixteen hunnerd bucks.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Helix--line-6-helix-guitar-multi-effects-floor-processor

What you seem to want is filet mignon on a ground round budget.
 
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#164
Just picked one up before the store closed for lockdown. Now got plenty of

Impressions so far:

  • Real solid build. What one expects from Boss. Like a tank.
  • Simple enough to navigate and edit/rearrange patches, even for a technological dumb-dumb like me, but if you want to get into detailed editing the option is there too.
  • Sounds pretty good, will post a video. Effects are very good quality - maybe not world-beating, studio-rack gear level, but pretty good, and for 190 quid can you really expect that? C'mon. Is the selection of onboard compressors as good as my Darkglass HyperLuminal? No, but they're pretty good. Is the selection of onboard distortions as good as my EBS Billy Sheehan? No, but they're pretty good. Is the onboard synth as good as my Boss SYB-5? No, but still good. You get the picture. Also, I play metal, so people are very unlikely to care about just how great any effect I use at any one time is - the people who do are the same people who will carefully watch you the whole show and keep a running tally of how many mistakes/missed notes you make, and those people are generally best avoided and/or ridiculed.
  • Functional enough - you can set a patch, then you can assign the extra footswitch a function (what I do is I have my clean comp, no preamp or other fx, as my main sound, and then have the extra switch assigned to engage drive - you can add an extra footswitch to engage other fx too if needed)
  • Tuner could be better. Not terrible and definitely usable, I just expected more considering the name but not a deal-breaker.
  • I haven't had a chance to test this out live, um, due to circumstances y'all might be aware of, but I can't see any major issues with using it live. Unless you're one of those people who have 5000 different presets you need to switch, it should be fine. If worst comes to worst, you can edit each patch for each song, then move them into the order of your setlist. Song finishes, just skip to the next preset. Simple.
Seriously, and I cannot stress this enough, I am useless with technology in general. I am the most technologically inept millennial I know, but within a couple of hours I still managed to get this thing more or less working and making the sounds I want it to. I do like my peadlboards with individual effects, but the whole "15 individual points of failure" thing along with the unavoidable bulkiness does get old eventually. This thing fits into my gigbag pocket with ease.

In short, I can recommend it.
 
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#165
I have this free graphical software editor, you might find it easier to use than the Boss Tone Studio one.
download here:
Fx FloorBoard - Browse /GT-1BFxFloorBoard at SourceForge.net

It will help you navigate the GT-1B settings and view the whole thing like a series of effect stompboxes.

1.png
 
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#170
gumtown said:
The GT-1BFxFloorBoard editor software has now been updated to a newer version 2020928 (28 Sept 2020)
free download from
Fx FloorBoard - Browse /GT-1BFxFloorBoard at SourceForge.net
Click to expand...

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I just plugged in and used my GT-1B for the first time today, and I'm really impressed by the possibilities! I'm not stressing over the patch order, because I know I can change that around with a little effort.

Also, kudos for mentioning FloorBoard, @gumtown! That's what I was looking for!
 
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