BOSS GT-8 anyone?

[Syle]

Anyone here have some experience with this pedal? I am very interested in it.

 

Thanks for any help/direction.

[Strategery]

I've had the GT-6 and SOLD IT. :grin:

 

DOn't get me wrong...it sounded great and had a lot of bells and whistles, but to me...Boss has a funky way to program their units.

 

Plain and simple, unless you're one of those kind of guys that loves anything RACK to get your sound and loves programming more than you love playing...I would go another route.

 

But if you like MANY effects at one time and have a need for MANY patches to get through your set lists...it's just an overkill pedal.

 

It IS a quality unit though.

 

This of course, is just my opinion. :grin:

 

Randy

[Dr. Ellwood]

Yeah! they are a pain in the butt!! yes good quality but there is far too much going on, on stage to mess with them, stomps are the way to go, slam them into the front end of your amp and ROCK!!

[TieDyedDevil]

I'd recommend that you take your questions to

 

http://bossgtcentral.com/

 

and

 

http://thestompbox.net/

[Dr. Ellwood]

Yeah, your bound to get a pretty unbiased opinion on that first link!

[Guitarzan]

our other guitar player uses a GT6. he loves it and i have used it to track tones on my tunes on soundclick.

there is some deep editing stuff and with the knob layout you can access stuff easily if you want to.

i guess the gt8 goes even further, like dual amps and such.

are you looking to use it live or to get recording sounds?

 

[TieDyedDevil]

At the risk of contributing to a possibly dead thread...

 

I switched in January from a Vibro-King plus pedal board to a GT-8 plus full-range amp (either a mini-PA or a keyboard amp). Since my patches are set up for full-range amplification, I can plug the GT-8 into virtually any PA or keyboard amp and be ready to play. That's a big plus when the venue provides a PA (as most do around here) - I just bring my guitar, the GT-8 and a DI box.

 

FWIW, I haven't yet sold the Vibro-King. OTOH, I haven't felt any desire to pull the VK out of storage. If I'm still as happy with this digital rig in a few years as I am now, I won't hesitate to clear all my old gear out of the storage closet.

 

I spend most of my time playing. I hate programming as much as the next guy - that's my day job and I'm sure as heck not interested in bringing programming into the time I've set aside for musical enjoyment. It took me about eight hours over the span of two days to learn enough about the GT-8 to make it do everything I want. That time includes a cover-to-cover reading of the manual.

 

The GT-8 manual is not a tutorial - it's a complete reference for a fairly deep product. In other words, you're going to have to read the manual so that when you have a question about how to do something with the GT-8 you'll remember that you saw something in the manual that might be related. I know that seems like a PITA. A lot of folks don't like to read or don't have good reading comprehension. There are resources (forums and DVDs) that can help. I'd still recommend trying to slog your way through the manual, though.

 

Although the GT-8 is deep, it's also quite logical in that there are not a lot of exceptions to remember. The unit's design is well thought out.

 

I set up my GT-8 with one patch that I use 99% of the time. I also have a couple other experimental patches. My main patch sets up the board as-if it was a conventional pedalboard. I have two different amp models (switchable) plus a few favorite effects set up on individual switches.

 

Regarding ellwood's comment about bias on Boss GT Central: you may be surprised. Most of the folks there are modeling enthusiasts rather than GT-series cheerleaders. I've seen a lot of questions about the "best" modeler get answered with "it depends upon what you want to hear", followed by suggestions to try products from all the major vendors.

 

TheStompBox.net is a great place for multi-vendor coverage, although the traffic is lower than on Boss GT Central.

 

I hope this wasn't too late to help...