fleeting impressions of the Boss GS-10

[jas]

Well, those of you who were on the edge of your seat in the GT-6 vs. GS-10 thread (all one of you)...

I returned the GT-6 unopened and received the BOSS GS-10 two days ago.

It took me FOR-F'ING-EVER to get the software working. The USB driver worked fine but the GS-10 Editor which, to me, is the key to the whole deal, would load two copies of itself and then die no matter how many times I uninstalled and reinstalled and rebooted. The BOSS website was silent on the matter.

Finally, the God of Such Things whispered in my ear and I got the brilliant idea to turn off my firewire sound card (MOTU 828 MKII). That did it! Once I got the GS-10 Editor loaded properly and configured, I was able to run it with the firewire card on. Just had to have it off that one time. Logical?

Anyway, I had a friend over last night for some mellow electric (I'm not mellow but he is ;)), and was able to play around on the GS-10.

Firstly, the interface (GS-10) Editor is beautiful and wholly intuitive. If you've ever used a mouse, you can work it completely. There on the screen, you choose your amp sim, turn on and off all sorts of simulated BOSS pedals and easily tweak every parameter you could think of and then some.

In fact, I haven't touched the actual GS-10 unit other than to turn it off and on. I do everything on the screen. Naturally, you can save anything to the unit for those dicey situations when you don't have a PC handy :D.

As was pointed out with the GT-6, the native patches aren't the greatest but with a little twiddling and twirling, you'll find what you're looking for. I've already found some credible crunch sounds, a cool univibe and some other pleasantly complex stuff. That's with mere minutes of experimenting time.

I've already found distorto sounds that I like better than anything I was ever able to conjure up on the POD and POD XT.

One cool thing is the on-screen tuner. Another is that the GS-10 has built-in speakers for those pesky low-volume situations. It only has one phono plug-type output (you send it to your amp). That took me aback since the POD's have two - one for your amp and one that I always used to send to my multi-input soundcard. But you can send an output directly to your computer through the GS-10's USB and a quick experiment showed the sound to be AOK that way. There's also a digital output which I'm sure could be sent to my soundcard if need be.

Another great feature is the ability to easily rearrange the effects chain on the screen. What a difference to move the compression in front of, then behind the distortion.

Overall, I'm real pleased with my purchase. It seems to be a superset of the GT-6 except without floor pedals but it's also a physically smaller unit. I look forward to bonding with it until the next greatest thing comes out.

-John

[Dan Desy]

Cool beans!

However, the GP article was saying how every function was available on the front panel. So as cool and nice the software is, it it really the key to the whole deal? Or is it just an alternative tweaking interface? Not that there's anything wrong with that...

[jas]

It's true, Dan...every function is available right there on the unit.

But especially until I get a longer USB cable :o, it's much more convenient to do the changes on the screen and zap 'em into the GS-10.

But it definitely can be operated stand-alone with no problems.

-John

[Jo]

Interesting... I was wondering how the GS-10 was going to be.

I like the ability to do everything on the screen. I can't stand having to fiddling around menus/sub-menus on the GS-6.


Is there any way to change patches if it doesn't have any footpedals? Midi controller or any midi in/out at all?

Is it only for PC recording or can you just output it to a couple of powered monitors?

[jas]

Yes, Jo, there are several ways to change patches on the unit itself. You can either spin the big wheel whilst in patch-changing mode (which seems to be the default) or you can press one of four buttons that hold your 4 most used patches.

There's also something called "quick fx" but I haven't figured that one out yet.

Naturally, all this can be done on screen too and, in my opinion, it's slightly easier that way. The GS-10 editor also has pull-down menus of 64 patches plus you can click on little arrows to simply increment/decrement the patch number. The pull-down menus are slightly annoying if you have a pick in your mousing hand as you might if you are playing and mousing at the same time. In fact, you shouldn't play and mouse at the same time - it's probably dangerous and illegal :D.

Most definitely you can output to other than the computer. It's made to send the stuff to your amp, I think, with the computer aspects being for secondary geeks like yours truly. For sending to your PA, it's got a regular phono out and also (my mind is blank) the red and white output thingies that you normally plug into the back of your stereo...RCA plugs?

I think it's kind of weird that it's a stereo effects unit, yet it's only got one phono output but no big deal.

It does have both MIDI in and MIDI out.

I've gotten to play with it quite a bit more since my original post and I haven't found anything that I don't really like about it. To put it in positive terms, I like it a lot!

-John

[Jo]

I think it's kind of weird that it's a stereo effects unit, yet it's only got one phono output but no big deal.
Is it a stereo phono output, so you could use a stereo to a 1/8" jack for input to your soundcard and still get stereo sounds?

[jas]

For you, Jo, in anticipation of the big hug and kiss the first time we meet, I just...are you sitting down?...OPENED THE MANUAL! I normally wouldn't even do that for myself.

The manual was vetted, evidently, by the Department of Homeland Security because the specs are very thin.

It didn't say whether the guitar output (to the amp) was stereo so I'm guessing it's not.

It did identify the pair of outputs that you're to send to the PA as "L/R RCA Phono" so they're obviously stereo. In the schematic, they pictured those wires with adapters on them before heading into the PA. BOSS must have a deal with Radio Shack. (My PA has RCA phono inputs...does yours?).

Don't forget, you can record into your computer directly via the USB. You do not need a soundcard. If you have a soundcard, you can ignore it. The USB input to the computer is stereo and the driver allows you to send LEFT to one track and RIGHT to another. It's also a hot input - I get a much stronger signal than through my soundcard - no problem, but I'll have to look into it.

-John

[aleclee]

My PA has RCA phono inputs...does yours?Actually, yes. :) It's a Behinger powered mixer.

[Jo]

Congrats on opening the manual Jas, I know how Kaka handed you are at technical stuff like that ;) ..... I'm beginning to feel the GAS start to rise. I've been looking for a way for doing some PC recording (as I can't figure out my darn Tascam 788 and it's now just a glorified hard drive for playing back the drum tracks).

USB, and no soundcard required eh? I must go back and read the GP review of it.

Is there anyway you can change patches while you're playing with a external midi controller pedal or something?

Actually, yes. :) It's a Behinger powered mixer.Alex, if I remember rightly, didn't you get the Behringer PMX Europower 2000 (something or the other like that) powered mixer with the Yamaha 12" monitors? How has it been working out for you. I've been thinking of getting the same setup (except maybe the 15" monitors), but I heard that a lot of these mixers had been returned because of problems. You've had it for a while now and I've been meaning to ask you about it, any problems so far?

[jas]

Yep, with the MIDI in and MIDI out on the GS-10 you could definitely control it through a MIDI pedal or the like.

If you're looking to use the GS-10 as your recording interface, you will be happy to know that it's got an XLR input and a phono input for microphones. Also, it's got many bass effects and the main input is labelled "guitar/bass".

It works perfectly well as a computer recording device.

But, let me climb back up here on the soapbox for a second. I've been doing "computer recording" since the Apple II days and I have reached nirvana with the firewire MOTU 828 mkii. I also liked the Echo Layla a whole lot but nothing matches the software/hardware ease of the MOTU, in my experience.

Happily, Sonar, my recording software, will allow me to send my guitar in through the GS-10 while the bass, drums, keyboards and vocals all go in through the MOTU. How cool is that!?!

Alec, my cheapo Peavy powered PA has RCA phono in and out. Unfortunately, it's not a stereo PA so it's not a viable way to process a signal for computer recording unless you've only got 1 input into the PA (or unless you don't care about mixing several signals together).

-John

[Sherpa]

It sounds as though you're already having fun, John :) I'm still waiting on our local guitar store for mine, along with the expression pedal - I'm not much of a juggler...

Have you had a chance to check out the onboard speakers as a monitor as opposed to using headphones when recording? I only had a couple of minutes' time to check them out when testing it out in a crowded music store a while back. They sounded quite good under the circumstances - and they're definately neighbour-friendly. I'm excited about making the quantum leap from 4-track cassette to Cakewalk. What an old-school fart am I ;)

[jas]

I wouldn't want to play Carnegie Hall with them, JP, but the on-board speakers on the GS-10 are pretty good. They're definitely serviceable as monitors for recording although I haven't tried sending a recording playback through them (not sure you can do this).

Then again, since you're sending the guitar's signal directly into the computer (no room noise), you can simply play through your amp to hear an approximation of what the computer's recording. I think the speakers are for apartment-dwellers and those, like me, who dislike headphones.

As far as your being an "old school fart", I wonder how many of the kids here on BaM know what a "cassette" is. :eek:

-John

[Jo]

As far as your being an "old school fart", I wonder how many of the kids here on BaM know what a "cassette" is. :eek:
Cassette? What's that? :o


Or how many kids here know what one of these are?

http://members.aol.com/clctrmania/45reco.gif

[Sherpa]

Cassette? What's that? :o


Or how many kids here know what one of these are?

http://members.aol.com/clctrmania/45reco.gif
Isn't that the Led Zeppelin ZOSO symbol courtesy of Parlophone Records? ;)

[Sherpa]

I wouldn't want to play Carnegie Hall with them, JP, but the on-board speakers on the GS-10 are pretty good. They're definitely serviceable as monitors for recording although I haven't tried sending a recording playback through them (not sure you can do this).

Then again, since you're sending the guitar's signal directly into the computer (no room noise), you can simply play through your amp to hear an approximation of what the computer's recording. I think the speakers are for apartment-dwellers and those, like me, who dislike headphones.

As far as your being an "old school fart", I wonder how many of the kids here on BaM know what a "cassette" is. :eek:

-John
Excellent - thanks, John. I dislike headphones as well, and as a newbie apartment-dweller I need a workable low-volume monitor solution - it doesn't seem right to irritate our new neighbours without getting to know them first ;)

OTOH, maybe Prince Charles would have benefitted by spending more time wearing headphones to pin those ears back :D

[jas]

That's really funny, Jo. Even funnier that you should still have one of those.

Anybody have one of those record-stacking cylinders for 45's? That could go into the time capsule too.

JP, one thing that would help Prince Charles' ear problem is a few minutes in the ring with Mike Tyson. So Van Gogh did it to make his headphones more comfortable?

-John

[Sherpa]

That's really funny, Jo. Even funnier that you should still have one of those.

Anybody have one of those record-stacking cylinders for 45's? That could go into the time capsule too.

JP, one thing that would help Prince Charles' ear problem is a few minutes in the ring with Mike Tyson. So Van Gogh did it to make his headphones more comfortable?

-John
Yes Mike Tyson would have gnawed them down to size in 4 rounds...

van Gogh even got a Spanish group to name themselves after his ear http://www.fanmusical.net/la_oreja_de_van_gogh/. They're my daughter's favourite group right now :)

Jo, I thought you were a bonnie lass. Now I find out you are a 45 rpm veteran. No reason you can't be both ;)

[jas]

::: GASP :::

They're my new favorite band too and I haven't listened to them yet. That's quite a comely lass in the group photo.

La oreja de JP Getty Jr?

-John

[Sherpa]

::: GASP :::

They're my new favorite band too and I haven't listened to them yet. That's quite a comely lass in the group photo.

La oreja de JP Getty Jr?

-John
Yes I keep trying to convince my daughter that DVDs *sound* better than CDs - I learned that trick with the Corrs.

My wife figured it out pretty quickly, though I thought I was being clever. ;)

So have you found a way to ping-pong stereo amps through the GS10?

[Sherpa]

The GS10 "Feedback" patch is unbelievable. That is one effect I could never dial into my POD - tactile feedback that allows for an authentic "Aqualung" solo effect. I'm counting the days until mine get shipped...

[jas]

You're so right, JP! I've been playing with the feedback effect for several days now. It's an effect I've always wanted but could never attain before.

I fear I will severely overuse it.

-John