Boss GM-800 and GK-5

[Whizzinby]

Powered through the rest of the presets. I’m pretty impressed with the piano stuff. Most of the synth based presets are over the top. I’ll need to experiment building my own synth presets. Also not a lot of strings based presets, need to see what I can build there as well.

I’d say 7-8 of the factory presets I’d come back to.

The lack of a power button kind of sucks.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Powered through the rest of the presets. I’m pretty impressed with the piano stuff. Most of the synth based presets are over the top. I’ll need to experiment building my own synth presets. Also not a lot of strings based presets, need to see what I can build there as well.

I’d say 7-8 of the factory presets I’d come back to.

The lack of a power button kind of sucks.

I got one of these for the converter and GM. Turn off adblocker to see it:

 

[BROCKSTAR]

Powered through the rest of the presets. I’m pretty impressed with the piano stuff. Most of the synth based presets are over the top. I’ll need to experiment building my own synth presets. Also not a lot of strings based presets, need to see what I can build there as well.

I’d say 7-8 of the factory presets I’d come back to.

The lack of a power button kind of sucks.

Get this for the power button! Works great for my boss gm-800 and got one for my meris lvx too!

 

[aerial7]

The lack of a power button kind of sucks.

[Apologies to Brock and JT, but I ain't ever turning off ad blocking....]

My entire "studio" is on a power strip that has a remote wireless button. Love that I can put that anywhere, and turn everything on/off just from that. Can even be wall-mounted.

 

[BROCKSTAR]

[Apologies to Brock and JT, but I ain't ever turning off ad blocking....]

My entire "studio" is on a power strip that has a remote wireless button. Love that I can put that anywhere, and turn everything on/off just from that. Can even be wall-mounted.

Haha it's fine, it's just amazon item for a power switch that works!

"

PNGKNYOCN 30cm DC 5.5mm x 2.1mm Male to Female 16 AWG Cable 12V Inline Rocker Switch DC Power Adapter Connector" for anyone that wants to look on amazon.​

 

[mbenigni]

Made it through the first 30 presets.

Sound quality is very good. Sharp and crisp. I dug the Jazz Trio, Trance, and acoustic piano presets.

The volume is way too low, had to crank my monitors pretty high as well as the volume on the unit. I def need to dial in the output on the pickup, and turn up the output on the lower strings. The high strings trigger easily, the lower strings need a little firmer picking to register. Makes sense because the pickup sits about 1mm lower on the low strings than the high strings. There def will be a learning curve on how to play each preset to make them sound the most natural to instrument in question. On a couple I found finger picking made it sound less guitar’y and more natural.

Promising so far.

Re: fingerpicking vs plectrum, part of it might just be that fingerpicking is quieter acoustically. It’s hard to tell the brain to ignore the sound of the guitar string unless/ until everything else is quite loud. The other aspect is that your timing will differ when you fingerpick. But the most important thing is the phrasing. Some instruments (e.g. brass) are often scored with a lot of double stops - usually 4ths in the pentatonic scale. Others (e.g. reeds and solo strings) are more lyrical, but you have to work out some way to apply expression (pedal or breath controller) in order for it to sound convincing (without the repetition of too much baked-in articulation.)

Actual synth tones… anything goes. My biggest pain point with synths is trying to audition the literally thousands of options at my disposal when the names are 1000% arbitrary. If I need something specific for a specific cover or whatever, it’s a complete crapshoot. Finding a good match might take all day; might not ever happen at all.

 

[DanRad]

My GM-800 arrives Thursday. No firm date on the GK-5, so I'm going to try using it with Jam Origin's MIDI Guitar through my iPad. I'm thinking it should work with the iPad connected to my Helix and the Helix Out/Thru connected to the GM-800.

Well, shoot. That isn't working. Maybe I don't have JO set up right?

I have the iPad connected to the Helix over USB. I have MIDI Out/Thru going to the GM-800. I have the GM-800 R/mono output connected to Return 2 and Return 2 selected as the input on an otherwise blank patch. JO is showing signal from the guitar, and it's set to External MIDI output. Do I need to set it up differently to get it to send MIDI back over the USB?

 

[BROCKSTAR]

Well, shoot. That isn't working. Maybe I don't have JO set up right?

I have the iPad connected to the Helix over USB. I have MIDI Out/Thru going to the GM-800. I have the GM-800 R/mono output connected to Return 2 and Return 2 selected as the input on an otherwise blank patch. JO is showing signal from the guitar, and it's set to External MIDI output. Do I need to set it up differently to get it to send MIDI back over the USB?

I don't have my helix turned on at the moment, but do you have the input of your signal path in helix set to usb something, can't remember the exact number maybe 1 or 7.

 

[DanRad]

I don't have my helix turned on at the moment, but do you have the input of your signal path in helix set to usb something, can't remember the exact number maybe 1 or 7.

I tried connecting a MIDI keyboard and sending it straight into an interface, bypassing the Helix altogether. Still getting nothing.

Do I need to do something to get the GM-800 to respond to a controller?

 

[hippietim]

I got a GK-5 and installed it on a customized PRS NF3. I stuck the GK-5 directly on the pickguard. It's a little too close so I'm probably going to put it on another guitar instead - unless you pick very light, you can get a lot of false double triggers when the GK is too close - same issue with the GK-3 of course.

Having said all that, the GM-800 definitely tracks a bit better with the GK-5 vs the GK-3 + converter. Since the pickup is so close to the strings I had to dial the sensitivity down to upper 30s/lower 40s to prevent false triggers.

I got another GK-5 that I'm planning on using with a Fender Acoustasonic Tele - I'm doing a duo project and I think adding the GM-800 will be nice to add to the acoustic tone.

Now I need to start digging into creating presets dialed in for the right playing style + sound combinations.

 

[DanRad]

I tried connecting a MIDI keyboard and sending it straight into an interface, bypassing the Helix altogether. Still getting nothing.

Do I need to do something to get the GM-800 to respond to a controller?

I set the Note Source parameter to MIDI, but still no joy.

But that begs the question: Is this something we're going to have to change on the fly to switch between using a guitar and a keyboard controller? That will be a bit of a PITA unless there's a way to do it via MIDI.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Having said all that, the GM-800 definitely tracks a bit better with the GK-5 vs the GK-3 + converter.

This is what I was truly wondering about. I'm probably going to go all in on the GK5, return my 13 to serial converter and grab the serial to 13 for use with my SY.

 

[BROCKSTAR]

I tried connecting a MIDI keyboard and sending it straight into an interface, bypassing the Helix altogether. Still getting nothing.

Do I need to do something to get the GM-800 to respond to a controller?

yes note source to midi and turn all the other things to CH. 1 if your midi keyboard is on channel 1. And yes if you wanna go back and forth, i think you have to set it to midi / gk etc.

 

[BROCKSTAR]

I got a GK-5 and installed it on a customized PRS NF3. I stuck the GK-5 directly on the pickguard. It's a little too close so I'm probably going to put it on another guitar instead - unless you pick very light, you can get a lot of false double triggers when the GK is too close - same issue with the GK-3 of course.

Having said all that, the GM-800 definitely tracks a bit better with the GK-5 vs the GK-3 + converter. Since the pickup is so close to the strings I had to dial the sensitivity down to upper 30s/lower 40s to prevent false triggers.

I got another GK-5 that I'm planning on using with a Fender Acoustasonic Tele - I'm doing a duo project and I think adding the GM-800 will be nice to add to the acoustic tone.

Now I need to start digging into creating presets dialed in for the right playing style + sound combinations.

Yeah I think gk-5 tracks better than the gk-2a I was using too.

 

[DanRad]

yes note source to midi and turn all the other things to CH. 1 if your midi keyboard is on channel 1. And yes if you wanna go back and forth, i think you have to set it to midi / gk etc.

That did it! Thanks so much.

Does anyone know if there's a MIDI parameter for swapping between GK and MIDI input?

 

[aerial7]

I set the Note Source parameter to MIDI, but still no joy.

[nevermind...nj'ed by Brock!]

I encountered this when I tried using my Fishman Triple Play as a controller. Wasn't able to get any sound until I changed the MIDI channel for one of the parts in the scene. I gave up after that --just wanted to hear some noise so I moved on to install the GK-5 pickup.

Check out p. 18 of the GM-800 Parameter Guide under "MIDI Parameters"; that's where you can set receive channels for the parts as well as Note Source (which I have zero experience with, so it may not be relevant).

 

[DanRad]

[nevermind...nj'ed by Brock!]

I encountered this when I tried using my Fishman Triple Play as a controller. Wasn't able to get any sound until I changed the MIDI channel for one of the parts in the scene. I gave up after that --just wanted to hear some noise so I moved on to install the GK-5 pickup.

Check out p. 18 of the GM-800 Parameter Guide under "MIDI Parameters"; that's where you can set receive channels for the parts as well as Note Source (which I have zero experience with, so it may not be relevant).

I wonder why it comes with the parts assigned to different MIDI channels to begin with? Seems like an odd choice unless you are trying to confuse your customers.

Looks like the Note Source parameter can only be changed through SysEx, which Helix doesn't do. That's a bummer. I really don't have to fiddle with changing settings depending on whether I'm playing it through a keyboard or the guitar. I guess I could try to make do with only using two parts per scene and just two parts to MIDI and two parts to GK.

So far, I'm not blown away by a lot of Boss's choices on this (A USB stick to do a firmware update? Get outta here with that nonsense). I did run through the presets using my controller, and there are some really good sounds. I think I'll be happy once I've figured out all of the oddities, but I'm hanging on to all the packaging just in case.

 

[BROCKSTAR]

I wonder why it comes with the parts assigned to different MIDI channels to begin with? Seems like an odd choice unless you are trying to confuse your customers.

Looks like the Note Source parameter can only be changed through SysEx, which Helix doesn't do. That's a bummer. I really don't have to fiddle with changing settings depending on whether I'm playing it through a keyboard or the guitar. I guess I could try to make do with only using two parts per scene and just two parts to MIDI and two parts to GK.

So far, I'm not blown away by a lot of Boss's choices on this (A USB stick to do a firmware update? Get outta here with that nonsense). I did run through the presets using my controller, and there are some really good sounds. I think I'll be happy once I've figured out all of the oddities, but I'm hanging on to all the packaging just in case.

And if you wanna go deeper in the rabbit hole, you have zenology pro you can get a subscription too and 131 sound packs (and expansion packs if you buy those though), and also an editor that is much deeper than the controls on the gm-800 to build your own stuff with etc.. Time consuming but worth it I think for $10 a month.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Boss makes odd choices?

 

[BROCKSTAR]

Boss makes odd choices?