Boss GM-800 and GK-5

[MadMaxG79]

Love Keaton. Night Shift, Mr Mom. I even liked Multiplicity and Gung Ho.

I watched Gung Ho so many times as a kid! We had it on VHS and i remember that tape was pretty worn in the end. My favorite scene is when the group of japanese car designers/factory workers are staring at a model of a muscle car, it suddenly falls apart and they all look at each other while one of them says: "American car"... Classic

Funny sidebar I saw on the GM FB group.

Someone with a list of 10/15 cover song sounds for various synth and other synth-like/adjacent instrument tones. Steve replies with "do it by ear"

I know there are people in the VGuitar community who want this to do an endless stream of esoteric solo albums. I think that's really cool. But I also get the distinct vibe that the (perhaps lack of) "do it yourself keyboard player" mentality of the average cover band guy trying to play way more instruments than he should be is going to get the usual treatment of "why would you buy a pedal that makes trombone sounds and not be interested in making an all trombone album?" versus the more realistic thought process of "gee; no one plays the keyboards and I might need this for the In A Gadda Da Vida organ part I wish I knew of some place where I could get ready made presets for that?"

All that to say if someone had time, knew their keyboard stuff and wanted to make a few bones selling presets; I am betting they could. If people can't dial in AC/DC sounds without paying someone $19.95; they sure as h#ll won't be able to dial in the arpeggiator sequence of Rio from scratch

All I can think of after reading this is how cool it would be to have the GM-800 and GK pickup just to play they bagpipe solo on It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll)

 

[gumtown]

I watched Gung Ho so many times as a kid! We had it on VHS and i remember that tape was pretty worn in the end. My favorite scene is when the group of japanese car designers/factory workers are staring at a model of a muscle car, it suddenly falls apart and they all look at each other while one of them says: "American car"... Classic

All I can think of after reading this is how cool it would be to have the GM-800 and GK pickup just to play they bagpipe solo on It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll)

Make sure you allocate a CTRL pedal to do a synth note "Hold" for the bagpipe drones,
and maybe an EXP pedal to mix the pipes in/out with the guitar.
(Hint: you can 'Hold' the bagpipe drone before the song starts, and also apply an Assign on the EXP to sweep the pitch up slightly as the bagpipes mix in, for the impression of the bag inflating).

 

[MadMaxG79]

Make sure you allocate a CTRL pedal to do a synth note "Hold" for the bagpipe drones,
and maybe an EXP pedal to mix the pipes in/out with the guitar.
(Hint: you can 'Hold' the bagpipe drone before the song starts, and also apply an Assign on the EXP to sweep the pitch up slightly as the bagpipes mix in, for the impression of the bag inflating).

Love the enthusiasm! I don't own the GM-800 though, mind you I just want one now that I think about all the applications. I just really don't want the hassle. Besides, until Boss makes an all-in-one unit that can do everything a flagship modeler AND a flagship synth can do, I'm out.
And lastly there's the fact that I'm a lefty and those MIDI pickups are notoriously not very lefty guitar friendly.
(As you can see, I'm purposefully reminding myself of why i DON'T want one, just to fight off the GAS...)

 

[gumtown]

The GK pickups are Lefty friendly, you just flip the pickup over, and change a setting for "reverse mounted".

 

[BROCKSTAR]

and it's N O T midi..................................................................................................................................................................................................................

 

[Whizzinby]

Why is a thumb drive required to update in this day and age? Should be able to connect it to your computer and run some update software.

I guess I’ll go buy one from Amazon and try to do this tomorrow. (I used to have a million thumb drives, but got rid of them all because nothing else in the world requires them anymore)

/end rant

 

[BROCKSTAR]

Why is a thumb drive required to update in this day and age? Should be able to connect it to your computer and run some update software.

I guess I’ll go buy one from Amazon and try to do this tomorrow. (I used to have a million thumb drives, but got rid of them all because nothing else in the world requires them anymore)

/end rant

don't get one bigger than 32gb as it won't work.

 

[TJontheRoad]

Why is a thumb drive required to update in this day and age? Should be able to connect it to your computer and run some update software.

I guess I’ll go buy one from Amazon and try to do this tomorrow. (I used to have a million thumb drives, but got rid of them all because nothing else in the world requires them anymore)

/end rant

Mine is plugged into a USB card reader velcro'd to the side. Much easier to deal with.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Mine is plugged into a USB card reader velcro'd to the side. Much easier to deal with.

Floppy Disc af!

 

[DanRad]

Is there a way when using a controller to split the keyboard among the parts? I'm not seeing anything like that (as opposed to splitting parts across strings or the fretboard.

 

[MadMaxG79]

and it's N O T midi..................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Sorry

 

[MadMaxG79]

The GK pickups are Lefty friendly, you just flip the pickup over, and change a setting for "reverse mounted".

Stop enabling me!!!!

 

[BROCKSTAR]

For anyone out there that thinks the gm-800 offers nothing new... Here's some things it does that other roland / boss guitar synths don't do.

1) Fretboard splits. Meaning you can split each part into different sections on the fretboard. (Except the 1985 Roland GM-70, but lets keep it modern and with things more people know about)

2) Warping a tone from one tone to another by dynamics. Meaning you can go from playing a piano lightly to brass when picked harder etc.

3) Vast library of sounds via zenology pro (i'm talking well over probably 10,000 tones so far) that can be imported into gm-800. We're talking different sounds from many of their past synthesizers. Biggest library than any other past roland / boss guitar synths. Not to mention you can conjure up some insane things of your own inside the plug-in and import it into gm-800.

4) Options to layer 4 voices and a rhythm voice.

I may be missing some stuff which I'll edit when I remember, but just those above definitely makes it awesome and worth it.

 

[DanRad]

Is there a way when using a controller to split the keyboard among the parts? I'm not seeing anything like that (as opposed to splitting parts across strings or the fretboard.

Anyone?

Here's what I'm hoping I'll be able to do: Play a piano part on one octave of the keyboard and then trigger a hand-clap from the rhythm section by hitting a key higher up on the keyboard. My controller doesn't split channels or anything like that. Am I gonna have to get a more sophisticated controller to make this happen (it's really important for one song we play, and it was really easy to set up on the Korg iM1 app).

 

[Hapless]

Had my second gig with it last night. Much better, since I set the piano preset to be an octave up so I didn't have to try to play the intro to On The Dark Side up past the 12th fret. I still have a lot to learn and figure out but this thing is great.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Had my second gig with it last night. Much better, since I set the piano preset to be an octave up so I didn't have to try to play the intro to On The Dark Side up past the 12th fret. I still have a lot to learn and figure out but this thing is great.

Nice! Had my 2nd gig too. My organ preset needs like a mallet sound underneath and my Trumpets preset needs another layer as well to bring up the levels a bit. My 80s saw synth needs an octave raise as well. Overall levels are still MUCH lower than the GR.

That all duly noted; this is a keeper.

 

[BROCKSTAR]

Nice! Had my 2nd gig too. My organ preset needs like a mallet sound underneath and my Trumpets preset needs another layer as well to bring up the levels a bit. My 80s saw synth needs an octave raise as well. Overall levels are still MUCH lower than the GR.

That all duly noted; this is a keeper.

I don't know if I posted this or not but someone posted this over in facebook group.

"For those of you who think the output level is low, there is a way to fix this: Go to Menu_In/Out Setting and choose Master EQ. Switch it on and adjust the IN GAIN. You can add up to 24 dB of volume. If you don't want to change the actual master output EQ, just leave the other gain parameters at 0 dB. Press Write to save the new setting. This is a system setting, so it will remain the same no matter what patch you select."

 

[JiveTurkey]

I don't know if I posted this or not but someone posted this over in facebook group.

"For those of you who think the output level is low, there is a way to fix this: Go to Menu_In/Out Setting and choose Master EQ. Switch it on and adjust the IN GAIN. You can add up to 24 dB of volume. If you don't want to change the actual master output EQ, just leave the other gain parameters at 0 dB. Press Write to save the new setting. This is a system setting, so it will remain the same no matter what patch you select."

That is awesome! I thought I saw you post that somewhere but the global eq is something I never use especially in Boss gear as I am afraid of their idiotic output select shenanigans style treatment. I will use this next gig here in the first week of October. I fixed all preset tone issues so I am ready to go other than that.

 

[Trollbait]

Two of my guitars have mounts for Triple Play

How does the GM800 track compared to your Triple play. I've read on TGP and another forum that the tracking is good for some but not for others.

 

[BROCKSTAR]

How does the GM800 track compared to your Triple play. I've read on TGP that the tracking is good for some but not for others.

With a username like that, I'm not sure I wanna answer. Feels like a trap lol.