Boss GM-800 and GK-5

[TJontheRoad]

Gear success only truly happens after gear failure. Once you know, you know. But, you'll only really know if you've used the gear yourself. It's the price of the game. Every piece of gear I own fails at something and succeeds at something else. That's why I own too much of it

 

[Trollbait]

Here a video where the person details some of the GK5 faults. Starts around 10:00



First comment in that video. The guy sent the GM 800 and prefers the GR55.

 

[gumtown]

Here is a latency test I did, using Cakewalk DAW, UA101 USB interface, inputs are
1: normal pickup
2: GM-800 L/Mono output
3: external midi Roland Fantom Xr module L/Mono output A
Guitar with a GK-2A pickup
Not taking into account any USB/processing latency, these values are referenced to the normal pickup initial transient start.
A single one time test, no averaging, finger picked notes.
Maybe I could have tied a few times, used a pick, juggled the results,
but no,
this is straight off the bat tests.

Results:
LOW open E
1: npu = 0.068ms (start offset time)
2: GM-800 = 0.126ms
3: external midi = 0.126ms
difference (latency) = 58ms for both

High open E
1: npu = 0.565ms (start offset time)
2: GM-800 = 0.590ms
3: external midi = 0.590ms
difference (latency) = 35ms for both

High E 12th fret
1: npu = 0.725ms (start offset time)
2: GM-800 = 0.746ms
3: external midi = 0.748ms
difference (latency) = 21ms for GM-800, and 23ms for the externa midi

 

[gumtown]

Here a video where the person details some of the GK5 faults. Starts around 10:00



First comment in that video. The guy sent the GM 800 and prefers the GR55.

stuck note happens in that video because no normal cable in the guitar = strings & bridge not grounded, and noise/humm being pickup up into the GK pickup.

 

[Trollbait]

As a former Roland "fanboy" willing to defend Roland's poorly implemented guitar synth products, I'm glad I read these posts as it confirms my bias that Roland is doing the repackage thing again and the "hey it's a new bright shinny object" shills are pushing it as the best thing since bread. Lol


This post at V is seriously funny.

"Keep in mind, this is from plucked string to audio waveform, and not plucked string to midi note production, which would be somewhat less, but yeah the GM-800 sucks. Hey Roland, the 80s called--they want their technology back! As long as you play on the top four strings around the 10th fret and higher, you should be good--ha, ha. It's also great for ambient pads!! Can't believe all the people that shilled for this piece of crap. Apparently, being a nostalgic Roland fanboy can cloud reason and good judgment."

"In addition, of my many different software synths, Zencore was at the very bottom. If horrible latency and dated 80s synth sounds is your thing, then I highly recommend it.

It's a pretty blue color though and the serial protocol is cool.

I realize fanboyism is a thing, so limit your vitriol towards me, please. "

Another user opinion:

"But it is undeniable that the guitar to midi latency being reported for the "new" Roland gm800 is significantly worse than my Axon AX50 which is 16 years old. With it's massive resources and market share, I think it's disappointing that Roland has never gotten close to the old Terre Tec or further developed Fishman systems on that functionality....
...As for Zencore, requiring a subscription to edit and load sounds on a purchased hardware device like the gm800 just feels sleazy to me. Yeah it's a fun little box. But I believe it should perform far better than it does."

Any feedback on midi tracking on gm-800 ? - Page 3

Any feedback on midi tracking on gm-800 ? - Page 3

www.vguitarforums.com

 

[gumtown]

I have been doing a search up on midi-guitar latency tests, I have seen some good well documented test results which shows a graphical result (regardless of if it is good or bad results, but give true results),
and I have also seen some bad test procedures for measuring just guitar to midi.

In particular looking at a test done with the AXON and someone saying they get 7ms of latency,
but the flawed test is measuring from the audio wav peak after the initial transient (my test I measured from the initial transient before the note started) and comparing the rise of the first bit on midi data, which is not correct as the data has not sent a complete note on message, the test is measuring the period between already detected note to the midi output port beginning to send a data packet.

So some tests will vary a lot due to inconsistent methods of measurement, maybe I should go back and re-do my tests, I never tried to get the best results, it was first and only pick of a string, no retries for better results, and picked random synth tones which they could have had a slow attack time.

 

[gumtown]

I can't seem to find any latency test results for the Roland GR-50, only comments that it is slow.
@Trollbait Can you post a latency test with your GR-50 so I can see how it compares to the GM-800 ?

 

[JiveTurkey]

As a former Roland "fanboy" willing to defend Roland's poorly implemented guitar synth products, I'm glad I read these posts as it confirms my bias that Roland is doing the repackage thing again and the "hey it's a new bright shinny object" shills are pushing it as the best thing since bread. Lol


This post at V is seriously funny.

"Keep in mind, this is from plucked string to audio waveform, and not plucked string to midi note production, which would be somewhat less, but yeah the GM-800 sucks. Hey Roland, the 80s called--they want their technology back! As long as you play on the top four strings around the 10th fret and higher, you should be good--ha, ha. It's also great for ambient pads!! Can't believe all the people that shilled for this piece of crap. Apparently, being a nostalgic Roland fanboy can cloud reason and good judgment."

"In addition, of my many different software synths, Zencore was at the very bottom. If horrible latency and dated 80s synth sounds is your thing, then I highly recommend it.

It's a pretty blue color though and the serial protocol is cool.

I realize fanboyism is a thing, so limit your vitriol towards me, please. "

Another user opinion:

"But it is undeniable that the guitar to midi latency being reported for the "new" Roland gm800 is significantly worse than my Axon AX50 which is 16 years old. With it's massive resources and market share, I think it's disappointing that Roland has never gotten close to the old Terre Tec or further developed Fishman systems on that functionality....
...As for Zencore, requiring a subscription to edit and load sounds on a purchased hardware device like the gm800 just feels sleazy to me. Yeah it's a fun little box. But I believe it should perform far better than it does."

Any feedback on midi tracking on gm-800 ? - Page 3

Any feedback on midi tracking on gm-800 ? - Page 3

www.vguitarforums.com

So you're Bluesbird; not chris?

 

[BROCKSTAR]

Forgot to show my new kiesel zeus here with the gk-5 pickup that goes to my boss sy-1000 and gm-800.

 

[Enchilada Jones]

does disparaging others for the choice of musical gear make one better in some way?
or otherwise serve some greater good?

I wonder if there is some kind of null test to disprove the answer someone would have for that question.

 

[JiveTurkey]

For me; my GR got rained on on my last gig with it. The rotary encoder no longer worked and that was that. I was also tired of a huge box with ridiculously limited routing and switches that had no use compared to the ridiculous amount of space it took up.

I watched Alex Hutchins vid. Who is a complete virtuoso and certainly paints a favorable picture on the general rehashed turd that is Roland. I watched a vid or two from Brock but our styles and purposes for the unit could really not be further apart. And no disrespect meant to his ambient leanings or my "play the kazoo part in some random cover song" requirements. I bought the damn thing and it does the job. No more (certainly), no less.

 

[gumtown]

For me; my GR got rained on on my last gig with it. The rotary encoder no longer worked and that was that. I was also tired of a huge box with ridiculously limited routing and switches that had no use compared to the ridiculous amount of space it took up.

The beginning of the end for my GR-55 was at a gig one night, a speaker stack fell over, mic stand just clipped my nose,
but the poor old GR-55, even with its body of steel, got crushed right across the top righthand side.
The EXP pedal wouldn't move anymore for the gig, so after I had to strip down the GR-55 and beat the chassis out back to a box shape.
But ..alas.. the EXP pedal was never the same, the range was no longer linear, then problems of going out of calibration right at the worst times started.
Not to mention that it was damn heavy too.

So the SY-1000 + GM-800 is my GR-55 replacement.
And by jeebers they do a mighty fine job, never been happier with my tone in over 35 years of gigging (that I can remember).

If there was another product brand that can do the same as this pair does, I most likely would have tried it too,
and don't mention anything computer/software based, because that does not go down well with me due to a computer based setup some years ago (pre 2000) which decided to start crashing on me during a tour, in front of 25k+ crowds, super embarrassment, and never again (by diddly gosh - are you allowed to swear here ?).

 

[BROCKSTAR]

The beginning of the end for my GR-55 was at a gig one night, a speaker stack fell over, mic stand just clipped my nose,
but the poor old GR-55, even with its body of steel, got crushed right across the top righthand side.
The EXP pedal wouldn't move anymore for the gig, so after I had to strip down the GR-55 and beat the chassis out back to a box shape.
But ..alas.. the EXP pedal was never the same, the range was no longer linear, then problems of going out of calibration right at the worst times started.
Not to mention that it was damn heavy too.

So the SY-1000 + GM-800 is my GR-55 replacement.
And by jeebers they do a mighty fine job, never been happier with my tone in over 35 years of gigging (that I can remember).

If there was another product brand that can do the same as this pair does, I most likely would have tried it too,
and don't mention anything computer/software based, because that does not go down well with me due to a computer based setup some years ago (pre 2000) which decided to start crashing on me during a tour, in front of 25k+ crowds, super embarrassment, and never again (by diddly gosh - are you allowed to swear here ?).

Yeah don't say "dick" or you'll get everything removed like the other place "rolls eyes". Like we're adults, if you can't handle the word dick, then get off the internet...

 

[gumtown]

Yeah don't say "dick" or you'll get everything removed like the other place "rolls eyes". Like we're adults, if you can't handle the word dick, then get off the internet...

I try to stay good on forums, and speak Queen's English with a plum in the side of my mouth,
even though around my part of the world here, sentences are generally spoken like commoners with 50% profanities and expletives.
Lol

 

[Trollbait]

More posts at V: can't figure out what all the angst from the Roland Fanboys or Shills (if you prefer) is all about. So some people have a different opinion from yours, so what?

Quote:
"I'm not struggling with anything. I can probably operate these units better than you ever could.

Gumtown's results of 58 ms for low E and 35 for high e for triggering internal sounds indicate the latency is higher than all of Roland products. Are you calling out Gumtown's results? Maybe he should do more tests?

GR-55 internal trigger: 30, 17 (E, e)
GR-700 internal trigger: 47, 22 (E, e)

https://www.joness.com/gr300/MIDI_SPEED.htm

Quote:
"You may feel something is a certain way, but that does not make it true. I prefer truth over your feelings on the matter."

The fanboy phenomenon rears it's ugly head once again. If there wasn't enough reason to abandon these products, you add to it this irrational fanboy behavior and that seals the deal.

I've already done all these GM-800 latency tests, and they were here for people to see before I took them down. They got a lot of backlash from the fanboys. I measured pitch to midi and pitch to internal audio. Depending on which patch you choose, the internal audio can trigger faster on certain sounds. Elantric thought the internal triggering was faster than the pitch to midi triggering, but I showed him it was not."

And the moderation hammer comes down:

"All -

I have deleted several posts that had devolved to name-calling.

Please stop.

If I need to mute accounts I will.

Shawn"

 

[Trollbait]

Can you post a latency test with your GR-50 so I can see how it compares to the GM-800 ?

Latency has never been an issue for me as it is a simple matter to add the guitar tone or a VG or SY tone or even an analog GR300 tone to cover that lag time between the note played and when the sample triggers.

It's the note glitches, shadow notes and octave jumps when playing the guitar using normal playing technique that is the concern.

Of course as you know, often there is an underlying noise problem that can contribute to the glitch problem like the group loop you pointed out in that video I posted. Good guitar setup is critical as well as adjustment to technique. We all know the drill, don't do slides or hammer on's using the Low E and A strings. Sometimes they work if flawlessly executed.

The guys seen in You Tube demo's mostly shred on the D,G,B,E strings, but only with countless hours adjusting technique.

So you're Bluesbird; not chris?

No, I'm Jive Turkey. Lol

 

[gumtown]

Re-did my latency test.
This time I bumped up the GK setting levels, as I usually have mine quite low.
Selected a more aggressive tone (GR-300 lead bumped up 2 octaves).
Used the GM-800 USB into Cakewalk and recorded/measured
hard picking with a 0.6mm pick
input 1 = GK string 6 (high E open)
input 2 = GM-800 Left output
Guitar with a GK-2A.

The average of 20 notes was 16ms
the absolute one off best was 9ms (could have been a noise misfire from such high GK level ?)

So a bit different procedure and different results from my previous conservative test,
which does go to show you can't take one person's test result alone as being credible,
you really need an average of multiple tests by multiple users with a baseline standard method of testing.

Next time I might line up VG-99, GR-55 SY-1000, GM-800 for a test session (when I have time),
which will show if not actual latency values, but a millisecond comparison between different units using the same test baseline standard.

 

[gumtown]

It's the note glitches, shadow notes and octave jumps when playing the guitar using normal playing technique that is the concern.

I have not had much problem with those, the GM-800 is far more stable than the GR-55, GR-33, or GR-20 that I have/had.
Both on guitar with GK-2A and Bass with GK-3B

And also not a Roland fanboy, if there was a product/brand that does this better for live gig use, I would use it.
Certainly not a fan of the way Roland/Boss operate.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I have not had much problem with those, the GM-800 is far more stable than the GR-55, GR-33, or GR-20 that I have/had.
Both on guitar with GK-2A and Bass with GK-3B

And also not a Roland fanboy, if there was a product/brand that does this better for live gig use, I would use it.
Certainly not a fan of the way Roland/Boss operate.

You've done their job for years by writing editor software. So if anything; there should be a bias against them

 

[JiveTurkey]

The beginning of the end for my GR-55 was at a gig one night, a speaker stack fell over, mic stand just clipped my nose,
but the poor old GR-55, even with its body of steel, got crushed right across the top righthand side.
The EXP pedal wouldn't move anymore for the gig, so after I had to strip down the GR-55 and beat the chassis out back to a box shape.
But ..alas.. the EXP pedal was never the same, the range was no longer linear, then problems of going out of calibration right at the worst times started.
Not to mention that it was damn heavy too.

So the SY-1000 + GM-800 is my GR-55 replacement.
And by jeebers they do a mighty fine job, never been happier with my tone in over 35 years of gigging (that I can remember).

If there was another product brand that can do the same as this pair does, I most likely would have tried it too,
and don't mention anything computer/software based, because that does not go down well with me due to a computer based setup some years ago (pre 2000) which decided to start crashing on me during a tour, in front of 25k+ crowds, super embarrassment, and never again (by diddly gosh - are you allowed to swear here ?).

Yeah I pulled the exp off my GR a waaaaaaaaays back. I would have loved to have it down to GR0 size, really. I never used the onboard switches. I used my GK switches which are no longer a thing if you go GK5 and I have adjusted to that? That would be probably my main complaint as well as needing two cables now.

SY+GM is probably a very capable rig. I futzed with that combo for a minute but it made more sense to blend the GM with something else that had a bit more routing flexibility.

"If there was another product brand that can do the same as this pair does, I most likely would have tried it too,"
Absolutely here as well. We're sort of stuck with Roland on this. Which is generally fine I'd say.