Boss GT-1000 (and possibly other things Boss...)

[Sascha Franck]

Allright. Things are completely different than what I thought. So, call it user error all day long, but it's really making ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!
I tried with a fresh patch and found out what the issue actually is.

Here's what I was expecting: you assign something to a Num switch and it'd only be active in manual mode. But that is only true when you actually use the "manual" menu. When you however use the "assign" menu, it'll also work when pressing on the same patch number again.

So, you may now say that this is to be expected because, well, you actually assigned it to that switch. But I was expecting that assignment to only be valid in manual mode - which is making MUCH MORE sense. Because, in the assign menu, you will as well find "Current Number" as a source. Now what on earth would that be good for when anything you assign to the number switches is working in "Curnum" fashion anyway? That's just stupid AF!
As a result, manual mode does not allow you to do any complexed assignments. But that's exactly what I wanted (and expected) it to be capable of.
I only didn't notice that strange behaviour before because I had to organize my patches quickly, so I was only using the easy "manual" functions so far. But now I wanted to set up something more complexed. Just that it doesn't work. Now I need to put all my complexed assignments on the upper switches - but that' where I absolutely don't need them at all. I want the simple assignments there and more complexed once when I enter manual mode.
And fwiw, there should be like some "auto debugging" happening. Such as "once you're using the number switches for patch switching, you can't use them as an assign source anymore, unless it's via "Curnum".
Or, even better: Allow me to do complexed switchings in manual mode. Could be an additional source. Or available on the manual page.

Really, this sucks so much - but fortunately things are not broken (well, apart from some synapses in Boss' programmers brains).

And no, this really isn't anything you'd find out in the manual.

 

[ian_dissonance]

Allright. Things are completely different than what I thought. So, call it user error all day long, but it's really making ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!
I tried with a fresh patch and found out what the issue actually is.

Here's what I was expecting: you assign something to a Num switch and it'd only be active in manual mode. But that is only true when you actually use the "manual" menu. When you however use the "assign" menu, it'll also work when pressing on the same patch number again.

So, you may now say that this is to be expected because, well, you actually assigned it to that switch. But I was expecting that assignment to only be valid in manual mode - which is making MUCH MORE sense. Because, in the assign menu, you will as well find "Current Number" as a source. Now what on earth would that be good for when anything you assign to the number switches is working in "Curnum" fashion anyway? That's just stupid AF!
As a result, manual mode does not allow you to do any complexed assignments. But that's exactly what I wanted (and expected) it to be capable of.
I only didn't notice that strange behaviour before because I had to organize my patches quickly, so I was only using the easy "manual" functions so far. But now I wanted to set up something more complexed. Just that it doesn't work. Now I need to put all my complexed assignments on the upper switches - but that' where I absolutely don't need them at all. I want the simple assignments there and more complexed once when I enter manual mode.
And fwiw, there should be like some "auto debugging" happening. Such as "once you're using the number switches for patch switching, you can't use them as an assign source anymore, unless it's via "Curnum".
Or, even better: Allow me to do complexed switchings in manual mode. Could be an additional source. Or available on the manual page.

Really, this sucks so much - but fortunately things are not broken (well, apart from some synapses in Boss' programmers brains).

And no, this really isn't anything you'd find out in the manual.

Yeah, I was expecting manual mode to be more assignable but it’s actually less, it seems. The things you can do with the assigns is pretty awesome, though. Just wish the literature was more thorough or Boss would make some deep-dive tutorial videos, because there’s very little explanation for how to use all the power you have.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Thing is, while I do now actually understand how I was running into the issue, there's still stuff that is just wrong. If it wasn't, I likely would've found out what was happening much earlier.

When you, for instance, assign some on/off function to Num 4 in a patch, then save that thing on patch 4 with the switch saved as "on", the status of that switch will still be set to "off" when you recall that patch (otherwise the issue would possibly not even be an issue). It seems to be that the order in which pedal messages are dealt with is "ah, he pressed switch 4, let's switch to patch 4 and afterwards also perform the assigned switch command". That's utterly stupid, as it's kinda ignoring the status the patch was saved in. As said, if it was different, it'd just be like a "Curnum" assignment and I could easily deal with it.

In addition, when you assign a toggle function to a switch, the switch will light up when switched on. But you can only see that light in manual mode. This makes you believe the assignment control would also only be switchable once you've switched to manual mode. But instead it's a hidden (and broken, see above!) "Curnum" assignment.

And fwiw, as the "master" patch I was building had the assignments set to "off", I didn't notice it any earlier, because whenever I returned to that patch, the status was preserved (see above, they default to "off")

In the end, now that I know about it, I will organize things differently, but I had really done some pre-thinking for the upcoming gig on Wednesday (which will allow me to use quite some more things than on most gigs, it's kinda like freeform) and can't organize patches as I thought I could anymore.
Guess I need to find a way to slap a dual footswitch (a normally closed one - another really miserable Boss idea...) onto the board, use it for tap tempo, tuner and mode switching and then just get away with 5 top row switch assignments. Won't be able to get such a switch before Wednesday, though.

Bah!

 

[nikitasius]

Well, I was looking for my favorite band setups (marshal, mesa stuff, Slayer/Metallica/DT) and their EQ settings w/ IRs to get closer sound but..

Damn, X-Titan w/ a small EQ just after is a truly awesome amp to play favourite metal(i use Mesa 2x12 IR w/)

I agree w/ @ian_dissonance 146% at that point about X-amps from Boss. They are amazing!

 

[Sascha Franck]

Fwiw, my board is largely untouched since 3 months by now and has seen quite some gigs. So this might indeed be it for a whole while to come.

I may throw the TC Magus out one day because I'm simply not using it much (if at all). And I may one day consider getting two Tonex Ones to replace the Amplifirebox and Amp Academy, but then, maybe I won't - after all, it's working just great as is.
My only gripe right now is that I don't know where to place the two external switches I'd like to add. I thought about taking the plunge and buying a Boss one (the greedy f*cks are the only company on earth using normally closed switches, you also can't change that on the unit, so finding a proper switch for a DIY unit is tough), but neither the old or new ones would fit properly.

 

[AFKAEjay(retired)]

Fwiw, my board is largely untouched since 3 months by now and has seen quite some gigs. So this might indeed be it for a whole while to come.

View attachment 42727

I may throw the TC Magus out one day because I'm simply not using it much (if at all). And I may one day consider getting two Tonex Ones to replace the Amplifirebox and Amp Academy, but then, maybe I won't - after all, it's working just great as is.
My only gripe right now is that I don't know where to place the two external switches I'd like to add. I thought about taking the plunge and buying a Boss one (the greedy f*cks are the only company on earth using normally closed switches, you also can't change that on the unit, so finding a proper switch for a DIY unit is tough), but neither the old or new ones would fit properly.

Small midi controller an alternative for the switches?

Keeping “as is” is not the way to go…why 2 Tonexes instead of 1 device that can handle all your amps…and can be controlled by midi?

 

[Sascha Franck]

Small midi controller an alternative for the switches?

Nah, won't fit too well, either. I think I'll be looking for some normally closed switches and slap them in two small cases (one on the lower left, one on the upper right).

why 2 Tonexes instead of 1 device that can handle all your amps…and can be controlled by midi?

Because I want 100% WYSIWYG control over my two main sounds all the time. And I really only need/want two for live (both actually clean, just a more mid-forward version for all dirt).
Apart from that, with one of them per each loop, I can preselect what I want in front of those "channels". There's one dirt box (OCD-clone-ish thing) adding a little hair for the clean channel as an option and all the other drives for the dirt channel. That kinda organisation wouldn't be possible with one single amp device.
Really, the way this setup works is pretty much every bit how I want things to be like.

 

[nikitasius]

Because I want 100% WYSIWYG control over my two main sounds all the time.

You can plug an ipad & use your foot thumbs on it

 

[Dadbodblues]

How do you guys tell, visually, just by looking at the display of the Core if the output is already peaking? Do I just wing it and make sure that the output does not reach the full range?

 

[nikitasius]

How do you guys tell, visually, just by looking at the display of the Core if the output is already peaking? Do I just wing it and make sure that the output does not reach the full range?

For the input you have settings menu & visual indication on the screen. For the output "after all fx" - you have ears?..

 

[Sascha Franck]

How do you guys tell, visually, just by looking at the display of the Core if the output is already peaking? Do I just wing it and make sure that the output does not reach the full range?

I pretty much never look at any meters but use a bit of common sense. Or rather, I just leave plenty of headroom. Regardless of the use case, I always have enough amplification "juice" following to achieve any monitoring levels, so I rather keep the internal levels kinda low-ish. No need to worry about raised noise floor, either, my system is every bit as quiet as it gets by now.

 

[AFKAEjay(retired)]

I pretty much never look at any meters but use a bit of common sense. Or rather, I just leave plenty of headroom. Regardless of the use case, I always have enough amplification "juice" following to achieve any monitoring levels, so I rather keep the internal levels kinda low-ish. No need to worry about raised noise floor, either, my system is every bit as quiet as it gets by now.

In the old days levels where a thing worth optimizing…today, #32bitprocessing…i dont give it much thought either. I do try to be consistent in where I do pre gain and or post gain adjustments so I never have level controls working against eachother.

 

[Jarick]

Generally I try to follow the practice of not having any block drastically boosting the levels compared to bypass. So if you start with everything bypassed and your input level looks good, try to match the block levels as you add in things like amps, effects, etc.

 

[afonsom98]

Fwiw, my board is largely untouched since 3 months by now and has seen quite some gigs. So this might indeed be it for a whole while to come.

View attachment 42727

I may throw the TC Magus out one day because I'm simply not using it much (if at all). And I may one day consider getting two Tonex Ones to replace the Amplifirebox and Amp Academy, but then, maybe I won't - after all, it's working just great as is.
My only gripe right now is that I don't know where to place the two external switches I'd like to add. I thought about taking the plunge and buying a Boss one (the greedy f*cks are the only company on earth using normally closed switches, you also can't change that on the unit, so finding a proper switch for a DIY unit is tough), but neither the old or new ones would fit properly.

I bought the Tonex One to use with my GT1000 CORE and the gt1000core send return is noisy as a mf....

 

[Sascha Franck]

I bought the Tonex One to use with my GT1000 CORE and the gt1000core send return is noisy as a mf....

I can only recommend to check the various ground lift options. Fixed that issue for me and it's now as clean as it possibly gets.
I'm also running everything from one single isolated multiout PSU (the Boss one apparently is pretty bad), maybe that helps as well.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I can only recommend to check the various ground lift options. Fixed that issue for me and it's now as clean as it possibly gets.
I'm also running everything from one single isolated multiout PSU (the Boss one apparently is pretty bad), maybe that helps as well.

Yeah, the core does not have an a noisy effect loop

 

[Dadbodblues]

I bought the Tonex One to use with my GT1000 CORE and the gt1000core send return is noisy as a mf....

No noise with my setup even with high gain captures. I'm also using a Tonex One with my GT Core.

 

[timbuck3]

About boss… they are deginately innovators with a huge budget. Quite honestly everything I’ve ever had from them has always been interesting very good.
Well made and versatile. I probably should’ve kept the GT 1000. I had shortly after release but for some reason I thought there should’ve been more X amps on board because they were pretty good compared to the regular amps. In fact I wish they had released a unit, which is all the new X amps And their effects have always been pretty good.
I see the GTX 100 is out or has been out for a while with the touchscreen and that seems very nice. I didn’t even bother trying one yet but I think the next GT 2000 or whatever will probably go the route of the touchscreen as well
But I must say I do like the Cortana GEN three artist even the GE2 200 W combo was very good and maybe rather limited in tones as far as comparing to something like a fractal but for the cost if you can pick one up even used I think they’re still a pretty decent sounding system to have, especially if you’re just a Home player
Anyways I just wanted to give a shout out that I think bosses a decent company however I do think that they are very weak in the update department but they seem to do only updates that are really needed and they would rather introduce a new generation product, then keep the old one alive Like I tried to contrast that with line 6 whose helix has been out for almost 10 years or between eight 9/10 years now which is outstanding and amazing but that’s line 6. They have been known to do very frequent upgrading and I don’t know if boss just builds their units with a built-in 2 to 4 year timeline as far as replacements or new generations or if they just don’t wanna bother. ?

 

[JiveTurkey]

About boss… they are deginately innovators with a huge budget. Quite honestly everything I’ve ever had from them has always been interesting very good.
Well made and versatile. I probably should’ve kept the GT 1000. I had shortly after release but for some reason I thought there should’ve been more X amps on board because they were pretty good compared to the regular amps. In fact I wish they had released a unit, which is all the new X amps And their effects have always been pretty good.
I see the GTX 100 is out or has been out for a while with the touchscreen and that seems very nice. I didn’t even bother trying one yet but I think the next GT 2000 or whatever will probably go the route of the touchscreen as well
But I must say I do like the Cortana GEN three artist even the GE2 200 W combo was very good and maybe rather limited in tones as far as comparing to something like a fractal but for the cost if you can pick one up even used I think they’re still a pretty decent sounding system to have, especially if you’re just a Home player
Anyways I just wanted to give a shout out that I think bosses a decent company however I do think that they are very weak in the update department but they seem to do only updates that are really needed and they would rather introduce a new generation product, then keep the old one alive Like I tried to contrast that with line 6 whose helix has been out for almost 10 years or between eight 9/10 years now which is outstanding and amazing but that’s line 6. They have been known to do very frequent upgrading and I don’t know if boss just builds their units with a built-in 2 to 4 year timeline as far as replacements or new generations or if they just don’t wanna bother. ?

I futzed with the GTX touchscreen vs. the MX5. Sounds (that i didn't bother to listen to) aside; the Headrush touchscreen was miles better.

 

[timbuck3]

I futzed with the GTX touchscreen vs. the MX5. Sounds (that i didn't bother to listen to) aside; the Headrush touchscreen was miles better.

Yes when I had the MX5 I enjoyed the touchscreen and I played with the big head rush touchscreen at guitar centre. I think that touchscreen and gooey is great.