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

Thing is, with the Core they killed those very functions that I learned to love with the big GT. Or rather: Things are getting in the way of making use of some of these functions.
Comes down to two things mainly: I can't configure the patches in a way that I can actually use a bank of 3 patches and as that isn't possible, the value of the excellent CurNum function is greatly diminished because - if at all - I will now have to use it for something different than what I had in mind.
That's some royal suckage.
 
Thing is, with the Core they killed those very functions that I learned to love with the big GT. Or rather: Things are getting in the way of making use of some of these functions.
Comes down to two things mainly: I can't configure the patches in a way that I can actually use a bank of 3 patches and as that isn't possible, the value of the excellent CurNum function is greatly diminished because - if at all - I will now have to use it for something different than what I had in mind.
That's some royal suckage.
I hate it when you have a plan that should work like a charm and then reality throws a wrench in it :mad:
 
F***ING HELL!!!

So, here we go: As said, yesterday I managed to switch to two individual patches using the left and middle switches of the GT1C.
Now, I rebooted the unit and everything was effing gone!!! It's now back to full down/up mode for the two switches.
I couldn't believe it myself, so I started from scratch. Imported a patch from the big guy, removed all things potentially causing issues and was back at being able to call up two patches including working Curnum functions.
Then I rebooted again and *poof* - back to square one.

Yes, this is hard to believe, but the unit is altering a whole lot of patch functionality to its stupid defaults in case it thinks the way you want things to be like isn't appropriate. Needs a reboot to think about and then comes back at you full stop dictator style!

Don't believe me? I took a video. You can see me switching patches, using the Curnum function. Then I reboot - and there we are, all the way back in stupid Boss land.



Seriously, they can just fuck off big time! In case I don't find a solution for this (which I likely won't), this is going up for sale.
 
That’s so wild. What goofy limitation.

If only it was a limitation. It's just dead wrong. In case it's got to do with the patch being imported (which certainly is a part of the issue), it shouldn't even attempt to mimic the big brother's patch functionality to start with but strip anything out automatically.
I mean, after I got that to work, I was already spending quite some time on finetuning these two patches, planning some ways in which I could possibly try to avoid at least some of the general drama. So I had some ideas I wanted to try out when I switched it on - but nada. There go all possible workarounds.

After all, I really can't believe there's no way to at least have the left and middle switches call up patches. Until half an hour ago I still thought I was be missing something from whatever assignment, global or whatsoever menu - but nothing. And it's even way worse than I had imagined. So bad that it renders the unit useless for what I had in mind.
I mean, you can only call up 3 different patches in case you step through them in up/down mode? On a unit that actually has 3 switches? Made by a company known to offer all kinda stunts with their switch assignments? That's dumbed down beyond belief!
Compared to the HX Stomp, this isn't even night and day anymore. If only the Stomp had faster switching (and ideally global blocks - but with the TXO being in "autosave" mode, I could possibly even live with just that).

I will now spend a little bit more time to see whether I'm possibly still overlooking something, but that "reboot and it's all gone" episode has likely sealed the deal already.
 
If only it was a limitation. It's just dead wrong. In case it's got to do with the patch being imported (which certainly is a part of the issue), it shouldn't even attempt to mimic the big brother's patch functionality to start with but strip anything out automatically.
I mean, after I got that to work, I was already spending quite some time on finetuning these two patches, planning some ways in which I could possibly try to avoid at least some of the general drama. So I had some ideas I wanted to try out when I switched it on - but nada. There go all possible workarounds.

After all, I really can't believe there's no way to at least have the left and middle switches call up patches. Until half an hour ago I still thought I was be missing something from whatever assignment, global or whatsoever menu - but nothing. And it's even way worse than I had imagined. So bad that it renders the unit useless for what I had in mind.
I mean, you can only call up 3 different patches in case you step through them in up/down mode? On a unit that actually has 3 switches? Made by a company known to offer all kinda stunts with their switch assignments? That's dumbed down beyond belief!
Compared to the HX Stomp, this isn't even night and day anymore. If only the Stomp had faster switching (and ideally global blocks - but with the TXO being in "autosave" mode, I could possibly even live with just that).

I will now spend a little bit more time to see whether I'm possibly still overlooking something, but that "reboot and it's all gone" episode has likely sealed the deal already.
You could theoretically set a two-patch range with the switching limit and then the up/down would only switch between two patches at a time.
 
You could theoretically set a two-patch range with the switching limit and then the up/down would only switch between two patches at a time.

Yeah, I know. In fact I'm just elaborating that very option. But the thing is, I pretty much absolutely want to be able to call up a third patch of the TXO. For the intended use case I need: Clean, dirt, acoustic.

Now, for the acoustic patch I could possibly get away with the onboard processing only and use the same reverb as on the lead variation of the clean patch. But the TXO patch I've created is sounding really great and ideally I'd have another reverb as well. Besides, I would have to sacrifice a switching option - which I will defenitely need now that CurNum is completely out of the picture.

Being able to toggle between 2 PCs within one patch would likely let me get away with the miserable situation as well, as I could use one patch for both clean and dirts (in fact, one of my main patches on the big guy works just like that), in that case I'd up/down between electric and acoustic, but as said, it's not possible to assign a switch doing that.

All these are really just crazy stupid omissions. It absolutely doesn't look as if there'd be any truly sufficient solution apart from adding an external MIDI controller. Which would then force me to redesign the board or sacrifice other options.

Atm I think I'll use the big one and a little side-car for some upcoming shows (don't need it on the big board for the next weeks anyway), but that's not a permanent solution at all. In the longer run, I will very likely just sell that Core turd.
Especially now that my long-winded explorations of the full GT have finally resulted in a killer board, my frustration with this thing couldn't possibly be bigger.
 
At least a little sign of hope: As I just found out, the Tonex One Controller also allows patch switching via CCs. And the GT can toggle between two CC values. So I could now set up things so I would toggle to my acoustic TXO preset on the clean patch. Or use the GT patch cycling to cycle between electric and acoustic and use a single GT patch for cleans and dirts (which might actually be the better solution).

We shall see.
 
Ok, I'm almost done and things will actually work. Will post a picture once the cable mess is cleaned up a bit.
And I will very likely play this for a rehearsal next week and maybe for some gigs as well.
But it's still very unlikely that I will keep this setup. Because, oh well... keep reading. IMO this is taking absurdity to the next level, really. Wading through all that BS since yesterday, I kinda knew this before of course, but still...

So here goes: The only way to operate the GT's looper is via three switches. The possible switch options are:

1) Rec/Play/Dub.
2) Stop.
3) Clear.

But here we are: There is *no* way to use these three internal switches in any kind of dedicated looper mode. To actually be able to operate the looper (and anything else would be completely pointless), you're forced to sacrifice the CTL 1 switch so it controls one of the looper functions (unless you never want to just stop or clear the looper content).

Even the cheesiest of all cheesy chinese mockup modelers comes with whatever kind of dedicated looper mode without you having to completely mess up the rest of the devices functionality (and losing one switch completely, hence 1/3 of all available switches, certainly qualifies as functionality being completely messed up).
So it's just Boss deciding to royally fuck it up, yet again. Also: Zoom manages to cram more *and* better working functions in a 2 switch looper (which is actually the single reason why I still own and use a G3). Couldn't they just have a look at how things are done properly in the strange land that must be the Boss headquarter?

Seriously, trying to "learn" this device keeps the blood pressure high. To put it mildly.
 
Got this done yesterday evening already:

GT_Tonex_Board.jpeg


Works "perfectly". As in "as long as you stop wondering about Boss' utter stupidity".

Yeah, would need some cable cleanup - but that's not gonna happen, because I'll tear it apart in the next minutes.

Thing is, as all "inmidst-of-a-song-switching" happens within a single patch (thanks to Boss not allowing me to slap three patches on the three switches), the main point for me to get the GT1kC is rendered moot. The only real patch switching is happening when switching from electric to acoustic, no need for that to be instant. So, I could as well just use the HX Stomp and possibly even get away more comfortably (also see below)

Especially as I stumbled upon another issue (that I wasn't aware of enough while cobbling all of this together). The combination of the very steep angle and very low distance between switches and encoders will make it pretty much impossible to properly switch without touching the encoders here and there. Now, you can lock the encoders, but I don't think it's doing them any good to be stepped on all the time.
This is even getting worse for the upcoming project (which this board was intended to be made for kinda exclusively, so I could leave it on a truck and still have my main board at home), as I will have to wear some disco boots (there's no business like show business... *yuck*).
Just have a look:

GT1KC_Shoe.jpeg


Given that these shoes also have pretty high heels, I'm sure you can imagine how much of an ankle twist it'd take to avoid touching the encoders (unless I'd always only hit them with the toe portion, which is barely possible).

So, the combination of the super-limited, super-dumb switching and the actual physical layout of the Core render it pretty much useless.
The HX Stomp wouldn't suffer from that as the encoders are nicely recessed.

Long story made shorter: I will either replace the GT with the Stomp on this board or just grab the big boy and add a little Tonex/Controller/PSU side-car and call it a friggin day. The bad thing being that I'd have to rip it out of my main board (and put it back in) all the time should I need both alternately.

As there's no return window, I will possibly keep re-evaluating the GT1kC for another variation of this setup, adding a Hotone Ampero Control, but atm I'm really fed up from dealing with this thing and worrying about it kinda nonstop since almost two days.

Fwiw, as bad as my experiences have been so far, I may as well even reconsider using the Core on the larger board instead of the big guy, turning it into a loopswitcher-MIDI-controlled setup. Thing is, with some analog pedals in front and the gapless switching of both the GT and the Tonex, it'd be a killer setup. And with the GT sitting a tad more in the back of the board, just responsible for some less relevant switching actions (the main switching would be done with whatever loopswitcher), the physical issues might not be relevant anymore, either.

Still, what a shitty episode, really. From "let me just drop it in and adjust some patches" to full stop nerve wrecking in a matter of minutes - lasting for two days.

TL;DR: F*** you, Boss!
 
Quickly reconfigured the board using the HX Stomp, everything just works. Proper acoustic guitar IR loading obviously included.
Goes to show: Never sell your Stomp!

If only they had global blocks...
 
as I will have to wear some disco boots (there's no business like show business... *yuck*).
Just have a look:

GT1KC_Shoe.jpeg


Given that these shoes also have pretty high heels, I'm sure you can imagine how much of an ankle twist it'd take to avoid touching the encoders (unless I'd always only hit them with the toe portion, which is barely possible).
You need to book more Mexican fiesta type gigs so you can wear these instead:

Mexican-Long-Toe-Cowboy-Boots.jpg


See how the angle of those toes is also perfectly aligned with Boss hardware?
 
If only they had global blocks...
AND readable display in sunlight conditions...

Have you thought about an MS-3? Your uses are much more complex than mine, but that thing is very capable. Paired with the NC is an small and VERY capable bundle. I measured RTL and was little over 1 ms per AD/DA pair (can´t remember the exact value, but it was really good). No global blocks, I´m afraid (maybe yes... I don´t really know). But it has 5 switches, CurNum, etc. Mine costed 250€ (used, of course... but mint).
 
Have you thought about an MS-3?

Yes. But the GTs in general offer two things that are just great.

1) Option to also run pre-loop FX.
2) Global blocks.

I do in fact make intense use of both of them. Now, if the MS-3 had global blocks, I might've considered it and use the MS-3 loops for pre-dirt/amp pedals, but it just doesn't.

Fwiw, I just ordered a Hotone Ampero Control. Will likely not use if for the upcoming shows (it'll be the big GT and a Tonex sidecar, want to be 100% on the safe side of things), but I have some pretty neat ideas in mind, even if the GT1kC is involved (which should actually work great with what I just thought about... we'll see).
 
I can see why anyone would be frustrated with any device that lets them set things up a certain way, then wipes it all when the device is turned off. If there's no way to save tings and avoid that, and I had those needs, I'd move on.

That said, for what I do, I still like my GT-1000CORE a lot. But nobody else should (or does) care about that. :D
 
I can see why anyone would be frustrated with any device that lets them set things up a certain way, then wipes it all when the device is turned off. If there's no way to save tings and avoid that, and I had those needs, I'd move on.

That said, for what I do, I still like my GT-1000CORE a lot. But nobody else should (or does) care about that. :D

Thing is, Boss could easily make this a *way* better device (suitable for a lot more applications) with a simple FW update. It's completely beyond me how they are missing out on just so many things.
 
Fwiw, can't help it, but I think the loop of the HX Stomp is somewhat more of a tone sucker than the GT loop.
In case I find the time, I will try to compare them 1:1.
 
1) Option to also run pre-loop FX.
The MS-3 lets you use pre-loop effects. You can move the 3 loops (together, but you can do it). If you decide not to use pre fx, so putting the loops in the begining of the chain, you avoid one AD/DA pair. So it´s very well thought out, honestly.

You can have effects, then 3 loops, and then more effects.

But it doesn´t have global blocks... I´m almost sure about that.
 
The MS-3 lets you use pre-loop effects. You can move the 3 loops (together, but you can do it). If you decide not to use pre fx, so putting the loops in the begining of the chain, you avoid one AD/DA pair. So it´s very well thought out, honestly.

Oh, I actually didn't know that.

Still...

But it doesn´t have global blocks... I´m almost sure about that.

This I know.
 
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