Valeton GP-200 Multi-FX processor

[AlbertA]

I picked one of these from Amazon for $305 - I had no idea who Valetone, Hotone or any of those brands existed until I stumbled upon the GP-5 thread. I have an Axe-Fx III so I don't need this - but I was curious enough to try it out (Just like I checked out the ToneX).

I just received it today.

The packaging is nice



A nice quick start insert - it's not paper, it's a plastic sheet.


Came with a couple of picks, a USB C to A cable and a wall-wart adapter




The wall-wart outputs 9V DC at 1A

 

[AlbertA]

The unit feels sturdy, pedal feels stiff moving it my hand but sturdy. The enclosure is metal. The pedal feels like some metal alloy, not plastic.



It came with firmware v1.6.3


Nice detail on the staggered switches, the back ones are taller than the front ones:

 

[AlbertA]

Trying the GP-200 software (editor?) on my Mac-mini, I get a request timeout error:



I also downloaded the firmware but no instructions how to flash it (I'm assuming I need the editor that's currently timing out):

The release notes RTF document has, well release notes, similar to Fractal Audio updates.

 

[AlbertA]

I tried another USB C to C cable - still got "request timeout".

I figured it out.

Looks like you need to use a version that corresponds to the device firmware version? That's confusing and unfortunate.



I had installed v1.7, now on v1.6 it works:

 

[AlbertA]

found the firmware update page:

 

[Frankencat]

 

[AlbertA]

All good now. I'm on latest software and firmware.

 

[Frankencat]

Now go getcha some NAM captures.

Discover Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) Profiles and Impulse Responses (IR's) · TONE3000 · TONE3000

TONE3000 is the world's largest community for guitar tones, bass tones and studio equipment captures. Discover and share IR's and NAM profiles of amps, pedals, rigs, outboards, and signal chains — It's free!

www.tone3000.com

 

[Funk Soul Brother]

 

[AlbertA]

Built in presets are mostly meh - to be expected.

There's a Paradise City preset that's not bad though - I just added a pitch shifter to bring my guitar down a semitone - neat little unit - yeah it's no Fractal but I'm pretty impressed with it so far given its cost.



I used the built-in GP-200 USB audio interface here BTW.

 

[AlbertA]

I made a patch from scratch to get a Timmonesque tone going.

The editor is pretty intuitive, you can rearrange effects order as you wish. It's like if you had a grid of 11x1.
There doesn't seem to be any option for parallel FX though.




Here's a neck pickup on a Fender Strat with V-Mod II pickups:

 

[the swede]

looks like this is a good option vs POD Go. Nice unit.

 

[norminal]

I made a patch from scratch to get a Timmonesque tone going.

The editor is pretty intuitive, you can rearrange effects order as you wish. It's like if you had a grid of 11x1.
There doesn't seem to be any option for parallel FX though.


View attachment 45828

Here's a neck pickup on a Fender Strat with V-Mod II pickups:

Holy shit! It has a BD-2 model?

 

[AlbertA]

Holy shit! It has a BD-2 model?

Yeah, they don't have a lot of details - I'm guessing is some sort of capture like NAM/ToneX etc - That's probably how they are able to convert NAM stuff and run it already.

There's 3 Mesa IIC+ models (captures?) but the manual doesn't say what's different between them

 

[AlbertA]

Preset Switch latency with firmware 1.7.4:

It's about 1500 samples, at 44.1KHz that's ~= 34 ms






Preset switch latency is the same (~34ms) with USB disconnected:

 

[AlbertA]

No pops when switching the Unit on or off.

 

[AlbertA]

Latency is about 5.2 ms and doesn't matter if the whole chain is bypassed:

With this chain:




Same with everything bypassed:

 

[AlbertA]

Next up, I loaded an IR through the software:

• It seems like the conversion doesn't normalize or trim the IR, I think it just loads the first 10ms of whatever WAV file you give it.
• I loaded @2112's famous "LT TV Mix 7" IR - The normalized version.
• The volume compared to the built-in IRs is lower, so who knows how they normalize their built-in IRs.

I tested this with a JCM800 model

• I seems clear that the controls here are just a generic EQ (Similar to ToneX)
• So most likely these "Amp models" is just a capture of whatever amp they are supposed to be from at some arbitrary settings chosen by Valeton (the manual has no details at all).

This is with a Gibson with P90's.
The initial noise is just the unit's self noise with this amp model (The guitar volume pot was at 0) - a bit noisy.

 

[AlbertA]

I tried just a few JCM800 NAM amp-head only captures from tone3000.com.
I ended up using this one: https://www.tone3000.com/tones/marshall-jcm800-2203x-27847



Just messing with the volume knob - A pretty decent sound (still using LT TV Mix 7 for the IR):



While having the NAM upload capability is great - it's a pain to download a bunch of captures from tone3000, load them into the limited amount of slots, audition, rinse and repeat. Reminds me of the early days of loading IRs. I wished they had more slots.

 

[Frankencat]

I like that one as well.