Boss GT10B a review a decade too late

[uk_lefty]

I know everyone wants a Helix but they're very expensive, so here's my thoughts on a pedal released in 2008 that you can find second hand. My last multi FX was bought in 2000 so I know tech has moved on. I took a punt on a Boss GT10B sold for a great price on this forum.

For a multi FX idiot like me it's a bit overwhelming the sheer amount of stuff this can do in terms of programming and assigning pedals to do different tasks. However, it's well set out and there's Windows based software that can help. Also the 159 page manual (that doesn't include the four page list of presets) is very easy to follow. 

So, on reading reviews I head "the presets are unusable". That's not true. There are unusable presets, yes, but there are many EQ and amp SIM effects that are very useable. I played a five string jazz for some funky stuff at the opening of an ice rink using the "level 24 slap" preset, great. I played fretless on a gig the other night and used some "British pop fretless" preset and it was great. With each preset you can bring in two extra effects, e.g. add drive and or chorus by pressing the CTRL1 and CTRL2 pedals and also use the expression pedal as either a volume or wah. Very handy. You can have two parallel effects chains that you can switch between or blend. You can put the effects in any order in the chain. There's a lot going on and the display makes seeing what is happening where very easy. 

I've still not dedicated the full amount of time I need to yet but I feel comfortable with the unit. I've already programmed the tuner how I want it, so I have the tuner come on by tapping the pedal that denotes which patch I'm on for a second time and I get bypassed tuner, then I mute with the expression pedal. But you can programme the tuner in different ways if you don't think that's logical for you. Impressive that they have put in that kind of thought. 

What I need to learn next is creating my own effects. There's a few ways to do this: edit a preset, use "ez tone", create from scratch without ez tone, or download from an online resource. 

People say the synth effects are unusable. I agree. I've never had a pedal with a decent bass synth sound, to my liking anyway. 

The pedal is BIG. Very BIG. But it's a lot of tech in one place. It can do so much more than I will ever need but it's good to know that the options are there. It can do crazy stuff like make your single coil bass sound like a Stingray etc. Allegedly but I've never got in to it that deeply. 

Overall if you can't afford a Helix and you're not sold on the Zoom then these are an excellent option. I'm glad I got this over the ME250B. Like most of these things though the more time you put in to learning what it can do the more you will get from it. 

The tech may be ten years old but 10yrs old and Windows based is pretty much where I stopped learning about tech myself so it has a very familiar feel to it.