NMFXD - Boss GX-100

[MichaelDean]

After not being decisive enough to spend a relatively small amount on one pedal, I got something that will probably replace everything on my board 😅 It is an ex-demo unit I found on Reverb that I offered a bit under the asking price on, so I feel like I got a good deal. Plus they are an authorised seller, so the warranty is still valid in case something happens to it!

 

I've only had an hour or so playing it through headphones, but it sounds huge! It also hasn't left me with option paralysis (yet). It's fairly easy to work out how to make it do my bidding and I've not referred to the manual yet. I've got a working patch that I can take to practice on Sunday and see how it pans out. There will undoubtedly be some tweaks required, but it seems to sound great on its own and I think it'll work pretty well into my amp. 

 

I've not even tried any parallel processing yet. All of the ods/distortions/fuzzes have got a clean blend plus an extra bass boost/cut, so it's pretty easy to dial in something very useable there quickly. 

 

We're going to be putting a demo together soon and I think this will be amazing for getting a solid bass sound for that. 

 

The only niggle I had found was that the tuner couldn't handle a low B. Turns out I needed to turn up the input gain and it was all fine. Not quite as accurate as my Polytune, but good enough. Also when I tried one out in PMT, the touchscreen must have been turned off because it definitely does do what I expect it to do.

 

XLR or balanced jack outputs are the main omission on the hardware side. Still not really sure why they were left out, but I decided it was a compromise I could live with. I can always get a DI box to put on my board. 

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by MichaelDean

[MichaelDean]

I hadn't managed to have a band practice with this since I bought it after a couple of weeks of band members having COVID and others away. Tonight was the night!

 

I did managed to use the practice space the last couple of weeks though to work on patches as we'd already paid for the room.  What I thought would work well on headphones didn't translate well to through my amp, but it was really useful being able to tinker at full volume, which I never get to do at home. 

 

Then tonight, a proper band practice happened and it feels like the perfect solution for me. Really easy to tweak, the display is really clear, lots of switches that I can map to anything, and most importantly, it sounds great. Oh, I want to add in an octave up to thicken it up while the guitarist solos? Bosh - done! Full approval from the rest of the band. 

 

Thanks @T-Bay for the lowdown! Need to sell my old pedals now!

[T-Bay]

Mine still blows my mind, such a great bit of kit for sensible money. Glad it’s working for you as well.

[SumOne]

Nice. It looks good.

 

My most recent Multi-FX was a Stomp XL (having also had the Stomp, Effects, and Pod Go.....they always seem like a good idea and then I go off them!)  but the GX-100 seems to be superior in a lot of ways so might tempt me back to the cycle of selling pedals to get a multi-fx: It is cheaper than the Stomp XL (£488 vs £529), bigger screen which is touchscreen, 15 effect blocks (vs 8), more bass specific effects, expression pedal,  the same amount of footswitches but a few more knobs and buttons. Build quality and effects and things like parallel processing and outputs seem similar to the Stomp.

 

Negatives I spot:  Bluetooth is a nice optional extra but the connector is £40 and there is no other way of plugging in aux to stream music and no drum loops or metronome (the cheap Zoom B1-Four & NUX MG300 each have aux inputs and drum loops). No synth effect (but can probably combine effects to make some quite decent synth sounds).  No XLR out with ground lift, I suppose (or hope) the L&R & headphone outputs can be set to send different signals (e.g. one output with cab sim to mixing desk, one without cab sim to an amp/cab) and are balanced but I can't see that in the manual. 

 

I'm keen though, the negatives don't seem a deal breaker. Perhaps I'll have a few individual pedals for sale soon!

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by SumOne

[MichaelDean]

10 hours ago, SumOne said:

Negatives I spot:  Bluetooth is a nice optional extra but the connector is £40 and there is no other way of plugging in aux to stream music and no drum loops or metronome (the cheap Zoom B1-Four & NUX MG300 each have aux inputs and drum loops). No synth effect (but can probably combine effects to make some quite decent synth sounds).  No XLR out with ground lift, I suppose (or hope) the L&R & headphone outputs can be set to send different signals (e.g. one output with cab sim to mixing desk, one without cab sim to an amp/cab) and are balanced but I can't see that in the manual. 

So, yes, only being able to play back other audio sources through the optional Bluetooth module is a pain in the backside. I capitulated on that add on pretty quickly. I don't use it for the Tone Studio app though. I find I can do any patch editing quickly enough on the pedal itself. 

 

Another oddity is that you can't create a blank patch/wipe one quickly. There are X number of presets (can't remember off the top of my head) and then X number of user definable presets with corresponding numbers but different prefixes. The user presets default to being the same as the main presets, which you can then either tweak or delete all of the blocks and start from scratch. Once you have one blank patch you can then copy that to other slots. If you choose the "initialize" option on a patch, it restores the original preset. Really odd choice I feel!

 

The outputs aren't balanced unfortunately. And the headphone out mirrors the main outs. 

 

You can set a divider block up with just the one output with the amp/cab sim and one without, but you can only have one divider block per patch, so you can't necessarily do as much parallel processing as you might want. I've been OK with that compromise though. All of the guitar dirts have a clean blend and bass boost, the bass ones have a clean blend. But I'm finding myself using the guitar ones over the bass specific ones. The only bass specific effects I'm really using are the bass wah and bass amp. So, I've got one side set up with an amp and cab sim for front of house and the other without to go to my amp.

 

Still really pleased with it. No regrets.

[SumOne]

On 03/02/2023 at 22:43, MichaelDean said:

So, yes, only being able to play back other audio sources through the optional Bluetooth module is a pain in the backside. I capitulated on that add on pretty quickly. I don't use it for the Tone Studio app though. I find I can do any patch editing quickly enough on the pedal itself. 

 

Another oddity is that you can't create a blank patch/wipe one quickly. There are X number of presets (can't remember off the top of my head) and then X number of user definable presets with corresponding numbers but different prefixes. The user presets default to being the same as the main presets, which you can then either tweak or delete all of the blocks and start from scratch. Once you have one blank patch you can then copy that to other slots. If you choose the "initialize" option on a patch, it restores the original preset. Really odd choice I feel!

 

The outputs aren't balanced unfortunately. And the headphone out mirrors the main outs. 

 

You can set a divider block up with just the one output with the amp/cab sim and one without, but you can only have one divider block per patch, so you can't necessarily do as much parallel processing as you might want. I've been OK with that compromise though. All of the guitar dirts have a clean blend and bass boost, the bass ones have a clean blend. But I'm finding myself using the guitar ones over the bass specific ones. The only bass specific effects I'm really using are the bass wah and bass amp. So, I've got one side set up with an amp and cab sim for front of house and the other without to go to my amp.

 

Still really pleased with it. No regrets.

 

That's a great review, thanks. 

Edited February 5, 2023 by SumOne

[SumOne]

Can the expression pedal can be mapped to alter 2x different effects and parameters at the same time?

 

What I'm after is the expression pedal to simultaneously increase reverb while cutting bass/increasing high mids and then to switch to be able to use the expression pedal to simultaneously adjust delay feedback and time. That is quite complicated and expensive with individual pedals so multi fx seems best. The nearest priced multi fx I've had that can do it is the Pod Go by using different presets but I found its effect block quite limiting and I didn't love the sound of some effects so am keen to give Boss a go. 

 

[MichaelDean]

You can assign the expression pedal to multiple parameters at a time. That isn't an issue. I don't think you can change what the expression pedal is controlling in the same patch though. I think you'd need to use an external expression pedal for part two of your plan.