Boss GT 1000 / Core Users - Patches and Ideas

[Al Krow]

48 minutes ago, tobiewharton said:

Brilliant. Thanks for sharing this!

 

Recommend also checking out the Harley Benton Powerplant series - slimline, plenty of output capacity and really good value! The ISO-2 Pro or even the smaller ISO-5 Pro should be able to handle your needs? I've had the latter powering my little gigging pedal board with no fuss for quite a while now.

[tobiewharton]

Thanks Bas - that's great to know!

[SumOne]

This was what had caused me ramping issues:

 

That is how the settings need to be in Reaper, 'first' and 'last' weren't correct for me.

 

Can now simultaneously live record clean and tracks with Core FX applied, then reamp through the Core to add FX Amp/Cab sims etc and tweak settings as it plays through the recording. 

 

All seems to work well apart from last piece of the puzzle: I'm getting into a feedback loop when recording the reamp, that'll just need a bit of mucking about with the routing/muting though. 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2024 by SumOne

[Al Krow]

I sold my GT 1000 Core to our band's guitarist a year ago not really having touched it myself. He's put it to really good use and easily managed to avoid the harshness of tone that guitarists I've worked with can struggle with some multifx pedals (notably the Helix Stomp until they've really got their head around the EQ on that pedal). However, I managed to get hold of another Core (from my usual BC source, haha) a little while back and finally had a bit of head space to load up the PC Editor, which is pretty easy to use, and spend a bit of time with the pedal.

 

First impressions are very positive!

 

Just picking up on a couple of comments made on another thread recently:

On 16/01/2025 at 13:40, SumOne said:

My list of multi-fx ex's has grown a bit!  Zoom (B1-four, MS-60B, MS-60B+, MS70 CDR), Line 6 (Effects, Stomp, Stomp XL, Pod Go),  Boss (GX-100, GT 1000 Core), Valeton (GP-200).

 

What particularly gets me with any multi-fx in terms of sound is they are great for EQ, compression, HPF/LPF, IR, modulation, delays, complex routing, but none are as good as individual pedals for Envelope Filter, Synths, or Analogue Octavers (although some of the digital ones are pretty good and track better). I think that might be as a big part of the multi-fx market is guitarists - and they aren't so fussed about those things.  If you aren't so fussy about those those effects then a multi-fx can be your whole pedalboard, but if you do want those specific sounds then you need the multi-fx to be just one part of your pedalboard (e.g. adding a GT-1000 Core or Stomp to your pedalboard).

 

So I dunno, I don't think they are quite there for me yet as a pedalboard replacement (and that is before considering the interface and lack of 'what you see is what you get'). The minute there is a multi-fx with the equivalent of a Source Audio C4 built-in for decent filters and synth and octaver I'll be all over it.

 

The Boss GX-10 is next on my list as is probably small enough to be included as part of a pedalboard if needed, or can be used on its own for when I don't need envelope filters and synths, and at £350 is similar cost of having an individual BB-1X and BC-1X. 

 

 

On 16/01/2025 at 14:50, Al Krow said:

 

100% agreed! In my case I've a Zoom B1-4 as the 'core' plus dedicated envelope filter, synth and octaver. The only addition to your list for me of "can't do as well" is overdrive/fuzz, but that may be a limitation of the Zoom and the GT1000 Core may be able to hit the mark better?

 

I seem to have amassed quite a collection of dirt/fuzz pedals which I was going to spend some time A/B'ing. Not sure I will bother now - I found a drive sound on one of the preset patches (#226 "Classic Rocker") which I think is going to work really well in the mix. Not something I ever managed to get close to with my Zoom B1-4! The octave capability doesn't seem noticeably worse than the excellent Boss OC-5, and I think certainly usable live, to thicken out the sound. And it has a decent up and down filter patch, although not on a par with the best dedicated pedals, so my EBS will be not be getting booted off my little gigging board just yet! Really liking the #12 Clean & AG Mix patch - which has quite an upright bass feel to the sound.

 

Very much looking forward to creating some bespoke patches over the coming weeks.

Edited January 28 by Al Krow

[Al Krow]

Boss GT-1000CORE Multi-Effects Guitar Processor - Black for sale online | eBay: Not sure how long this one will be knocking around for, but that's a good price for one of these, and seller describes it as being in 'mint' condition. [Update - sold overnight, not surprised!]

 

First patch created - added a clean blend to the drive sound I took a shine to, using the easy to use parallel path routing. Nothing comparable to this on my little Zoom B1-4, and starting to look like my personal Zoom multifx era could finally be coming to an end!

Also need to explore what bespoke patches folk have created and shared for bass on Tone Central. Hopefully some good preamps that I can filch!

 

Edited January 30 by Al Krow

[MrDinsdale]

12 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Boss GT-1000CORE Multi-Effects Guitar Processor - Black for sale online | eBay Not sure how long this one will be knocking around for, but that's a good price for one of these, and seller describes it as being in 'mint' condition.

 

First patch created - added a clean blend to the drive sound I took a shine to, using the easy to use parallel path routing. Nothing comparable to this on my little Zoom B1-4, and starting to look like my personal Zoom multifx era could finally be coming to an end!

Also need to explore what bespoke patches folk have created and shared for bass on Tone Central. Hopefully some good preamps that I can filch!

I do miss my GT1000core. There's some pretty awesome stuff you can do especially when you start playing with assigns. 

 

I was playing with using the slicer, I had the pattern parameter assigned to an oscillating value. In practice it let you create a random glitching effect. You could do cool stuff like have it on a divider where it was set to give more of the glitching, the harder you play etc.

 

Lots of cool stuff with using input level assigned to parameters like the noise gate threshold to create a more natural reduction too. 

 

Lots of fun just digging in and faffing. 

[Al Krow]

Per discussion with @SumOne we both previously saying that we found that multifx were often much less good at filter, synth, octaver and fuzz than standalone pedals.

The GT 1000 Core, to my very pleasant surprise, has made both my fuzz pedals and Boss OC5 octaver redundant because I'm finding it at least as good, if not better, on both counts.

 

Was very straightforward to incorporate a cheap as chips Mosky dual switch with a TRS cable to get two additional footswitches with ability to assign to different parameters. There's scope for a second dual switch or alternatively an expression pedal down the line should the need arise.

[Woodinblack]

41 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Per discussion with @SumOne we both previously saying that we found that multifx were often much less good at filter, synth, octaver and fuzz than standalone pedals.

The GT 1000 Core, to my very pleasant surprise, has made both my fuzz pedals and Boss OC5 octaver redundant because I'm finding it at least as good, if not better, on both counts.

 

So does that say that it is not good at filter or synth?

[Al Krow]

4 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

So does that say that it is not good at filter or synth?

 

Not found a decent synth patch on it or Tone Central yet...but tbf I've not looked particularly hard, as I have a SY200 sitting next to it on my (significantly simplified!) little pedal board. 

Jury is still out on filter in particular whether my EBS IQ is sufficiently better than the up/down sweep patch I've put together, for an audience to notice.

[Al Krow]

On 29/01/2025 at 23:51, MrDinsdale said:

I do miss my GT1000core. There's some pretty awesome stuff you can do especially when you start playing with assigns. 

I was playing with using the slicer, I had the pattern parameter assigned to an oscillating value. In practice it let you create a random glitching effect. You could do cool stuff like have it on a divider where it was set to give more of the glitching, the harder you play etc.

Lots of cool stuff with using input level assigned to parameters like the noise gate threshold to create a more natural reduction too. 

Lots of fun just digging in and faffing. 

 

Sounds like you delved pretty deeply into its capabilities. Why did you choose to move yours on? Any particular limitations or issues?

[MrDinsdale]

7 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

Sounds like you delved pretty deeply into its capabilities. Why did you choose to move yours on? Any particular limitations or issues?

I spent a lot of time digging in and playing with stuff.

 

The reason I sold it in the end was that it got a little stale, compared to other products in the multifx/modeller space Boss product updates are glacial. Ironically they released a bunch of new amps a couple of months after I sold it 🤣

 

I also had a MOD Dwarf and despite its flaws, the capturing was great which peaked my interest in the Quad Cortex. Managed to find a very good deal on a 2nd hand one which sold me on switching.

 

Both devices are excellent, out of the box, the QC just nailed the kind of tones I was after. While i didn’t have a major issue with the GT interface, it took a while to really get to grips with it. The QC was effortless, I only looked at the manual once to work out how to configure it to use as an interface. I do miss how pedalboard friendly the GTCore was though. 

[Al Krow]

6 hours ago, MrDinsdale said:

I spent a lot of time digging in and playing with stuff.

 

The reason I sold it in the end was that it got a little stale, compared to other products in the multifx/modeller space Boss product updates are glacial. Ironically they released a bunch of new amps a couple of months after I sold it 🤣

 

I also had a MOD Dwarf and despite its flaws, the capturing was great which peaked my interest in the Quad Cortex. Managed to find a very good deal on a 2nd hand one which sold me on switching.

 

Both devices are excellent, out of the box, the QC just nailed the kind of tones I was after. While i didn’t have a major issue with the GT interface, it took a while to really get to grips with it. The QC was effortless, I only looked at the manual once to work out how to configure it to use as an interface. I do miss how pedalboard friendly the GTCore was though. 

 

Aha ok that makes complete sense, thanks. You've pretty much done the equivalent of my Zoom B1-4-> GT1000 Core upgrade, by upgrading your Core to the high end QC. Not sure multifx get much better than that one currently?

 

I will be holding onto one of my two Zoom B1-4s for the foreseeable, not least 'cos it has a very usable drum kit for home practice, and its tuner is more sensitive to the low B open than the Core's (I've got a workaround by tuning to the B on the 12th fret, or I could equally do an E on the 5th fret of the low B string).  Actually that's not correct, just needed to switch on 'Bass mode' in the Master block for each patch and then it reads the low B string easily. Ideally there would be a global setting for this, but it's literally a 10 second job to engage bass mode on each patch so no biggie.

 

So if you're missing having a pedal board friendly Core then maybe the same logic, albeit one level up, applies? 😊

Edited February 6 by Al Krow
Bass mode on GT1000 Core

[SumOne]

11 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Per discussion with @SumOne we both previously saying that we found that multifx were often much less good at filter, synth, octaver and fuzz than standalone pedals.

The GT 1000 Core, to my very pleasant surprise, has made both my fuzz pedals and Boss OC5 octaver redundant because I'm finding it at least as good, if not better, on both counts.

 

Was very straightforward to incorporate a cheap as chips Mosky dual switch with a TRS cable to get two additional footswitches with ability to assign to different parameters. There's scope for a second dual switch or alternatively an expression pedal down the line should the need arise.

 

Nice one, yeah the Core does a good fuzz, and the Octaver tracks very well. If I'm being picky I am a bit more of a fan of analogue octaver sounds - until they warble, which they do quite a lot! The core octaver is up there with the best of the digital ones though.

 

I couldn't get the Bass synth sound I'm usually after (Minimoog sort of stuff) or envelope filter (MF101 & Mu-Tron), but that might be my programming skills lacking -  with 3x split paths and up to 24 effects blocks I'm sure some great synthy sounds can be made, I got it doing some great atmospheric/pad type stuff with a lot of reverb, and using stuff like the swell and slicer, and and octaver and fuzz and gates do some good more agro sounding stuff.

[Al Krow]

Thanks for that - you and @MrDinsdale have both mentioned using slicers! Must admit that's not an fx I've previously paid any attention to. How have you both been making of use of it with bass? Does it do quite a lot more than a delay fx?

[MrDinsdale]

3 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

Aha ok that makes complete sense, thanks. You've pretty much done the equivalent of my Zoom B1-4-> GT1000 Core upgrade, by upgrading your Core to the high end QC. Not sure multifx get much better than that one currently?

 

I will be holding onto one of my two Zoom B1-4s for the foreseeable, not least 'cos it has a very usable drum kit for home practice, and its tuner is more sensitive to the low B open than the Core's (I've got a workaround by tuning to the B on the 12th fret, or I could equally do an E on the 5th fret of the low B string).

 

So if you're missing having a pedal board friendly Core then maybe the same logic, albeit one level up, applies? 😊

I think the Stomp, QC, Core etc are all incredible and can be made to sound amazing. The QC is IMO the most polished in terms of UI and supporting software and the build quality is great (so far) but it still has weaknesses and things it doesn't do as well. The lack of an amp ctrl jack is really annoying as, unlike the Core, I can't control my Science Mother preamp channel remotely, etc, and it doesn't have some of the depth that the Core has with the assigns.

If I could justify the cost I'd happily have both!

[SumOne]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Thanks for that - you and @MrDinsdale have both mentioned using slicers! Must admit that's not an fx I've previously paid any attention to. How have you both been making of use of it with bass? Does it do quite a lot more than a delay fx?

 

It's basically an extreme tremolo where you can change the effect patterns....not particularly useful for Bass!  But I quite liked mucking about adding it to pad type effects (lots of reverb and delays) and then 'slicing' the sound. I expect an expression pedal to blend it in would be good.  

[MrDinsdale]

Playing with assigning effect parameters to input level is cool too for some dynamic fx. There was a really cool video using it for an enhanced noise gate on YouTube but it works for lots of other stuff too. 

[Al Krow]

@SumOne now you've had had a play with the GX10 for a while, was it the right decision to "trade down" (the colour touch screen is definitely an upgrade!)? Just wondering whether a combination of Core + Expression Pedal might have been potentially as good / possibly better?

 

Having said that, I'm obviously delighted you decided to drop muggins here a DM,wondering if I might be willing to take your mint Core off you for a good price 😂

[MrDinsdale]

What I would say is once you’re used to the Core interface, you can make edits really fast. It won’t care if you’ve got sweaty fingers or anything like that either. The one issue I had with the GX screen is that it looked awkward, like the touch is very low fidelity. It might not be like that in practice but I saw a lot of footage which looked like people were wrestling it a bit. 

[SumOne]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

@SumOne now you've had had a play with the GX10 for a while, was it the right decision to "trade down" (the colour touch screen is definitely an upgrade!)? Just wondering whether a combination of Core + Expression Pedal might have been potentially as good / possibly better?

 

Having said that, I'm obviously delighted you decided to drop muggins here a DM,wondering if I might be willing to take your mint Core off you for a good price 😂

 

The GX 10 has some annoying interface things, but generally it is pretty good. It is similar sounding to the Core, but not as many routing options and a few little things missing (like a visual display of the Compressor levels), and I've got a suspicion things like the GX pitch shifter have a slightly longer latency.

 

The Core is better for the 'brains'. GX 10 screen and expression pedal are nice to have though. But yeah, Core with an expression pedal and some external footswitches would generally be better.

 

 

[SumOne]

Something I like about the GX-10 is this mode: 

 

Simple but good live: One footswitch for 'clean', one for 'dub', one for 'dirt' (and press two together to scroll through to other groups of 3x presets). I set the knobs for EQ. Expression pedal for volume, heel down for tuner/mute, toe press to engage an effect (e.g. on 'dirt' it makes it dirtier by engaging a fuzz, on 'dub' it engages an echo and reverb). That does me well for live stuff without getting complicated.

 

I think you could do similar with the Core and an expression pedal - not sure how it'd do the heel down and toe press as switches things though.

 

[MrDinsdale]

16 minutes ago, SumOne said:

Something I like about the GX-10 is this mode: 

 

Simple but good live: One footswitch for 'clean', one for 'dub', one for 'dirt' (and press two together to scroll through to other groups of 3x presets). I set the knobs for EQ. Expression pedal for volume, heel down for tuner/mute, toe press to engage an effect (e.g. on 'dirt' it makes it dirtier by engaging a fuzz, on 'dub' it engages an echo and reverb). That does me well for live stuff without getting complicated.

 

I think you could do similar with the Core and an expression pedal - not sure how it'd do the heel down and toe press as switches things though.

 

You can set the heel down tuner on a separate expression pedal, that’s how I used mine with the Dunlop DVP mini. I know there are a few expression pedals with a toe switch but surprising rare.

[Al Krow]

Fishman Powerchord FX Patch

 

One of the things we've been figuring out in my covers band is how to fill out the sound when the rhythm guitarist switches to doing a solo and we lose both vox and rhythm guitar and just have bass and drums underneath. It can feel a little empty!

I've been thinking along the lines of a Fishman Powerchord sim on bass. I actually briefly owned the original pedal a few yeas back but found it a little too glitchy for my liking. Pitch shift seems to be a significant challenge for most multifx to do well and my Zoom B1-4 could only produce a mushy mess! I guess this is where the serious DSP firepower in the GT 1000 / Core comes into its own.

 

I've created a little patch with a parallel signal path for:

Basic setting: Pitchshift sim +7 (i.e. adding a fifth)

Ctrl1 1 --> adds in Overtone sim with a modest lashing of octave up

 

On the common path, additional options to kick in:

Ctrl2 --> Chorus 

Ctrl3 --> Cry Wah which tightens up the EQ making it more punchy / less bassy (but also less warm)

 

Loving the lack of latency and tightness of tracking on this patch and IMO this actually improves on the old Fishman pedal quite a bit. 

[MrDinsdale]

Yeah, that'd definitely be possible. Add a little spread and EQ and I think you'll have something usable. With all the parallel processing, the GTCore shines in stuff like this.

[Al Krow]

On 05/02/2025 at 23:03, Woodinblack said:

So does that say that it is not good at filter or synth?

 

So in answer to your question with regard to filters... I've now been using the GT Core for a week and getting my head around it's various features and possibilities. The EBS IQ filter pedal I've currently got on my board (pictured above) is one of the very best analogue filters I've come across - almost on a par with 3Leaf filters I've had the privelege of owning, and considerably less expensive.

 

I've set up a filter patch on the Core, [using the Touch Wah fx in band-pass filter mode - in case of wider interest] which gives me the choice of up or down filter. I've also included an octaver, but just with the up-filter, to thicken up the sound. Really like what I'm hearing on both up-sweep and down-sweep. And the excellent EBS... well that's just been taken off my board and will likely be appearing in the for-sale section in due course 😊

 

 

Edited February 7 by Al Krow