Valeton GP-200

[SumOne]

This is an intersting one: Valeton GP-200:

 

 

 

 

In some ways it is great:. 

 

• Solid Hardware: Metal, loads of ins/outs for things like FX loop, aux in, (and including L& R XLR, which is more than you get from things like the Helix Stomp XL or Boss GT 1000 Core) a good amount of physical controls - including a light up button for each effect type on/off and access. 
• Tuner, low-gain Drives, Amp/Cab sims and some of the modulations are good.
• EQ is good:  Global adjustable HPF/LPF and 4 band fully parametric EQ. And 10 Band Graphic EQ.
• Drum loops & looper which can sync with the drum loops, and a 'freeze' effect (like the EHX pedal) all make it very useful for home practice.
• Very user adjustable footswitches, e.g. assign for tap, long press, different combinations of two together (next to each other and row below and above), and can also assign some of the dials.
• Turns on in a couple of seconds (much faster than Boss, or Helix).
• Decent sized colour screen (easier to edit and see what's going on with the effects chain than a lot of other multi fx) .

 

Some things are not so great though:

• Compressor seems to always audibly squish - even on low settings and with clean blend, high-gain drives are noisy, the noise gate is not great, some of the modulations and delays are just okay with not much parameter control. Envelope filter and octaver/pitch shift are not good, no synth.  That all sounds very negative but most sounds are passable and would be fine played in a band - and the important core sounds for Bass players (EQ, Drive, Amp/Cab sims) are pretty good.
• Can only have one of each of the 11 block types in the signal chain (e.g. there is one reverb block - you can't have two in your chain). 
• The biggest downsides though are things that seem could be sorted out with a software fix:
  • Footswitches don't engage when pressed - they engage when released, it's a small thing but a bit odd.
  • Cannot change the footswitch lights to match an effect in stomp mode (and confusingly, yellow = off ,and red = on?!)  so it is quite difficult to tell what you'll stomp on/off. That's quite a big deal for me - it's no good to play live in stomp mode if I need to remember/guess what a footswitch turns on/off. If I'm not using it in stomp mode then I might as well have a smaller multi-fx and just use it for presets.
  • Some things are not intuative e.g. how to get out of Looper mode, how to change from 'patch' to 'stomp' mode via footswitches without using the dials to go through menus, how to assign the dial controls. 
  • It has just stopped any audio output a few times when I've been making more in-depth adjustments (even after I've installed the latest firmware) I've needed to do the 'turn it off and on again'. It has always been fine with normal playing/adjusting though - it's when I do things like change the Amp sim while the Looper is going, perhaps there are just specific things like that it doesn't like.  

 

The negatives are a bit of a shame as it has potential to be a really good unit - regardless of the cheap price, it does a few things that units much more expensive don't do (e.g. XLR L&R and Line L&R and can choose where the Cab sim is applied, colour screen, a lot of hardware controls, drum loops that the looper syncs with, aux in). It seems most of the negatives could be addressed with software updates.

 

TL/DR: Great value, good hardware, some sounds are just okay but many of the core sounds for Bass players are very good, signal chain is limited but fine for most stuff. It's annoying that it isn't very clear what the footswitches will be turning on/off in stomp mode. I'm not convinced about live use, a great budget unit for home use though.

 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by SumOne

[SumOne]

I decided to return it. It is an alright bit of kit but if I can't easily see what effects the stomp footswitches engage I might as well use a smaller unit to change between presets (like the 200 LT or JR), and if I don't trust it for live use I'll only end up using it for home practice - which it's good for, but the Nux mighty plug already does me well for that. I'm sure it'd be good unit for some people, just doesn't fit what I need.

 

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by SumOne