Distortion is the most difficult effect for me. I think it’s because I’ve grown to not like the sound of distortion all that much – or at least most distortion. I don’t like buzz, and I don’t like mud, and I don’t like distortion where the bottom end is loose and almost indistinct. So I’ve gone through a number of distortion units at this point, and I can’t say I’m completely satisfied.
I had read good things about Robert Keeley and the mods he does on the Boss DS-1, turning it into the “Seeing Eye”. I had been looking for a “third” sound for my Blue Angel – something to give me a good high gain boost for the “over the top” EVH/Ritchie Sambora/whoever else type of leads. Something that makes the amp scream and lets the harmonics and squeals ring out. Well, sorry to say this guy didn’t do it for me.
I found that with the Strat there was a very fine point where I got a pretty good sound with it, but if the knobs are the least bit off I either got not enough drive, or total buzz. This pedal was more useful for rythm sounds, but I was already happy with my sound in that department. In order to get the harmonics to jump out for leads, I needed the tone knob turned fairly high, but then I lost all bottom end – not good. It was different with the Les Paul, but it tended to drive into buzz land much quicker, so that wasn’t great either.
I ended up selling this pedal and the Mr. Ed. In the end neither of those worked as well as the Tech 21 GT-2 for me.
I bought the Boss GT-3 Multi-effect unit to replace my DigiTech rackmount that finally died. I had to do research because effects had come a long way since I had last looked into them. I went for this box over the Korg AX1000 (I think that was it) and the equivalent DigiTech unit at the time for a couple of reasons. I found the Korg harder to use right out of the box. I have no patience for fiddling with these sorts of things. The Korg was also more expensive as I recall, and I wasn’t entirely committed to this multieffect idea. The DigiTech sounded good to my ear and was similar to use, but I just had a DigiTech unit die (even if it was ancient), and had never owned a Boss product, even though they’ve long been the best selling units. Besides the GT-3 was a pretty good deal at the time, probably because the GT-5 had just been put out.
So, I went with Boss. This is a frustrating gadget in some ways because it has so much potential, but there are some areas where it just doesn’t come through for me. It does do what I need it to, which is to add effects to the guitar sound. That’s really all I bought it for, and I have gotten much more than that.
It’s great because doing cover tunes means that there will be sounds and effects in songs the band does that I can’t possibly know ahead of time. So, when that happens I go through the patches in the GT-3, or I build a patch myself, or I search the internet and install a new patch. So far, I’ve been able to at least come close to matching sounds on the songs we cover. That’s what this box is there for. Sure, it’s not going to absolutely nail the sound every time, and the sound quality isn’t going to be as good as the latest handmade, point-to-point wired class “A” hydro-reticulated-germanium-based-weezle-whacker out there, but that’s ok. Our customers and listeners don’t know that. They can’t hear that difference. And I would never use the weezle-whacker for anything other than that one cover song anyway, so I don’t really want to buy one.
This box has been good at the basic chrorus/delay/leslie/wah/harmonizer/etc. type effects, and I have been able to combine them into useful patches to get a simulated Talk Box (to cover Bon Jovi), a string section (to cover Drops of Jupiter), as well as reverse sounds (for Everything She Wants and Pinch Me). Every so often I take it out and just fabricate wacky sounds to see what I can come up with. It’s sort of like owning a dozen or so boxes and setting them all different ways to see what happens.
And there’s also one of the big drawbacks to me: This unit invites fiddling. You tweak and switch and try different settings and next thing you know you’ve blown an hour and haven’t played a damn thing yet! It can suck up time if you’re not careful.
Other downsides: First, I really, really don’t like the distortions and preamp models in this unit. Maybe because it’s Roland/Boss COSM system. I’ve got a Roland UA100 AudioCanvas on my PC that has a COSM amp modeler and it’s awful sounding too. It’s just not my thing. I’ve read about using different methods to use your real amps preamp in the loop of the GT-3, etc. and I’ve even tried some of those setups in my basement, all with less than satisfactory results. One of the big problems is that the OD and preamp sections seem to “take over” in that the sound of your guitar is lost for the most part. I’ve tried side by side plugging in the strat, the Les Paul and the Carvin and on many of the settings there is absolutely no difference in the sound that comes out. That’s not right! I’m sorry, nothing in this box sounds as good as plugging into a real amp. So I skip those parts of the unit unless I’m practicing through headphones – it’s fine for that.
Another thing is the seemingly wacky level settings. I build patches at home, and I’ll even try them out and tweak them more in the basement through an amp, but when at practice and again when playing out I find the relative levels between patches is often totally screwy. I try to balance the levels as much as possible, and all of a sudden one will be exceptionally loud or too quiet.
As a flexible effects box with lots of sounds it works well, and I’ll continue to use it.
Still…most of the time I’m playing it’s turned off. There’s just something about a guitar right into an amp that works best.
After having this unit for quite a while – close to 15 years at this point I think – the LCD display on the unit is shot. I can see some of it, but most of it is hidden. I’ve mostly retired the GT-3, although I bring it out if certain songs are in the set list for the night. I’ve had to move the four patches I use most into the first slot so I can cycle through them without having to read the LCD… since I can’t read it any more. It’s lived a long, useful life. Considering the banging around, the beer spilled directly on it, and the stomping it takes, I think it held up fairly well. No regrets.