My Experience with the Boss GT8 and why I'm taking it back tomorrow.

Did you try using it in your amp's effects loop? Did you try the four-cable method? If you're just using it for effects, then having it in front of a high-gain amp is not the best place for it.

Wow well as much as I love to hear the GT-8's downfall, only because I am a Tonelab lover, I thought this was the best effects station out there...now does the GT-8 have amp and cab modellers?

You used it in front of a triple rec? Hello, effects loop. Besides, time-based effects generally sound like shit before the preamp. It's your money, but you should have really tried that sucker in the loop before taking back IMHO. These new-fangled effects boards/modelers aren't really meant to be a stompbox.

I've never played the GT-8, but the GT-6 I played before was terrific. Great tones, great effects, and very tweakable.

Dude, I have the GT-8 and use it in my tube amps effect loop and I play totally high gain. There's no noise coming from mine. Like the others said, you should have used it in the effects loop and not for nothing... did you even think to turn off the preamp section in the GT-8 since you're using your amps preamp?? I globally turned off the preamp in my GT-8 cause I use my amps preamp. If you don't turn it off it's gonna sound like shit going into your amps gain channel. The GT-8 is a great unit that is a bit complex so until you figure out what needs to be turned off and how to do it you won't be satisfied. I love mine.


Rev.

After some more tweeking I agree Darren. It seems that I was running the effects loop on the Mesa and the output on the GT8 too hot.

Yes Rev, I turned off the preamps. Now that I have tweeked some more, I agree with you. This thing is very sensitive. I have had much better results with the unit this morning.

Thank you all for the suggestions and sharing your experiences with this unit.

The effects sound cleaner and I am not getting as much hiss this time around.

I have decided to keep it.

Thank you all for your help.

Well we're happy that you're happy

You're a sensible person, Richardscuro.

I was looking at getting one of these because a friend of mine is picking one up. I've heard great things about this unit and read good reviews. I think I'll wait 'til my friend gets his, Im anxious to try it out. Im a big fan of Roland products and I use Boss effects and always have. Glad to hear your having better luck with yours now.

When I first got the GT-8 I was annoyed with my initial tryouts. I hated the preamp nonsense since just about all, if not every, patch had the preamp enabled imitating some type of amp which I didn't want since I still was using my Metal Zone pedal into the GT-8 and into a Marshall AVT combo. I also hated the idea of choosing what type of amp the GT-8 was connected to (combo amp, half stack, etc). I was like WTF?? But after I spent some time with it I figured out how to shut off the preamp globally which also gets rid of the need to choose your connection type. So after the preamp is off it makes no difference in sound if you choose small amp, combo amp, half stack, etc. Another oddity I found with the GT-8 when trying to use the Metal Zone model to match my pedals sound was that the Metal Zone model in the GT-8 is not the Metal Zone! The Metal Zone model is actually called Heavy Metal. So it looks like someone fucked up the naming. Using the Heavy Metal model and a slight tad of EQ I managed to get the exact same sound as my pedals settings. Of course, now that I have my B-52 tube head I'm no longer using the Metal Zone distortion. But the effects... man they sound awesome and are extremely flexible. And with the PC based editor software you can adjust all the settings without having to bend over and kill your back. The GT-8 is different than most other effect processors in it's architecture and it can take some getting used to. But once all is figured out it's a very powerful and easy to use unit.


Rev.