Boss GT-3

It's one of the few in its priceclass with really big editing possibilities. But this has also a downside; it needs digging thru lots of menu's, which could turn the "knob-turners" down.
I have the unit for 5 years now, and only now I'm getting decent sounds. Ofcourse you could blame it on me, but I think the GT-3 is very picky about the context he's used in.

Setup: Ibanez S540 FM TTS --> GT-3 --> Input of either Roland 405 (practice amp) or Peavey Bandit 112 (stage amp).
In the beginning I had a lot of critique that my sounds were too harsh. I mellowed a lot of my patches down (some had 4kHz +20dB !!!) but still my setup is on the harsh side.
It isn't noisy, I use the Noise Gate mostly with treshhold around 40-60 and release 10-20. Only if I'm after real vintage sounds, I use the noise gate sparingly or not at all.

I made some real good AC/DC, Deep Purple and Maiden-patches. Metallica (Master of Puppets) doesn't work out for me with this unit. I've had better results with someone else's POD for high-gain sounds.
The effects are very good, especially the chorus and delay. I don't like the Wah, its range is too limited (I have an original Vox wah to compare it with so...), in its priceclass the Harmonizer is very decent too. Ofcourse, it never beats recording twinsolo's with 2 or 3 guitars, but for a quick idea...

NOTE: My biggest quibble with the sound of the pre-amps is: when you use a mid-gain to high-gain solo sound, and you play higher than the 12th fret on the higher strings, and you bend, than you'll hear a certain digital noise. It sounds like tuning an old FM-radio. The POD doesn't have this, probably due to better AD/DA converters.
It's only noticable when the PREAMP-SIM is on. When just using the OD/DS it's not there.

another big note: This unit seems to work best with SS-amps. Especially in conjunction with a Roland JC-120 I can get REAL FAT PUNCH AND GREAT TONE. Tube amps make it sound muddy.

Very reliable. But recently it stalled during a gig (after 5 years of heavy road use). Turned out to be a faulty crystal. Don't ask me what it does. Anyway, the GT-3 has fallen out of my hands on different occasions and it kept going. It's a pretty thick steel chassis.

See "Reliability": Roland repaired the faulty chrystal for free! I like that.

I play hardrock/thrash/speed/heavy metal mostly. But since a year or 2 I'm playing with a funk/soul-cover band. Some of the clean sounds of the GT-3 are really good for that. I've been playing for 10 years now, and before this one I have owned a Zoom 3000S and a Zoom 2020. The one thing I liked about those Zooms, is that it had a bypassfunction under every patch-button. Press once to activate patch, press twicee to bypass it.
My GT-3 actually got lost once (I left it in the train, and forgot it because I was in a hurry), and after 3 weeks I bought a new one, and the day after the railroad company returned my old one. So, luckilly I could return the new GT-3 to the store and get a full refund (since it only was in my possession for 2 days).
What I love:
After 5 years I'm getting good tones from it, especially usefull for direct recording (remember to set it to Line (Headphone Out) )
Its effects are very editable and of a higher class than its competitors.
What I hate:
-The afore mentioned digital noise
-The bad impact it has on playing dynamics and response. I wouldn't want to use it in front of a decent tube amp.

I'm currently thinking of adding a Digitech Genesis (1 or 3) for direct recording only. I'll be using the GT-3 for live use. Next year, I'm gonna buy a good tube amp (ENGL Savage Spec. Edt.), and the GT-3 will then probably be connected thru its FX-loop.

Oh, an important advice: be careful with high-gain sounds. Although they might sound great in your bedroom when practicing, on stage they can muddy things up.

Sure most of people find it difficult to use it, but most of people don't know how to get a good sound with a two knob box...
If you have already use a lot of stomp box, and you know how to define their character, then you're able to work with the gt3. Good material aren't allways plug & play.
Once you have ajust your own patches, it's very pleasant to change your sound by pressing one patch button. I like because, it's not so easy to turn on 3 pedals at the same time in gig when you have 9 stomp boxes like me, and if these 3 boxes aren't nearly together!!!!

Once you know to use it, it can sound very versatile and great.
I used to play with all-tube amps and analog stomp boxes, and there's one thing we can say: IT WILL NEVER SOUND LIKE THEM!!! but I knew that when I bought it. The amp simalutions don't sound like the originals, but they can do good very distortions(the best I've heard on multi-fx), they're not so cold and fizzy like those shitty zoom...
I play hardcore/brutalcore/grindcore; the GT3 was what I missed!
I use it on custom tube head sovtek with a 4.12" cabinet, and it's powerful: the clean is so compressed with the valves and give warmth to the GT3 but the sound turns to agressive and tight when I put it on
distortion (I never set the gain to the highest value, because I used valve distortion before). But I have a solid state head too, and I can say that the GT3 sounds well on every amp...
The other FX are very clean, because of the "digital", so they can sound "cold" for someone, but these fx does only their purpose and don't add some extra coloration provided by a cheap circuit, which it is not the case for all stomp boxes.
There's something else I like: you can change the "plug" of your fx and place any fx before or after an other, as you as using separate ones...
I still use analog fx and valve distortion for studio, just because gt3 can't do what they do, but they're not able to produce what it does.

I think it's reliable, but I prefer to wait to give a mark...
The only thing I don't like at all, is that small output level button on the rear panel, because it looks like these on radio toys of supermarkets! I prefer to set it on a value and never touch it!

Never deal with them, because of the reliability (I have several boss pedals, and two are very old...).

Professional sounding for public price!

The blue box has a lot of menu and submenu type controls instead of regular knobs. I think it's unfair to compare such a device to a phase 90 (one knob == great results) type thing, and keeping in mind what it is and what it does, it's easy to operate once you get used to it if you're used to multi effects boxes or computers or similar. It loses one point for the poor manual and one for the fact that it's a bit difficult to get a good overview of the settings within each block. If you expect/need phase 90 easy of use, read this rating as a 1 instead ;)

Some people say they can get nice distortion sounds out of this box. They say you just have to have patience and tweak and know what you're doing and it's great. I'm happy for them, but it's been disappointing to me. I've tried the 4 cable methods, guitar input, effect return input, direct through pa with the cab sims on, lineout and amp global settings, tweaking and tweaking, eqing, yada yada, I've never felt good about the basic sounds I could get out of the unit. After a while I figured I'd just use my amps distortion and use the GT-3 in the effect loop and that worked better, but not well. It just took something from the sound that way. Nice, warm clean sounds turned cold when I plugged it in to add delay (without any effects on) etc. At first I used it with a Marshall Valvestate, which I've since learnt might not be a good match for it for some reason, and it was the same with the Flextones, Mesa Boogies, Fenders I've tried it with (I don't own all of those but I've tried it out with each for at least two weeks). My Strat and my Jackson sound fine through all those amps without the GT-3 so I don't think it's the guitars. I don't mind the distortions being... "difficult to use if you don't know what you're doing" because I really like to get that stuff from my tubescreamer + amp, but when a unit you want to use to add a little colour does the bad things to the basic tone this thing does (to my ears, I may be cursed), it's not for me. Sorry. It get's a 5 for at least sounding decent through headphones for practice.

As the cliche goes: It's a Boss. I've experienced nothing with the GT-3 to tell me that Bosses aren't the tanks the urban legend says they are. And that's even though this Boss is more like a computer than an OD-1. Unfortunately I wouldn't use it at a gig at all, though if I did, I wouldn't feel bad about not having a backup.

Never dealt with them.

I (try to) play everything with guitars in it, rock, pop, funk, metal. I've played for 9 years. I have not owned a lot of gear but that doesn't mean I don't know what sounds good and what doesn't (to me). This unit unfortunately doesn't. I really wanted to like it, if I didn't I would have gotten rid of it sooner. I had it for about a year so it's not like I tried to tweak it for two hours and then gave up. It has many features (too many in some cases - hello Auto Riff), and great controls - you can assign the expression pedal to control 8 settings at once, which makes for some interesting possibilities (set it to control the whammy and the rate of the tremolo at the same time if you feel the urge to sound like R2 D2). So, shame about the sound. It can't be stolen because I've replaced it with a TC Electronics G-Major, which is more expensive, but which I love so it's definitely worth it in the end. The moment I first plugged the G-Major into my amp to play some U2 riffs with the delay, it was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. My nice warm amp sound, with delay, WITHOUT cold, digital harshness (analog freaks might laugh but then imagine what the GT-3 must be like if I can love one digital 'warm' device and loathe another). The GT-3 had gotten in my way of making music the whole year I had it. I do not miss it. The 5 dropped points here are the 5 dropped points in the sound category (I feel sound is kind of important overall to a product such as this). The GT-3 has been replaced by the GT-6 now so anyone buying this will probably buy it used and if you get a good price and don't expect anything fantastic it might be fine, but for me it wasn't. I have no experience with the GT-6, it might sound better.

This is my 6th processor , after some Zooms and Digitechs , and its the best one , among Digitech RP's and all the Zoom series .
To get the real good sound takes a lot of time , and you need to know the blue box very well . If you do it , no probs about editing ! The manual explains everything well , but it takes some time reading .
My rating for this one is high cos it's impossible to get a God sound with simple knobs . It needs some work .

I have an Ibanez RG and a Marshall VS100R . NO NOISE !!!The effects are really strong , like the combinations with a distortion and a clean preamp ( Metal 1 + Clean TWIN ) , ( Metal 2 + JC-120 sounds like Maiden ) , ... The only problem is the Wah . To make it sound great , it's necessary to choose a drive from the preamp seccion , not from the Overdrive/Distortion seccion .
I created a Vai patch , sounded exactly like Passion and Warfare ( I really mean EXACTLY ) and that old Satch sound , from Blue Dream .
There's a lot of Pantera good patches too .
The only noise , which is very low , is from the Acoustic Simulator .
Oh yes , Adrian Smith tone from Somewhere in Time is excellent !

To depend on it ? Sure !!! No prob about gigging with the thing without a backup . But if some guys from the crowd throw beer over it , I think the GT-3 will not like . The only thing is : it's necessary to change the battery ( this battery gives memory to save the patches ) , but it really takes a good time . Some people plays wiht it for more than 5 years and didn't change it yet ! And that's a watch battery , cheap , easy to find , and easy to change .

Never talked to them !

I play metal , and it's perfect for it ! And it's good for all the styles , in my oppinion . If it were stolen , I'd buy other processor to try new things , but for its price , it's more than excellent !
To use it in the power-amp , without the amp's preamp , make it sound absolutely heavy !!! That's it .

It is pretty easy to use and program. I had only one complaint about the ease of use, setting up the CTL pedel was not consistent with the way the rest of the pedels worked.

I have used Fenders, Gibsons, and ibenez guitars with the product. I am real happy with all the effects except 2. The cry baby and the distortion is limited. For the price you are not going to get any better.

Very reliable. No backup needed but Boss has always made reliable products.

Did not need Support.

It is worth the price if you cannot afford the best accesories. I use it all the time and will continue to use it until I can afford better. I wish it had better Cry Baby effects and better Distortion. Cause that is the only flaw.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work it. Bank up or down and choose your selection on the vast variety of effects to choose from.

I found that I wasn't impressed as much as I thought I would be when I pluged it into my half stack. Then I tried it through my head phones and damn it sounded amazing. Phsyco sounds. It all you really need to make a record besides drums. Crazy synth sounds and intro outro stuff. Quite nice.

Works as its supposed to.

Never needed.

Its got two outputs so if you ran it to two amps in stereo it would probley sound a whole bunch better. Or if you ran a line to your amp and a line to the PA.

It not very easy to get a real good sound. But it is eay to change patches. The manual is ok.

I play a Fender American Strat and a Les Paul Double Cutaway Plus. I'm going out of a Fender Chourus amp. It is noisy on the good distorstion sounds. The lead sounds are horriably weak, you can't get a good lead sound. And Clean and Crunch sounds just have no power.

It's pretty sturdy. I don't bring a backup device when I play gigs. But the sounds on it just suck.

I play everything from Steve Vai to Eric Johnson to ALL classic rock. It dosen't work very well for me because everything I play needs an awesome lead sound and they all suckkkkkkk.

Well it depends on your perception of things. For the most part everything was pretty easy to figure out. You have to do alot of tweaking, and when you do, you can get some pretty amazing sounds. Theres just alot of stuff you have to do and personally I dont have time to mess with it all.

Personally I didnt care for the sound. The wah's are absolutley terrible and useless, it is impossible to get any kind of realistic wah sound out of this pedal. Delay, AC Simulations, and the special effects (Human Gate, Space Echo, Fatasy, Sythisised Crap....) all sounded really good. About 70% of the 50 billion diffenrent distortions that came with this pedal do not sound very good. I figure If I would have tweaked with it for a while, it would have sounded ok, but theres just to many of them. The phaser only had one speed< the flanger..... I wont go there. it just doesnt flange!!! Well, I'm sure I could have tweaked it all, but I prefer a couple of single effects better.

It never failed me here, I could use it anytime without problem. Made out of a good material, so you can keep it nice and shiny.

I have attempted customer support before with many other brands, so I did not bother to try and get the manual that the store forgot to give me.

I play metal, funk, blues, classic rock, alternative, it just wasnt much of a use to me. I just had no use for all the crap it contained, It was like everything was halfway done, and I know it didnt reach its full potential. I played it on a mexican strat, and it gave me just this raspy vintage sound I did not care for, and I could not use the phaser/flanger or wah for my band because they did not blend. I know other people have there opinions, but I just dont like this thing, but hey, it has a chromatic tuner in it!!!. After 4 months of trying to get it to sound right while waiting for my local store to receive my belated manual, I decided to trade it, and got a Les Paul with a Metal Zone and a Tube Screamer. Do what you want, but this is what I think of it.

SO FREAKING EASY, i didnt touch the manual, took me minutes to figure it all out

de armond 7 string s 67
gibson epiphone
fender strat
fender ultimate chrous dsp

clean, clear, under control

some need tweaking, some are dumb, but when you make your own, they absolutly ROCK!!!

fender uc dsp

limp bizkit, linkin park, easy to copy sounds!! awsome stuff

distrotion could use more bass ( its got lots, ive tweaked em) but SOME MAY sound tinny at start, ive costumized all them to sound perfect and how i wasnt em!!! GJ BOSS!!
nice echo nice chorus..mmmmmm

no problems, gig worthy!!

dunno yet!!

omg i love it , all you noobs out there giving it a bad rating SUCK !!! its the bomb guys, i recommend it so much

love the price!!! so great!!! $550 canadian baybee

takes a while to get the sound you want, but id rather it have alot of settings and take a while to get your sound than it to be simple.

ok here's the deal. The sound on this unit is 100x better with an outside EQ. I recommend the Boss Advanced EQ (which i reviewd on here as well).

The EQ gives it a MUCH better sound than it has by itself.

The effects are great, but the distortion really requires an outside EQ.

boss=tank

only thing im worried about is the pedal, i saw one used unit a while ago that had a broke-ass pedal on it.

never dealt with them

This is a good pedal. For me it's excellent because of the outside EQ i use, so i would try it out with your setup before buying it.

I'm giving it a 9 because its a great value with all the effects it has, and because there ARE great sounding distortion patches on it. you just have to sit down and find them

oh btw, put the EQ AFTER the GT3.