Boss GT-3

This is an update after gigging with the GT3 for over six months now. I've discovered a lot about the programming end of it, specifically:
1) If you're gonna use it live through an amp, do your editing through your amp. If you're gonna run it direct, edit it while running direct.
I made the mistake of editing patches late at night with headphones, then discovering that something else came out when playing through my amp.
Also, 2)regardless of what the manual says, if you don't have an effects loop or a power amp in on your amp, DO NOT plug into yer input, set T & B to zero and set Mids to 10. Just use the Guitar Amp-Combo setting and tweak yer EQ to taste. Otherwise, it'll be thin as a transistor radio.

Also,3) do not neglect to check out the Manual mode. I can now play all night without leaving bank #1 (not really, but...). Build a good clean sound, create a chorus, delay, OD, tremolo, vibrato, wah that expand well from that sound and work well together, and load 'em to switch on and off with the manual mode. Then do the same with a crunch sound, a distorted sound, etc.
IMHO, the best feature of the GT3 - most of all like using stompboxes, which we all understand.

Once again, make it work WITH your amp/PA , not INSTEAD of your amp. Take the time to tweak the preamps. The Fender and Matchless models are exceptional. Don't go overboard on yer effect levels. Subtle is better, believe me.

After six months, the exp pedal bombed out in the middle of a gig. Had to quickly take it out of each patch I use to get a signal. Hand delivered to the BOSS repair guy, he fixed it while I waited (ten minutes), but it still cost me $25. This "one year parts, only 90 days labor" type warranty sucks. The parts probably cost a dime (bad linkage). The labor was $25.

Had to find a service rep myself. That part of the Roland website was down. Still is. Their phone in California was disconnected with no forwarding #. It's like they were trying to hide.

I love this unit. I'm real dissappointed that it broke so soon. I'm disgusted about the fine print in the warranty and the lack of support (or even communication) from Roland.

I've had this thing for about 5 monthes now and I have to say that getting rid of my Boss ME-30 was well worth it...The maual is kinda dry and very...should I say scientific. The maunal mode is very usefull...The way I doit...I create a patch for an entire song then go to maual mode to use it. Farely easy to use.

For my setup I'm running this pedal through my effects loop on my Peavy Bandit 1x12 and my Ibanez S1520BP Prestige through the high gain. Most of the Modulation effects like flange, phaser, and chorus are very noisy but if you mess with the long enough you can get a good sound out of them...as for the distortion...they suck bad...I use a MT-2 Pedal from boss for my distortion. But for the most part the sound is better than some other effect units I have used...You just have to sit down and tweak with it...The only thing I have to say about this that I hate is the fact that it does not have a middle sweep function...But Like I said over all...I've been able to get Tool, Staind, Creed, Alice in Chains, Metallica....even the pefect Sound for Pantera...So I have to say that this thing is really good....

I've never had a problem with is...what can I say...It's heavy...solid and It's a Boss!

The people at boss are freindly but never had to deal with them.

I mainly play heavy metal and Rock and this thing suits me pretty well...thats all I have to say on that.

Well of course it takes a few hours to get used to, but for the amount of features it has it is VERY easy. Although it is easy to use it is also vey hard to master, but it just takes getting used too. Anyways the presets are excellent, plentiful and they cover a wide variety of styles for beginners.

The pedal sounds great! Every effect is flawless except for the distortion. The overdrive, grunge and such are okay but when you want to play metal, the distortion lacks punch, but for that, just purchase the Boss MT-2 Metalzone and plug it in as an external distortion and you have the perfect setup.

It's Boss

Never had to deal with them.

Okay so it might not look very professional, but when you see someone with rack effects that he paid over $3000 for and you have this small pedal with as much or even more features that sound almost as good it's worth buying. Excellent quality/price ratio.

The gt-3 is a little bit complicated to program. It just takes alot of tweeks, and alot of time to get an effect sounding exceptional. It's a simple floor setup, you just step on the effect pedal. Getting to the bank controls is a little bit hard, but i make a bank for every song so i don't have to change banks in the middle of a song.

I use a Fender Roadhouse Stratocaster guitar, with a few modifications such as Locking tuners, and a Hipshot Trems-setter, so the modifictions don't effect the pickups. My amp is a Fender Stage 100 with the Celeston speaker in it.
The Gt-3 can go from clean chourse with acoutic sound to heavy, high gain distortion. The distortions are a lil' noisy, and not what i expected from boss, but they still ROCK! if anybody is reading this that has one, i like to mix a Jc 120 preamp, with Distortion 1...it sounds really good after you do alot of tweeking. I"m sure you'll like it.
The effects always sounds great as long as you don't but a chores rate on 100 or flanger depth on 100 or whatever.
I can get the sounds of all my favorite artist. I mainly play Nirvana, Bush, Foo Fighters, and stuff like that. The Gt- 3 is perfect for those bands when i use a Boss Mt-2 Metal Zone Stompbox before my processor. Then here is where the versitility of this pedal comes in (sorry for the spelling), I can take a few banks for bands like Nirvana and stuff, then i can have banks for bands such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, and other classical rockers. It certianly is a great processor.

It is boss, or course it's reliable
I would use this a 10 year world tour, riding in the back of a Volkswagon Super Beetle, WITHOUT a back up!!

I've never really delt with the boss corporation, but i've been to a few conventions that they have sponsored, and they spare no expense. Everybody i talk to tells me Boss is the best guitar effects company.

If you don't have a Gt-3, then get a job, save up, and GET ONE!! it's jsut that simple. The Lcd display is awsome and its just a really really great processor. I can't say enough about it. I've compared ti to 3 different processors, and it rules over all of them. I compared it to: Digitech Rp-7 (great processor, great distortions), Dod tech8-G (piece of CRAP), Yamaha Gw-50 (most ppl don't remember this one).

Bottom line..GET ONE! well worth the money

I have had for about a week and I am now just feeling like I understand it. It is quite easy to get a good sound out of it,I just took a while. I am constantly updating my patches.

I am playing a gibson SG through a Marshall JCM 900 w/ a marshall cab. I am running it through the effects loop. Some of the presets get a little digital feedback. But backing off the output of the unit usually takes care of that. I think everything sounds fantastic, however the acoustic sim. is a little funny. But if you're thinking of buying a chorus, flange, phaser, delay, noise suppressor, compressor, tuner, limiter, eq, auto wah or volume pedal...BUY THIS THING!!! By the time you bought 4 of these things you could've paid for this. The distortions and preamps are ok. Finding a good distortion for hardcore/metal (hatebreed,buried alive,madball)took a while but I finally nailed it. This thing is the sh*t.

Since a play mostly hardcore w/ a jcm 900, the amp is my back up. But, it is a boss. So I'm not worried

Never dealt with them

I've been playing for more than 10yrs. and finally have equipment I am proud of, the gt3 was just the icing on the cake. I've ditched a case full of pedals, and am very happy. I compared this with the newest digitech rp2000 and it smoked it. I'd say the delays are sweet. the noise suppressor a huge benefit, and options a huge bonus. Since I've bought this I actually get up early to play.It has definitely inspired me. And as far as disliking anything on it, I'm a retard without a graphic eq.(no offense to any retards)(oh and definitely check out the site listed in another review a few posts down)

I have had for about a week and I am now just feeling like I understand it. It is quite easy to get a good sound out of it,I just took a while. I am constantly updating my patches.

I am playing a gibson SG through a Marshall JCM 900 w/ a marshall cab. I am running it through the effects loop. Some of the presets get a little digital feedback. But backing off the output of the unit usually takes care of that. I think everything sounds fantastic, however the acoustic sim. is a little funny. But if you're thinking of buying a chorus, flange, phaser, delay, noise suppressor, compressor, tuner, limiter, eq, auto wah or volume pedal...BUY THIS THING!!! By the time you bought 4 of these things you could've paid for this. The distortions and preamps are ok. Finding a good distortion for hardcore/metal (hatebreed,buried alive,madball)took a while but I finally nailed it. This thing is the sh*t.

Since a play mostly hardcore w/ a jcm 900, the amp is my back up. But, it is a boss. So I'm not worried

Never dealt with them

I've been playing for more than 10yrs. and finally have equipment I am proud of, the gt3 was just the icing on the cake. I've ditched a case full of pedals, and am very happy. I compared this with the newest digitech rp2000 and it smoked it. I'd say the delays are sweet. the noise suppressor a huge benefit, and options a huge bonus. Since I've bought this I actually get up early to play.It has definitely inspired me. And as far as disliking anything on it, I'm a retard without a graphic eq.(no offense to any retards)(oh and definitely check out the site listed in another review a few posts down)

Right out of the box, you can gig with it. Its very simple to setup your own patches as well. It might take a couple of hours to get the hang of it, but after you do...you will be editing like crazy. I dont use the EZ edit, and dont recomend using it. Its not that hard to edit or create patches without it. You get alot more control of the sound if you bypass the EZ edit. But if you are someone that wants a digital preamp processor, and dont like tweaking...the EZ edit may be just for you. Anyways...very simple to use.

I play a standard Fender Strat, and an Epiphone Les Paul through a Peavey Bandit 1x12 100 watt (with 1x12 speaker extension cab.)...80 watts without. Its definately not the best amp...but at the time i bought it...it was very decent for the money. I run the signal from the guitar to the GT-3, then into the Return input for my amp's effects loop. I found i get a cleaner sound that way. I have read posts on the unit's clean sounds, saying they are too noisy. I dont agree at all. SOme of the preset patches are a little noisy, however, those use modeled pre-amps which may be a characteristic of the noisiness. I have created patches with a super clean sound. No noise at all. I find that all the effects sound very well. I mean...come on...the unit costs 400 dollars...not 4,000. What are you expecting. If you want top of the line effects....buy top of the line studio equipment. But you get alot for that 400 dollars. I have found its fairly easy to re-create many sounds of your favorite bands. It does have some weak effects. Like the auto-riff (pointless...will NEVER use), and I dont think I will ever use the ring modulator, or synth sounds. But thats my opinion, and my style of play. The point is try it out for yourself first. You may love it....you may hate it. Great sound. Period. I love this thing.

Built like a tank. Boss pedals have never failed me before. Previous to playing through the GT-3, I used a string of Boss pedals for my effects. Very reliable. I gig without a backup right now mainly because I dont have the extra 400 dollars to buy another one. But I feel very safe.

Havent had to use it...but their website could definately use a facelift.

I have been playing for about 5 years now, and play a wide variety. Blues, alternative, classic rock, metal. I have found you can get great sounds to match any style you might play with this unit. I compared it to the Digitech RP-7, and then to RP2000 when it was released. In my opinion, this unit sounds cleaner, and is easier to edit. And just when you think you know everything it can do....you learn something new. If it was stolen, I would definately buy another one. There is not one single thing I do not like, except for it doesnt have a Jam-along-jack. It would be cool to play along with a CD through the headphones like on the Digitech units...but then again, this unit seems a little more professional than those. I can look past that without a problem. If you dont have one......GET ONE!!!

for my 2 and a half hours of fidling around and jamming on it at a music store i couldn't keep my eyes off the prested banks they have (200 Manufactured presets 140 user patches). It wasn't that hard to make your own patch, simply by deleting a preset and making your effect. but to do it properly you would have to sit down with a jug of coffee and take the amazing edtitng ride.

From bluesy distortion to an amazingly heavy pantera distorion, it's all there.

Such a stupid question. It's BOSS what do you expect.

I play all sorts of alternative rock/punk. Anything from the Tea Party to frenzal rohmb.
I don't actually own one but i am looking for a job to get the money to buy one.
As i have said on previous reviews, If any on stole it i would find them and rip their fuck'n heads off.

I found it is hard to remember where what is where... but other wise the setup is perfect.

There isn't more than 4 effects I don't like the sound of. I have an american kramer vangard and a fender princeton chorus amp it sounds great and i love it

It is very realiable

.....

good for all music
tone of distortion and overdrive
amazing

I personally found this unit very easy in use for it's complexity. It's also rather flexible and can be used in most possible setups.
The one great thing for me was full Midi-support which allows you to store patches on an external sequencer or PC or to use GT-3 as a
MIDI-Controller for other units. But on the other hand you have to tweak a lot to get a good sound out of this machine. And the manual sucks because it gives you only few usefull infos on how to get started or how to work with Midi-features but doesn't really help you in creating your own patches. So I had to spend some hours to get familiar with all the effect-settings.

I use very cheap guitar with single-coil pick-ups with my GT-3 and go into PWR AMP IN of my PEAVEY Keyboard Combo or into PA-Mixer. I also use fo direct recording on my PC... Well, let's talk about all these effects and presets. Most of the effects like MOD-section, delays, reverb, preamp & speaker are realistic enough and new features like Acoustic Sim. and electric-acoustic effects are usefull. But some of the effects are totally unusefull: Auto-Riff or GUIT-SYNTH, that tracks to slow for example. The Harmonizer should track played tones faster too. I found only one good patch for the Ring Modulator on the WEB - "Sitar"... Clean sounds are awesome especially sounding in stereo. Crunch sounds with light overdrive are O.K too ! But high gain lead sounds are too noisy for my ear and noise suppressor doesn`t help here much. It just kills the sound. Maybe this level of noise is O.K. for live-gigs but for Recording it's too high. I'm still
trying to avoid this problem but it seems not to become better in the nearest future... I'm still looking for patches which implementate typical sounds of several artists (Brian May, Satriani, Vai etc.).
Feel free to contact me if you want to exchange any infos on GT-3 or patches or so !
And here are some interesting web-ressources on GT-3:
User's sites:
http://bossgt3.tripod.com
http://members.xoom.com.bossgt3

Software:
www.kagi.com/amcsoftware/gt3.html
http://members.tripod.com/Gt3Banker

It's very solid metall construction, built like a rock. I didn't think about buying any backup for gigging ! I trust boss to built dependable gear. You must try very very hard to break it.

I haven't to deal with them and I hope I will not too ! But their web-site doesn't offer any support for the unit. It should be better !

I play already for a couple of years in a school-band all styles from blues to metal and GT-3 does it's work when I play live but for Home recording it is a bit too noisy on some patches. But I compared it to other FX-units (ZOOM, DigiTech, KORG...) and for the money it's still a best buy I think. I plan to buy ROCKTRON Prophesy and better guitar to use my GT-3 as MIDI-Footswitch for it. But GT-3 will remain a good tool for clean patches. I really don't know whether I would buy it again if it were stolen.