Boss GT-3

Have to say that I am not a BIG techno geek. The manual and color coding on the board are outstanding

Awesome sound. I play a Fender Strat with a Fender chorus amp. This is a very quiet clean sound anyway. The effects pedal takes it to another limit. People are complaining about the distortion but I find it to be OK. These people must be metal heads or something. The only complaint that I have is that variances on sound levels when switching sounds.

Rock STEADY, even my bassett hound steps on it without any problems

N/A

Best effects pedal on the market today. You get Roland quality sound with a bullet proof case. I would buy this again. I can't wait to take it out an play some gigs with it.

Not easy to get a good sound out of it, espeacially if you don't understand how each individual effect works. The manual is lack of first hand information. Boss should not only tell us how to operate, but also provide more information about how to get a good sound out of it, it's a effect pedal, we bought it for good sounds!

I'm using a Jackson Professional, and a pair of Audio-Technica Studio monitor. It's not noisy, but when my guitar get closer to the GT-3, the noise gets louder! Clean sounds are impressive. For distortion sound, I always have to put a EQ at the beginning of any effect in the chain to EQ down the muddy bass part in order to get a warm distortion sound. And I am still working on other effects.

It looks dependable...

I called and email Roland several times, they a helpful and friendly, only when you find the right person, not every one of them knows every one of all.

I play Blusy Rock, Metal, Pop. GT-3 can pretty much does it all. If you only play Metal alternative stuff do not buy it, 'cause you will waste its beautiful clean sound and whole bounch of fancy features. Another factor that made me bought it was its cool looking!

Editing interface is easy enough?but turning the data wheel can get fatiguing after a while. Editing parameters are deep enough for a product in this price range.

It may seem strange, but currently I am using the GT-3 to add lo-fi grit to my drum loops and samples. I am not using it on guitar. But when I first tried the unit, I was disgusted by the noise level. It was MUCH louder than my Zoom 1201. A little tinkering with the noise suppressor cleaned things up considerably. Still, you have to wonder why Roland would still produce equipment as potentially noisy as this. For my purposes, the humanizer filter is great and the distortions work. But if your looking for traditional amp sounds, I don't know if this will help you.

Solid metal. Extremely robust.

Too early to tell. Again, it appears very sturdy,

I play mostly trip hop and techno, and try to use effects in ways they weren't intended. For this purpose, the GT-3 appears to be a steal. The humanizer and ring modulator add great lo-fi textures to my sounds. And the distortion/eq offers lots of tweakable parameters. Btw: The acoustic guitar simulators and "guitar synth" sounds are utter shite. And if you use them on recordings, you should know better.

Yes, it's easy to use overall. I believe I've figured everything out without using the manual (which I tried reading, but it wasn't very engaging). The GT-3 is not easy to use, however, if you actually want to get trully applicable and good sound quickly. The good sounds, however, ARE IN THERE. Boss should have not stressed the "weird" effects so much. Auto Riff and various other effects have little, if any, practical use compared to the clean, practical, and (i thought surprisingly) warm tones this affordable box has to offer. The GT-3 is versatile. I use a cheap fender tele, a nice takimine ac/elec, and a couple of old metal style guitars (my Heartfield Talon has Dimarzio PAF humbuckers). I was able to set up patches for each of my guitars and get some surprisingly great tones (more on this later). But I can't say it's been easy. Boss should have made the first 20 patches all similar in volume, and all practical in their usage. This would have made for a good plug in and play experience. Also, would someone explain the od/ds efx loop on the back panel? please email me or something. I put my boss overdrive pedal in there, stepped on it....nothing. And yes i know: send to input and output to return....Is my Gt-3 defective? Do you have to program to use the loop? HELP (i suppose i could read the manual, but i don't want to)

A little noisy on certain settings. Mastering this is just a matter of combining the right preamp sims with the right efx. Use the noise supressor, but its not all that effective. I'm using the GT3 straight into the efx return of a Tube Works combo. I liked it better into the efx return of my friends Crate tube half stack--much warmer, prbably because there were more tubes. I recommend using this unit in the efx return, and not with your amps preamp. It makes it easier to avoid excessive noise and feedback and also cuts down on having too many choices. Better to avoid having to tweak your amp and the unit at the same time. Also, in spite of what some have said in their reviews, I found that there were some great distortion tones in there. The trick is to crank it up. Things that sound whimpy on low volume kick @$$ when turned up loud (and unfortunately, the opposite is also true). Major tweaking is needed. By a bottle of aspirin and invest two days somewhere you can crank the volume. The acoustic preamp is cool too. I can use it with my Takamine and get surprisingly loud with the use of the anti-feedback feature ( i assign it on the ctrl pedal) when i get hum. BIG PLUS for me. The JC-120 electric clean sounds are accurate and respond well to tweaking. I recommend you focus on evening out the volume levels (I found I ended up boosting for the most part) on the various patches. I think BOSS kept them low for those who plan to use this unit in their effects loop (although some are surprisingly loud). I don't mean to sound overly enthusiastic, but I had no idea I'd like this unit as much as I do. I feel affordable efx have come along way, as has the sound quality of digital technology. For 399 this is a bargain, and I can tell that I'll continue finding new sounds for a long while. I'd love to hear email from those who are using this unit. Especially those using it in their amplifier's efx loop. I almost did that cus I love my amps distortion, but I decided that going direct would give me the most versatility. Also, I haven't heard many people make mention of the use of the manual mode. This mode allows you to use the tuner at muted levels without having to bend down to hit the tuner button (I noticed some complaints). Also, my advice is to explore and create YOUR OWN sound. IF you want to copy other artists this unit may not do the job for you (depending on the artists, I imagine). Keep in mind, your favorite artists have a lot more money behind them to pay for their sound(s), and the money they spend on vintage gear and top of the line signal processors is probably more than you will ever be able to afford. I've been playing various styles (metal, rock, emo,jazz, acoustic/folk) for over 10 years and I find the quality for the $ absolutely remarkable on this unit. If you have a cheaper guitar you should also know that this unit also somehow makes my cheap guitars ($300 range) sound about as good as my expensive ones ($800-1200 range).

I've covered this in my last section, but I'll say this in answer to the given questions I haven't covered. If mine was stolen, I'd buy it again. That was an excellent question as is "Does it help you make music, or does it get in the way?" I mainly write songs on acoustic because I find electric guitar, in general, gets in the way of songwriting. I have written a few riffs with this unit, but I have to admit I've forgotten them while spending my time tweaking. Take that for what it's worth. Perhaps after I get my sounds set the units tone will inspire some new songs....

Yes, it's easy to use overall. I believe I've figured everything out without using the manual (which I tried reading, but it wasn't very engaging). The GT-3 is not easy to use, however, if you actually want to get trully applicable and good sound quickly. The good sounds, however, ARE IN THERE. Boss should have not stressed the "weird" effects so much. Auto Riff and various other effects have little, if any, practical use compared to the clean, practical, and (i thought surprisingly) warm tones this affordable box has to offer. The GT-3 is versatile. I use a cheap fender tele, a nice takimine ac/elec, and a couple of old metal style guitars (my Heartfield Talon has Dimarzio PAF humbuckers). I was able to set up patches for each of my guitars and get some surprisingly great tones (more on this later). But I can't say it's been easy. Boss should have made the first 20 patches all similar in volume, and all practical in their usage. This would have made for a good plug in and play experience. Also, would someone explain the od/ds efx loop on the back panel? please email me or something. I put my boss overdrive pedal in there, stepped on it....nothing. And yes i know: send to input and output to return....Is my Gt-3 defective? Do you have to program to use the loop? HELP (i suppose i could read the manual, but i don't want to)

A little noisy on certain settings. Mastering this is just a matter of combining the right preamp sims with the right efx. Use the noise supressor, but its not all that effective. I'm using the GT3 straight into the efx return of a Tube Works combo. I liked it better into the efx return of my friends Crate tube half stack--much warmer, prbably because there were more tubes. I recommend using this unit in the efx return, and not with your amps preamp. It makes it easier to avoid excessive noise and feedback and also cuts down on having too many choices. Better to avoid having to tweak your amp and the unit at the same time. Also, in spite of what some have said in their reviews, I found that there were some great distortion tones in there. The trick is to crank it up. Things that sound whimpy on low volume kick @$$ when turned up loud (and unfortunately, the opposite is also true). Major tweaking is needed. By a bottle of aspirin and invest two days somewhere you can crank the volume. The acoustic preamp is cool too. I can use it with my Takamine and get surprisingly loud with the use of the anti-feedback feature ( i assign it on the ctrl pedal) when i get hum. BIG PLUS for me. The JC-120 electric clean sounds are accurate and respond well to tweaking. I recommend you focus on evening out the volume levels (I found I ended up boosting for the most part) on the various patches. I think BOSS kept them low for those who plan to use this unit in their effects loop (although some are surprisingly loud). I don't mean to sound overly enthusiastic, but I had no idea I'd like this unit as much as I do. I feel affordable efx have come along way, as has the sound quality of digital technology. For 399 this is a bargain, and I can tell that I'll continue finding new sounds for a long while. I'd love to hear email from those who are using this unit. Especially those using it in their amplifier's efx loop. I almost did that cus I love my amps distortion, but I decided that going direct would give me the most versatility. Also, I haven't heard many people make mention of the use of the manual mode. This mode allows you to use the tuner at muted levels without having to bend down to hit the tuner button (I noticed some complaints). Also, my advice is to explore and create YOUR OWN sound. IF you want to copy other artists this unit may not do the job for you (depending on the artists, I imagine). Keep in mind, your favorite artists have a lot more money behind them to pay for their sound(s), and the money they spend on vintage gear and top of the line signal processors is probably more than you will ever be able to afford. I've been playing various styles (metal, rock, emo,jazz, acoustic/folk) for over 10 years and I find the quality for the $ absolutely remarkable on this unit. If you have a cheaper guitar you should also know that this unit also somehow makes my cheap guitars ($300 range) sound about as good as my expensive ones ($800-1200 range).

Solid metal. Extremely robust.

Too early to tell. Again, it appears very sturdy,

This right here is a prime example of me putting my foot in my mouth. I made a submission for this thing a while ago when I borrwoed it from my friend. Well I recently traded in my Rectifier and got a TriAxis. I borrowed it again and stuck the TriAxis in the external effects loop and midi linked them. THIS IS THE MOST GODLY SETUP ON THE PLANET!!! I traded in over $4500 dollars worth of high tech rack toys for this puny little $400 dollar box, a dunlop 535Q and a Boogie Simul 2:90! It kick ass!!! so easy to use and so awesome sounding!!!

The Boss GT-3 is somewhat of a paradox in this category.......if one has a general knowledge of typical processor parameter editing, then it is fairly easy to navigate around the GT-3. However........ trying to get good distorted sounds out can be a nightmare........trying to combine the built-in distortion pedals with the preamp simulators can create some very ugly tones. This unit requires a great deal tinkering, but let me emphasize this... I'm one that LIKES to tinker....I enjoy messing around with guitar toys almost as much as playing. If you put in your time and get to know this unit, IT WILL DEFINIETLY BE WORTH YOUR EFFORT. This unit can sound INCREDIBLE!!! It just will take some time to learn how get the best out of it. The manual explains the functions perfectly, but it does little in giving advice for getting good sounds. Also to consider is the sheer amount of parameters there are to edit in this thing.........it really can be mind blowing when you consider that there are literally hundreds of VIRTUAL knobs to tweak.

I'm giving this thing a 10 because, although it can sound extremely bad, it rewards you with amazing sound and versatility when you take time to get familiar with it. I'm using an Ibanez RG570. I plug the the GT-3 into the FX return of a Peavey Studio Pro 112 combo amp and it sounds incredible.....I'm getting all of my preamp sounds straight from the GT-3, making my combo amp act similarly to a PA system. I have NO problem with noise. The Preamp simulators truly sound like those that they're modeled after.......the store where I work also sells the Peavey 5150's and the GT-3's simulation is amazing at recreating the subtle ways that the 5150 reacts to your playing.

I've yet to have any problems whatsoever with a boss product, EVER!

Never dealt with Boss

I play in three separate bands.......your basic Rock cover band, a Jazz band that does mostly fake book standards, and my own original band which sounds like a cross between DMB, living color, and Sting. I have an amazing need for versatility, as you could imagine, and the GT-3 handles every task I ask of it with ease. I can't blame the company for the difficulty of getting good tones at first, since the box responds literally exactly like the Distortion pedals and Preamps it emulates....I probably just need more understanding of pedal setups.....

I bought mine ummm....5 days ago, and I have pretty much got the whole thing down.But I don't think I know anymore about it now than I did 3 hours after I got it out of the box, very strait forward and simple to use. I'm not one for manuals-i.e. I didn't read it until after I started playing with it. I don't think it told me anything I hadn't already figured out. I don't like giving it a 10 just because it seems too blazing but I really don't see how this many opeions could be any easier to use.

Here in lies the problem. Its not great. Some things are pretty good, others are just horrible. I haven't been playing for too long, but I played so much thats I'm better than most people eho have played 3 or 4 times as long as I have. No joke, I recently started taking lessons to learn to read music and my instructor told me I was way ahead of my years. Anyway...I usually only play during the school year because I got to a boarding school, whichi is 20 mins from me. This is no prolme for me, but I met all the other members there at school. Our Bass player is from ohio and our drummer is from guatamaula of all places. Our singer and other guitarist and I all live within 45 mins of each other. This summer (I've been out for a month) I've filled in on guitar 3 times for 2 different bands from around pittsburgh. Now as I said I have very mixed feelings about this beast. We'll start wit the good. The wah isn't bad at all, contrary to what alot of people say on here. It can't really be tweeked like the rest of features, but its not too bad. The phaser and flanger pretty good. I own a stompbox Boss flanger I got a while ago and I love that thing, and the gt-3's flanger is pretty close. The chorus is ok, its especially cool in stereo. I have to use head phones to get this effect cause I only have one amp I can use on stage. By the way, I'm playing this thorugh a Cort strat copy with bucker at the bridge(I hate the call it that cause its one of the best guitars I've ever played, alot of people, including me say it sounds better than a fender) And I have never played a guitar with lighter action. I use this guitar for anything I play clean, and it sound pretty nice with distotion on the neck pick up. I also play an Epiphone Les Paul. I use this in Drop D tuning for most applications this overdrive or distorion. I run these into a Crate Blue Voodoo 100 Watt half-stack. All tube-sounds liek a marshall with better clean. Wich brings me to the next point-the bad. The amp emulations. Holy jeez, someone had hit the happy weed pretty hard when he made these. A couple of them are ok. But if play for me, I couldn't tell you what amp model you were using as I could with the real thing. One thats ok is Roland JCM-somethingh or nother. It sounds nice, its very bight, and sound pretty good with some chorus. Then turn the knob to switch to the "twin" which is supposed to be fender. It sounds liek the JCM with the bass turned up. If you swich to the "voxy drive" it sounds remotly like a vox. It has the kinda clear distortion thing goin on. The soldano sound just like my crate only-bad, and the peavy also sound like my crate with more gain, but-bad. This also has a veriety of differnt "stompbox Ods and distortions. To be honest, I never found one I liked-never. I dunno, people say you gotta tweek the thing to kame it sound good, but godamn, I tweeked the fucker and I can't get anything-the distortions sound like you put your amp in a metal garbage can. Hence-only garbage comes out. Its painfull. Now I can't knock this thing completely. Its fun as hell to sit in your bed room with you little practice amp or headphones, and sit there wail away on this thing. You can sit there for hours, just playing through the presets. Some are pretty cool....one I'm pretty fond of sounds exactly liek an organ(might be why they call it "organ")And there's alot of syntrh effects, but most of those just sound liek a shitty keyboard. Sometimes this thing get over-whelming, there are so many differnt kinds of over drive and chorus and shit that it drove me insane. There should just be one or two, and if you need to get a slightly differnt sound, it should be tweekable. I've about run myself dry here so I'm gonna move on.

Built like a rock, if it sounded good enough to gid with, I'd take it without a backup, I can't friggin afford a backup anyway.

Haven't dealt with them. But my music store has a one year plan where they will do anywork on anything bought at the store for free for a year-verynice

Overall I don't know what to say. Its good for any style of music I think, especially if you like to use alot of shitty overdrive in you bed room. Its kind of a shame, I'd say 80% of the presets have overdrive of somesort. It kinda ruins alot of them. And some of them are fucking loud, you just chill and play something, then you switch patches and blows your ear drums out. And Vice versa. If it was stolen would I replace it? Its not terrible, but I could do alot better. So....no.....I'd just flip out cause I'm going to take it in next saturday to exchange it for a digitech rp-7.

If your anything like me and you never read directions, you'll have a hard time getting around on the GT-3 at first. But spend about 10-20 minutes with the manul and you'll be making music. The 200 factory presets or actually pretty good but there are some useless ones also. There's 140 user presents that you can create yourself to your likings. There's so much on the GT-3 that it will take me a few months to get it all down and become a pro.

I use a Ibanez Artist series AR250 with a Fender Ultimate Chorus. The GT-3 is very quiet and accurate. When you select one of the preamps such as the Peavey 5150 amp, you'll here a slight hiss and buzz, which is how the real 5150 behaves. Same thing with the Mesa/Boogie and Marshall preamps on the GT-3. It actually behaves as if it was the real thing. The sound of the effects and patches are superb! You can get the cleanest of clean acoustic sounds to the heaviest of heavy death metal sounds. There's also a Guitar Synth. which is pretty cool. Using the Guitar Synth. I can get the ring of the large tower bell from AC/DC's Hell's Bells song. Theres also a Pickup simulator wich if you have single coil pickups you can use the Pickup Simulator and make it sound like the warm sweet sound of humbuckers.

You can depend on this hause! I would definitely use it in a gig without a backup.

Never dealt with them.

I'm totally pleased with the GT-3. If I wanted to upgrade later down the road I would have to get the $1,600 Roland VG-8 processor. 340 presets with superb and accurate sound quality and ease of use for a total list price of $549 and a street price of $399 is a heck of a deal. If it were stolen I would definitely buy the GT-3 again.

i've read a lot of every one else's comments complaining about having to get down on your knees and work on your sounds. i think you'd pretty much have to invest some time on to working on tweaking any processor to your liking. my suggestion - put it on your coffee table and save your back! in all seriousness, it's a breeze to get some great sounds from the GT-3.

i play either an 86 PRS, 87 PRS, or a Parker Nite Fly through it into a 4x10 Peavey Classic 50. i thought it sounded great. i'm not the person to ask about distortion, i'm a tube amp distortion guy. but the distortion from the unit was definitely a step up from the ME-30's. i've been impressed with both the number and quality of the effects. the wah's (auto and normal) are great. the delays are fantastic. chorus and other mods sound killer. the phaser is impressive. the pitch shifter is actually pretty useful. the amp simulators are great. this unit's noise is a big improvement over the ME-30 too. all in all, you might find yourself experimenting with some of the effects you haven't used before just because they sound so good.

unquestionably boss makes great reliable pedals. i've owned them for years and they sound great, they never break (knock on wood), i've never had a problem

couldn't tell you, i don't expect to ever call them

i play alternative pop, and this unit is perfect for me. the CTL pedal and the expression pedal are a much needed improvement for me (coming from an ME-30). i've only had it for a few days, but this is one of those pieces of gear you guy and you know the engineers did it right. i agree with the others that a dedicated pedal for the tuner would be nice, but you can also assign that to the expression or CTL pedal. it might be worth it to buy an external expression or CTL pedal for that alone. all in all i love it, i would buy another one in a heartbeat.

The Boss GT-3 was an (major) upgrade from the ME-30 that I traded it in for. I haven't read the manual yet, but by simple button pressing I was able to edit patches, change parameters, etc... I could only see two flaws on this particular unit. The first is that the tuner can only be turned on with a small button, and the second is that you better have all your patches set before playing because that also involves getting down on your knees to do. Other than those two gripes, the gt-3 is easy to operate

I am currently using a Jackson DR3 into a Marshall VS265. The reason I wanted a great preamp with lots of flexability is that the Marshalls overdrive is somewhat weak and needs some more balls and chunk. I found that the GT-3 has a formadable preamp with many many options that you can do, and you can have just about any sound that you can imagine. The neat thing is that the cosm based preamp really does sound very similar to the amps that it is copying. I have always been a fan of the Mesa gear, but was never good enough to warrant dropping over a grand for some of their stuff, and when I heard a preset of MB solo, it had that same Mesa sound that really rocks!!! No need to mention the digital effects which Boss has nailed!!! Very nice indeed.

I have had many different Boss gear and pedals, and to date there has never been a failure. You can't say that about to many other companies.

Haven't had to deal with them, and don't think that I ever will.

I've been playing on and off for the last 7 years and play mostly hard rock/prog rock. I have read other opinions about this preamp, and some say that the distortions aren't distorted enough. I live in a townhouse and don't have the luxury of turning up the amp higher than 2 or 3, and the grind that I get from this is incredible. Maybe it's a good combination of guitar, amp, and processor, or maybe I just realized that I paid $350 for this thing that can duplicate over 20 amps that if you had to buy them all would cost about the same as a luxury car...and life is good.