Boss GT-3

Ease of Use - Very Easy to use, I've tried several other pedals before this one and this one is the easiest to use. Editing patches I don't use that much but that's not difficult either, the pre-sets on this thing is dope and you realy don't need to adjust a lot of the sounds.

The manual SUCKS - IT IS HORRIBLE. It does not explain a thing, I figured out how to use this pedal without the manual, it is so incredibaly difficult to understand.

Sound quality, I use a Peavy Pro112 through a custom Ibanez RG, and I get very good tonage through it. Affects are great, the chorous sucks through, (i never use chorous anway), the auto-wah is garbage. The dely, distortioin/overdrive, flange, phaser, slicer, ring echo, and the brass sounds are awesome.

Honestly this is the way it is - put every single pedal that boss has put out for example how much would that cost? $1,500 - 2,000 maybe? Well this is all inside the GT-3. I don't understand why more people don't get this pedal.

I use a BOss looper with my GT-3 Ring Echo effect and I can get the Bommerang sound that Trey Anastasio from Phish uses, its pretty dope.

Hard as stone, it is made of metal and it seems copmletely undbrekable.

NO need for it will never break down.

Overall: I play a lot of jazz, blues, rock, music that feels good, no metal crap. A lot of free-flow jams that make your entire tingle and this pedal has allowed me to get sounds that can make you feel as if your walking through a mountain pass then sudenly you are flying through space.

I've been playing for about 12 years now and this has started the effects process for me, I just recently got this pedal it rocks. If this item was stolen I would totaly be bummed and i would replace this def.

I've used other multi-effects by Korg and Digitech but still found the number of buttons and footswitches daunting. The unit ships with a 100-page manual, as well as a 'quick start guide' that I flipped through prior to turning the thing on. Out of the box there are a couple hundred presets to toy with with vastly diverse sounds, but few that I would consider recording with. The menus are intuitive given the complexity of the device, and within a couple weeks of purchase I was up and running confidently.

There seems to be a lot of discussion about the sound quality of this device. I bought this unit specifically after seeing one on stage when a favorite band of mine was playing. In short, I think it's possible to get *very* nice sounds from this unit but you need to give yourself time to work with it. For everything it does not do, there's sure to be two or three things that it does quite nicely.

Placement in your effects chain is crucial, and there is a significant amount of space dedicated in the manual to this topic. I am playing a Gibson 335 through a Vox 2-12 reverb and wasn't initially happy with the sound I was getting-- running Guitar to GT-3 to AMP. Switching the signal from Guitar to AMP to GT-3 to AMP however made a significant change to tone. I would tend to agree with others that have opted not to use the COSM modeling effects when playing into boutique amplifiers, but they are very useful in direct recording applications.
Of specific effects, I'll do a quick run through. Note you can assign the order of the effect from the Master panel, and control some features with the expression pedal.

SFX: The Acoustic guitar simulator, Anti-feedbacker, and Feedbacker, and Pickup simulators are not effective to my ear. The Slow Gear, resurrected from the defunct SG-1 pedal has some worthwhile applications. The tremolo is much stronger than the tremolo unit on my Vox and I use them alternately depending on the situation. The panning tremolo feature is particularly good, especially since it can be set at a measured BPM.
Compressors, Limiters: Reasonable. My brother complained they sucked the tone right out of his Carvin head into a 4 x 12 stack.
Wah: Forget about it. The auto wah is halfway decent, but lacks depth.
OD, DS: I use the Vintage OD, Turbo OD and Fuzz exclusively. The majority of overdrives are top heavy, and most of the distortions are bottom heavy. It's work getting your mids to come through.
COSM: Good running straight into my digital 10-track. There is a function to simulate the distance of the microphone to the speaker cab. Very thorough.
Modulation: Auto-riff, Guitar synth, Ring modulator and Slicer are gimmicky. The Slicer *may* have some merit, and I'm pretty sure I've heard it recently on a few recordings. The Flange and Phasers are pretty good. The Harmonist is growing on me, because you can set it like an additional delay to mirror the sound, and detune in 1/12 steps. The Vibrato is actually very good when setting the depth high and the rate low.
Delay: You cannot create a 20 second loop with this device, but there's a lot of functionality with this effect. Tap function is great, and can be set to BPM.
Chorus: Settings for digital or 'analog.' Very usable.
Reverb: A bit thin on my ear, and I go between it and the reverb on the amp. Not bad for direct recording, and it's been working well in the experiments I've done with vocals.

It's made of metal, and weighs at least ten pounds. It feels extremely stable on the floor. They're certainly cheap enough to keep a backup (if you felt like programming two units...) but I trust it not to fail on me.

I play rock inspired by the early 90s inspired by rock of the 60s and early 70s. This unit has been nearly indispensible in getting real depth of sound. I've only been playing guitar for a couple years but have played keyboards for over ten. I would replace this unit if lost unless the GT-6 has depreciated fantastically. The value of the GT-3 is that individual pedals this machine replaces would cost several times more than the $180 I dropped on this. You can consistently find these on Ebay for under $200-- this one came with a padded gig bag. It has enough good sounds to make music and enough bad ones to waste plenty of time. Everyone looking for a multi effects unit should at least consider this one.

It's not too difficult to work out if you have owned similar multi fx before although in saying that, It became a lot easier after I aquired the user manual.

I mainly use a PRS custom through a Laney combo and the band I am in play a lot of " Aussie Pub Rock" covers (eg: Cold chisel, Angels, Midnight oil, Hoodoo Gurus etc.)as well as some of the more modern songs by bands like Greenday, Calling, 3 doors down etc.
I found that nearly all the factory "Dirty" settings had a lot of background hiss and were too overdriven to suit my preferred sound. They took a lot of tweaking to get the sound I wanted. The ways you can set the CTL pedal is great.
I noticed that in some of the other reviews that a lot of people complained about the sound quality. I believe that sound quality is an individual taste and if you have the time and patience to play around with the GT3 you should be able to get at least the majority of the sounds close to how you want them. My previous pedal was a Zoom 4040 and it has better distortions than the GT3 and was also easier to set up to suit my sound but after changing a lot of the presets I have managed to get a sound i'm happy with out of the GT3.(I have had to set up a different bank of fx for my Fender Tele) The wah on the GT3 is better than other multi-fx pedals I have used (Zoom 3030, Zoom4040, Digitec RP3, Digitec RP6,Zoom GFX707)

It's tough

The Roland web site only has info about their latest Fx pedals and does not provide any online user manuals or support which sort of pisses me off a bit. They should visit the Alesis webpage.

I have always liked the individual Boss pedals and while you can't just bend down and add more gain or delay time etc. like you can with the individual Boss pedals, you can easily program the expression pedal and control it from the pedal. If I was to lose the pedal I would go back to my Zoom 4040 (and buy a decent wah pedal to go with it)or perhaps try the GT6.

It's too hard to get BASIC sound :(
Editing at all is rather convinient, especially using MIDI.
Too easy to understand how to control, so I read manual very seldom.
My firmware was new (1.2, AFAIR. Harmonist bug was fixed) and never upgraded.

I've been using BOSS GT-3 with the folloing:
Slim copy of Ibanez RG, Ibanez RG-570 (V7/s1/ToneZone), (Linear) Power amp, Sovtek MIG-100 (all-tube guitar amp), Randall RG-75r (ss combo), H&K ss combo, SMB tube drive, copy of Marshall Guv'nor drive.

It's not too noisy but on "gig" volume it's drives give terrible feedback.

I dislike harmonist, guitar synth., tremolo, wah and many others.
It has realy nice crunch and overdrive effects. Others drives and overdriven preamps can give you ~Satch sound. 2 years I've being trying to get metal sound.

It's a very dependable processor. Metal case seems to be unbreakable.
But it's too heavy.

Finally I've sold it. And I'm too glad. It gave me one good lesson -
processors only show you what effects you need. Then sold it and buy
2-3 pedals.
What bad in gt-3? It "killes" guitar sound, it always sounds as if you
had played properly. That's good for record or a gig, but you can't
learn to play with it.
Yes, it is easy in use. But if U can't make it sound as U need, that's no sence in it.
Don't use it's drives and preamps. Except vintage overdrives they suck. The digital effect are so-so. When I've been playing cheap guitar I didn't care about the sound, but after I baught Ibanez and a tube-amp I realised what suxx I used :(

Now I use only guitar and a tube-amp. Also I want to buy chorus pedal and, probably, wah.

Very easy to use and edit,just a lot sub menu's cause the display isn't that big but it works.

I had all kinds of FX and this is so far the best (better then Zoom,Korg,ME-8/30/33,Ibanez).

I got mine 2nd hand,first built in '99 or '00 so there is nothing to be questioned I think.

Boss products are so reliable that shops give warranty on 2nd hand gear, NICE!

I got no idea.

Nice "oneboxdoesitall".

If you're on a budget or don't want to have boxes all over the place (and wires, adapters etc.) this is a great MultiFX.

Way better then ME30/33 little less then a GT6,of course there are alternatives like Korg AX1500G and Digitech RP300 (i think).

Wether people talk about other brands they like better it comes down to taste i'd say.

I never regretted buying the GT-3.

If you want this thing to sound good, you will need to know what sounds good and then program the unit. I spent at least 40hours but when I finished I had 9 different sounds that I use all the time. No matter what amp I play through I allways get good sound. You must have patience, the supplied patches sound like crap. Spend time with the manual first then plan your sounds. I use a 9 button midi controller so I can access 9 different patches at the touch of 1 button. No time for scrolling when playing live.

Sound quality is good only if you adjust the parameters to suit your personal taste. Factory presets stink. My suggestion: Start with a basic clean sound and then build all your other sounds from the original patch. That way the guitar sounds natural switching between different effects.

Very dependable.

Never needed to call.

I play everything from counrty to distorted rock. I need be heard of a full band on clean and distorted patched. We play outdoors and in small rooms. I use a 2 amp Set-Up. Marshall 4x12 Cab with Musicman head and a MusicMan Combo Amp with EV 12" Speaker. I get the best of both worlds; The bump of the Marshall and the clarity of the EV's. I love this setup. I do not play in stereo.

The pedal is pretty simple to use. It lacks a bypass pedal I think (It only has a button). It has a quick start manual that helps a lot.

I have a Jackson DKMG and a Fender Chorus Ultimate. I have to say that after one hour of playing this thing I came back to using just the pre-amp on the fender. The distortions are muddy, the delay is VERY basic and the chorus is weak. The wah sounds horrible and the Octaver sounds "plastic".

I am not happy with this thing and I am selling it...

The unit is very dependable actually. The construction is outstanding!.

Never dealt with them. They have a nice website though.

I will not keep the unit. The clean sounds are pretty good I have to say but I think there is no way in hell you can get a nice sounding metal sound from this things. Ahh... the equalizer sucks by the way.

Pretty easy to figure out considering that i bought it used with no manual/literature/etc. editing effects is pretty quick also as long as youre not a tweaky freak like me...just dial in the numerical value that you want and save . .easy as that

Ive run this thing line in and thru the effects loop of my mesa/marshall stack and in both cases the distortion and preampmodels are unsatisfactory [sound cheap inaccurate and noisy]. The guitarsynth and harmonist/pitchshifter are kida slow at tracking even when at the front of the effects chain. . .other than those 2 deficiencies, i tihnk the rest of the effects are good especially if you play nu-metal...

ive had it for more than a year and havent had any technical difficulties with it . . seems like a really solidly built piece of hardware . . .

havent had to contact custsupport yet . . .

I think this is a pretty solid multi-effects pedalboard - despite a few deficiencies its still overall a good one and i would recommend it for people who play nu-metal/contemporarry rock styles . . .has lots of features like tuner and different output settings and MIDI . .

NOT BAD AFTER YOUVE HAD IT AFTER A WHILE.

OK SOUND AT BEST. WHAT IT IS IT WITH THESE MULTI EFFECTS UNITS, PEOPLE JUST DONT SEEM TO REALIZE THAT THEY ARE JUST A BUNCH OF EFFECTS CRAMED INTO ONE UNIT WITH ONE UNIT WHITH NO ATTENTION PAID TO THE QUALITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL EFFECTS. THERES ONE THING IN THE MANUFACTURES MIND, PROFIT. THEY ARE GOOD FOR BEGINNERS OR KIDS WHO WANT TO LERN WHAT ALL THE DIFFERENT EFFECTS DO, BUT FOR GIGING WITH (PPLLLEEEASSEEE!!) THE AMP SIMULATION IS PARTICUALY CRUDE SOUNDING AND THE NOISE REDUCTION CURCUITS TAKE A LOT OUT OF YOUR SUSTAIN AND TONE. ITS JUST A TOY THAT PRODUCES INFINATE ARRAY OF DIFFERNT ANNOYING! SOUNDS.
THE SOUND QUALITY CAN BE CAMPERED TO SAY A SEGA MASTER SYSTEM. IN FACT I WOULD BE SUPRISED IF IT CONTAINED THE SAME CIURCUIT BOARDS.

HAD NO PROBS WITH IT BUT MY MATE HAD ONE AND HE BROKE HIS ADAPTER. SO BE CAEFULL WITH PULLING THE ADAPTERWIRE AS ITS FLIMSY AND BOSS WOULD LIKE YOU TO PAY FOR ANOTHER ONE OF THEIR CUSTOM ADAPTERS

NEVER dealt

JUST REALIZE ITS NOT FOR GIGING WITH UNLESS YOU DONT KNOW WHAT A GUITAR SHOULD SOUND LIKE. YOU WOULD BE MAKING A FOOL OUT OF YOURSELF TO GIG TRU THIS THING.

If you want to have good results you have to go quite in deeep with the settings and features, but the product is quite powerful and complete.

I use it with an American Standard Strat guitar and a Fender Blues De Ville 212 AMP.
The sound shaping is very good; the preamp simulation section is outstanding.
I use, bsically, preamp, overdrive & distorsion, compression and limiter features since they are my favourite ones for the music I play. Basically I find them quite good expecially the pream simulation. I don't use it very much, by I think also chorus is good.
Whawha effect, instead is not too good.

Absolutely, reliable (maybe a little heavy).

Basically gives everything you need.
The market may offer something better, but it depends on your taste and the money you are willing to spend.