Boss GX-700

Not easy after pedals. Difficult. Need brainstorm to learn MIDI before. To simlify your life use PC Software like GX-700 SoundStation patch editor. If u use it, dont forget update trial key in the registry on you PC [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Internet SoftParam\NetParams] "TimeOut"="130" (should be between 120 and 130) ;-)

Good, very near separate Boss pedals. I use korean washburn and GX-700 in the Marshall AVT-50 loop. That`s quite good for home music. I use GX700 most for rever-modulation-wah, not for distortion-vamps. Also I has behringer BCF-1010 Midi foot controller.
But if u use something like Original Les Paul Gibson and Mesa Boogie stack, try to find something more expensive.

Very reliable, made in Japan. I had some troubles with front and rear jacks (noisy in contacts, need clean) and removed cover. All made _very_ good and professional, not China as latest devices like POD.

Common guys, I`m from russia, no services!

Suitable for home guitar player like rever-mod-delay-wah effect processor for hybrid or solid combo in_the_loop insert. Don`t hesitate ot its birth day (previous century). There are nothing was made since then, really.
And, GX-700 front panel harmonized with Marshall amps front panel ;-)

Well ,well, designed componenet has proved to be very rugged with out any problems of any kind , 8 yrs running 20-30 gigs a year, The engineer boys @ Roland did a great number on this puppy!

I run my unit stereo coupled witha ART tube stereo peramp the trough the GX-700 and through 2 Roland blues cubes with stereo line s also to the live mix. Awesome combo for anything you want to play.

Like previously stated 8yrs running and NOT ONE incident of failure, and I have owned several hundred gadgets over the past 20-25 yrs all to which cannot even compare.

Never had to make onr call because all has been well

I play souhthern blues/rock, classical, lots of homegrown

Prbably the best and most user friendly interface I have ever used. Had Line 6, Roland GT-Pro, GT-8, GT-6 etc But the old GX-700 is the friendliest little beast I have ever come across. Soundstation (PC based software - search for GX-700 Soundstation) is quite good to back-up and organise your favorite patches and works on XP. One of the best features is the ability to turn the preamp off and keep the speaker simulation! GT-Pro doesn't let you do this!! The manual is fine.

Don't go looking for the sound of my fav artist whilst I've got my own tone thing going on! But I have got all the sounds I could ever wish for from this little unit. The trick is to not make the patches over compicated and make it muddy with too many effects. I use a Ibanez RG550 and Gibson LP in combination with the a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Roadster and the GX700 switched through a DMC GCX switcher/looper thats it! I choose whether I use the preamp from the Boogie or the GX700 and then patch it back into the return of the Boogie and Bingo! I have the best of both worlds - transistor or valve. If I bypass the effects on the boogie and compare a DRY boogie against the WET FX from the GX700 I can notice some colouring of the Sound... BUT .. It doesn'T bother me because it doesn't sound bad! Anybody who says things colour there sound are perfectly correct. Everything colours your sound! The only difference is whether its a bad colour! I have recorded with this little monster instead of using my 3000 bucks Mesa and the studio engineer said "will you sell this to me? where can I get one! this thing is great!". A 10 would require 24Bit 96Khz quality but the GX700 gets a 9.

Never had a problem

Never needed them. You can get all the manuals on the web.

I play everything imaginable (except classical). Been playing 24 years (on and off). If it were stolen I would use my second one (yes I have two) or if they stole my second one also I would find them and kill them. I love how easy it is to find a great sound. I created a few killer patches within 10 mins in the studio! Spontaneous ideas are only useful with equipment which permits you to make them happen! I just wish that instead of making that giant GT-Pro, Roland should take the GX700, kit it our with 24BIT AD/DA and keep us all happy for another 10 years! As I mentioned, I have had Line 6, Zoom, TC, GT models and other valve preamps. The GX700 is the best all-rounder with an easy interface and I am seriously considering getting a third! One for the practice room, one for the studio and one for sleeping with!

Maaan, I love this little baby!
Compared with the other multi effects I??ve invested in over the years, this is one of the easiest to use. I only had to use the manual for reference.
As with a few other users, the control knob ??hops and skips?? but that was sorted with some contact spray (WD-40)

From Dire Straits through Pink Floyd to Death Metal the Boss does it....apart from the Distortion.
Through the mixing desk she sounds great, although initially she whistled like a banshee. Changing the output setting to 'Line' sorted that out.
As I've mentioned, the Distortion is pretty iffy especially when I played through my Marshall 6100 30th Anniversary. At Home, in the Studio or Live I use a Rocktron ProGap v2 set to Hot (patch 42); plug it into the Boss and switch off the Boss distortion. Sounds like a killer!!! Make's me dribble just thinking about it.
Noise isn't much of a problem and adding the Rocktrons Hush makes everything silent.
I love the tuner which is well readable from a distance.
The rack setup is: an ART SGX 2000 - a Rocktron Progap into Loop1 - the Boss into Loop2 - Mono Marshall Head/Mixing Desk.
The whole lot gets plugged into a Art Tube->Korg/Tascam Amp Simulator->Behringer DI Box at Home or the Studio which gives it loads and loads of fat Sound.
The whole rack gets controlled by an Art X-15 foot pedal which controls all the parameters like volume/delay etc.. alot of kit, I know, but it keeps my options open ;)
Guitar wise I play a Gibson Les paul with active EMG 85/81's, an Epiphone LP with a pair of fat Seymour Duncan's and a Squire strat for the real soulfull stuff.

I bought the GX-700 used off of E-bay a few years back and apart from the problem with the main Dial all has been champion up to now. She's never left me down ever and I use her five days a week.
I play the Gigs without a backup, but if there were any dramas the Marshall would take over (2 mins to set up).

I've never had to deal with them... yet ;P

I play Blues, Hard Rock, classic Thrash Metal and Death Metal and the Boss covers it all, apart from the Distortion which I only use for Blues.
If she was stolen, I'd find the B'stard; rip his legs off and beat him to a pulp with the soggy ends. Then I'd go to the Pub and get wankered. But, I would definetly buy another one. Failing that, the GT-8 looks like a very good option.
The compressor is so-so as is the Distortion...the tuner and the effects patchabilty is second to none.
I wish it had a couple of tubes in it for a full-on throaty Growl. (One isn't enough - the Art sounds like a Daisy too!)

The reason I bought the Gx-700 was because Bolt-thrower used them. No regrets though, this thing is so versatile. I'd not even sell it if I was starving, I'd flog the Bed instead and sleep in the Bath... yeah ;P
All in all the Boss has added more colour to my songs and creativity. Priceless!!

It is easy switch effects on or off, but it is really tedious to dial the presets with the turning knob, especially when it is a little defect, like mine. Sometimes it is jumping into the wrong direction, so it is hard to dial in a specific preset number.

I like the reverb, but most effects sound digitally to my ears. I am not an experienced guitar player and don??t know much equipment, but I heared better things, especially the modellers, like Tonlab oder Pod. I don??t like the amp models of the gx 700.

This is why I am posting here. I bought a used unit and I am really disappointed. The unit brings terrible noise into my rack setup. I think it is because of the Inputs. The back input is completely broken, although it worked a few days ago with terrible noise. Today the front input broke (I don??t know why, i did nothing special), out of the sudden the unit produces awful, screaming noises and i need to tip on the input jack to stop it. A few minutes later it may start again, i was getting really afraid of it, because I could never count on, when the unit will start to produce this noises, which are louder than my guitar signal. The peak led will flash all the time, while it happens.

I can??t recommend to anyone to buy this. I am really disappointed and frustrated. I read other reviews, the unit seems to work for some people, but for me it doesn??t. I am sorry. I think this is BOSS??s fault, they use Input-slots of minor quality, but this messes up the whole unit.
I apologize for my bad english, I am not used to it anymore, but I wished to share my bad experience with you.

I've owned the GX-700 for about 10 years now. I found at first it was hard to get a good clean slightly distorted sound that would jump out of the mix, but after playing with the editing functions it became a piece of cake. The manual was very thorough and easy to understand. One night playing live there was a power outage and when the power came back on all my presets were GONE....Took me only 10 minutes to reconfigure my presets and I think actually improved on the ones I had lost while doing it.

If you take the time to learn what each effect does and how they modify a particular sound you can quickly get a very close sound to the artist you are striving to sound like. The effects for the most part are very good some I would call super. With the NS on there is never any noisy spots if it is set correctly. You'll find there is a fine balancing act between the Noise Reduction and the Compressor Limiter that needs to be tweaked with each individual patch. I usually make at least two patches for each song, one for the main part of the song and one for the solo. Since there are so many user patches to use I have never worried about running out of room. I play mainly though the PA in stereo when playing live with no amp...sounds GREAT.... I use an expression pedal to control volume and at times a pitchshifter or wah. I control the SX-700 with a Digital Music Ground Control...The cadilac of foot controlers...can send midi changes to 8 different units at once....I control the SX-700 and my GR1 with the Ground Control...I also control patches my bass players Art Bass Processor and I control a Digitech Vocal Harmonizer and lastly a Ensoniq SP4 sound effects unit. It's quite a good live setup with great control over the sound of the band.

10 years no problems...played all over the US...played indoor and outdoor....In the rain....you name it...NO PROBLEMS.....Never brought a backup.........One minor complaint.....hard to see the screen when playing outdoors in the sun.

Great people to deal with......Sent me a new Power Supply for free when mine got broken.

I play anything from light jazz, acoustic, acoustic electric, folk, classic rock, 70's and 80's metal......works great for all of it. I've played Roland gear since the GP-16 came out. Bought the GR-1 the day it came out. Traded in all my other effects units the day I got the Boss GX-700. Thinking about upgrading to either the Boss GT Pro or the GT-8, not because I think they will sound better, but they have some new sounds I'd like to try.....anyway...If you get a chance to pick up one of these units for under 200 bucks...BUY IT....I've played this unit on a number of CD's and I've had it borrowed by other people to use in the studio when they heard how it sounded. IT's built like a tank....can handle life on the road or in the studio.

I feel the need to say something about this unit.

After owning it for a very long time and toured with it four or five times, I have found it very easy to get into any parameter on the fly and with a foot controller in any situation. The 'peak' light is useful as you can monitor the output of each effect in the chain. You can put the chain into any order you like which means you get to find out what it's like to throw a delay and reverb into a distortion whith a limiter after it. I'm into noise and sound creation to very deep depths plus I play classic rock/funk styles from time to time and try to emulate some classic tones. This unit has never let me down, it's more like another musical instrument for me because I like extreme effects settings as well as it's ability to sound like a rig in a box.

Prestige Ibanez RG->GX->whatever amp the rehearsal studio or gig supply. It can be noisy and even self oscillating, this is a good thing in my opinion from a unit that can be really nice and clean too.
I have managed to emulate every guitar (and some synth!) sound with this unit, depending on the amp. I use the clean channel on all the amps I've used because the OD/DS is covered by the GX or pedals.
I get better feedback from valve amps and try not to push the preamp of any amplifier too much which is impossible with some high gain heads I've come across.
The patch changes can be as seamless or as noisy as you like. If you copy a patch onto the next patch with the same delay on each but turned off on the second then the delay trails off as you change patch. There are very few glitches in terms of patch changing. If all you need is a clean/crunch/lead channel you can set expression pedals up to introduce more gain, a second distortion and a delay at any point in the arc of the pedal. I have managed to get the lead solo sounds of Time by Pink Floyd as well as Vai, Satriani, Hammet, and more obscure drones like Winter, Cathedral, Earth, Sunn O))) etc.

The compressor is mono, meaning that any effect before it becomes mono including all the stereo delays and reverbs etc. I use the compressor first in the chain for most of my patches so I'm not affected much by this fact. You can get anything from mild clean compression to hard limiting which gives the preceding distortion something to work on all the time if you like that kind of thing. It can become choking and sucking on the sound if needs be, revealling everything about the pickups and leads you use.
The wah is flexible and can turn real synth like if pushed because of the 'peak' setting (resonance). If used before a distortion it can sound like a regular wah and if used after a distortion it can give a really big sound as the filter frequency can go a lot lower than a regular wah and higher too. Extreme funk sounds etc. are no problem as well as any wailing wah sounds imaginable.
The OD/DS section includes vintage OD and some Boss effects from distortions to metal zone and fuzz distortion. The fuzz is almost exactly the same as my Big Muff and the metal zone is the same as my metal zone apart from the parametric EQ.
The preamp section is a little more organic and noisy (in a good way) than the previous section and can add warmth and a less predictable sound. If used more conservatively the preamp can be clean-dirty-full on if used with an expression pedal, cleans up perfectly. There are more emulations of certain preamps here that I cannot comment on because I don't own the gear to test against. I use the preamp section occasionaly to keep the tone of the guitar. It can be very clan and totally saturated like an amp rather than a stomp box. If used with the OD/DS effect it can become over-saturated and firey. Some really brutal sounds can be had from these distortions and preamps.
There is an effects loop which is cool but introduces some out-of-phaze effects when used in parrallel with a dry signal. great for delay effects or reverbs or for inserting an effect rather than mixing. Perhaps I need shorter patch leads for this.
The EQ is anothe mono effect but is very effective as there is a full parametric mid EQ with a mid Q parameter which can become very resonant like the wah if you want but goes up and down in steps, not smoothly.
There is a noise suppressor, it's OK but I like to try to avoid it, like I would any gate. The trigger for the gate can be set to be triggered by the guitar input, regardless of where the gate is in the chain which is great.
The modulation section is too huge to fit here but I'll hit the main lows and highs. The phaser has no mix control so it's full on phaze or....full on phaze. The mixing and panning of all other MOD effects are good tho...The formant filter is great but only with an expression pedal, the lfo for it is more like a square wave than a sine wave so it jumps a bit, from one extreme to the other without being smooth. It can sound good as well, especially when fed by the resonant wah and sweeping resonant EQ. There's no end to these filters if used properly. The ring modulator is a regular one, a little crude but has an interesting feature that locks on to the note you are playing as long as it's only one note. This effect is really good and not very common. There is a vibrato effect that can be set to wobble the notes straight away or fade in over so many seconds. Nice effect to feed a never ending delay into with an extreme wah after the two. The GX can be like a synth if you want or a vintage amp, the cab sims are good for recording with, not sure if they sound like the originals but they use the COSM, like the GT series.
The delay is cool but digital. Sometimes I can get a PS2 type modulation when moving the delay time around, sometimes it's glitchy. I think it depends on the type of delay or something. I find something new every year with this unit.
The chorus section is what you would expect from the inventors of chorus, and so say Sound on Sound in their review. Trem/Pan is predictable but does the job with squre or triangle lfo waveform settings. The reverbs can sound as real or artificial as you like but never extremely massive, the parameters for the reverb are effective but simple. No reverse reverbs or reverse delays on this unit. The delay has a low pass filter to help with the digital-ness of it and the roll-off can be quite extreme as can be said for all of the parameters on this unit. It can be noisy as you like but still provide a tight metal sound with a heavily compressed yet noise-suppressed sound.

I have depended on it for a few tours, It vibrated off the side during a gig once (still using no racks) and the jack output to the amp broke (my fault) because the jack lead was in this output. I just changed to the right output and carried on. This unit has survived being thrown onto the cargo bay of a plane and flown in the freezing cold to Norway and Finland and straight into a hot humid gig with no problems.

Never dealt with them

I have been playing Death/Doom Industrial/EBM and many other more contemporary styles for over 15 years. It is a good, flexible match that can go from very quiet or choppy cleans to firey, raging gain highs with little or no glitches in patch changes if programmed properly. The thing I hate about it is that it's probably one of the last units ever to have such a flexible routing system aimed at guitars for this price range. I've played and recorded bass with this with good results too. Drum machines and synths also, it adds dirt. I will buy more of these in case mine blows up or something. It's old now.

Really easy - I didn't really need to read the manual - a complete doddle to use.

Used with Yahama electric guitars and various bass guitars into Peavey and EA amps. Great noise supression with a 18v active pre-amp on an old bass.

Obtained really warm tones on the bass plus great funk sounds.

With the Yamaha guitar, I gained the sound of guitar greats and I don't really play skiiny strings!!

Totally even gigs with shaeking fingers!

I play various style from jazz through to rock and back around again. I would be totally lost without this piece of kit. I've used floor pedals from Boss and also Zoom pedals and this is the best I've used, just mounted onto of my amp.

This is a system that matched with my loop station really helps me to make music.

Simple, just press the button of the FX's you want to use and adjust.

The best I have ever heard from digital FX's I have had mine almost 10 years now. My tip is DON'T use it with a valve amp, digital FX's hate valves use a good soild sate. I have a Carlsbro GLX150T Head and matching cab. I play Gibson flying V and the band I am in plays Heavy Rock, like Crossfade, Breaking Benjamin, Alter Bridge etc.. I have found I can get a really nice full on metal sound but also some really nice clean tones too. Even after 10 years this thing keeps surprising me with what its capable of. My band has recently recorded an album with the above set up. If you want to hear what one of these sounds like have a listern on www.myspace.com/lostinvegaauk

I have played 100's of gigs with this all over the UK. Its never even seen a rack and just gets carried around in a gig bag. Its never let me down in almost 10 years.

Downloaded the manual the other day as I have a new MIDI pedal. Website was ok.

The Best of The Best

Was confused the first couple minutes .I was impatient . Then figured out how to use the thing . The manual made it more confusing than it actually was .

Its pretty much user friendly .

I'm using it through a Fender 120w Reverb (has 2 awsome celestians) , with a Digitech S100 and Boss mega distortion , EH Bigg muff , Boss super chorous , Boss Digital delay . Playing a Jackson DK2 and a BC Rich Platinum Pro Warlock .

The unit is very quiet compared to alot of units I've used .

The distortion is not the best but if you spend alot of time you can get a semi decent sound . Most of the other effects sound really good.

If you have figured out and cool death meatal/nu metal distortion sounds ... please e-mail the settings to me. tiedstick69@yahoo.com

I would rate it as pretty much reliable . Just need to put a decent plug on it . Had a 2 prong plug . Dont trust those .

Dont know about this one ... here in S.A. .

I play many styles of music . Death metal / Thrash metal / Prog / Rock .... and some odd stuff . I wouldent really recomend it for really heavy distortion ... if thats what you want, but the other effects are really cool and you can combine basically as many effects together and get some really cool/weird stuff out of it . Alot of fun creating sounds .

Dig it

for experienced effect go-er fairly easy...you need to understand unity gain and a phenomenon called GAIN STRUCTURE...google search! learn it...I read alot of these reveiws and laugh and all the amatuerish mistakes...yes this is deep but you can get world class pristine sounds out of it.listen for analog distortion..its all in level setting.same difficulty of any other piece of rack gear

sound quality is among the BEST...maybe ever!I use a Jackson soloist (SL-1) had it custom made with duncan jb in the bridge, ran this thru the effects loop of my peavey half stack and sounds better than amp distortion.effects are transparent and that reverb is soooooo luscious..when properly set up you can hear right thru this and hear a pin drop...no kidding!the noise suppressor is perfect!all these effects can be set up to sound amazing...fave artists are megadeth,children of bodom,nightwish and scorpions,king diamond,whitesnake,van halen,slayer,testament,.countless classical and jazz artists .you know...anyone with world class talent.how am I to judge? owned some of the most popular effects /distortion units ever.me and my cousin ran a pedal, you may have heard of it..its the mt-2 metal zone and A-B it to the metal distortion...same settings and same guitar cabinet=same sound! proof that these models are accurate and the 5150 is accurate! how would I know..I own a 5150 head!same settings and it is to a T! for all the ones saying the distortions arent accurate to the boss pedals, how do you really know? did you run a test? we did!

reliable? like a kitchen light...no problems to a point you take it for granted and not even in the back of your mind that it might have a problem, awesome!

what support! (lol) am very loyal to roland/boss but...they are cluelass and the kind you meet in a bar and take outside...

I play metal in the vein of children of bodom or king diamond..yes I'm in a band...very excellent band, great match for metal, anything I would imagine...effects sound good dirty or clean. been playing since the 70's and this is among the finest I've ever owned (like my gt-3)use to own an engl,hughes &kettner,hafler triple giant,mesa triaxis(over priced),peavey tube-fex,rocktron voodoo valve and this beats them all...no kidding!more effects than all of them tooo...hmmmm for the money..the new champion ....the gx700

Well, of course it's easy to twist knobs or control parameters, but I don't think giving 10 to ease of use won't help any review readers. It takes some time to find your tone. I was using a Digitech GNX2 before this unit, and I was able to get some nice tones (not nice enough, that's why I sold it) from it easily. But it took 3-4 days full with tweaking with this one, for me to get an average tone for my tastes. But I had improved my tone after that, you can add new things to your tone all the time, it seems like there will be no end of this unit's capacity. But as I said before, you need some time and patience. My unit's verison is the latest one (something like 1.09, I am sure that it's the latest, but not sure of it's exact number)

I am using this one with an Epiphone Explorer and a Marshall MG15CDR. I am playing death and black metal, Swedish metal especially, like In Flames, At The Gates, Arch Enemy, Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork, etc... It's damn noisy in some settings, but don't give up, just continue tweaking and you will get a better tone with less noise. Effects are doing pretty good. I have a nice death metal tone, a crushing sound with clarity, but i sometimes think that it lacks some character, so i will try using a Sansamp GT2 and a bigger amp with it, 'cause some people say that this unit's OD/DS sucks. But I'll try that after buying an EMG 81(soon!), my guitar's pickups are not so good. The worst side of this unit is the Speaker sims, they are useless in my opinion.

I like what this unit is capable of doing, every combination of preamp&distortion brings another nice tone, extremely versatile.

I bought mine used, it's an old machine but it works perfectly, no problems at all, and I don't think it will cause me trouble. If you are having problems with it, I would advise you to update the version.

I haven't dealt with the company yet.

Like I said, my main style is Swedish Death, for nearly 2 years(I have played classical guitar for 1.5 years before that),and I like this unit. Very versatile. I would try getting another one but this unit is pretty rare, so I would like check out POD XT. I don't use much effects, I like the preamps and OD/DS (My opinion can change after using another distortion pedal for distortion though, I have a DOD FX86 Death Metal, but I think it won't make a difference, so I'm not using it with GX-700). I wish it had better speaker simulations. I think GX-700 is one of the best, comparing to other units you can get for this price.

Like I said before, I really like this unit, just be patient and TWEAK! Until your tone is perfect (which means, tweak until you get your dream equipment worth 10000$ :)).

Feel free to mail me if you would like to ask something.

It will take some time before you get the perfect sound. When I began using this unit I got a few good sound out of it, but after a couple of days f*ckin' around with it, the sound began to grow to my liking. I didn't even use a manual. So it's very easy to get the best out of the unit if you take a little time to figure the thing out.

The delays, chorus, etc.. are not bad. The overdrive/distortion wasn't much to my liking when I first sarted out. I ran my Boss Gx-700 trough a marshall JCM900 at the time. The unit was way to noisy and I send the sound out at a (master)volume of 30(a preset within the boss-unit itself). But it all changed when I bought a marshall 9200 power-amp. The overdrive really began roaring!! grrrr....REALLY GOOD.The gain in my perfect setting is now only at 50 in the metal setting, with a master volume of 100!!It's A BEAST!!!!As of then I only use my boss for the distortion, IT'S JUST F*CKING BIG!!!
This is mainly because the unit leaves a pause in between switching effects. For my effects I now use a TC electronics.

I've never had problems with it!

As I said it is REALLY GOOD!! together with my marshall 9200 JCM 900 that is!

Pretty easy. The manual sucks so I got the Video Manual. Look for 'em on ebay.

I've owned 3 over the years (still have 2). I refuse to use it for anything other than recording leads. It makes my Marshall TSL 100 sound like shit live. I used to use it with a Marshall 8008 power amp, and it sounded good. The noise is terrible on these things unless you place the Gate at the end of the signal chain. The compressor sucks. Delays are good.

THe only trouble I've had out of all 3 units is the Value dial. It jumps and skips all over the place, but I use the FC-200 to Cannel Up/Down so it's not a big deal.

I've heard they're assholes.

I play death metal so I require a lot of gain. Again, the noise is terrible and you shouldn't buy one unless your playing Mellencamp or Dave Matthews.

Getting good sound out of this unit is a piece of cake all the precet patches are prettty good sounding for starters
Editing is not too hard even without the manual you can figure it out pretty easilly
The manual is clear so anybody should be able to program this puppy in no time
I don't know if mine is upgrated

I use this unit solely for recording cuz i like not having a bunch of noises on our recordings Them not being the noise i make myself
I use a B.C Rich Warlock with EMG 81 in bridge position and 85 in neck
and Jackson KV2 with Seymour Duncan JB's
Like I said it's not noisy Thats why i bought it I play Deathmetal and i have been searching for a long time for and effects unit with a GOOD metal distortion I fell in love with the Metal bottom effect which is a preset i don't use it but it made me realize what it had in store for me after trying everything from Rocktron through Digitech and what not
Don't use it with an amp straight into the mixing board
Best Distortion unit i ever came across... if ya need drive this is the best unit for it.... If ya can't affort a Mesa triple rectifier that is

It Never let me down so far... had it for a cppl of years now
Don't use it on stage if I did I would use it without backup defenately

Never dealt with the company so dunno

Like I said I play Deathmetal so I use it for the Distortion and preamp sections on it
been paying guitar for 18 years,Other gear I use Marshall JCM 900 SL-X 100 watt head for gigs with 1960A cab Boss MT2 , GE7
If it got stolen or lost I would defenately get a new one couldn't live without it ... need it for the studio work I'd be lost without it

Patch editing is a breeze, IMO. Just start out with some preset that's close (or just grab one and disable all effects) and go from there. Simply pushing a button will enable that effect group, and some clicking and turning a knob and you've got that effect ready. It pretty much operates like you had a big pile of stomp boxes at your disposal.

The manual is IMO very easy to understand (got me up and running in some 15 minutes reading, and this is my first ever multi-fx).

I run this thing stand-alone, just guitar->GX-700->computer->headphones. The guitar is either a Jackson KE-3 with an EMG 85 in the neck and an EMG 81 in the bridge, or some cheap strat clone with some passive single coils in it.

I get slight noise using the KE-3 (EMGs, mind you) on both dist and non-dist patches, but then again I'm sitting in front of my computer (meaning two computer monitors right into my guitar). I wouldn't say noise is a problem. Of course, the noise gate is constantly enabled.

I mainly use COMP+(OD)+PREAMP+EQ+SPSIM+NS effects groups (not in that order), sometimes some chorus or reverb or modulation. Nearly no wah, delay or trem/pan. I find all the effect I use to be at least satisfactory. The tracking on the pitch shifter and harmonizer are lacking when you play lower than a normal low E, but they work well in the higher registers. Bending does confuse the harmonizer though.

I wouldn't say I can get the sound of my favourite bands, but I can get sounds I like for the music I play, so I'm happy.

So overall, it's good to my ears, but it's not perfect to the point where it just "sounds SO RIGHT!!!".

I've had it for uhm.... I think 6 months or so now, and it's never to the best of my memory failed me. I just keep it in my house though, as I have no band to gig with.

I'd use it live without backup, partially because I've got nothing to use as a backup, but also because I pretty much trust it.

Never dealt with them

I used to listen to nearly only metal (Iced Earth, In Flames , Cryptospy, Soilwork) but has since opened up alot. For me this unit works well. I get the sounds I need (both dist and clean).

I've been playing for 4.5 years, and this is my only "ampish" piece of gear.

If stolen, unless I quickly got enough money for a more complete rack setup, this would be my first buy.

What I love? The orangish color!!! It's just sooo sweet!

I'm giving it a 10 here because it (at least for me) is great value for it's money. Compared to what I'd need to fork out for a comparable amp+pedal setup, it's very cheap.

very easy to use!

Right , i use the 4 cable method to plug the preamp of my Ampeg VL 1002 in the loop of the GX 700 , the loop in the Ampeg is boosted in return by a dedicaced preamp tube witch seems to work wonderfully . I use to the same hooking before with a GT-3 but , even if it is 24 to 22 bits the GT-3 is much less usefull in this configuration . And now i have a few questions for you !
Do you feel that the GX suck a bit of the preamp tone throught the loop ; if it is like the GT-3 for witch i've read that there is a bass cut at around 250 hz , or related to the quality of the A/D converters of the GX ?
To reach a level of 65-70% in the loop of the GX , with setting the preamp of the tube preamp at 65%, i have to put the master of the tube preamp at 100% ; is it normal ?
The level in the effect chain of the GX rule the ouput returning in the power amp of my amp , that's good , but what is the effect of the knob in the back of the GX witch say -10 db to +4 db ?
I have read that the od/dist section and the loop where analog circuit but what is the benefit if anyway it is converted in digital for other effects ?
Thanks for your help .
Fabrice

It is rock hard builded and beautifull looking baby !

I play symphonic metal and this product seems to me the best effect processor ever concived for its architecture ; especially with the loop .

When i first got the unit i didn't have a clue what to do but when you read through the manual for an hour or so and lay with it irt becomes child play.

I use mine with an electro acoustic (fitted with a kaman feedback buster)and all of my sounds come from the GX700. I use alot of filter and modulation sounds and heavy distorted sounds (although it sounds un orthodox seing as im using acoustic!!....it works!)

Eediting the patches is a breeze....Put on the effect you want...play, listen and edit...simple as that...the menus are simple to use and navigate.

the maunal was useful to me..especially when i was trying to work out MIDI for the first time ever and when i tried to save patches and name them etc...however, ive had my unit for about 3 months and i rthink ive now lost the manual! bu tthere isnt anything within the BOSS i cant do so thats nk problem really....it's not like i'll be ever selling it.

I have the most recent firmware version...1.4 i think....something liek that..i only ever checked on the first say that i got it...to be honest i could personally use more than 4 assignable parameters within each patch...5 or 6 would be nice as i use each patch as 2 channels..changing via MIDI expression pedals..more on that later..

as i said earlier. i use an electro acoustic with feedback buster...gx700 and a marshall MG100DFX combo.

The noise supressor works briliantly as a feedback controller so even when im rocking it large i only ever get a teeny weenyt amount oif feedback if any!

is is a very quiet unit. I've had no problems..especially as it has a noise supressor in it.

all the effects are great....My favorites are the autowah (althought it took me a few weeks to get how i like it) and the metal ditortion....


Ive tried to model my autowah and overdrives on WHEATUS...im pretty close as i use a similar guitar...

id say that the worst effect on the GX700 is possibly the fuzz overdrive..but again thats [probably just my guitar.

ivbe had no problems at allwith my GX700

im buying a second one..but thats because i want one for clean setting and one for overdrive..i can swell each one in and out using the 2 expression peda;s on the BEHRINGER FCB1010.

n/a

a brilliant uint..go get one!.....i was going to buy a digitech 2120 but i realised althogh thats has a couple of valves..the boss has a shit load more features so it works for me!...i wish it has a second effects loop so i could slap in 2 more units into the chain but thats me bcing picky..when i buy my secong gx700 in a few weeks ill be able to to that anyways!...

the unit is great.......espeically when teamed with the FCB1010..i control everything via midi when im playing live and its a dream!

email me danielzieba@aol.com if u wanan chat abot the unit!

No es dificil de usar. Tampoco lo mas sencillo. El manual es bastante preciso por lo que no entrare en detalles.

Muy buena calidad de sonido. Ninguna queja al respecto, este procesador puede dar muy buena calidad de sonido, pero hay que saber controlar los parametros porque son muchos. En relacion a los amplificadores simulados no los uso mucho. Pero los efectos de por si son muy buenos. Me funciona mejor este aparato conectado luego de mi preamp y antes del power. en effects loop no me ha dado mejores resultados pero todo depende de los equipos de cada quien.

Es Boss, lo mas confiable del mercado.

No tiene nada que envidiarle a otros procesadores que he probado incluso de TC Electronic. Me gusta mucho este procesador y se adapta muy bien a mis demas equipos. Espero que nunca me sea robado...

It's a snap to get up and running (even if all you've used are pedals) and changing sounds is a breeze and fairly intuitive - the presets offer a good range to start - 100 writable patches and 100 unwritable means you can't screw up the presets, they're always there to work from. If you get ambitious, there are Windows programs and a GX 700 online community that swap patches and utilites.

I use the GX 700 into a Fostex 4 track for mixing and straight into the PC-Cakewalk. It's super quiet. I also run it into a Roland JC 120, makes a perfect combination. The nicest thing about it is the subtle differences you can infuse from one song to the next - the GX700 makes it so easy to change patches and make new ones, that you do and your recordings take on new depth and new atmosphere - it gives you the ability to tweak distortions, change amps and even play with mic/cabinet placement.

Never had a problem. I'm going to back up my patches soon but I've had it for 5 years and I haven't had any crashes or lost patches yet.

Haven't needed support

Paid $625 and would buy it again in a hearbeat. It's ease of use and range of texture has made it my favourite piece of gear. I write and record everything with a Gibson 335 and the GX 700 and I can make that combo sound like pretty much everything from a STRAT in a Fender amp to a Gretsch through a VOX.

I've had it for years so getting patches is easy for me. I can't remember far back enough to think about how I first started with it, but I don't think it was too difficult.

Ok, this is where I have mixed opinions. I'll tell you why.

I've gone through a ton of equipment, but this unit has been with me from the start, and that's not going to change. Nothing else will ever give me the versatility and variety this unit does. I've tried later units like the GT-6 and not even that can deliver what my GX-700 does. So as far as variety goes, I'll give it a 9.

Now for the catch. I have read before that BOSS units don't have a true bypass feature. I never believed them. However, I recently got a really good quality valve amp (the one I always dreamed of...) and after playing it for a while I decided to run the GX-700 into it. As always when I'm starting a new clean patch I disable all the effects and start from there, and I was amazed to hear that even with no effects enabled alot of my beautiful tone was gone! I'd just never had a good enough amp to notice before. I eabled the bypass feature and had the same problem. I have come to the conclusion that the input is digitally sampled regardless of whether any effects are enabled or not. This REALLY disappointed me, but not enough to lose the GX-700. What I'm probably going to do is build an external bypass switch before the GX-700 to avoid this problem. Pity.

This drops the rating down a point.

One final note - I waited years before I bought a midi foot controller for it - DON'T!!!!! Get one now!!! There are so many awesome features that are only available through the foot pedal! (I use the Behringer FCB1010 because it has 10 banks and 2 expression pedals)

One expression pedal globally controls the output volume, the second is used to control various effects.

For example:

On my clean patch I'll enable the delay but set the centre volume to zero. The second pedal control this volume so I can set the amount of delay I want while playing.

I have a lead patch where the second pedal varies the preamp volume to boost the volume where necessary.

On some of my rhythm distortion patches my second expression pedal turns the preamp on/off. Nice.

Finally, the FCB1010 also has analog switched which I connect to my amp's channel switch, so I can set up a patch which loops in my channel distortion, and also switches it on/off when I switch to that patch.

So far it's been great, and I've had it for years. I do know that it's known for having problems with the rear input (lol) but I only ever use the front one so I haven't had any problems.

I'd have no problem gigging without a backup, seeing as I don't have one, but if anything happened to it I'd just use the amp's channels with no regrets.

Never dealt with them.

I play jazz, blues, rock, metal, punk etc etc but I always go back to blues tones.

This unit is excellent. Please note that it is not going to give you any and every sound you want, but it will be able to give you ALOT more versatility and variety and stomp boxes. Note I'm comparing variety, not quality.

I will never sell this unit. Ever. If it was stolen I'd have to make a plan with something else because these units are so hard to get hold of.

Pity about the lack of proper bypass, but as I said, I'm going to make a plan and fix that myself.

Ive owned this thing for about 8 months...I know what I need to know about it. I just downloaded the editor, let's see if I can figure that out.

Looking through these previous reviews, I notice that along with myself, practicaly everyone who uses an Ibanez guitar with this is at least happy with it. I use an Ibanez RG going into an EQ, then to a Hafler G300 (monster pwr amp) then to two Peavy 412M series cabs...(Ouch my ears!). I dont play for volume, but the extra power helps to push some of the lower tones-especially in larger places. I use a Fender Squire for backup (yes, I said Squire-I can't afford a lot). The GX-700 makes a good solid state head for me. I personally like that sound, and the GX-700 does OK. Now, I do plan on getting a Marshall JMP-1 or a Rocktron and running it throught the send/return of the GX-700 to give me a much different distortion. It should be cool. I definitely got my money's worth out of this thing.

Since I used to run this right over my G300 (power amp), it would occasionally overheat. As a result, the GX-700 would mute my signal, or not use some effects in the patch. I since have moved the equipment around, and that was the end of that. Oh ya, one of the knobs broke to, but I suspect the singer's 3-year old son.

This is a very good match for the Hard Rock style that I play, but it does well with Jazz to. Not a bad unit for the buckage.

OK, a multi-fx of these complex possibilities may never by completely easy and I'm more of a straight into the amp guy.
But anyway, I feel is is easiest possible way to get all these different sounds.

I play a Stratocaster into the front input, from send to the front input of a Fender Concert Reverb Amp, from the amps send back to the fx's return and from mono-output back to the amps return.
With this setup, I have full felxibility and can achieve just about any sound desired.
I use all those modulation and delay-effects as supposed, but change a lot the routing of compressor, wah, distortion, eq and loop (=preamp of Fender combo) to get a wide tonal range.
I basically don't use the modelling pre-amps.
I feel like beeing able to get just any sound I desire from this unit - and always sounding really good.
After all, there might be some minor disadvantages in sound quality compared to single effects pedals - on the other hand, those parts cost the same price per piece as the gx-700 altogether - so great value for price and more than sufficient quality for playing live on stage.
If I were a pro-studio-guitarist, I might something else .....
FINALLY:
For my money and my use (live) this is one of the best sounding and best value-for-money units I know. The absolutely top feature in my opinion is the possibility of changing the fx-path including the external loop

No problems by now!

Never necessary up to know, but I had some bad experience with Roland in former times

The unit perfectly matches my needs playing classic live rock music.
I never had a multi-fx before and I'll never need anything else.
If it were stolen, I would buy it again right away - if I am lucky enough to find it again.
I love the sound and tonal possibilities, so I basically hate to program sounds - but that is not the fault of this unit :-)
And again: best value for money! No second affordable unit I know, were you can change the fx-chain and were you have a programmable loop with flexible position within chain.
I'm still absolutely happy to have it!

It's an easy to use, 1U rackmount, orange multi-effect processor. Firmware version 1.09. Editing is a breeze. My first ever processor was a Digitech RP10. Spent days trying to get some decent sounds out of that one. But it kept having it's own, artificial, sound. The GX however, can sound like everything you're looking for. (But be prepared to spend some time with it.)

This unit now acts as the centre of my setup. Formerly owned a Laney Pro tube 100 Watt (all tube) amp head, with 1 and later 2 4x12's. (Much like an old JCM800.) Never really liked the fact that it didn't have switchable channels or a reverb. (Here come the stompboxes. But since I hate setting those up everytime, and the wiring spaghetti on the floor...) So I bought the RP10. (Comments on that are above.) After getting tired of hauling that stuff back and forth every time, I traded the head for a BBE 386 acoustic pre amp (Wich is now in the GX's effects return. So I can go from acousic to electric with the flick of a switch and can still use all kinds of effects.), and bought me a Marshall 8280 valvestate combo. Loved that for a while, but the RP10 kept getting on my nerves. So I traded that in for the GX and an FC200 midi footcontroller. I started out with the 5 way wiring trick, so I was able to keep using the Marshall's pre amp. (Basiccaly using the GX as a bunch of stompboxes.) After a little while I changed to just using the Boss in the Marshall's return-inputs, with the 8280 acting as a poweramp and speakermonitor. It's much more flexible in this manner. Second advantage is that my setup doesn't weigh a ton anymore. But I'm still looking for a dedicated poweramp in a 1U rackformat (Marshall 8008), so I don't need to take the Valvestate along anymore. As far as speakers go I can use 2 12" wedges as monitors, or when it has to look like something on stage, I can still take the 2 4x12's.

As far as guitars go I use an Ibanez RG470FMR, 2 Hohner L59 Les Paul copies, a Squire strat, an Aria (nylon string) acoustic and an Ovation Celebrity CC257 Deluxe (steelstring). The electric guitars all go through a Rexer wireless (diversity) system, connected to the rear input of the GX. (Leaving the front input available, in case of a breakdown in the wireless system.

Basically you have to think of this setup as "studio monitoring" at high volume.

It's as quiet as possible, even with all the gains cranked. (That's probably what a real tubehead will miss. A lot of hiss, hum and static.)

Effects are good. (But, as I stated before, you have to spend time tweaking this contraption.) Standards for sound quality are higher when recording. So, if it's good enough for a studio, it's certainly good enough for a live situation.

The (switch pedal) wah sounds a bit weak and is a little unresponsive. It keeps switching off while using. But that's probably because of the used continuous controller on the FC200. (I'd love it when that would have a dedicated switch underneath the pedal.) I guess I still haven't finished tweaking.

The ring modulator is useless for me. Delays are good, as are the speaker and pre amp modulations. (Delays and reverbs were a bit more flexable on the RP10. But more parameters also mean more chances of f**ing up your sound.) If you think that the amp simulations sound a bit dead, use the plate-reverb in between the pre amp and speaker modules. Then use the delay for some ambiance. (This can give you a nice warm tone.)

Guess so. I've been using it for over 5 years now. It has never let me down. (But I never had any problems with my inputs (yet). I guess it's because I don't have to plug in and out every time, due to the wireless receiver.)

Good. I once had to find out if the midi connectors on the outside (pin 1 and 5) were "blanks, so I could use them for phantom powering the FC200. Sent them an e-mail and got a reply in 2 days. (Still have to perform the mod, but it's possible....)

I play everything. Basically top 100, funk, blues, rock, (80's and 90's) metal etc. After (again) some tweaking this baby delivers. I guess nothing beats a tube-amp at 11. But this is so much lighter !

The GX has turned out to be very flexable. Also in conjunction with other gear. (But you have to connect it properly. So read the easy to understand manual.)

I wish it had some more assiignable controllers, instead of the ring modulator.

Hi ! Deko here from A TASTE OF RORY, the Dublin-based Rory Gallagher tribute band.

I have used the GX700 for about 5 years now, and it's a breeze to get a good sound out of.
The instructions are really easy to follow (For a guitarist!)

I'm using a '79 Strat ( I'm a leftie!) straight in to the GX700. It's then split- one output to a Fender Delux, and the other to the mixer.
I 'dep' a lot, and it's handy to store your patches under a band title. or type ( blues, pop, etc.)
I've never found the Boss to be noisy, as I use its Noise Reduction facility for most tones, especially the OD ones.
I find I can get a fairly accurate approximation of the early Rory Gallagher sound ( e.g. Vox AC30 + Rangemaster).
Most effects are acceptable, tonally, yet the more metallic distortions could do with a 'creamier' parameter ( a la Tubescreamer)

Unfortunately I could not depend on it for two reasons -
1. The power supply is not a standard type, so having one fail just before a gig is a major bummer ! This, added to the fact that most shops do not keep AC 14V / 800 m/a power supplys is a majopr turn off !!!
2. The knobs portrude too much from the housing - I had mine flightcased, and one night it fell and bent the knobs and cracked the screen. Only the excellent guys at Roland (Irl.) (Thanks Ger & Co.!) stopped me from throwing it away. come on Boss ! - give the working guitarist a unit with 'road-friendly' input & outputs, and a decent flightcase - we'll pay the difference!

I've dealt with Roland (Irl.) (see above) and the people there are fantastic ! Many times, I've arrived in a state of panic, and was given service beyond the call of duty. Nice one lads (& lassies).

I play all styles ( got a mortgage!)
The GX700 is a godsend ( apart from the power supply)
I've been playing 28 years, professionally.
I use Strats and Les Pauls, Takamine EG10 (L/H), through a Fender Deluxe (battered and road-tested !)
If my GX700 were stolen or lost, I would write an "Ode to a Faithful Partner' blues song!, but buy something else more rugged (WITH A STANDARD POWER SUPPLY!!!!)
I love its simplicity, and the fact that you can see the results happening one at a time without going blind !
I HATE THE POWER SUPPLY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I like the 'metal' OD - its really felxible !
I chose the GX700 after reading a review ( and LOVED the gold colour!)
I wish it had intelligent harmony - setting one up is time-consuming in the sense that you repeat the same process a number of times - psychologically speaking, this is prone to error !)
I think it helps in making music - the sounds can move you, and its diversity is creativity-provoking.
Please give us a GX700 for the road !

This unit is pretty user friendly, once you read the manual a time or two. Only a few pushes and you are in once you know what you are doing...like I said, read the manual. I have 2 of these things, and both have had the software upgraded.

I use this with power amps and tube amps depending on my mood. The noise supression works pretty good for the high gain and distortion settings. I like most all the effects on this unit except the tremolo(clicks too much, sounds artificial), and the harmonist, which warbles(does not hold tracking), especially when bending notes when 3 tones are set. Its ok with 2 most of the time though. I love the preamp settings..it fits my musical tastes nicely.

Here is where I really have to be hard on this unit. I bought my first back in '97 for 300 bucks on sale at our local music store. Before that, I never owned any rack effects with preamp settings. It really worked well for me for about 2 years while I was playing in a classic/modern rock cover band(before all this nu metal crap got popular...please, no more mesa rectifier tone please....)Then...the back input jack went caput...I then took it to a Roland authorized repair center near me...and they fixed it...kind of. They also upgraded the software...and charged me 125 bucks. I say kind of because the back input jack still didnt get full connection. Luckily the front input jack which I always use anyway never broke, and still is fine today. A few years later, I decided to look for another one for backup to buy on EBay, and bought one used for 140 bucks. When I got it, it didnt work right...there was a bad humming sound on all patches, and...you guessed it...the back input jack was busted as well!!!!!! This must be a common problem with the unit...please comment if any of you have had similar problems. Anyway, I decided in a temporary momentary lapse of reason to keep it and get it fixed....same repair place, same price, and same result..back input not fully working! I will return this unit to repair shop to fix it right! So, I have to deduct points for reliability...sorry, but this unit seems to have bugs, which is probably why they discontinued it.Too bad, because for a 1 space rack processor, its pretty good for the money, and Roland had a rep. for reliability as far as I knew.

I never dealt with them.

I play rock, blues, country, jazz, metal, spanning from 1950s to 1990s... I draw the line at this new crap...I hope the popular guitar music scene shifts back to a time when it mattered more about the music and not about mass tattoos and piercings. Back to the unit...uh, I am a 25 year man with an axe, and have used too much equipment to mention. That being said, I would not buy another one of these, im done. Nothing like a good tube amp and good effects. Even just an amp and a guitar and your fingers is enough if you are a good player. Keep it Real!!!!!!! So, I rate this a 7 because the reliability, and the tones arent anywhere near pro perfect, although it has many useful parameters and tones to pull from it.

Nothing will replace the sound of a good tube amp. But as far as this unit goes the majority of people who spend time tweaking the unit and it's patches will find many useful sounds. You will also keep a lot of those sounds for use for different moods and songs.

Editing patches will take time, but no problem if you do it enuogh times.

Manual contains a lot of information and is a real time consumer compared to those who are used to plugging in a stomp boxe with dails.

I don't know the firmware revision number as I have done no upgrades. Bought the unit new in 1999(I think?).

I am using a Marshall Valvestate 120/120 Dual Power Amp. I use the left channel for my Korg ix 300 keyboard, which serves me most the time as a drum machine. I use the right channel to power the GX 700. The speakers are two separate, but identical, 12 inch factory enclosed Fender speakers. I use my Takamine acoustic and Les Paul electric. Both have a marvelously clean sound with this set up. Too sweet!

Everything is ultra quiet for the type of playing I do (heavy rock to east coast ballads).

Some effects are awesome and some are weak. It really depends on what you need it for. If your looking for that sound that only a tube/valve amp can produce, then buy that kind of amp first. If you want to be able to cover a huge variety of tones and that is your priority, then get this unit first as it will do wonders and get you through in a pinch until you can get that valve amp and then combine the two. If you sit in the basement 9/10 times when you play, get the GX 700 as you will be able to do all kinds of music without an expensive valve amp on top of that too.

For what you pay and what you get it is the bargain of the year, but there a some effects that will have very limited use. The wah is nothing like a good Morley pedal, And I have the FC 200 footboard with the expression/volume pedal. The distortion isn't too bad interms of where it is generated from, but once again, get a valve amp, valve rack unit, or valve pedal if you have to "that real distortion".

I have had this thing at home most of it's life and have had no problem with the reliability. BUT MY TUNER HAS SOMEHOW GONE OFF A LITTLE. SEEMS LIKE WHEN I TUNE MY GUITAR, IT ENDS UP BEING OUT OF STANDARD TUNING BY ABOUT A QUARTER STEP. I WILL CHECK MY SETTINGS WITHIN THE TUNER FUNCTION ITSELF AFTER I FINISH WRITING THIS. MAYBE I UNKNOWINGLY ADJUSTED IT?. ANYONE ELSE HAVING TUNER PROBLEMS? IT WORKS FINE OTHER THAN THIS.

If I played out regularily I would want a back up of some kind.

Never had to yet.

Never had it upgraded or repaired. Works fine.

I have played a lot of styles and this unit is a perfect match for that versatility.

If this unit was lost or stolen, would prefer a simliar unit with knobs/dials like onthe boss stomp boxes.

I like the versatility to switch to different sound and tones. I hate how long it takes to set it up/configure. I hate having to refer to the manual years later. Some stuff I've just given up on as I'd rather be playing than using that valuable time tweaking/pushing buttons. Put some knobs on the damn thing!

I wish it had a Marshall JMP-1 rack built in for the distortion fuction.

I don't bother tweaking the unit too much any more. I like the set ups/patches that are stored. Including my own, it is way more than I will ever use.

If you are going to buy five effects stomp boxes you may want to get more for your money and have fun with a new toy at the same time. But just remember, less is usually better in terms of effects. I use very few together these days when I play.

its shit easy to get sound out of it. plug it in to ur amp, then to the wall, then plug urself into it. editing patches is easy, but it will take u a long time until u get what u want out of it. theres a lot of tweaking to be done when u use this. it came with a manual but i havent been bothered to read it. i just went straight into the gx700. theres a lof ot technical shit in here word wise, but have a fiddle and ull realise what it does.

u can fully create your own sound from speaker cabinets to the speakers themselves, then preamps to what ever the fuck you want!! its not noisy as it has a noise supressor... u can make anything sound good or shit, it depends on what u want. you just have to twirl a lot with the knobs, its made for detail freaks, people who insist on having the perfect sound. but for me the distortion was crap. its almost there for me, but not quite, i have to resort to my MT-2 (metalzone) for the distortion. even then it still lacks a bit or definition and "balls"

iv gigged with it, dropped it, accidentally stodden on it, had things dropped onto it and its still working better than before! u could beat this thing with a axe and it will still work sound!

n/A

im into progressive metal/nu metal.. eg limp bizkit, tool, korn, deftones. it pulls out all the wac assed effects simulation head & munki and wes borland, but the distortion lets me down. its not quite deep enough. tinny almost... im still yet do discover the perfect distortion, im thinking marshall JMP-1 preamp here.. but not sure still. if it were stolen i would definitly buy another 1. i wish the distortion was a bit better, i still have a bit of fiddling to do with that i think to gt it sounding orgasmic, its just sounding good. by the way, i am a complete tone freak so thats why im so critical.

It's easier than many rack effects because there are buttons to access each effect module directly. Lack of a footswitch is troublesome but i was able to fit in a footswitch that i made that cost me just a couple of dollars. I bought an expression pedal for the wah effect, but use it for everything other than wah, because I dont like the wah in GX-700 a lot.

I've never used real tube amps but I've used a tube preamp before. I like the amp simulations (at least Fender and Roland JC-120). I also like blues driver. I dont like metal, but I do use distortion, usually the blues driver sim in GX-700 (I've not played the real Boss blues driver predal). I plug it to the power amp input of Fender HOT 25W amp. I could easily recreate the Fender HOT's preamp with GX-700 preamp settings, that's why I dont use the amp's preamp any more. Wah is crap though. Also, I dont use harmonizer, humanizer, or phaser. What I'd like included here was slow gear, which I really need. I like the chorus. Compressor is so-so in my opinion, but I owned a Boss compressor and also didn't like it. Expression pedal allows me be much more creative in sound design, because every parameter is assignable to expression pedal, even the ranges. I've recently made a sustain patch that you can hold a chord or note and play over it as long as you wish, using the expression pedal like a sustain pedal. I'm quite happy with my GX-700. It's very versatile. I initially didn't like the pitch shifter but when rearranged the order and put after distortion and before preamp, it sounded much more natural. I also wish the effect parameters could respond to the guitar envelope like in Adrenalinn or higher grade effects like Tc Electronics.

4 years ago when I bought it new, it did once go blank but when I switched it on again it was operating normally. It was probably because of mains electricity I guess, but never happened again.

Each effect has many parameters, but the unit only has one knob, so setting up patches requires patience, as you have to scroll through menus, setting a single parameter at a time. Be prepared to go a back and forth, back and forth between several parameters until its finally tweaked to your liking. Each parameter has a large range of values (like 1-100), when I only usually set it to the nearest 10. It is a tweakers dream, but those of us that like effects with a single knob or two, its a bit daunting.

Adding to the complexity, there are several places where you can set the tone. You have tone controls in the distortion effects, the preamp effects, the EQ effect, and then several of the other effects also have tone settings. There's so many opportunities to shape the tone in the signal path, that's its not intuitive as to the right approach.

The system is extremely flexible, but the limited user interface makes it difficult to use to its full potential.

I usually use it for headphone jamming, or playing at low levels through studio monitor speakers. I rarely use it with my amp, because my amp sounds great as is and I like keep my setup simple using just a pedal or two. That being said, for the purpose I use it (direct or headphone) it often sounds harsh and nothing like a real amp. It has a cabinet simulator that removes some of the harshness, but the sounds still come out lacking, sounding very synthetic and processed. I've noticed that some patches and effects that I think sound horrible actually sound decent through an amp (for example distortion). Which makes me think this isn't the best for direct to PA type of applications.

The effects I like are:
Chorus--light chorus is good for mild settings, in the extreme settings it starts to have a thin processed and unnatural sound
Phaser--again, the milder settings are good
Tremolo-- can add nice shimmer or throb

The effects which are so/so:
The preamp-- the preamp modeling is essential for my purpose, since I only use this device when I can't use my amp. It's ok. I haven't ever used a pod or those other modellers so I can't compare. But only a few of the preamp settings are usable, most are too extreme and sound nothing like an amp I would ever use. They are also pretty noisy.
Delay-- well the delay is quite good, but I dock it because it is very hard to set up. The signal goes to three channels each which has its own delay time and mix level. This means you can get all kinds of cool ping-pong delays, however as I mentioned above, the user interface requires more time and patience than I'm willing to use to set it up. They made it almost too configurable. Tweakers dream, but not simple plug in and go stuff.
Reverb-- it's ok. I usually leave on some mild reverb.
Auto-wah-- kind of fun, but it sounds almost more like a phaser than a wah. My expression pedal isn't compatable with this one so the pedal wah doesn't work for me.

Effects which are bad:
Compressor-- I just can't get a good sound out of this compressor.
Distorion-- It's not bad through an amp, but for direct recording and headphone playing the distorion patches sound over processed, even with a cabinet simulation turned on.

The rest:
There are lots more modulation effects. Most are useless far-out sounding stuff I'd never have a real use for. Set the phaser to subtle, and that's about the only modulation that I want.

The power supply went dead on me. It's a non-standard supply, and I couldn't find a replacement at any electronics stores that had the same voltage. The only one I could find was a direct order from Boss, for which they charged over $50 dollars.
Sometimes it's really noisy and other times its not. For the most part, except for the power supply its been reliable.

They would not repair the defective power supply because the warranty had expired. So it cost me over $50 to replace it. I couldn't deal with them directly, had to go through an authorized service store.

I wouldn't buy this again, but at the time I bought it I was excited at the prospect of having so many sounds at my disposal. The longer I've had it, the more I realized that I only need a couple of pedals to get my sound, and the multi-fx was overkill. So now I use it only for low-volume playing when I can't use a tube amp (apartment living). This has essentially become my practice amp. I'd rather have a simpler device, but I haven't bothered to look, prefering to just make do with what I own.

It takes a few minutes to get the idea,but it's one of the easiest to set up.

Wonderful.Clean. and with MILLIONS OF POSSIBILITIES.
The best preamps are the TWIN settings. Awesome.
Did I mention MILLIONS OF POSSIBILITIES?

Bars,clubs , studios you name it.I've been everywhere with it.
My rack even fell on the floor once.It was up and running in a flash.

Never had to get service for it.
But Boss and Roland are reknown for great customer support anyway!!

I'm sure this piece of gear will get the same amount of attention as the now famous Tube Screamer that Stevie Ray Vaughan was using.Why?Nobody cared until they found out that HE was using it.
I've been playing music for the last 30 years or so and I own a commercial recording studio up in Canada full of gear.With all honesty , this is one of the best pieces of equipment I've had the chance to own.
The biggest mystery is WHY the BOSS company is not producing it anymore???!!
They probably will when they find out some big name guitarist is STILL using it.

Its a great unit with lots of parameters and so, lots of possibilities. You must spend time with it, create the patches depending on your other gear and how these are connected. You WILL see the result is amazing.
The manual is 8/10

Using it with Tube Works 9002 preamp and Tube Works 962 MOS Valve power amp. The GX-700 is not noisy at all, has meany features and sound excellent.
The effects are all very good specially the harmonizer.
And people, THIS THING HAS A TUNER BUILT IN! its just a great and very useful idea.
I'm surprised about the last person (Jeremy) comment and rating for this unit. I think your have too much gear and not too much interest in getting to know a bit this unit. The GX-700 is a remarkable piece of gear. It DOES NOT KILL YOUR TONE if you set it up correctly and use at least 2 of your neurons as with any device. On the contrary it adds a bunch to your tone. I suggest you sell a few things or become a collector. You can do almos anything with this unit depending on your other gear as well. I have recorded 5 songs with this and surprised a few of the best Sound Engineers I know.

Have no problems what so ever.

Play alternative, classic rock, blues, progressive.
Playing for 16 years.
After smashing a few things and taking a pill to calm down, I would buy again if stolen.
I love the sound, the tuner in it, the interesting modelers built in it and its affordability.

I play Gibson Custom or PRS Custom 22 & Hollowbody Guitars and a PRS Dragon!!! into different setups! I use a Mesa V-Twin Rackmount, Quad Preamp, TriAxis, Engl 930 tube amplifier, Mesa strategy 500, a Mesa Dual Rectifer Trem o verb Head, Marshall JCM 800 with reverb. Mesa Rectifier Cabinetts with 30 Celetions Speaker
Effects: Rocktron Intellifex LTD, T.C. Electronic G-Force, 2xBoss PH-2, Boss RV-3, Boss CS-3, Boss Oc-2, EH Q-tron, MXR Phase 90, Hughes & Kettner Tube Rotosphere, Ernie Ball Volume Pedal, Digitech original WH-1, Vox V847 Wah, Dunlop Uni-Vibe,
Ebtech Noise Supressor and some vintage stuff!!!

I tried the boss unit in every combination with my Setup and it is totally bullshit, 'cause it kills your tone completly. It was my first effect that my parents buy me for my 15th birthday 8 Years ago!!! As a kid I find this unit cool, because I my setup wasn't good enough that this unit can kill my tone. But if you own a good setup than buy other effects. I love my Pedals. I like the tone of the G-Force as well! Save your money and buy something better

Ok, this unit works! Hope it won't

I never had a problem with my boss gear so I don't know thei support

Don't buy it if you want be a professional Player with a good sound!!!

I've had the unit for a long time: bought it when the price dropped as they were about to discontinue it. How easy to get a good sound? pretty easy for all the sounds it will make. It has so much potential, it demands a good amount of work from the user to tap into it. I have spent quite a lot of time programming it to work like I need, but in return I get most everything I want. So I give it fairly high marks in this department. good manual for a translation. (I just got through putting a bookcase together that deserves a place in the Bad Manual Hall Of Fame...)

I use this unit with an American Strat with Vintage Noiseless pups and an original Fender Telecoustic (not a plasticaster) straight to the PA in my full-time duo here in Florida. I get great quasi acoustic sounds by turning off the preamp sims and using the EQ, compressor and delay to simulate a miked up flattop. No, it doesn't sound like a great acoustic guitar, but it also doesn't feed back uncontollably in a live setting. I can play as loud as I need to without compromising my tone. (the Telecoustic helps in this regard). really happy with the acoustic side of it. for electric stuff, I use several of the preamp sims: Twin, Matchless, Marshall, and Soldano mostly. I don't really use the distortions much, just on a couple of patches, but I get plenty of grind from the preamp sims. The other effects respond well to judicious programming, as do the preamp sims and the speaker sims. Really, the key to this or any other device, especially multi-effects boxes, is your willingness to spend the time tweaking. I've stored nearly 50 patches to cover LOTS of stylistic ground and even have the sequencer we use (FOR DRUMS ONLY) to change my patches at the right time. (how incredibly convenient). Does it sound like the real thing? DUH...No, but is that really the point? Of course it's a compromise, but I can get such a wide variety of really GOOD tones out of this thing for live performance that it's earned it's place in my rack for the last several years. That's the bottom line for me: GOOD TONE. I get plenty of compliments on the sound, and remember, I'm going straight to the PA. Yeah, it's a good PA, and I've tweaked the speaker sims and the outputs for my specific setup, but who wouldn't do that? We play many different styles of music including everything from James Taylor to ZZ Top and Louis Armstrong to Grand Funk, and I have no trouble getting the appropriate sounds out of the GX-700 for all of 'em. I guess folks who only need a couple of (perfect) sounds might be harder to please than me in this respect, but the versatility far outweighs any compromise for me...

I've never had a problem with it, other tham the rear jack going out, but I have an identical unit for backup just in case. If it went out on a gig, I'd be up and running in no time.

Never dealt with 'em. No idea...

My overall rating for the GX-700 is obviously very high; It's my primary sound tool for the gig. I've been playing for a living for 30 years. I've owned lots of gear from all the major players, and currently have stuff from Mackie, Crown, Lexicon, Rane, Yorkville Elite, Behringer, and Yamaha.

Editing patches is actually pretty intuitive and the 'patch copy' function makes it very easy to copy and paste fx parameters between patches. I.E.; I really like the flanger setting on patch 18, I want that flanger on patch 6: click, click, done. That said, this is still a unit that you'll need to get your hands dirty on while you mess around under the hood finding settings that you like. As far as manuals from Japanese manufacturers go, this one is a pretty easy read and provides plenty of info.

My basic setup: Fender Tele and Carvin TL60-T through an assortment of pedals (fulldrive, soulbender, carl martin comp, etc.)to the GX-700 to a Boogie DC-5. I've been using the GX w/a MidiBuddy for about six years now and have about ten patches that I generally use when playing live. As for overall sound quality, I've owned many of these Boss effects as stand-alone units at one time or another and the sound on the GX doesn't always measure up. Case in point; the compressor. The Boss CS-3 comp is a great pedal that can really beef up your sound without compromising your tone. The GX compressor, frankly, sucks. It's not even close. It does, however, have a limiter function that sounds pretty good, which the CS-3 doesn't. So,here's the basic poop with the GX-700: does it sound as good as owning all these pedals individually would? No. Does it get as close as can be reasonally expected for a one space rack unit w/a gazillion fx? Yes. Obviously, if you were to own all these units individually, you would need a pedal board roughly the size of Rhode Island to contain them and a ridiculously expensive switching system to utilize them in all the configurations available on the GX. So, what you sacrifice in tone is more than made up for with the endless possiblilty of programming options.

There are more than enough fx, preamps, speaker sims, and routing options to get a good sound out of this puppy. Don't like the sound of any of the distortions? Try rolling off the gain and bumping up the output or maybe use it to push one of the preamps and patch the eq after it to dial in the sweet spot. Then try running it into one the cab simulators and see what you get. I've also used the GX for direct recording and you'd be surprised how good it's capable of sounding- natural to the point where you'd swear you can hear an amp breathing in the room. I wouldn't put it up against a POD but it's all there if you're only willing to TWEAK.

All in all-

Pros:
Mucho parameters, flexible signal chain, LCD readout is easy to work with. Each fx group has its own dedicated button; you won't waste ridiculous amounts of time scrolling through a byzantine maze of menus and sub-menus.

Easy to edit patches on the fly. Easy to fly in existing fx parameters to a new preset.

Silent onboard tuner. Good preamps and speaker sims. Now, at the touch of a button, I can turn my boogie into a plexi. Nice.

External footswitch can be integrated to control fx parameters within a patch. Very cool.

More fx than you'll probably ever use. But you'll feel good knowing that there's always a new sonic possibility just under the surface somewhere.

Cons:
Compressor and tremolo are kinda blech. Reverb? Sure, but nothing to write home about. Get a stand alone OD unit if you're serious about your lead tone.

Ocassional goofiness; that patch you've decided you didn't want delay on still has delay on it and the GX refuses to save it w/out the delay button activated. It's happened to me here and there but always seems to go away after a little while.

Pitch shifter does not track very well. Even trying to set up a simple 'octave below' patch is an exercise in futility. Don't even think about hooking up an expression pedal to the wah. Vox, it ain't.

I've gigged w/this unit without a backup for 6 years without any problems. Rear panel input jack shit the bed not long after I bought it. That's a pain, but I'm apparently not alone judging by the number of people on this page who've had the same problem.

I've been playing for twenty plus years and gigging steadily for the last ten. All this means is that I've gone through enough gear to appreciate a unit that is dependable and flexible ebough to give me what I want, where I want it. I'm fussy enough about tone that I've spent a good deal of time accumulating OD's and compressors that really deliver the goods. For me, the GX-700 is the mortar that fills in the cracks. It's a very reasonably priced unit that has so much to offer that I can't imagine a guitarist who couldn't find it useful in one way or another.

First let me start by saying I have been reading the user posts here for a couple years and it seems that everybody either loves it or hates it. Well, I have been using my GX-700 continuously since I bought it new circa 1996. At one point I even had gotten another one to use as a backup, but then I sold it since after I got the EPROM upgrade (see prior posts) it's never gone down and I have traveled the WORLD out of this unit. Basicaly, in my opinion the GX-700 out-performs any other unit in its class, and I own a POD and a GT-3. The secret to it's tone is in the preamp simulations, nothing else. It took me a long time to find the tones I was looking for but now I can play that baby though whatever guitar/amp/speaker compination I choose and it still sounds great. I have used it at gigs where the sound guy wanted to know how I got such a great tone. DON'T just use the presets, altough they can be good starting points for ideas. Make your own sounds using the preamps and effects. It's not that hard.

The main way I use the GX-700 is a Fender strat though a couple pedals (MXR Dynacomp, Fulltone II, Ernie Ball volume pedal) and into the front input. Then I take the stereo out into my Mesa 50:50 (tube)power amp and from there to a stereo 4X10 cabinet. Usually the house mix only gets a mono feed (sm-57 on one of the right speakers) but I like the stereo for my own monitoring. My Dynacomp is on all the time, because the compressor in the GX-700 just won't cut it, IMHO.

Here is what I DO NOT use: the compressor, the distortions (too noisy and "digital", the wah stuff and by all means turn off the reverb! (I don't use the speaker sims because I use it live with a cabinet)

The good: the noise gate (works as a noise gate should based on your guitar's input - leave it on all the time), the preamps, especially the TWIN (clean or crunch), MATCHLESS (more crunch) and RECTIFIED (for all out distortion) settings, the delays (very full and clear) and the tremolos. (And of course the tuner.) The JC-120 setting isn't bad either and the chorus is OK (but who uses chorus anymore?). The step phaser is kinda cool for a wierd effect now and then. I use the unit with an FC-200 midi controler which gives you control over delay tempos and tremolo speeds. I basically have 20 presets I use that cover any kind of music I need to play. (I have the same ones programmed into my GT-3 for situations where I can't take my rack with me, but the GX-700 sounds WAY better.) My sounds are tweaked for the strat, but if I have to use a guitar with humbuckers, I just go into "Function" and change the output from "Power Amp" to "Line" and it immediately takes away the mud.

I only use it for live playing. It always sounded a bit thin for recording, which is why I have the POD. (Or with a miked cabinet it sounds pretty good on tape) Sound quality? Even the pros use this unit, like Tim Pierce, an awesome studio guy from L.A.

Once I got the software upgraded I didn't have any problems, but before that, since mine was one of the original models, I would have that thing where I would lose all my patches!!!!(But I always have had them backed up on my computer anyway). I found out the hard way several times that you NEVER gig without a backup of some sort, like I said I had another GX-700 in my rack, but now I have the GT-3 instead.

I got my upgrade though a local music store, so I never have dealt with Roland directly.

I said everything above. This unit ROCKS. And of course they don't make them any more, but the newer Boss stuff just doesn't sound as good, except maybe the VG-8. I would try and get another one If I lost this one, or I might just start using the POD, now that I got a floorboard. I'm very happy with my tone right now, but I'm always up for discovering something better if it came around. I've been playing for more than 20 years but I'm still always looking for the "perfect tone"...

Been covered elsewhere---but generally pretty easy.

I've had this beast for a couple of years and am not writing based on the fact that "I got this thing two hours ago and it rocks!". To be honest, I've had a "love-hate" relationship with this thing---but I have the same feelings for all multi-effect devices. It seems one day I'm raving about the unit, the next I am saying that this thing sucks because you can get such a better tone just running straight through an amp. I use a mesa/boggie dc-2, fender hot deville (4-10's), trace elliot vellocette, and a mesa/boogie 50/50 power amp. I also use an skb powered pedalboard with rotovibe, dunlop wah, bk butler era tube driver, pro-co rat, rocktron hush pedal, zoom choir, ibanez eq pedal (old one--for solo boost), and a slew of other pedals that occasionally end up on the board once in a while to make a 'guest appearance'. Most of the time I just use an amp and flip on the pedals every now and then for "spice". Why I keep going back to using the GX700 is that although the sound is not as good aas my 'anolog' setup, the convience takes over. For live use I use use a midi pedal switcher (either an art x-11 or an old art x-15) and being able to hit a switch and have your compression, distortion, modulation etc.. all there without hitting three or more buttons is very appealling. The compromise is the sound quality. Although the Boss is not completely horseshit, and actually sounds somewhat decent running into a pa or my computer, it's not the end all of sound. I have the unit set up in two ways: 1. use through a pa or power amp (settings 1-50)and 2. used as you would stomp boxes and getting most of my sound once again through the amp. When I want to stay a 'purist' the latter use is the one that gets the most air time. Alot of postings here complain about the buzziness of the distortions. Here's a couple of ideas (for what's it's worth...):
1. crank it up. when used at bedroom levels, the distortions are very, very buzzy. when playing at a gig level or rehearsal level, the buzz somewhat goes away.
2. watch those settings. overkill on the preamp will create alot of the buzz. try using less gain. really. you'll get better clarity and sound.
3. set the preamp like an amp. meaning: take the twin setting, run up the volume and set the master low.
4. use just the distortion boxes just like you would a stomp box. no amp simulation. the same goes for the modulation effects.
5. try the 'power amp' setting not the guitar amp setting and run it into the front end of a combo. more punch this way---but be carefull to turn the combo's treble down or it gets a little crispy sounding.
6. turn off the unit's reverb. this is a big one for getting rid of that buzz. use your amp's reverb if you need it.
7. use the trick someone else mentioned here: put a metal zone (or any pedal type simulation) set really low on gain, but high on output and run it into a hot amp simulation (low gain, high volume setting, low master setting). this gets the sound a little fuller that just alot of pedal type gain.
8. use the effects loop. I don't always do this since I like to use my amp's preamp, but it might work for you. If you go heavy on the preamp sims, it will sound buzzy running into your amp's preamp. use one preamp or the other.
9. try another guitar. borrow a buddie's for an afternoon.
10. run it into something decent. people here complain that the sound sucks and then state they are running into some junky practice amp. well or course the sound sucks. you started with crap, you are going to end up with crap. this unit won't change that.
11. ease up on the effects. this has a ton of them. Something that sounds great in your bedroom will sound like mush when cranked up. Experiment at the volume you are going to use it at and practice at practice volumes--no tweaking.

there are tons more little 'tricks', but I'm having a brain fart right now and the best thing I can say is just to experiment around. If it sounds good to you, then i

so far, so good. but I use everything pretty hard--but I try to take of my gear.

never delt with 'em.

Overall, not bad. Sure, it would be more convenient to have an effects unit within a pedal board (gt-3, etc...) instead of hauling a midi board around. but when you look how abused my midi boards have become from various gigs, you start to wonder if you want to put all your sound into something that could get drenched in beer and just generally get beat on. Like I've said before, if it's inspiring to you, it's a great piece of gear. I'll say that for anything--doesn't matter if it's a cheapie danelectro unit or some boutique unit, if if doesn't inspire, it's junk (no matter what it is or what name is on it). When playing a gig, most people could care less about 'boutique' tone, or that you've spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours and moola trying to get the 'perfect' tone. I'm not saying to settle for crap, just to keep focused on a few great tones instead of a 100 mediocre ones. If flexibility is your game, try this (or most) multi-effectors. If one or two golden tones are your game--save your dough and blow it on a really great amp. Alot of people blame their setup for crappy playing. While partly true, the sad but true fact is that it probably isn't your gear....after a while, you should be able to make anything work. If you're not there yet (who truly is?) then keep practising--it's all part of the journey. make it fun!

Funny the other guy says the weak points of this unit are the pitch shifter and harmonist. People, those are actually the 2 only things about this unit that are pretty unique and useful :) It has a very synthetic tone to it - but it tracks. Your guitar ends up sounding like a synth from those old Steve Miller songs or whatnot.

The distortion on the GX-700 is utter crap. The effects are useful in a very synthetic way. If you want clarity, get a Digitech - they ave very clear sounding in the FX department. For warm, get lexicon or the like.

The GX-700 is the most 'toy' of any component I own. I can't believe that guy owns 3! I baerly and keeping the 1 around - just for the weird noises it puts out. Real grind comes from good tube products. Problem is the market is so flooded with crap tube products, people think they can't be clear or slam - tubes need high voltage and stuff, not these wimpy little power supplies like in a Digitech or something.

I won't say that this unit is easy to use when you first buy it, but once you have a chance to get to know its charateristics it kicks ass. I started with one of the presets and tweaked it from there and then copied it to a user patch. Needless to say those "initial" patches that I created are long gone now that I've had a chance to get to know the unit. This isn't a unit that you just "plug and play". It takes time to get the sound you want because there are so many variables. I believe that if you take your time, you CAN get the perfect sound that you're looking for. As far as the manual, I only read it when I want to know something specific. I purchased the video manual on ebay last week. It's very informative in areas that the printed manual doesn't discuss. I'd rather have it demonstrated than have to read about it, so the Video Manual was a money-well-spent necessity for me.

When jamming with my band, I use an Ibanez s-470, the GX 700 and a Marshall 8008 Valvestate 80x2 Power Amp pushing 2 Marshall 4x12 cabs. When at home, I use another GX 700 thru another Marshall 8008 pushing 4-10" Celestions. When recording, I use yet another GX 700 and go straight into the console from the speaker sims. For control, I use the Roland FC 200 and the FS-5U's and L's. My main style is Death Metal, but I've found the GX 700 to be suitable for just about any style. If you take your time, you can find the perfect settings for ANY genre. I've found the sounds of my favorite guitarists in this unit: Andy LaRocque, Vinnie Moore, Chuck Schuldiner, Michael Lee Firkins, Steve Vai, etc. The most kick ass thing about this unit is the BULK DUMP feature, which is invaluable if you own more than one unit and want them all to be set up exactly the same. The least kick ass thing about the GX 700 would be the Harmonist and the Pitch Shifter, as they are kind of slow and sketchy. Overall, this unit kicks ass.

So far, so good. I don't think I'd play a show without a backup for everything.

I've heard Roland is Japanese for "A**holes", but I've never dealt with them and it would be unethical for me to assume that they are. My Roland FC 200 has two #7 footswitches (but no #6) and was brand new when I bought it, but I think it's kinda unique so I never bitched about it.

I play DEATH METAL. The GX 700 suits my every need. I've been playing for 18 years. I own a lot of gear, but my Roland roster consists of 4-VSR 880's, 3-GX 700's, a Boss DR550 MKII drum machine, and a vintage Boss CE-2 chorus pedal from the old shool. I sold my Marshall JMP-1 when I realized what the GX 700 was capable of. Now chicks dig me. Thanks Roland!

This is about the easiest multi effects unit I have ever used I purchased it used and did not recieve a manual This is about the best
user interface I have ever seen on a guitar effects processor

I run an all tube setup I am by nature and experience very suspect of AD/DA conversion The modulation and pitch shifting on DSP have been suspect from day 1 After a few days you develop a strong dislike for the chorus wah and flange effects in them This is the first Guitmulti that I like

No doubts here I will use this in my rack daily and liberally until someone show my ears somthing drastically better

I am customer support I been tweaking guitar anps and effects for 30 years If it ain't broke I ain't gonna call

I love this thing Nuttin but the best for my dog Frenchie

People say this can sound like a Metal Zone pedal. It cannot. All it's distortions are based on a single one, that is EQed different ways. The distortions are all crap - really, no lie. Becasue I only paid $180 for the thing I am not trying to delude myself into thinking it's something it isn't. If you want good tube tone, get a Peavey Rockmaster - THEN run it's signal into this thing for using the effects :) This Boss has very 'warmed out' effect box emulations. It is EXTREEMELY colored - useful for getting those '80's tones. For distortion, it is a joke!

Useful as a stomp box emulator - except the distortions, which all suck - NOT LIKE ANALOG DISTORTION, it is way too grainy, noisy, no sustain (comparatively speaking) no ethereal grind like you can get from a Metal Zone.

P.S.: You can emulate EVERY Boss pedal with the Metal zone - simply EQ it different ways BEFORE the distortion, AND after. For example, to get 'grindy' things, put more bass before. For more 'modern' things, put more mids/highs before, etc.

Boss and most other brands of this type are FRAUD products. They say they sound like XYZ, but they DO NOT! It is like how Bose speakers say they sound like a live concert - what a joke LOL Get real - it is all lies. I heard a Roland VG-8 and god what a toy - absolutely compressed, lifeless, no highs or shimmer - very closed in like a toy sound - pathetic! I'd even put the GX-700 above the VG-8 :)

If you want shimmer, get DIgitech. If you want Electronica/Industrial, get an Oberheim. If you want 80's rock, get a Tube Fex. If you want Hair metal, get Rocktron, etc. I own all of these units and more. They are colors on a painter's pallate. NONE of them will do what the others do. For instance, I find the pitch shift on the Digitech Valve FX very useful :) It tracks really well like using a trans trem type guitar - fun fun fun! And the oberheim and boss have nice shifters too. The boss will give you these Steve Miller synth sounds, and the Oberheim will make your guitar sound like a raging church or Hammond organ - the digitech will sound spacey. Even though you may set them the same, they have their own character - and it's more than EQ differences - it goes to the core of the sound.

In short, people, stop pretending you can get your whole sound from one box. It ain't gonna' happen - not unless you delude yourself into thinking so - or if your range of sounds you like is severely limited.

I would put the TRANSPARENCY of this product near the bottom - EXTREEMELY false and colored (but useful if you want false and colored!)

I would rank the USEFULNESS of this item about the middle :) It WILL NOT do analog distortion tone - it is way grainier. If you want metal zone tone, sorry, you still need a metal zone. I A/B them and there is simply no comparison - the metal zone is vastly vastyl superior (distortion wise)

I'll try to write the best as I can in english.

the gx-700 could be more easy to use if it has more knobs (it's not useful when you have to edit patches). you have to take your time to make the machine sound ok.

I have a telecaster 52 reissue and I plug my guitar in the gx-700 and the gx-700 directly in my Hotrod Deville. I have never heard something so much noisy. Maybe its because I don't have humbuckers on my guitar. But there is always and strange and disturbing noise and you have to use the noise gate frequently when distortion is on. The chorus is very bad, the distortions and overdrive don't have a very good sound too. You can't really bypass the processor and the machine changes completely the sound of your amp.

No problem with that.

Never dealt with the company.

I never sounded as I expected with the gx-700. On the effect side, you have a lot of possibility and you can do what you want (I use to play Gentle Giant and Frank Zappa's stuff at college) but it will alwas kill the natural sound of your guitar.
I always hated to manipulate the Gx-700. Maybe I didn't use the right gear with it. Anyway, it cuts the sound of your instrument and that is not allowed for me and I hope for anybody of you.

First about the Sound: WOW, never thought I can get such a sound out of my guitar. I got it as a "present" for X-mas (bought it for myself) and started at the same evening with testing. Started with some Factory-made-patches and with the first strike of the strings, the cabinet was roaring. After that I tried to make my first own Patch. Oh my god...so many parameters...but the manual is well written so that you can understand the GX-700 in only a few minutes. And for every effect there's a button so you can edit every effect seperately.

I'm using the BOSS GX-700 with a "Westone Spectrum II Series" guitar, a "Epiphone Les Paul Studio" guitar, a "Vermona Graphic-Equalizer", a "bespeco Volume Pedal" and for the Amplification I use a "Rocktron Velocity 100" Power Amp and a "Hughes & Kettner 4x12" Speaker Cabinet.
The GX-700 is working noiseless and because of the included NoiseSupressor no patch is humming.
The effects sound great...really every effect is great! This Preamp can do really more with the sound than I ever expected.
I'm really impressed by the Ampsimulation-Section in the GX-700.
Especially the "Roland JC-120"-Simulation is great. Now my clean sound sounds exactly like James Hetfield's.

Reliability? Yeah! Absolutely!!! Yesterday (28.12.2001) I played over 8 hours with my band without any longer stops between the songs and the GX-700 delivered constant power all the time.
And yes, I would use this thing live without any backup. The Brand "BOSS" stands for quality and so I believe in its reliability!

I never had problems with the products of BOSS.

Me and my band play much of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal like Black Sabbath, AC/DC and Metallica. We are all Metallica fans and I'm a great Kirk Hammett fan. Everything I do must be as Kirk does, so my guitar has to sound like his and so on. And the BOSS GX-700 can take my sound as close to Kirk's that it sounds nearly the same. Okay, my guitarplaying is not as good as Mr. Hammett's but I think I'm not bad in doing the thing I like best and thats making music with friends.
The GX-700 is the perfect partner for me to get the sound I like and if it were stolen I would, yes I fucking would buy it again, no matter what it costs.

Quite easy unit in editing etc. Someone has written a piece of software (Soundstation) to edit patches and dump ur patches on the computer bla bla. Works nice.. U do need the manual (http://gx700.freeservers.com) if u want to use all functions of the unit. Manual is okay.

I have some dean d-92 guitar with h-s-h config. Not the best guitar but it was best i could pay for at that time. It's plugged in the gx700, then from the mono output to my Bassmann 70 (2x15"). Got a Viscount PX3000 fc with 2 swellpedals and a lot of buttons (bank up/down, 10 patch switching, mode button, bypass button).

I really like the modulation effects (flange, phase, chorus). Delays and reverbs suit me well too (i don't know much about delay and reverb quality). It doesn't have much choice in delay. Only normal and tap delay. U can make ping-pongs but no ducking etc. Pitch-shifter and harmonizer work okay. Bit sloppy tracking sometimes. But u really need ur guitar tuned perfect. Has got something to do with internal frequencies of the notes that r programmed or something like that. Doesn't sound like 2 guitars tho. But is nice.

Compressor i don't understand. Most times i don't like what comes out of it. But i also don't know how to work it well. They say it is fine.

I really don't like the distortions and preamps. Clean tone is perfect tho. But all overdrives and distortions do zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. U can make some hefty metal distortions and some real heavy stuff. I bought an ibanez TS-10 (has got a bit more grain than the TS-9). It sounds much better than all them gx700 overdrives. But perhaps i just don't like Boss overdrives.

So, Metal distortions i shall rate a 7, modulation a 9 (except for pitch shifter and harmonizer, but the unit is cheap. So no real complaints there.) Reverb and delay an 8. Overdrives and fuzz and stuff a 4.

Don't know if u can depend on it. Digital units tend to fail u after some years. I only have it a few months (occasion tho). We'll c. I'm still searching for my pedals. Those will be my backup.

Well, most ppl say that Boss customer support barely exists. Never dealt with them. Hope i never have 2.

In my band i play mostly rock and metal. Personally i play lots a stuff. Classic, jazzy, bluesy, metally. Playing guitar now for 16 yrs (of wich 5 yrs only acoustic). 2 yrs ago also started playing bass. I wouldn't buy it again if it where stolen. Would try such a floor multi effect (GT-3, Digitech RP-2000 or RP-21 wich has a tube), most likely it would be a digitech with a tube in it. Or i would buy stompboxes again and try such a Carl Martin combinator.

Some words in french.
Assez facile d'utilisation, mais le manuel ne doit jamais etre bien loin au debut... Les effets sont accessibles facilement, il faut seulement etre bien au courant des parametres et des possibilites de connexions, assez nombreuses et tres utiles pour profiter pleinement de l'engin.

Tres tres bon son sur les effets "standards", similaires aux pedales Boss bien connues. Les effets plus exotiques sont un peu riches pour une utilisation normale, mais les possibilites sont infinies. Les preamps et simulateur de HP permettent de bosser au casque avec un son monstrueux, et peuvent apporter un plus meme dans une chaine GX700-preampli-ampli-baffle. Je branche le GX dans un Quad Mesa-Boogie, soit en entree soit en boucle d'effet, et le son du Mesa est toujours bien present.

Aucun probleme, ca a l'air costaud. Le mien a 5 ans (achete d'occaz) et n'a aucun probleme, ni connectique ni boutons...

Jamais eu de problemes, donc jamais eu affaire a Boss.

Excellent pour le prix, tres polyvalent (je joue du Jazz et d'autres choses plus rock). Teste avec plusieurs guitares (Telecaster, Firebird, Jazzmaster, ES175...), le son est toujours tres convaincant.

I found my GX-700 extremely friendly, with its lighted buttons for each effects "module" to tell me which effects were active. Pressing one calls up that effect and you scroll through the parameters with the knob. I'd swear Roland/Boss manual's are written by people who don't speak fluent english, though. They're never very descriptive. It's better to experiment to find out what the parameters do. Getting started is easy. You can just flip through the presets with the knob.

Thanks to the COSM amp simulations and analog-sounding effects, this rig sounds very natural, like an amp and pedalboard combination. It can also be just as noisy if you aren't careful with your gain and gating. Don't use more gain than you need to get the sound you want or the preamps do just what a tube amp does - go over top, get flappy, lose attack and sound like frying bacon. Just one parameter value can make the difference between "perfect" and "too much". Also, never forget that its a digital device. You have to "gain stage" every module in your chain. Some modules, especially the modulation module, can't tolerate a high input level while they're operating. Keep an eye on the clipping lights and palm mute to bring out the bass and check distortion.

I'm using my GX-700 with only a stereo 31-band graphic EQ, a power amp, and a pair of small PA speakers. I *always* us a preamp even if it's just a clean one, and I use the onboard cabinet simulator. I use the FC-200 midi controller. In my home studio, the stereo outs from the GX go straight into my VS880EX digital workstation.

The effects are all comparable to stomp boxes but without the hassle. I'm particularly pleased with the flanger, since I have a special way of tuning the sweep for a custom modulation effect I like to use. I also use it to simulate a Univibe, Robin Trower's "In City Dreams" wide flange, and the high end of my 3-speed Leslie patch. I'm surprised the phaser sounds so rich. Digital phasers usually stink. My only complaint is that the auto wah can't handle any gain. I have to cut down the level going in and boost it coming out or it distorts.

I know the word's over used, but I'm an "eclectic" guitarist. My first rock concert was Boston in Philadelphia and I remember Tom Scholz standing in a frosted spot making his guitar play itself. I have a GX patch called "Spotlight" that sounds like that, along with a whole bank of Boston patches. I also have everything from Police, David Gilmour, and Stevie Ray to Eric Johnson, Allan Holdsworth and Satriani. My GX is flexible enough to do it all. Recently, I duplicated some of Steve Hackett's old Genesis sounds.

One little trick I like to use is to put an overdrive module in front of a preamp to simulate an extra gain stage. You set the drive *very* low so it just clips, and the output so its only barely a noticable boost. Start with the tone of the OD module flat. You'll probably have to make it dark because the extra gain will brighten things up. A little "vintage OD" can turn a 1959 Marshall (inputII) from a JCM900 into an SLX-1 with edgier, thrashier gain. Some "blues driver" can turn it into a HiWatt.

I've been using this box for four years without a single glitch so what else can I tell you? So far, it's 100% reliable. Having used BOSS equipment for years and never having had anything they made break down, I wouldn't be concerned about taking it to a gig.

I've never had a problem with my BOSS equipment, but I have dealt with their parent company, RolandCorp. When I first bought my Roland VS880 digital studio, it locked up on me. Being something of a technophobe and afraid to do anything and possibly breaking it, I called them. They were extremely helpful and their expert advice ("Shut it off and turn it back on.") did the trick. :-)

I'm an original progressive rock artist. I've been playing 28 years. My music requires a wide variety of sounds and that I change sounds often. I find my GX-700 to be flexible enough to give me what I want without being unduely complex, and it sounds like an *amp*. I'd buy it again if they still made it. It's like having a room full of amps, and I can custom design my own project amp and tinker with it. I know they said they wouldn't print "glowing reviews", but seriously, I can't think of anything I could replace this with. You'd have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.

The GX-700 is quite easy to use, with direct access to every single effect (straight from the front buttons) and to every parameter of the effect you are editing. A little more complicated is to change the effect chain order...it's not as intuitive as editing an effect.

I use it with an ENGL screamer 50 head, a 4x12 ENGL cabinet with vintage celestion speakers and a left-hand american Fender stratocaster (...yes i'm left handed..SOB!!!) The signal path is quite complicated: I plug my fender into the GX-700 and then from the loop-send (of the GX-700) to the input of the ENGL head. Then from the loop send of the ENGL head to the loop-return of the GX-700 and finally from the left (MONO) out of the GX-700 to the loop return of the ENGL head (into the power section). I found this (terrible !!) wiring scheme much more versatile and good sounding than putting the GX-700 in the effect loop of the ENGL head. Acting on the loop send level (on the GX-700) i can control the signal strength on the ENGL preamp, thus obtaining a wide spectrum of tones in every channel of the head's preamp. I also use the vintage OD\DS BEFORE the ENGL preamp clean channel and the result is a wonderful crunch sound, with a lot of clarity and warmth. I never use the PREAMP effect because the ENGL preamp section is a lot better (all valve of course!!).
Again using the lead channel of the ENGL preamp and pushing the loop send level of the GX-700 i can obtain an incredibly sustaining lead sound (increasing "de facto" the head's gain: quite good with a single coil pick-up guitar). The best GX-700 effects are (in my opinion) the delay and the reverb units. I play a lot of U2 songs using as a consequence a lot of delay, and this unit is very good.
The chorus and the tremolo FX are also good.
With this rig i can get the sound i ever wanted and i like the tonal versatility i can get from the ENGL head via the loop send level (as i wrote before) using it quite as a midi preamp.
The unit can be a little noisy when used with high gain settings (on the head or on the OD\DS) but the noise suppressor works well.

I've been using this unit in live concerts for 2 years and never had any problem. I heard (from friends) about some problems with the rear input (??) i use the front input!

I've never need any support so i can't evaluate this point.

I play a lot of U2, Police, Lanny Kravitz ....and i found the rig i described before a perfect one. But i can play also heavy metal licks with very convincing sound. I think the overall setup is very versatile especially for rock and rock & blues sounds.
If my GX-700 were stolen i'll probably buy it again or perhaps i'll buy a ROLAND GP100 wich is the natural "father" of the GX-700. I like very much the Control 1\2 feature that let you change some parameters of any effect through a footswitch pedal in the same patch. This is useful when using a patch with a lot of delay effect...the change to another path kills all the delayed sound resulting in a muted sound during the change.
I wish it had the external control feature (programmable, like the Roland GP100) that let you automate the head channel switching.

This unit was my entry into digital FX and could'nt have been easier to use.it took only seconds to edit, change & save patches.The tuner is great and is really easy to see at gigs. The speaker simulator is exellent & I have used it both thru a P.A and a 4 by 12.there is also virtually no gap between patches when using a foot controller(I use an ART- X15

The overall sound ,I thought , was great. There is a great deal of scope in all the patches but as with any unit you have to take time. The Auto-wah is worth an extra mention.

I have gigged this unit constantly for 5 years and have only recently had technical problems ,which are only due to exessive use and rough handling between thousands of gigs.This unit will be hard to replace!

I prefer heavier stuff but am a very fussy semi-pro and play all manner of music 4 times a week the GX-700 has allways suited my needs

I 've no idea about it's firmware ver but this is a KILLER "machine" !
Very easy editing,you can have your own sound in minutes.

I use many guitars ,such as a BCRich Warlock (with Dimarzio pickups),a Kramer Vanguard (with Seymour Duncan pic ups) ,a Gibson Explorer,etc., and I have the best possible HUGE sound I want.It's an amazing effect processor at all the ways.With a small 12" Marshall or a JCM 900 or even a Valvestate,this processor works perfect with a brilliant sound,clear (no noise if you use the amazing NoiseGate),it's distortions are great but better try to experiment through it';s Metal Distortion & EQ to have the characteristic sound of a Metal Zone pedal.It is ,also,great for practise with headphones (the amp simulators sounds so real...) and I recommend you for direct recordings as I was surprised by the result ...Huge and Heavy !!!

I use it very often at gigs without any problem so far.But,I recommend you to use the reverb of the amp instead of Boss ones as you 'll get better quality. I don't care for it's small LCD screen as it's very readable in darkness and on the other hand you only need 4-5 different pre-sets witch is easy enough to change while on stage.

Their customer in Greece was much friendly with me.They also let me try it at their studio room and that was enough, in seconds I was ready to buy it !

I use GX-700 for more than 3 years without any problem so far. Recommended for Heavy,Thrash,death,black metal !If someone stollen it,I 'ld buy a GT-3 'cause I 'll save the extra pedal-footswitch a GX-700 needs but...maybe no. Another GX-700 'ld be OK as it's what I need. Excellent treble sound ala SATYRICON & EXODUS (Bonded by Blood),huge distorted sound like CARCASS,everything is here !I love Boss distortion sound and this is my "dream machine".

took me a while to get the hang of it, needed to look at the manual for a very long time b4 it sunk in!

i use a PEAVEY valve rack amp and an old Marshall Bass cab (which incidentally used to belong to defunct rockers CHELSEA, bass player BILLY IDOL!!)which has g12-80's instead of bass speakers. Guitar is Gibson Explorer custom shop special, and use Roland FC200 footpedal (ace!) I can always get the sound i want (eventually) by finding the nearest preset patch and modifying it from there. footwah takes a while to set up right, but once you get the settings..its killer! Get a really convincing Slayer sound on the o/d and a really nice rough drive for FOO FIGHTERS covers!! Chorus is naff but very slight pitch shift is better!!! Dreamy! Love the delays! hate the stupid 'laughing' effect!

Have used it in about 4 different bands, and found it to be very adaptable to different styles (metal/electric folk/indie/acoustic!!) Only problems ive had with it are A: knob fell off after 3 days B:rear jack socket has gone michrophonic and squeals whenever you try to connect the guitar or wireless to it, can only use front jack. Has behaved itself up to now, ive had it 4 years, and its been well gigged, so yes i would trust it on the road (in a very good flight case)

n/a

i play all styles, it follows where ever i go musically. ive been playing since i was 11. im now 35. Other gear? Peavey heritage VTX combo/samson wireless/fender acoustic. if it were nicked i would buy another. hate the stupid sounds (laughing) bets feature is the ability to set almost 2 second delay, then set a slow rise and get a dreamy keyboard effect, loaded with chorus and reverb...yum! compared to yamaha 77 (noisy) zoom 505 (even more noisy) boss is quiet(est). ive written my best tunes on this unit.

After using many different processors in my rack, I was looking for a solution that would provide both the pre pre-amp (compressor, etc.) and post pre-amp (chorus, delay, reverb, etc.) effects that I normally use. I needed something that was easy to use, and programmable. After reviewing several units, the GX-700 seemed most suited to my application.

I've played around with many different setups for this unit, and finally decided that the following, while a little complicated, worked best for my situation. I plug my guitar (or wireless) into the GX-700. This allows the noise gate to get the uneffected guitar signal and the compressor, etc. to work on the guitar before the pre-amp. Then I run the GX-700 loop output into the input of my pre-amp (Mesa-Boogie). Then the pre-amp's effects send returns to the GX-700 loop return. This allows the delay-based effects to process the signal after the pre-amp. Finally, the output of the GX-700 is returned to the pre-amp's effects return, and the pre-amp out runs through a BBE 462 into my power-amp (Mesa-Boogie) and into my cabinets (Marshall 1960). The entire setup is perfect (for me) and the flexibility that the GX-700 provides greatly enhances my sound.

This setup enables me to get the best use of all the effects in the GX-700, while retaining the character of my pre/power amps. I'm quite pleased with all the effects, although the reverb is a little generic. I do wish that the unit had adjustable input levels for each effect (it does have individual output levels) and a few more continuous controller assignments would be nice. And I don't understand why the last 100 presets aren't programmable. Since I could restore them if I wanted (I've never found a preset I liked, anywhere, not just in this unit), I don't need access to them at all times. Maybe marketing thought that 200 presets sounded better than 100, even though 100 is really all you get.

Editing couldn't be easier. I found 90% of the functionality before I even cracked the user's manual. The manual is quite good, concise and to the point.

I've heard better sounding units, but never with the flexibility of this one. And it's not that it sounds so-so, either. The sounds I get out of this unit are quite good and comparable to the best of the mid-grade effects processors ($500 - $1000).

Some of the effects are a little noisy, but no more than to be expected (analog distortion effects are always noisy). The noise gate works wonderfully, taking it's trigger signal from the guitar input and applying it after all the analog effects (or wherever I choose to place it in the effect order). This lets my guitar retain complete sensitivity, while removing all the noisy generated by my pre-amp, etc. The sound is extremely sensitive to any noises I make with my guitar, doesn't inhibit the sustain of the instrument, and keeps everything nice and tight sounding without any noise.

I've been using the GX-700 both live and in the studio for over 4 years now and have never had a problem with it.

Without paying several thousand dollars for several different processors, I'd be hard pressed to find another single processor that would sound as good, give me the flexibility that I need, and be so easy to use. Too bad they don't make them any more...

This unit is very easy to use and program. The presets kinda suck. Start with a blank patch and work from there. I have seen other users recommend this approach as well. It's what I did and I have been pleased with the results. Its features like amp and speaker simulations are cool for direct recording and headphone practice, but I wouldn't use this as a stand alone preamp unless I was in a cover band. The tuner is cool. The thing I like best about this unit over say Digitech products is that it doesn't glitch between presets. The very pricey Lexicon guitar unit sounds better, but there's a one second glitch between presets. If you do a lot of abrupt changes like I do that simply won't do. There's no way I would spend over $1300 on a unit that glitches like that.

If you like the sound of Boss pedals you will like this unit. This is the first Boss rack that actually sounds like their pedals just less noisey. The distortions, compressions, wah, EQ are all analog just like the pedals. The digital effects like chorus and delay sound like the pedals (I don't use the digital preamp models live as I prefer analog distortion/overdrive for live sound)That being said, I'm not going to bother mentioning what styles I play or what kind of gear I have because if YOU wouldn't use Boss pedals for what you do musically or with the equipment you have, you wouldn't be using this unit anyway. Since just about every pedal Boss ever made is in this unit, it will suit most any style to various degrees. I have 2 of these units. One for my studio rack and one for live use. As of this posting I mostly use Fulltone pedals in a switching system, but I still find the GX700 to be useful. As far as sound quality goes It's really what you would expect from a bunch of Boss pedals no more, no less. It's the best glitch-free PRE preamp multi effects unit for the money. If Lexicon ever comes out with a guitar unit that doesn't glitch between presets, I'd probably buy that one. If Fulltone came out with a box that was programable, my GX700's would go in the trash.

I haven't had the nightmareish problems that some users have had, but I used to work in a music store and I saw a couple of defective units get shipped to us so I'm not suprised to see that others have had problems. I've used them live and in the studio without any problems, but I'm glad that I have two of them just in case.

About what you would expect from a faceless multi-million dollar corporation.

Overall you can't go wrong with this unit if you use or plan to use a tuner and 3 or more Boss effects pedals or units of similar quality in your line up. With a used street price of $200 to $300 (this unit is no longer in production)It doesn't make that much sense to buy the individual pedals especially when you can set the unit up to respond like a pedal board via continuous control messages. Feel free to e-mail me if you would like some suggestions on how to use this unit in your rig.

To operate this unit is easy.
To get REALLY good sounds out of it is not.
I have a few damn descent sounds, and they took hours of tweaking to get right.
Controls are easy, and the menu system is very good.

I use an Ibanez JEM 7, an Ibanez RG 470 and a Epiphone G-400 through this orange box and into a Marshall 9100 dual monoblock 2x50 watt to a Marshall 1936 2x12 cab. Used to have a JCM900 instead of the 9100, but a poweramp does this unit MUCH more justice than an intergrated amp.
Some effects (Pre-amp, OD/DIST, Comp.) tends to be noisy, but the NS will fix this. The HARD thing is finding the balance between good sustain and quiet sound.
As for sounds, they are what you make them.
Compression is useful for adding sustain to noise-reducted sounds, while it can also "Spank" up clean sounds (like a compressor should...)
However, compared to Marshall's little chrome box compressor, it's pretty daft.
The distortions are useless at high gain ALONE, as are the preamps. BUT, the COMBINATION of a preamp and a distorion is where it's at, although you'll have to use some heavy EQ'ing and the Speaker sim to get it right.
For instance my favourite lead sound is something like this:

Metal distortion with drive at 40
Ms 1969 preamp with Gain on Medium or High, and Volume on 60
The MS STACK 2 with the closest mic placement and NO direct signal
EQ: Low +7 Mid 100hz +13 High: +5
This is the basis of my lead sound, and sounds a bit Vai/Petrrucci like. Still, the classic Vai sound is a boss DS1 through Marshalls and Bogners (The Legacy is to new for the "classic" sound), yet the Distortion sound (DS1 circuit I persume) didn't cut it, and the EQ was nescessairy to get the sound. Petrucci uses MESA/BOOGIE stuff, but the BG-LEAD didn't do anything but mud...

So the point is, use your ears instead of your eyes. If you look to cop an artists sound, don't think "What amp does he/she use?", and go for that simulator. This is part of why it's hard to find good sounds. They are all in there, but they take hours to find.
The chorus, Delay, Phaser and Flanger are all excellent. It's a bit easier to find good sounds in this departement than in the OD/DIST/PREAMP.
Reverb is not good. You can find very useable sounds, but it's not the same sound quality as in the other digital effects here.
The Pitch shifter and Harmoniser are presice, but the harmony-tones sound very synth like. You WONT get this to sound like 4 guitars, but you may get it to sound like 1 guitar and 3 synth pads.
The Ring modulator IS GOOD, people! Seriously; BUT: HOW OFTEN DO YOU NEED ONE?!? They should have dropped this, and used the space for better reverb circuits.
Humanizer is just Wah Wah with different vowels, so that can be a useful way to be creative with old concepts... (NO, I am NOT advising you to play Voodo Child (Slight Retusn) with a "YeeYee" instead of a "WahWah", although this is one rather blasfemous example of how it can be used!)

Finally, I can say one thing: The more gain, the more Time.
The High Gain Vai/pettrucci-sound took several hours to tweak!
The spanky half overdriven rythm sound Steve Howe used on Roundabout by Yes took 10 minutes, and sounded pretty good.
Yet, this will never sound as good as a Tube amp!
The SANSAMP PSA-1 does this, however this unit has no other effects than being a preamp!
I'd rather suggest going for the BOSS and later addind a tube preamp, such as a MESA/BOOGIE Triaxis or a Soldano. I intend to buy such a preamp in the near future myself, in addition to my Boss.

I've had mine for about 4 years, dropped it a thousand times, and had it repaired once. This repair was a blown input after I misplaced a Jack that SHOULD have gone from an output....

Can't say. It was way out of warranty the ONE time it needed repair, so I took it to a local music shop.

I play mostly Progressive Rock, and since this requires a great array of sounds, it's just the unit I need.
Ive been playing for 8 years, and have owned several amps/distortion units/FX processors and this is the best of them. My gear is allready listed, and it works well together. The fun part is using the same sound with my three guitars... They all sound different, yet all sound good with my sounds.
If someone knicked my GX, I'd HAVE to get another one!
My favourite feature about this unit is the MIDI compatability. It's possible to use with a MIDI preamp, and connect the two in such a matter that one press of a footswitch will change the patch in both.
I compared this in store with top models from Zoom and Digitech, and the choise was easy. This unit is great, and the few minuses are nothing you can't get around in some ways...

A very easy unit to use. Plug it in, and play. Editing patches is not a problem. The manual is good, no problems really. My unit was purchased in 1995, about the first week it was released to the public. I have firmware 1.08. A big volume knob wouldn't hurt, in fact, there should be one. Therefore 8.

Excellent, sounds are very usable. Its very versatile. I use it with my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Its a good choice. I run the amp with a extension cabinet and the sounds are amazing. No noise, no trouble, no complaints. I can duplicate the sounds of any artist. There is a wesite (many of them) where you can download MIDI patches of your favorite artists. I nail the Boston sound, ZZ Top, Van Halen, Van Hagar, Rush, SRV, Hendrix. Of course, a good guitar doesn't hurt. The unit can be hooked up in 3 different ways.

1.) GX700 into the amp's input
2.) GX700 into the amp's Effect's loop (Return) this bypasses the Pre-amp and uses the amps Power amp.
3.) Guitar into the amp's input, Then the Send from the amp into the input of the GX700, then the output of the GX700 into the amp's Return. Use this for chorus, delay. Works well.

No problems.

They can't mail a product video to Canada? Why not. They told me to call Roland UK. Roland's Head Office is down my street but they wouldn't get one for me, and I was willing to pay for it!! I hope this thing doesn't break down.

You can use it for any style. I use it for Rock, Blues, Jazz, Hard Rock. I've been playing for 20 years, this thing is for real. I control it with the Roland FC 200. Good combination. There wasn't too much on the market that could compete with this when I bought this unit. Today, I'd buy the GE-3. Same thing, less price.

this is a very easy rack mount. if you can get a good sound out of boss pedals you should be able to get some great sounds with this. the only real downside is scrolling through all the screens

great sounds, the amp models may not sound just like what they say, but they sound great. i play it through a semi hollow tele w/ humbuckers into a fender dual showman head and marshall 4x12. i especially like the matchless cosm model and the step phaser

every gig its used with out any more backup than a distortion pedal and it's never let me down but i've only had it for three months

probably the best bang for the buck that i've found so far. i love it

As far as simplicity goes, take it home, plug it in, begin to jam...some of the presets I found to be over the top as far as processing. But that aside it's a simple one to start using. As far as editing goes you must read the manual or you're not going to get very far. The writers of the manual could have taken a little time to translate to all the non-engineers that may purchase this product how to simply get different tones from this processor.. more realistic headroom from the reverbs, room depth from the speaker emulator, just stuff like that.

My set up consist of my Gibson Les Paul Custom Shop Classic, GX-700 thru my computer for recording onto Calkwalk software. As for live , any clean loud amp will do just fine. I do have concerns with the sheilding of the electronics do to the AC noise that you get when not playing, but that's not as big an issue to not give it a try. As for simulations, only the real thing will get you off when standing in front of the speakers as you play. Again for recording, it gets the job done better than most rack units I've played. My greatest advice to tweaking effects or settings is to start with nothing turned on and build your sound from listening in your head what you want to produce. Play with distortion, add some reverb,listening to the changes in characters as you adjust settings and don't over do it with the effects.

I've had mine for over two years and though I may sometimes get tired of it's processed tone, I still rely on it for alot of my recording tone. It's nice to be able to record without blowing your ears out.

Never had a days problem with it.

Overall I'd have to say if it broke, got stolen, or lost I would replace it with one of those new modeling amps from Johnson. This area has advance leaps and bounds since my purchase two years ago and though I rely on my GX-700 daily I would still have to consider the MT-50 amp by Johnson. My playing style ranges from Metal to Jazz/fusion. So I guess it's just what mood I'm in as to what style I want to play.

Relatively simple and straight forward, unfortunately I did not get a manual with mine. This is the second one I have owned.

Sound quality is realitive too each own's past exposure. Some of the preamp modeling is superb, that is if this unit is matched to the right support tools. I have been playing now for twenty six years, so I have fortunately been exposed to some of the real amps they are trying to model. I use mine with a early sixty's S.G. standard, to the GX700, to a BBE sonix maximizer, too a 1973 Hiwatt DR103, too a Marshall 1960AV with vintage thirties. The blending of this whole outfit brings out some very rewarding tones. I also sometoimes use a second process by another make through an early Marshall MK II and this is even better. I never really try and sound like someone else so
that has never been my pursuit.

Dependability is questionable, The first one crapped out within three months of the original purchase. By the time I had purchased it,it was already out of production so I got the stores demo. So I can not rightfully say it was Boss's doing.

Tech support was awlful, again through the store in Portland I could not put blame on Roland, the store chose to try and repair it themself. Not cool.

My styles vary drastically because of my interest. My main tones are toward Shred, Metal, Fusion, clear to open tunings and mandolin which I also use the reverb / chorusing / amp modeling. Besides the all above I tote along a lot of gear including Lexicon, Marshall, Hiwatt, Orange, T.C. Eletronics. I still find myself using this as a part of blending or defining some of my tones. So much I have two, one as a back up. So I guess one every crapped out again I would be out looking for another.

It's definitely easy to use and every sound u want is achieveable.
Editing patches is easy too blablabla!

Distortions are great, especially the METAL Distortion, which is exactly the METALZONE stompbox! Cool to imitate Death, Slayer,Kreator Sepultura, Dissection or Dimmu Borgir. Effects are cool to, clean sounds are terrific! I use a JMP-1 too, but this damned thing beats it all!

I mostly use it in studio, with hellish sounds!

Don't know it dudes!

I play Metal for about 7 years now and it's the only thing u need for it.

UPDATE !!!
As I wrote earlier for some months ago I planned to go and buy an second gx-700... and now there's two orange possible-to-give-weird-sounds-rackprocessors in my rackcase !

these fxs are really easy to use... 'cause you "see" all the time what happening on the frontpanel when switching sounds...

As soon as I got my second one to the rackcase I started to copy all files from the first one to the new one... ( which is "easy" done... )
now here is a another strange thing about gx-700...
when you "download" the information it'll show you that it's working/receiving...
but for some reason it doesn't show you when it have finish the copy-process... in the manual it reads that this is correct...
but the "thing" is that YOU have to end it by pushing the PLAY-button
so far everything seems OK... BUT ( as the manual says ) you have to remember that when you're pushing the button it's POSSIBLE that the gx-700 still receiving information... which you may "cut-off"
( which in other words could mean that the gx-700 will not work properly all the time... )

In my experience... it doesn't work properly all the time... 'cause when I tested them... the second one could suddenly switch to bypass or to the tuner...
SO... I had to redo this process a couple of times ( download ) and try to wait a little longer...

I think it worked... 'cause I haven't had any problem since then...
but I have become a little bit more chicken... that this problem will occur at stage... suddenly one gx-700 go bypass... ( NIGHTMARE !!! )

Sounds... mmh... how sweet they can become...
Here's ( a part of ) my rig:

Gibson les paul/Squire supersonic goes into an old dist-box which is not in use for more than the fact it got stereo outputs...
( I use it as an split in other words )

from there each of both signals goes to each of the gx-700s...
NOW HERE we're talking independent stereo processing as you've got the ability to make an stereo field ( exactly the same program on both )
or make to an double mono field ( totally different program on both )

from these two units I send one of the stereo outputs from both processors to two Laney VC50 ( each amp gets it own gx-700... )

You should believe me when I'm talking 'bout that you can almost dial in ANY sound you want... from super-clean to mega-super-monster distorsion and everything in between...
OR why not both at the same time... you hear a huge dist but you're still able to hear all the notes in the chords ( 'cause the other amp goes on a clean sound ) this method is very much in use on pop records
I think it will be very much in use by me too !!!
WELL... now there is only three limits of the sounds you can develop !
1. the FX:s ( there's always something you want which isn't in your processor... )
2. the store slots ( you've only got a hundred of them in each gx-700... which means that you can't make more sounds than these... )
3. YOUR imagination of what sound you want to create...

Reliability... ?

I'm not sure anymore... 'cause of the problem I've told you before with one of the processors going bypass suddenly...
but you could say that one of them would be possible to backup the other one... ( if they don't fail at the same time of course... )

I put an 7 in this category 'cause the first one have worked just fine for a couple of years now... ( hopefully the other will too )

I have never been in touch with Roland or Boss...

but they still haven't put out the manuals ( of any product they have )on internet... or even an email-adress... so you at least could mail any questions...

I think this is really stupid... but it isn't my problem if they loose customers...

actually I haven't got the need for any support... so I don't know !

I'm playing modern pop/rock music which is also include some
"dance beats"... I've been playing guitar for 8 years now and these units fit me well in playing/making music...

As I said before... it's always something you haven't got in you rackprocessor... which you have to add with other models...
but the GX-700 gives you 21 stompbox effects at the same price as three/four new real stompboxes... ( I know which way I go... )

And you can actually use it to more than just only guitars...

I have even used one of the gx-700 to process drums in recording
it gave some interesting Smashing Pumpkins sound-alike drums
e g the drums on some of the songs on the album Adore...
So these strange fxs in gx-700 can get usable after all...

-perfect... strangers when we meet...

Quite easy to use...For each effect there is a LED and it contains tons of parameters for each effect. The turning knob has become a standard on rack units, and the display is very clear. However changing the internal effects chain can seem complicated. I didn't try the MIDI facilities yet.

Good overall perfomance here. On the high settings the noise gate is too eager to cut off sustained notes, and the lower settings let too much hissing and purring pass. Distortions are OK, chorus are better, and the harmonist may need some work. The unit works best in a full-blown band, and not alone in your room. It really sounds better when a drummer is kicking out his bass drum. In these cases the little negative points are blown away.

The best...I used some Boss stomp boxes too...
You could throw it from a 10' building and it would still work...

Didn't find anything yet of patches ...

For a wide array of genres (Jazz to Trash), this thingie can handle it all...

There are many knobs, so it 's easy but it's boring the scrolling screens. Good manual.

It follows my previous submit in french. First we are in 2000, so GX 700 was the best at his start (1996) but I think POD is a little bit better.The preamp is quite good . It modelling an real amp but not simulate ! Twin & Matchless is the best. 5150 is good and marshall too. I use only reverb effect: not bad at all. In a word don't listen to preset, just tweak it and you will be amazed. In fact in 2000 I don't know if GX 700 is still the best but try it. I discover every day a new subtil sound. There is very much parameters so you can refine every sound you dream. Very good cabinet simulator . It reminds me the Rocktron Chameleon one. The 7 distorsions (not Preamp !) are weak except metal and the OD s. IMPORTANT: For those who want to buy a BOSS GT 3 , you could'nt match a PREAMP with an another Cabinet Speaker in the GT 3 and for reverbs there are less parameters.
To sum up: Very Good sounds, I guess not very very closed to original amps but beatifull at listen.

Firmware 1.09 No problemo Man !!!

Bad Internet communication compare to LINE 6
No patch on the site.

Go on WEB and search patch editors and program , it'll be easy to tweak sounds ! I enjoy having Gx 700 but I will try the POD line 6.

Very easy to use with every thing laid out in a simple and logical way

I use the unit in my live rack going to a Rocktron power amp,Then into a 2+12 Marshall cab. My main guitars are an Epiphone Les Paul and fender strat both fitted with Kent Armstrong custon wound humbuckers.
I play in a covers band and the GX700 gives me all the sounds i want the chorus and reverb are very good but i had to work on the distorted sounds. I don't like the wha wha at all and find it very weak

The unit has never let me down

N/A

Apart from the wha wha the unit is great...If any one can get a good wha wha sound please let me know

The manual is ok..could be better....my firmware is 1.09...The only problem I have is that the input jack on the back of the unit died one day, and since then is is useless....the frount input works well...but the back is the one i regularly use, and it is a pain to route the cables to the frount of the unit...IF ANYBODY KNOWS WHY THE BACK INPUT DIES, OR HOW TO FIX IT WITHOUT A LOT OF MONEY...PLEASE MAIL ME AT "xander1369@yahoo.com"

reverb sucks...most of the effects are great...I'm betting the distortions would sound better if i had a tube amp...but right now they aren't that good...

BROKEN BACK INPUT.....

ROLAD SUCKS for support....There is no e-mail address...and they refuse to repair the REAR INPUT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS UNDER WARANTY....

Very happy with this until....see below

Good quality of sound until....see below

Can someebody help...have had this unit for 18 months, no problems, has been racked permanently in my studio for over 8 months when suddenly...no output! Sent for repair(no warrenty left, of course) came back, said it was a bad solder joint(?) funny that didn't show up for over a year in transportation, lots of shows, anyway, worked for about one week (back in the studio rack) last night, no output again!
Any tips I can pass along to the local (Montreal, Canada) Roland repair tech so I don't get another "bad solder joint" repaired?
Tried Roland, forget about it!

Can't seem to email anyone

Funny thing is, when this was working I liked the sound, don't really want to replace this, but have to seriously consider the pod pro or some other unit if this continues to break down for no apparent reason...I don't have time for down time!

This unit is very simple to understand since it is "built" like an stompbox fx chain and ( almost ) everything is visible.The chain is flexible 'cause you can put the fx:s in any order. It's little bit funny about the fx-parameters because they seem to have the same "setup" of parameters but that isn't correct. I don't know why but it doesn't have any volume parameter in the mod-section ( I think mainly on the flangers,phasers... )and therefore you need to compensate that volume in other ways ( which isn't easy all the time! ).
The fx-loop in it is a good idea but it's only mono and most processors are in stereo so you have to think once again when figuring out which external processors you may want to use in the loop...
I mean you don't want to use only 50% of that processor do you?
( Of course it's great if you'll only use a stompbox in it ! )

I think the digital fx ( chorus, flanger, delay...) sounds very good but the distorsions are a little bit "muddy"... if you put the gain too high you risk to loose the chance to hear all the tones when takin' your chords. Since I use my box with a gibson les paul/squire supersonic into a double amp section with valves, I have got the possibility to get the warm character to my sounds so I don't really know how the gx-700 sounds straigth into the board but it's ok when using headphones ( yep... even those small earplugs !)
My main influence when it comes to the space-fx sounds is the edge
( U2 )and it's possible to get some similar sounds of those he have put out but I always try not to imitate his sounds but getting my own spacious sounds ( and some can get really weird ! )

I have mostly used this rackprocessor at home so I don't really know if it can handle the hard knocks from being on the road.I don't have any backup either but that 'cause I'm not rich... but I'm planning to buy an another gx-700 too... so that must mean I depend on it in some kind of way...

I've never dealed with them... but I think it's poor to not put out the manuals on internet... ( not because I lost mine... )
I think that if you really want to know what you get before you buy...
you need to carefully read the manual of that product.

I'll put an eight in overall rating because it's simple to use and it have good sound ( the dist is a very heavy quest of what taste you've got.. )for not TOO much cost... think about it... if you think about buying any of those boss-stompboxes you'll get four maybe five
( new ones ) for the same price as the gx-700 ( in which you've got 21 fx and you can use 13 at once... in any order...)and in that case I would buy the gx-700 ( since you got 100 store slots in it... no need to tweak the knobs for every song ! )

This unit is very simple to understand since it is "built" like an stompbox fx chain and ( almost ) everything is visible.The chain is flexible 'cause you can put the fx:s in any order. It's little bit funny about the fx-parameters because they seem to have the same "setup" of parameters but that isn't correct. I don't know why but it doesn't have any volume parameter in the mod-section ( I think mainly on the flangers,phasers... )and therefore you need to compensate that volume in other ways ( which isn't easy all the time! ).
The fx-loop in it is a good idea but it's only mono and most processors are in stereo so you have to think once again when figuring out which external processors you may want to use in the loop...
I mean you don't want to use only 50% of that processor do you?
( Of course it's great if you'll only use a stompbox in it ! )

I think the digital fx ( chorus, flanger, delay...) sounds very good but the distorsions are a little bit "muddy"... if you put the gain too high you risk to loose the chance to hear all the tones when takin' your chords. Since I use my box with a gibson les paul/squire supersonic into a double amp section with valves, I have got the possibility to get the warm character to my sounds so I don't really know how the gx-700 sounds straigth into the board but it's ok when using headphones ( yep... even those small earplugs !)
My main influence when it comes to the space-fx sounds is the edge
( U2 )and it's possible to get some similar sounds of those he have put out but I always try not to imitate his sounds but getting my own spacious sounds ( and some can get really weird ! )

I have mostly used this rackprocessor at home so I don't really know if it can handle the hard knocks from being on the road.I don't have any backup either but that 'cause I'm not rich... but I'm planning to buy an another gx-700 too... so that must mean I depend on it in some kind of way...

I've never dealed with them... but I think it's poor to not put out the manuals on internet... ( not because I lost mine... )
I think that if you really want to know what you get before you buy...
you need to carefully read the manual of that product.

I'll put an eight in overall rating because it's simple to use and it have good sound ( the dist is a very heavy quest of what taste you've got.. )for not TOO much cost... think about it... if you think about buying any of those boss-stompboxes you'll get four maybe five
( new ones ) for the same price as the gx-700 ( in which you've got 21 fx and you can use 13 at once... in any order...)and in that case I would buy the gx-700 ( since you got 100 store slots in it... no need to tweak the knobs for every song ! )

This thing is pretty easy to use, if you're used to FX processors. You basically punch a button for each effect module in the chain, and then use the cursor keys and the Value knob to set the effect up. When you're done, press "Write" twice. There are some nice touches that make things even easier, like the Value knob being a pushable pot that makes scrolling through values faster. Also, when editing the name of a patch, pressing the Value knob toggles you between the upper-case and lower-case version of the letter you're on. Also, you can copy one effect's settings to another patch, which is COOL. Other manufacturers should do this.

I'm recording direct with this unit, direct into a Roland VS-880. It's not the quietest beast in the world, but the noise gate serves to keep the noise at sane levels. I'd say it's no worse than an amp with a bunch of effects on it. As far as the sounds themselves are concerned, there's gold in this box, baby. There is apparently a law in effect that says that all stock patches must be dumb-sounding, so ignore the stock patches. Of the amp sims, the Twin sim is the best, followed by the Matchless and JC-120 sims. The Marshall sim is okay, but sounds a little buzzy. The Soldano sim is nice and fat, but a little buzzy as well. I haven't played much with the Boogie sim, but have had ample time to, which is probably enough of a rating. The 5150 sim, same story. If I were a teen, I'd probably like it more than I do now. If 5150's really sound like this, I'm not interested. Something about a BOSS device that contains a digital model of a Peavey device is just wrong! The clean sounds are definitely the better sounds. They're really clean. The chorus, delay, and other effects are really nice. The distortion sounds aren't thick enough to suit me, and I think they're a little "Buzzy".

I used to try and emulate my favorite artists, but that has proven to be pointless. I can get a decent simulation of my favorite artists, but when I do that, I end up just sitting there playing songs by my favorite artists whenever I switch to the patch, and that's not what I want to do. I did that with my Chameleon, and didn't get much writing done. With this box, I'm basically throwing patches together that sound good, and moving on. Then when I stumble across them later, I just play like me.

To sum up:
Clean sounds=really good.
Distortion sounds=pretty good. Kind of buzzy.

I give it an 8, because to be a 10, it would have to be a real amp making my pantlegs flap, and it can't do that unless I wrap my headphones around my leg.

I'd say I can depend on it. It's a BOSS. It seems a little less sturdy than my Chameleon, with plastic jacks and stuff, but is reasonably well-built. I'd use it on a gig without a backup, but mainly because I'm adventurous in that way.

I've never dealt with BOSS. I've never had to have anything by them or Roland repaired, and never upgraded anything. It always just works!

I like this box. I used a friend's on a CD once, and I really liked it. (You know Bruce Springsteen? That's not who I'm talking about. Not even close.) If it were lost or stolen, it would probably mean that a bunch of other stuff got lost or stolen at the same time, so I'd be really upset. I probably wouldn't care too much about a missing FX unit. When I calmed down, I'd probably seek out another one. Or not. I don't know. It's just an FX unit, and I might want to try something else.

Some words in french:
Tres facile a utiliser car la notice est bien faite. Le debutant aura interet a s'y connaitre en acoustique( pour le reglage fin des reverbes) et en ampli pour le vaste choix.

Ma guitare Fender Strat Standard USA avec un SANS AMP Tech 21 GT2
Les disto sont bruyantes si vous les faites marcher pres de l'electronique (TV, moniteur,ordinateur) autrement ca va.
Bon reducteur de bruit. Pour le preampli, les son clairs TWIN et Roland JC 120 sont tres tres tres beaux. Il y a 3 types de Marshall. Le premier est pas mal du tout et riche en harmoniques. Splendides Matchless crunchy (comme les Stones ou Brian Adams). MEsa Boogie parfait pour des solos tout comme le 5150. Soldano permet de se croire Dire Straits dans Brother in Arms. Globalement la modelisation du comportement des lampes est tres bien faites et le son est modulable grace au coup de mediator. Les reglages sont important (3 niveau de gain et un bright) permettant de tirer par exemple de beaux sons clairs d'un Marshall. Bravo Boss
Tres bon: Chorus ,pitch
Bon :les 7 distos sont de qualite inegale et certaines sont interessantes a utiliser. Dans ces colonnes , beaucoup ont critique la reverbe (trop discrete) mais pas sa qualite. Elle peut etre superbe en reglant le subtil dosage DRY/EFFECT
J'allais oublier le simulateur de haut parleur .IL est vraiment super efficace. Les 12 types de HP me permettent de jouer au casque avec un son incroyable . Il me rappelle l'excellent simulateur du Rocktron Chameleon.

Firmware 1.09 No problem man !
De plus je l'ai achete d'occase.

Pour le prix c'est incroyable. Toutes ces simulations d'ampli et de haut parleur. Bien sur les vrias amplis sonnent encore mieux mais au total c'est 30 fois plus cher !!
CONSEIL: J'ai failli acheter le GT 3 Boss. La grande qualite sonore est identique mais attention , les possibilites de reglages sont inferieures sur le GT 3 (pas de choix de type d'enceinte pour le simul. , reglages reverb plus rustiques)
Autre conseil: Achetez un PC et relier le cable MIDI au GX 700. Puis telecharger des editeurs de patch sur le net , cela facilitera grandement la programmation des sons et leur sauvegarde. Il y a pas mal de patch GX 700 sur le net.

Just a short note, the GX-700 is a wonderful box, but please folks, do a hardcore comparo in a local store trying out the Digitech 2120, 2112, 2101, and ValveFX before you go ahead and buy the GX-700.

I've spent countless hours with ALL of these units; I now have owned the 2112 for 2 years and nothing is as good. But I do also now own a GX-700 and Roland GP-100, because I got them used and cheap, and they are fun and good, but do not sound as close to a tube amp as the 2112 does.

Please read the 2112 reviews; I'm serious, I simply want buyers to be informed as possible before buying.

I love Roland.

Acceptably easy to use. Controls are laid out right up front with easy access to turning on/off the various components that make up the patch.

I use this direct into my console live or for the studio and with some tweaking to the patches I get great results. I use several acoustic guitars through this device and it's fantastic for that. I run a Martin J1 with the Baggs pick-up/mic combo, Gibson Hummingbird, and Cort with Fishman electronics and have designed some awesome patches that bring these instruments out in a mix or on stage. I also run my Fender Strat Plus with lace pickups through it and have come up with some very good patches for it. At first I tried hard to use the stock presets, but, as far as the distorted/preamp'd stuff, they were too buzzy and pretty much useless, however I did use one that fit into a mix fairly well. I don't use the reverb in the unit...it doesn't come close to my Rev 500. You really need to sit with the device for a couple days and design your own sounds. I start with a preset and go from there. Very easy to program a patch, name and store it. Also great feature when getting ready to store an edited patch; you can audition other locations first before writing to one so that you son't wipe out anything important. I just wish that MOTU would make a Unisyn profile for the unit so I can tweak and save stuff to my Mac. It can get noisy, but the built in NR works fine and with some tweaking you can get it quiet enough in the mix.

So far it's been rock solid

N/A

I like this device. I use it with the FC-200 foot controller and it works really well for all my guitars. Especially great for my acoustics which might be a weird thing, but I find it incredible for this. Someday I'll pop for a VG 8 or something big time, but this unit is a good buy. The one thing I think is tough, in terms of $$ output, is that the FC-200 is expensive and you really can't use the thing live without the foot controller...so your in for up over the $5oo mark and for that you might be able to get an all in one device like an ME-30 or GT-3. It all worked out for me in a unusual way...friend of mine said he had some sort of midi controller stuffed in a closet somewhere and it turned out to be the FC-200. I wouldn't want to trade this device for anything else at this point, mostly for the acoustic guitar application. I think there are probably better units out there that will get great lead sounds. I tried hard to come up with the sound that Vanhalen get during the credits music in the movie Twister, but I could only get so close.

The thing is pretty simple to to use, although getting the sound you want is another thing with so many parameters,the manual gives a good overview of the different FX, but since I consider this a "beginners-box" I must say they could have made some thing a bit more clear, I also miss the "suggested settings" overview you get with the Boss pedals, my software is 0.9, couldn't care much for that unless it gave me trouble

I use this box with a Ibanez RG620 with dimarzio PUs into a Marshall 8004 2x40 Watts poweramp with an FC200 pedalboard, when using the noise-gate this thing is quiet, but that does take away a bit of your natural signal. The FX: compressor: don't use it much since it feedbacks pretty fast, Wah: never touched it, Distortions: I like the sounds of the distortion and the metal distortion but i wish I could "Merge" those two together-->the gain of the metal-distortion and the clarity of the normal distortion, without having to use my EQ, the Pre-Amps: I guess the JC-120 is right on the money since this is a Roland box, the Fender twin is a little too glassy for my taste, the matchless is great(O.K. maybe not for a matchless but...)BG I don't use, the Soldano is O.K., the marshalls are too gainless (although at low settings they are pretty good) soldano is O.K., and last...Maybe it's me or did they give the 5150 too much gain??? next is the loop wich I don't use, the EQ: Well, everyone uses it differently, with me it's sometimes in use, sometimes not, The Speakersims: pretty good I guess, the Noisegate: As I said, it does it's job, but it degrades your signal a little, the Modulation: Nice flanger and phaser as well as pitch-shifter and harmonist, the ring modulator is something I wish I could rip out, vibrato is O.K., the Delay: very nice, use this box in stereo and you could give yourself the idea as if you were playing on top of the world, a real broad effect, the Chorus: another great effect, very versatile very "real", the Trem/Pan effect: I have a tremelo on my guitar wich I prefer, as for the pan-effect, this I might use in recording for a nice stereo solo or something, the Reverb: this is quite dissappointing, not full or wet or.... it realy is the bad side of this box, they make it sound like it was never meant to be there I prefer to call the sound a "Background effect" too thin really, they should have thrown that **** ring modulator outta there and put a little more effort in the reverb, I like the programmable FX-string...but tell me something: WHY is the output volume IN THE BACK???? The presets???: I guess the most useable are the direct Boss/Roland copies at least 90% wasn't worth the effort of programming.

.....uhm, it's a Boss, they don't die easily, and since I'm on a budget I do not have a backup, don't think I need one... But since this isn't a stompbox I guess there's a larger chance it might fail, so no 10 here

I have NO idea... Does Boss need customer support????? as far as I know the products might even survive WW III

I've been playing for ehh 2(?) years now and so far this is my best buy yet, I am playing Hardrock/Heavy metal (manowar, Iron maiden etc..) and this box -though basic- is pretty versatile for this and probably many other styles, it has many FX for your pleasure -some good, some bad- and if I compare this box with the pedals I had (almost learnt how to tap-dance) and the Zoom 9150 I had (What the hell is keeping the gain??? It should've been there when I dialed 100) this "Beginners box" rates Higer than those and probably at a similar pricetag, if it were stolen I'd be p****d, but my next buy would probably a more professional (and expensive) rig, My end-conclusion: Everyone should've used it in their guitar-life, you don't need to stick with it, or liked it much, but for some reason this box gives you another dimension that no other effect can give you...It might not be your dimension but you'll keep remembering it!!!
For an Budget/beginners box this thing gets a 10...perfect value,...compared to professional Signal processors I'll bet it'll still hold it's own and be better than average: a 6!

Ici pas de problemes, tous les parametres sont presents et les variation efficaces. Seule ombre au tableau, la notice d'explication est un peu legere vu les possibilites de l'engin. Question branchement tout est OK

J'utilise le rack celon 2 types de branchements : soit en direct sur un ampli fender bluesdeluxe, soit en ligne dans mon home studio. les deux sont interessant mais les sons sont bien entendus pas tout a fait les memes. La qualite des effets est identiques a celle que l'on peut attendre des pedales BOSS separement. Donc de ce cote la pas de probleme. La technologie COSM permet d'avoir a sa disposition plusieurs preamplis classiques dont le realisme est a coupe le souffle (M.B, Roland, Marshall, Soldano, fender). L'emulateur de HP est efficace, surtout en studio ou il se revele necessaire. Bref tous ce qu'il faut pour faire monter la mayo....

Ici encore vraiment super !

Depuis bientot 2 ans d'utilisation intensive aucun problemes n'est apparus.

Ben si vous etes un fana du son de la mort qui tue alors n'hesitez pas. c'est le meilleur investissement que j'ai fait en 20 ans de pratique guitaristique !

Prepare to spend a couple of hours with the manual with this beast. The manual is pretty good, but sketchy in places. Once you get to know it, you can really can get a lot of sounds out of it. My firmware is 1.09

Currently, I'm using a BC Rich Virgin with seymour duncan invader pick-ups. Your guitar and your pick-ups matter a lot with your sound quality. It does not color your guitar and let's its natural character shine through. I personnally think this is great. All of the sounds are great, but prepared to tweak the hell out of the distortions. The wah is alright and it is the hardest to get a good sound out of. Oh, did I mention that this mother was quiet? I've been to get anything from 80's metal to a reverbed 50's tone to a nasally 60's distortion tone to death metal. I can even get some of that wahed out funk tone from the 70s. Ive also gotten some downright weird sounds out of it too. Just plan to experiment with it a lot. Don't expect to sit down with it for 2 hours and get perfect tone. You got to work at it! I mainly use this for direct reocrding and the amp simulations are incredible....

Well, my knob sticks because it rubs against the casing, but I really don't see any problem with realibility. I mean, I take it out occassionally to play with friends, but this puppy mainly stays in my home studio.

Never had to deal with support yet, but I'm suspecting it might be lacking since this model is out of production and I simply do not understand why...

I like to play different styles of music, but I really enjoy heavy metal. But, I've been known to play a little surf, funk, country, industrial, and just all and all out weird stuff. This box can handle everything that I can throw out it. You just have to spend some time with it to get the sounds that are in your head. I've been playing for 8 years and this is simply a dream come true. I've tried other units and this is the first where I would go and hear a guitarist and go man, his distortion sucks, mine is better! This box has inspired me to no end. If this was stolen, I would buy it again in a heart beat! I simply love the flexibility that it gives me with a flick of a switch I can go from a pychedilic 60's tone to a tight 80's tone to something that sounds like it should come from space. The only thing I wish I could do was change more parameters and make more parameters modifieable through MIDI control change events. If they ever cross bred this thing with a synth, I think I would shoot myself. It scares me that roland has decided to go to the all floor model route (YUCK!). But, maybe they'll come to their senses and realize what a great box this was for the price. I mean this is almost identical to the GP-100.

I like the lighted buttons to see which effects are on. It is also easy to edit patches, although I now use a MIDI-Cable with my PC to program it and all I want is a better tool for saving my patches, uploading patches...it works awfully good. Only thing that could be improved is the display, it is a little small and hard to read from a certaim angle

I like the sounds a lot. I use a Marshall Power Amp and a 4x12 Marshall Box in a selfmade rack with them. The presets are as bad as any presets of the other effect units out there, but I think Boss wants to demonstrate the real power of this unit this way, which is not at all archieved. But if you sit down and program your own patches, it generates the sounds I want it to. The DS is okay, if used correctly with Preamp and Speaker Sim. Others who worry about it might not have the sparetime to experiment enough. I would be very interested in discussing and exchanging personal experience in creating patches and using the unit. Just mail me.

I've had it for about 2 months now and it works like it is supposed to everytime I flip the power switch. The AC Adaptor gets a little hot (my Mashall Power Amp does not get half as warm) after a time, I hope I won't experience a little firework out of it like some others did. I have not gigged with it for now, but I will use it (I have backups, but I don't think I will ever need them) and it WILL work, I'm sure.

After I experienced other customer support I don't expect Boss to be a lot different. But I never had ANY problem.

I an playing guitar for about 8 years now, with a band for 2 years now. As I replaced my Zoom 505 with this tiny baby and getting my very own 4x12 Mashall Box with a power amp, I really loved it. It does every job I want it to, from transparent clean Delay/Chorus/Flanging to the Ultrabrutal Killermegadeathshredding Metal Distortion everything is in this small wonder box. I would definitely buy a new one if it is lost or dies in my arms one day. It seems the best money can buy, in the store a Line6 Amp lost my interest after 5 minutes playing the GX-700!! I would be interested in exchanging tools, patches, tips and tricks with other interested users. Just mail me.

Well.. I will put 7 this time!

Good

I never had a problem. But I descouvered a bug in the OS that impides me to control a PS-Pitch parameter with an assign. I have firmware 1.09. Try it before your submision and tell us if this happens to you too and wich firmware you have!

As there is no chat (for what I know) for the GX-700 I put this here. I writed the MIDI implementation into a TXT file and is downloadable "http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Hub/4693/IMP.txt"

Yes, this is my second thing, as I know some users were not able to get the MIDI impl. from Roland I submited this, ok? If you have the same problem with the PS-Picth parameter controlled from an assign I would know it.

I know there are probably more review for the GX-700 than for any other effect but I had to weigh in. Ease of use? 6 for beginners. Now that I have had them (I own two) I would say 9. I don't ever use the presets. I turn everything off and go down the chain one effect at a time.

I use a Mex Strat with a Tom Anderson humbucker (HN2+). At home I use two Peavey Blazers in stereo. At church I use a Roland GC-408 combo. I always run the unit into the front of the amp. I like my clean clean and my gain supersaturated with searing harmonics.
While I think this processor is nothing short of amazing, it has very much to do with your amp/poweramp. The unit sounded bad through (or maybe I should say that the GX-700 couldn't save) a Sovtek MiG-60, Peavey Envoy, and Peavey Classic 50/50. Sounds excellent through the Roland, Peavey Blazer, Peavey Classic 30, and Mosvalve.
I have read others claim the distortion is poor. I don't agree. Here's what I do: choose an amp, set the preamp volume on 100, the gain switch on HIGH, the master wherever. Then I turn on the OD/DST making sure the drive is 0 but the volume is at 100 just like you would do with a Tube Screamer in front of, say, your Marshall. Then scroll through the pedal choices until you find the one that textures your amp setting to the sound you like. DON'T prejudge. The best lead sound for my current live situation uses the METAL distortion, no gain and all volume, into a totally gained out Clean Twin. (Go figure?) I mean this is searing, over the top, speaker crunching heaven.
HINT: Play around with your Output Type selection in the Tuner/Utility section. This can make ALL the difference in the world. On my Peaveys, "Guitar Stack" works best. On the GC-408, "Power Amp Stack" works best. Also, sometimes the speaker sim is better on and sometimes better off. If on, play with the mic setting.
I'll repeat what I said in my GC-408 review: the amps in the Boss sound like the real thing going through the right amp. In fact, I prefer my Boss + GC-408 over the Triple Rectifier. No joke.
As for the rest of the sounds? They're in there. In my opinion, the chorus sounds better than that found in the JC-120. I tried it the other day and really didn't notice the JC's chorus that much when playing clean. Yes there is alot of stuff in here I wouldn't use but alot that I do. For example, the Limiter is great for cleaning up a hot pickup, the Compressor added some needed sustain in my amp, the noise suppressor works very well, too. Reverb stinks but I am no fan of it anyway. Cool delay.
Honestly, I am extremely fond of this unit. That's why I bought two.

Never broke. As for firmware quirks. One of the two did destroy my presets upon powering up once. Never happened again. Never had a problem with the other.

Talked to Roland twice, once to find the GC-408 and once to discuss their TubeLogic. I guess I would say professional at least.

I play clean chorusy stuff to downright brutal. This unit does it all. I like this unit so much that I found myself finding amps to match it rather then the other way around. I figured if the GX-700 can't make it sound good, nothing can. My only complaint? I wish you could divide gain modifying stuff from the time-based effects. In other words, I would like to run my guitar into the unit and after the preamp back into the main in. Then I would like to run the rest of the effects through the amp's signal loop.

I know most users consider it easy to make patches with it, but I don't agree very much on this. That's why I built a little patch editor for it. It's a 16 bit Visual Basic APP (1993 compiler!) but it's usefull, little and fast to load. Download it at: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Hub/4693/

Sounds great if you waste enough time tunning it. Only the chorus disappoint me a little.

Good, they supplied me the MIDI implementation for free via mail in 4 days.

I think it is a good effects processor, I use it with synths too, I don't consider it just a guitar effects box.

Very easy to program. Would give a 9 but the display is a bit hard to read from a high angle. The manual is good.

Hard to fault. Very versatile. Good for D.I. recording or live use. The factory sounds were 'patchy' (sorry), but I made some of my own - it is very simple to edit. I also got a MIDI librarian called GXL700 which came with 600 patches - by the time I'd checked them all out I realised that there isn't much the box can't do. I happen to like prog rock lead sounds (I use a Strat) - although the factory presets don't cover that area very well, I have some great sounds now.
I use a foot controller - to be really picky I find the wah can be a bit 'notchy' on very fast pedal movement, but only noticeable if you listen very carefully - its still useable.
Others have criticised the distortion effect, but perhaps that is based on using mostly the presets - I think the combination of distortion, COSM amp simulation, EQ and speaker simulator is very flexible.

I have firmware 1.08 - no problems with it so far.

Definitely recommended - amazing VFM, wish I'd checked it out sooner.

Very easy to program. Only needed the manual for the more intricate details and that was very easy to read.

Superb. It gets a lot of critisism for it`s distortion sounds. But you don`t need them. Using the pre amp gain and the many different preamps you can make just about any diatorted sound. I use it straight into a desk and it has replaced a; sansamp psa1,gp8,and a virtualizer. It now sounds better than any sound I could ever get out off my Marshall. The only reason it dosn`t get a 10 is the reverb could be slightly better.

I`ve got vers 1.09. No problems yet and I use it live 2-3 nights a week.

Not needed yet.

Fantastic. And I would buy it again in a shot.

This unit is incredibly easy to use. You can just choose an effect & directly edit it's paramaters without going into a bunch of confusing sub-menus. Manual is typical - it gives basic instructions on how to make selections & edit patches. I have version 1.09 (finally!!!! - read below), and there hasn't been any problems with it.

Great delays & compressor. I really don't even use the distortion. I'm using the unit through the effects loop of my Carvin Quad X-Amp, into the Carvin 100 watt power amp, and into a Marshall 4x10.

Yes. Until it started crashing on me & I lost my presets. I then got firmware version 1.09 (more below!) and have had no software problems since. HOWEVER, I also just had a problem with the power supply. Seems it blew a couple of the resistors and other components internally. Still haven't gotten a new one. It's only been 3 months, what do you expect???

Let's get something straight - ROLAND tech support is USELESS!!! I brought my unit in to get the firmware upgrade. 4 months later, it finally came in. What the hell takes so long? Then, the power supply blew. I've read a couple of other accounts of this happening to other users too. Seems Roland has had a problem with these.
Well, I'm on my third month waiting for a power supply to be shipped from Japan. I find it impossible to believe that there isn't a goddamm power supply in all of the United States that can work with this thing. I got the unit back fine, and am using a friends power supply until mine comes in. So I finally got pissed off enough and called Roland. They said they're really sorry, but the power supply is on back order. It should be in soon. They're sending me a t-shirt though. That should tide me over. Sorry, but that t-shirt isn't going to help me out when I have shows.

The unit itself is great - when it works. But then again I really wouldn't know. I've had the unit for exactly 1 year, and it's been in the repair shop for about 7 months of that time. The effects are great, but if the thing never works what good is it?? I also own the Roland GR-30, and am wondering if something happens to that, what's going to happen??

really easy to use, no problems with sound programing and storage.

i use the gx-700 along with a sansamp psa-1 with the send/return jacks, you get great sound if you combine it thru the LOOP option, althoe there is a problem i havn't been able to mark out, when you use a preamp as a distortion you get a high volume *clinch* for less than a second before you get the actual sound, but i'm looking for an option to strike that problem out. overall sound is great if used properly.

i'd use the gx-700 on a gig (and i did) without backup any day of the week, it's dependable and reliable!!!.i've been carrying it it a hard 4U case and banging it from time to time (not on purpuse) and had no problems with it so far.

overall, it's a very good sound processor, works well with other sound racks, if you're into computer recordings, this here is the one for you, with it's speaker simulator you don't even need an amp. it's a good buy if i ever saw one!!!.

Quick and easy, with no secret pages or multiple button punching. The dedicated fx on/off buttons should be manditory on any multifx box. I have modified sounds in real time during performances, hitting the edit during (sometime very short) pauses, and saving the tweaks when the song finishes!

The presets suck, but this seems to be required of all gtr fx boxes. A few are salvagable with minor-to-major tweaking, but real joy comes from starting from scratch. It's easy to tell which patches I built/tweaked as they howl compared to the bland demo patches. I run Fender (Strats), Hamer (Diablo), Carvin (DC200), and Yamaha (APX-10) guitars thru the GX-700 and direct to the board (for recording) or to a JC-120 (set to clean; let the GX do it's job!) for live. Noise is not an issue. This beauty is no more noisy than most amps if you tweak carefully. I can get Steve Howe sweet & clean tones to Bill Nelson gorgeous tone to John Petrucci metalloid mutations easily, and can switch between them with a simple patch change. Amazing! I have to agree the Humanizer is pointless and the Ring Mod is mostly useless (but it appears no more useless than any ring mod for guitar). I have had good luck with the Harmonizer: While certainly not an Eventide, it does a passable octavizer and I use a couple of one-note chord patches live doing a grand synth-like (orchestral?) pad. The reverb is adequate for non-critical live or in-the-mix studio playing, but I have used outboard or SW reverbs for more critical settings, bypassing the GX-700 reverbs. I agree with others here that the EQ section is weak - needs more bands, more control - but have had fun with real-time midi control (semi-wah & synth filter fx). The distortions are somewhat lacking, and the EQ was too broad to tweak them adequately. I have gotten passable distortions, but have had to patch a few units (some custom) into the FX Loop to get the right crunch/howl/scream (no tube bias here!).This may be due to the distortions are all Boss/Roland types, and, like-'em-or-hate-'em, can be rather samey sounding. Patching in even a lowley Rat or Memphis distortion pedal can breathe new life into a patch! (I'm using an old Ibanez EPP midi-controllable analog patch bay to switch various commercial and home-made distorto boxes & pedals in and out.)
One key trick here for all users is to be very judicious with the various fx level - sometimes cutting back (sometimes significantly) on an fx level can clean, define, or open up the sound beautifully!

It pulled the write-over-all-user-patches-upon-power-up routine on me (thank god for sysex backups), and I learned from others comments on this page about the OS version issue. Roland upgraded me from 1.06 to 1.09 (for free!), and it has been rock solid since. I'll give it a 7 for even pulling this once. Roland should know better than to release a product with this immature an OS (not to mention the even earlier version!), but have established a solid reputation/history of doing just that.

I've butted heads with Roland's customer (non-)support group before over synths, so I was expecting the worst. However, the quick, free, and apparently reliable OS upgrade was most excellent and surprising. Their keyboard division should take a few cues from their cousins over in gtr fx!

I play everything from prog rock to techno to acoustic to pop, and this golden box has been able to replace a rack of other gear & a floorful of pedals! The sounds have been inspirational, particularly as I build a patch and a riff or line organically develops with the patch! If it vanished, I would probably go for the floor unit version (GP-5) rather than the rack as this would remove the need for a separate midi foot board. Except for the premature OS screw-up, Roland hit a home run here!

Quite easy and intuitive. There's always room for improvement, but hey what do you expect for that price? (Anyhow, what would you rather spend your $$ on: An extra knob that makes it slightly easier to program, or better sound quality?)

I won't go into details here, as there are already many elaborate reports given by others. Generlly speaking this is a great sounding box! Yet, there are two points that, I feel, should be mentioned: 1. Be prepared to do some heavy tweaking. The presets are pretty much worthless, so one cannot judge the box based on these. (IMHO thd best way to go is to start from scratch and build up. Once you get the hang of it, this box starts singing!) 2. This unit really preservs the characteristics of your axe, a trait that I consider a GREAT advantage. Consequently, if what you have in mind is to precisely replicate a specific sound (of some gear very remote from what you have, e.g. expecting your 25W solid-state to sound like a Triple-Recto) and considered relying on this box to do the job, you might be disappointed. The only way to FULLY replicate a specific sound is by using the same gear used to create it. Nevertheless, if you're looking for a great fx box, probably the best value for money on the market, then go ahead and get one!

Don't have it long enough to be able to tell. I heard that there were some lockout problems with earlier firmware versions (that effectively result in a loss of all stored patches), but so far what I have(ver 1.09) behaves. The moral of the story is: Play it safe, take advantage of the MIDI capabilities of the GX700 and backup your patches. (To those of you who think that this is both expensive and messy, please note: You'd probably spend less on a used computer w/ a MIDI capable sound card, wiring, and a user-friendly program that will let you do MIDI transfers, than on the box.)

This box is no longer manufactured. Still, IMHO it's the best bang for the buck on the mkt, for under $500! So, if you're looking for a versatile, great sounding, multi-fx box and willing to put in the required "tweak effort" go and get one! Some shops may still stock them, or get a 2nd hand unit (Make shure that you get firmware 1.08 or 1.09)

This has got to be the easiest unit to use and program. The owners manual was simple to understand (exact opposite from Digitech manuals which you need a PHD to understand them!) but I didn't even read it for a couple of days after plugging it in and using it. The majority of the presets are good, some are really good, some are a waste (like with any processor, no matter what the price). The ability to edit the presets or make up your own are simple. Let's say you wanted a preset with distortion, chorus, and delay. You just press the OD button, Chorus button and Delay button and you are there. Of course, each separate effect is completely tweakable, as if you had that particular Boss pedal in your hand. The nice thing about this unit which many others don't offer is the ability to put the effects in any order in the chain that you choose. It is very simple to do this as well On firmware, I have Version 1.06. The latest version is 1.09. Read below for more.

I am currently using the GX-700 with my Epiphone Les Paul Standard, Fender U.S Strat Plus, Marshall VS65R combo amp (Valvestate, 65W, 12" spkr) and Dunlop Original Crybaby. Since it has noise suppressor as one of the effects, noise can be easily eliminated. Some of the presets are a little buzzy, even with my Strat which was gold lace sensor pickups (very quiet single coil pickups) but sometimes buzz is good, and when it isn't, kick in the noise suppressor feature. I think all of the main effects are very strong and very good. It's like having 20+ Boss stomp boxes without the mess of pedals or the need for power for each one. As I said before, each main effect can be turned on and off separately and are fully programmable. For example, when you press the OD/DIST button, you can choose from Vintage OD, Turbo OD, Blues, Distortion, Turbo Distortion, Metal and Fuzz and each one can be tweaked as if you had the pedal in front of you. The amp simulators are kind of wild, give a little different sound to my Marshall. The Soldano and 5150 amp simulators are nice. The humanizer effect really isn't my cup of tea and the auto wah is weak (as with all processors but who cares, I have a wah anyway). The speaker cabinet simulations are great when playing in conjunction with the amp simulators on my headphones (yes there is a headphone jack). Also has Compressor/Sustainer, Flanger, Phaser, PitchShifter, Chorus, Delays, Panning, Tremolo, Harmonizer, Humanizer, Ring Modulator and Reverb. It also has an FX loop which is what I run my Crybay through. As I said above, the effects can be put anywhere in the chain, including the loop. I can have my wah before distortion, after distortion, etc. The possibilities for sounds is endless. I give this a nine only because there is always something a little better out there, depends on your ear (not to my ear, but I'm sure others hold a different opinion).

It looks like it could survive a nuclear fallout but the most gigging I do with it is in my den so...I can thoroughly depend on it for what I use it for, as far as gigging without a backup, again I don't play out (yet) but it appears it would be a safe move.

So far I've dealt with Roland once. Since I knew when I bought the unit that it didn't have the latest version in firmware (1.06 vs. 1.09), I decided to call Roland and ask about upgradeability. When I called, I told them what I had and what I wanted and they told me that the upgrade was free, here's the list of authorized Boss service centers in your area. Quick and friendly, that's what I like. I then called the service center, they verified what Roland had told me, they ordered the upgrade, and have it sitting in their shop waiting to be installed in my GX-700, all in a week!! Can't wait to bring it. I give Roland only a 9 because I haven't had to deal with them yet on warranty work (hope I never have to).

I've been playing for almost a year now and have come a long way. I play (try to play!!) a wide variety of music from classic rock to alternative to heavy metal and this unit more than suits my needs. I've played with almost every Boss pedal on the market now and again in various guitar stores and feel that this unit incorporates them very nicely. I've also owned four Boss pedals (Compressor/Sustainer, Flanger, Super Chorus and Heavy Metal) and it's like I have them back without the 9V battery power struggle! I compared the GX-700 with the Boss ME-30 and the Digitech RP-7. It really wasn't a fair fight due to the price. The ME-30 was $259 and the RP-7 was $339. The ME-30 was okay, the presets were pretty good and was easy to use but did not compare to the GX-700. The RP-7 had to some good sounds, since it incorporated a 12AX7 tube but it's ease of use was out the window, eve n with the owners manual so the choice was clear. It would've been a real struggle in the decision making if the GX-700 was $500 like I've normally seen it. I probably wouldn't even had tried it at that price and I didn't as I tell a little story (this will incorporate my other items I own). When I first started out, I felt that the only distortion I need was what my Marshall had to offer. It was tweakable and sounded really great and was the main reason I bought it. So naturally, I wanted an effects processor with everything BUT distortion. Chorus, delay, flanger etc but I wanted one unit, not a bunch of pedals. Enter the Alesis Midiverb IV. I got the Alesis and used it for quite a while but was beginning to slowly learn from my own findings and other people's opinions that this unit was not exactly the best choice for guitar use. Recording studio for synthesized music, yes, but for guitar, effects were unrealistic, so I rarely even used it. I still had my Marshall overdrive though. Until one day a friend had brought over his little Fender Frontman with an 8" speaker and distortion channel (it cost $80) and his amp produced this dirty, metally sound that my amp could just not produce. Ahhh, the eternal quest for tone begins. Enter the Zoom 510 Power Driver. Had a multitude of distortions, was small and cost $90. The distortions were good and it had an amplified headphone jack for portable private practice. I decided to give my Alesis another shot with programming in conjunction with the Zoom and my Marshall. Well, as you can see, the chance I gave it didn't last for long. I'm selling the Midiverb IV. I'm keeping the Zoom for its portability characterisitics. And I couldn't be happier with my GX-700. If it were lost or stolen, I would definetely buy it again. The only sad and ironic thing is since I got the GX-700 at an unbelievably low price, if I ever wanted the Roland Midi foot controller for it, it would cost as much if not more than what I paid for the GX-700!! I guess I'll just stick with my Boss momentary footswitch for now!!!

The first thing I noticed right off was the ease of programming the GX700. I have owned a few programmable units in recent years, and in the last few months tried out several more models. The Boss GX700 was extremely easy to maneuver through and make changes to. I really liked the sounds coming straight out of the unit from the factory, and it did not take more than a half an hour before I was comfortable with tailoring patches to suit my tastes, and making sounds I only wished my Peavey TransFex would make. When I got my unit home, the manual made the simple process of programming even more user-friendly. This is one manual that is actually informative and easy to read. My GX700 is a v1.9, the latest firmware version.

I play in a hard rock/heavy metal band, so good distortion is my first concern. I gave it a nine due to the fact that the distortions are not 'pristine' like from a Mesa Dual Recto Solo head or a VHT Ultra Lead, but unlike most distortion units, the Metal Distortion effect is actually quite warm, tone-wise, and did not produce annoying screechy-ness on the higher frets. I am using the GX700 in to a mid-80's Randall RG100 head in to a Sheffield loaded Peavey 4X12 cab. Guitars used are two Jackson Professional series Dinky Reverse 5's. The sound live has been most satisfactory, especially needing about 8 different sounds overall. (I am controlling the unit with an ART X-15 midi board) I have never really been in to copping someone else's sound, so I don't know about cloning other artists' sounds, but I find I am getting pretty darned close to the sounds I want. I also like the Soldano pre amp COSM model besides the Metal Dist., and the Vintage Twin is a great warm sound. If you want modern sequencer-like effects, the square wave tremolo effect will give you pretty much what you want. I don't use a whole lot of effects with distortion, but the Vintage twin pre amp with a nice medium chorus sounds REALLY good. As with most effects processors, there are some patches that just seem plain useless, but there are an awful lot that lay the groundwork for sounds I want. You like the Chorus, Reverb, and Delay of patch 14, but the distortion from patch 6? Fine. Scroll through the appropriate menu, and you can copy THAT distortion from patch 6 TO patch 14. Extremely useful. No more lost settings due to a bad memory while tweaking. The versatility of the GX700 is a definite strong suit.

So far no problems. Several practices with the GX700, and one gig to date. I have always had great reliability from previous Boss products while gigging, so I am expecting similar results. But, I will not rate this category thus far.

NEVER had to deal with Boss' customer support.

The GX700 makes great Metal sounds, period. The clean amp models are great as well. I have been playing for 14 years, but with a major gap in the middle of no gigging. I got rid of my TransFex not long after getting the GX700, and its only back up I have are a Boss Metal Zone, Super Chorus, and GE-7 that can be used with the Randall in case of emergency. If it were stolen, I would definitely get another one. I considered the DigiTech RP series, the GSP2112, the ART SGX, and the Zoom 3030. The GX700 was the winner hands down for its combination of sound quality, price, versatility, and ease of use.

takes all of about 5 minutes to figure out how to use... if you have any experience with any other effects processors & you're familiar with the parameters of the effects it couldnt be easier... my only gripe is if you dont have a foot controller it takes forever turning that dial to get to the next desired effect

plain and simple... the tone is awesome... to be totally honest though... unlike allot of the other entries... im not impressed with allot of the distortions that this unit has... im running it through a carvin sx200d and 99.9% of the time im using the overdrive/distortion on the amp... one note... the ring modulator seems useless... it sounds downright bad

this is kind of a touchy area... i got a good deal considering i bought the floor model... since the day i bought the unit i think its moved once... never been banged or dropped... every so often the unit will cut out on me... it has something to do with the input & outputs on the back of the unit.. im running it through the effects loop in my carvin... you have to play with the cords a little to get it going again... a major downer... i couldnt say if i'd gig with it considering it was a floor model & i cant tell if its a factory defect

havent called

i considered both the gx700 and the digitech gsp 2101... in my opinion the effect on the boss are a hell of allot cleaner & have a much brighter tone... my only gripes are the problems ive had & the fact that the roland foot controller costs about as much as the gx700 itself!!! ... all in all i definitely recommend it... but learn from my mistakes... spend a few xtra bucks... get it new in the box

Very simple to use. I read the manual, which is short and explicit, for 15 minutes and the rest was easy. Sometimes I use the MIDI interface and SYSEX to make backups and dump patches in it. The display is mounted too deep, you can see it only in limited angles. Where did they forgot the volume knob of the headphones? The unit has a firmware of 1.09.

It sounds very good with my JEM. I use it mainly connected direct on board. My MusicMan 212 sixtyfive is collecting dust in the corner. I've also done some "hard disk" recordings with Cakewalk software. The GX-700 really serves it's purpose in this area. The presets aren't very convincing so have you spare some time to adjust the thing. The usual overdrive lead/rhytm sounds were easy to find but for example the SRV and Deep Puple "Lazy" tones needed time and nerves. Fortunately the unit has a great amount of options. It can get a bit noisy if you use strong compression and overdrive simultaniously. Most of the effects are good enough but I haven't found any use for the ring modulator or humanizer. The best parts of this unit are the preamp section and the cabinet simulations.

No serious problems. Loose knob once in a while.

I play mainly rhytm'n blues, hardrock etc. The unit has more characteristics I'll ever need, but the patches I've been able to create are great. Before I bought it, I tried out some other effect processors, but after reading an article of some guitar magazine which stated that GX-700 sounded as good as the top line models of Digitech and Rocktron (despite the lack of tubes and ridiculously low price), I decided to buy one. Also the user comments I read about the Boss GX-700, GT-5 and Roland GP-100 convinced me. I've been using the unit for six months now and, comparing the sound and the price payed, it's a bargain.

The reason I originally bought this unit is because I refused to use my ADA MP-1 for rhythm tracks in the studio, I used a Boss MetalZone and I had heard that this had one in a rack, so after comparing it to my ADA, a Rocktron Chamelon, and a rocktron Voodoo Valve, I decided to go with this because basically THE DISTORTION CRUSHES. Editing patches was a breeze and I had been making up my own way before I took the unit home. The manual is pretty cool, and while I kinda wished it had a bit more detail (i.e. what is resonance), it's a million times easier than say the Roland xp-50 (which I also own). My unit's still kinda new so it's yet to be upgraded.

I'm running my gx-700 through a peavey power amp straight into a bass cabinet (love the speaker sims). The onboard pedals are noisy but that what the noise suppressors for isn't. The only major complaint I have is with the reverb(it's not very bright,maybe it's the speaker sims), and I find hard to get a good clean sound but that may be more my fault than the unit's. I bought the unit for it's distortion and it doesn't disappoint, if you need a MetalZone w/midi this is the answer.

As of this writing I have only gigged with it once, and while I haven't experienced any my friend Kirk owns one, and is currrently experiencing intermittent problems w/ his phone jack. I loop mine to something solid before inputting (loop my cable around the handle of my power amp) so hopefully I can avoiod this. I'd feel a lot safer though if it was reinforced with a nut though.

Never dealt with them.

I play in a Damnedbient metal band called Chapelblaque(gothic thrash). This piece is perfect for what I do, it's just me so the harmonizer really comes in handy. I've been playing for 12 years, I've owned a Carvin x100b, an ADA MP-1, an Ibanez rg-550, and an Alesis quadverb, this one rack has replaced like a lot of the gear I used to run though (I don't even use the Quad any more). I would probably buy it again if I lost it, or maybe upgrade to a GT-5. I love the distortion sounds and ease of programming, I just wish it had a 7-pin midi out so I could phantom power my MIDI controlller (a MAJOR selling point with the ADA mp-X). Definitely compares to the Rocktron preamps. Reverb could be better, the chorus it the weakest part about the unit (although it still good, just not to par with the other features). The input jack worries me, I find myself babying it (although no pronblems yet) . Can you rearrange the order of effects? (example LOOP before COMPRESSION, or, EQ before PREAMP?

I must agree with everyone here, that yes, this unit is extrememly easy to program. Just choose the effect, arrow through the parameters, adjusting as you go. Nice layout.

I used to use this unit through a very clean power amp into 2 4x12s. The reverbs were terrible. The noise gate was terrible. The flanger lacks good control. My ultimate displeasure arrived Satruday after purchasing a Mesa/Boogie Triaxis. The GX-700 simply cannot be used with this unit. Even on *standby*, the tone is really effected for the worse. It may have to do with the fact that the GX-700 cannot handle any signal above -10db.

I am not searching to replace the GX-700 in my rig. So is the other guitarist in my band. Last year, in the middle of a showcase, this GX-700 started howling and screaming the loudest feedback you've ever heard at full gain. The unit simply started throwing the worst tantrum I've ever heard an effect unit have. It turned out that the front input jack (which is soldered directly to the circuit board... lame) had malfunctioned causing the unit to wildly flail in agony. The solution was to use the rear input jack (until that started to go). I began experiencing the same type of problems. After a costly repair bill for the two of us, we are not beginning to experience many of the same symptoms... including powering up just to have your GX-700 scream uncontrollable rage right back at you. This unit is poorly made. We housed them in Mesa Shock Racks, and (especially after their costly repair) treated them with care. The are obviously meant for the "home" or "bedroom" user. Not to be used on the big stage.

The people at Roland in The City of Commerce, were the poorest excuses for tech support I've ever seen, anywhere. "Bill", if your out there.. yes, I'm talking about you. Rude, Incompetent, Arrogant, Obnoxious are words that come to mind. These units were within the standard warranty. We received a call from "Bill", stating that since there were traces of loose solder around the input jacks, that we had severely "abused" the units, and that under any circumstances we should not have "abused" the units in that fashion, and would charge us $60 to repair each unit, and that we'd have to wait three weeks. What a joke! Three weeks?

Our band is an alternative, post-gothic mix of music. Effects are important. This unit is unable to "behave" with other pieces of professional gear in my rack. If it were lost or stolen, I would claim the full insurance value and buy something else. Sorry for being so negative, as there are so many others here who are singing it's praises... I suppose it all depends on the application. It may be fine for the "bedroom" player, but not ready to play with the big boys.

After struggling with RP-1, SE-50, Quadraverb, Zoom and other processors it is great to be able to program this box without the many keypresses I was used to. Every effect has it's button and the tuner is the best, using the light in the effects buttons. I can tune from the other end of the stage now. Very logical front layout.

I really bought the GX-700 to do home recording. I quit the band, got another baby (!) and it was time to do some serious headphone rocking. The direct recording sound is the best I have heard ever. I can do brown half-overdriven rythm chords and smooth leads. Mind you though that you have to experiment a little. There are some awful, buzzy overdrive sounds too. The key to success is to use the many overdrives and preamps right. There are many overdrive/distortions, I think they put in the best of the stomp boxes, and there are many great preamps. I like the Twin for clarity, the Match Drive for crunch rhythm or blues, the Boogie for lead and the Soldano is great and real smooth for both soft and hard overdriven sounds. And imagine what you can do with combinations of effect and preamps! I'm just starting out now.
Well after playing with it for a week I played a gig with it. I played it through a MusicMan tube combo and it sounded real good. No digital overdrive sounds here, the overdrive was warm and great. I used to play with a Chandler Tube driver (real tube inside) and a Boss Blues driver. The GX-700 is as good as the Blues driver and close to the Tube driver in warmth.
I am not a great user of pitch shift, harmonizer and all those weird effects, and I don't like the pitch shifter. It tracks too slowly and sounds very artificial to my ears. I can't see why I should want to use it anyway.
The compressor does a good job (must be CS-3 circuit), the EQ is good and easy to use., the speaker simulator is just great, good delay, the chorus could be better (I like Ibanez CS-10 digital chorus better, they are wider and more spacious, more like a modulation delay), the tremolo/pan is very good, I have to find a song to put it in!, the reverb is good enough for guitar but not at all in the Quadraverb category. Dump all the pitch shift effects and give me a better reverb instead.

Works fine, I have to put it in a rack or I will destroy it! It will fall of the top of the amp one day

I bought it used and have never talked to Roland/Boss.

At last a processor with good overdrive sounds. I play blues and coverrock and I like to be able to switch sounds a lot faster and more radical than I could ever do with stomp boxes without compromising (too much) on the sound quality. One of the earlier reviews put it right: The audience would not notice the difference...
I believe Roland has done a really great job. Apart from the great sounds, they have really understood all the practical needs of the guitar player. You can attach two simple switches and program them to do anything (if you like me is too poor to buy the FC-200 controller. You can set the tuner to any pitch and even use Eb or D tuning. The input jack is on BOTH the front and the back. You have input volume and output volume to match both preamps and poweramps.

This unit is a joy to use. The learning curve is quite small compared to many of todays multi-efx units. The manual is good and informative without being intimidating. Even the presets are good for the most part. They provide great places to start creating your own sounds.

I have used only used it as a line-in direct sound source. It is very quiet, especially on the patches that use the noise reduction algorhythm. The distortions are analog and are typical Boss sounds which to my ear is a good thing. The preamp simulations and speaker cabinet simulations are simply great and add a great amount of versatility to this unit. The Fender Twin simulation is right on the money. The modulations, delays and reverbs are also top of the class with very musical parameters for editing. The tremelo is a bit weak, but the humanizer and harmonizer are really interesting and work well.

I have found Boss units to be top of the class for reliability. This feels quite solid and has worked just fine for the month I've had it.

Their website has virtually no tech support and no way to email the company and that stinks. On the other hand the manual is quite good and readible.

I'm a pop-rock pro musician from the old school (since 1969) and this unit makes me very happy. I've only scratched the surface and I haven't wanted something I couldn't get and quickly. I could tell right away that this was a very musical effects module. I would replace it with another one right away if it was stolen. My Zoom 505 and 9000 are gathering dust and my vintage Fender Concert amp is quite jealous. I'm really impressed with this piece and I'd recommend it to any guitarist looking to find their own voice and to emulate their favorite others.

After reading all the glowing reviews about the GX-700, I finally went out and bought one. Just as well I did, the shop was having a discount on it. Got it for S$530 (approx. US$330). Its version 1.09. I spent about 5mins reading the manual before I jumped right into fiddling with it, only occasionally going back to the manual to find out more details about specifics. The manuals pretty comprehensive but I think more details about what certain effects or settings do exactly would improve it. But this is minor since the unit itself is laid out pretty intuitively and such details might just bore some of us. Patches are extremely easy to edit and store. And it doesnt take much effort to tweak some decent sounds out of it. But there is a tendency (for me anyway) to over use all the effects just because there'll there and its so easy to edit them. So this box is definately one of the easiest rack units to edit.

I play mostly rock and blues style music. And I must say this box does it for me. Everything I need is there and they sound good. I'm using a Fender tube combp (Super 112) with a Strat and Gibson. Both guitars still retain they're character through the GX700. A strat still sounds like a strat, Gibson a Gibson. With the noise suppressor in the right place, the unit is dead quiet.
The individual effects all sound pretty good, esp the chorus and delay. But the setting the delay takes a little getting used to because of the different stereo channels and the percentage thing. One thing I have yet to find any useful purpose for is the ring modulator, it seems pretty useless to me; more of a gimmick.
I think the key to getting really killer tone out of this box is moderation and learning not to overdo all the effects.

I've only had it for a few days.. so far no problems yet. So I'm staying off rating this section.

No probs yet... didn't have to deal with anyone.

I've previously used rack mount effects (mainly a Rocktron PRO GAP, Alesis Quadreverb amongst other stuff) but I gave up rack mount after about 2 years. Its just too much trouble to edit. And I only end up using 10 patches out of like a thousand possibilities. The GX700 made me go back to a rack unit again. Great sounds, easy editing, versatile, and best of all it doesnt cost a bomb. A bunch of peddles would cost more. So I'd definately give it a 10 - FANTASTIC VALUE!

Dead easy to edit/create patches, especially with the Midi SysEx system, although I haven't yet found an editor that works! Very easy to instantly see what patch you're using & what effects are being used on each patch through big red lights!

Sounds great through my Fender Strat & Ibanez, into a Carlsboro 85W amplifier. Sounds even more amazing through my Aiwa Dolby pro-logic hi-fi!!! I tried the unit out in my local guitar shop going through a Marshall pre-amp and two cabinets in stereo and it was unbelievable. All effects sounds great to me, although the reverb seems a bit "not there".

I've only had one glitch with it - the power adapter died after one day! It took the shop I bought it from 5 weeks to get another one, and that had an American plug on the end, which ain't much use for us Brits! I presume it was just a one-off faulty unit. One point to note here - I was using a 12v adapter as a substitute whilst I was waiting for the new one. The proper adapter sends out 14v. This 2v loss in power & probably current as well made the GX-700 very quiet, and nothing at all came out of the headphone socket. Everything else worked OK, though.

Never had to deal with them yet!

I play all music, and this unit covers them all. I'd buy it again without hesitation. I didn't need to compare it to anything else - the first time I heard it, that was enough for me!

The main reason I am posting this is to make people aware of one thing. The Boss GX-700 cannot handle input levels over -10db. This ruined my extreme pleasure with this unit. This is the best-sounding f/x box in it's price range, but the fact that it cannot handle +4db is a ridiculous oversight. I wanted a unit to run in the f/x loop of my Boogie Mark IV (I have submited a review of this as well). The Boss would completely crap out, unless I wired it in a rather bizzare way suggested by Roland's tech support. They claimed that the Boss was never meant to be used in the way I was using it. I find this just plain silly. From what I gather, the GP-100 can handle +4db, but I don't see why putting a simple pad for +4db operation is such a hassle. Otherwise, all the sounds on this unit are great, and the preamp models are a great alternative to the usual distortion patches on other boxes. Just wanted to let people know. If you're going to use this as a dedicated preamp, or pre-amplifier, then go for it. Otherwise, you might want to keep looking.

Like any effects unit, if you don't know what your doing or your just randomly pressing buttons and turning nobs you caan get some pretty bad sounds. But if even the smallest amount of effort is used oyu can find the sound(s) thats perfect for U! Editing patches couldn't be easier or more self explanitory. The manual is very good but leaves out certian things, for instance nowhere in the manual does it say how to record CD's (well 4 seconds at a time) into your GX then how to slow it down as much as you need to figure out the riff, but U can. Also it neglects how to check what version you GX is. Simply hold SP SIM and PREAMP as you turn on the power, it will immediatly display the version #. WARNING by doing this you enter a TEST MODE and can really screw things up, so after it displays the version # simply press PLAY to exit the test mode. ( If you have version 1.08 or higher then all is good)!!!!

I find almost all the pre-set sounds are worthless, designed for old people who lack a desire for real power! A lot of people on this database have said they love everything about this unit except the distortion. To all these people I say, you're just not trying. Just push all the effects buttons untill untill all the lights are off and start from scratch... you will NOT be dissapointed! To the people in the world with small amps and small speakers be carefull, this unit can put uot FAR more than small speakers can handle! My favorite artist is DIME BAG DARRELL of PANTERA and with a little perseverance you can get AWESOME DISTORTION just like he has!

If you have version 1.08 of higher have no fear this version is virtually flawless!

Never Needed It!!!!!!!

I love sweet acoustic sounds and heavy powerful distortions and I get It all right here, Any style of music you play the GX is wonderful. My only complaint is the EQ should be more extensive (although I am a button/nob freak) Do yourself a favor and buy a FC-200 or somthing similar!!

I still have to pinch myself. This is a real live top-end processor for the price of a mid to low level unit! Moving effects around in the chain really produces some awesome results. I have moved my distortion to after my pre-amp on some sets and like the results. I am using a clean pre-amp after my distortion on other and have some huge distortions with that configuration also. I am a former GSP2101 user so my expectations for sound are the highest. Yet, the GX700 does the equivalent sounds without the huge programming hassle.

10,000,000 permutations and combinations because of the completely configurable chain. If you can't find your sound here, you just haven't tried hard enough. The factory presets have nothing to do with the capabilities of this unit. Nothing.

Yes. Boss's reputation here carry's the day. I liked the user survey information on the one web site. This was tangible evidence for reliability. ONLY 1 user out of 43 with a minor problem!

Not very clear who you call?

Yes, I did buy it again. I returned one last year that I paid 535.00 for, I don't think any processor is worth that. The guys at Musician's Friend did a price match, 45 day returns policy with a price like this! Need I say more.

Very easy, however it might take some time to program a full set of patches for your own use - The most of the pre-programmed seems quite useless to me. I recommand that you link it with your computer.

I think most of the modulation effects is quite good. Good chorus, tremelo, flanger, delay and a little weaker reverb. I think the pitch shifter is better that you would expect in this price level and I especially like the harmonist. Also the digital preamp and speaker simulater seems to be very good. At first I missed some more possibilities but I guess that's just a matter of eq. and fine adjustment. The week side is the distortion and OD unless your in to some kind of hordcore metal. The only decent one is the Vintage OD. I recommmand you loop your personal OD-pedal.

Don't know only had it for a month.

Never had to contact anyone

Well, after reading numerous glowing reviews here and speaking with several members of the online community, I finally decided on this unit to purchase for my be-all, end-all rack unit (at least until I can afford an Eventide!). To put it quite simply, this is the simplest unit to program that I have yet to find. Patches are easily selected via the control knob, and tweaking parameters are a breeze. Each effect has its own LED indicator, so it's easy to see what's on and what's not. The manual was longer than I expected, though it certainly didn't go in-depth at explaining what each effect parameter IS, merely how to adjust them. I'd reccomend getting a third-party book on multieffects if you're not familiar with all the terms. It came with the latest firmware, and has all the connections I need for now (no XLR connections, but I won't be hooking up to a PA for a while). Effects are easily relocatable in the chain, and each patch can store its own sequence independent of the others (all patch parameters are independent of other patches).
The display is very readable, but I agree it's poorly designed for viewing from an angle. I give it an 8, with a 10 being equivalent to an on/off stompbox. ;-)

When I demoed this in the store, I was quite fearful of all the buzz I was getting. It turns out my fears were groundless, as the noise was likely EMF from fluorescent lighting in the store (whoever picked that room for demoing rack effects was nuts). Very clean, recording direct is a dream, even with the heaviest metal distortion and amp simulator at full gain. Don't be afraid to tweak the noise surpressor... it's very intuitive. I've not owned all the amps that it can simulate, but I know it sounds light years better than direct boxes used to. You can mix the direct/"miked" sound to blend how you please. As mentioned, effects transition smoothly from one to another with no annoying signal drop; delay/reverb carries into the next patch. You can adjust input/output levels, and what setup you are using (combo/stack/line, guitar input or effects loop).

As everyone says, "It's a BOSS." Very rugged, yet lightweight for easy transport. I'm not in the financial situation to have a backup unit, but I don't anticipate any problems. It has an external AC adapter, but it's mid-cord-- no wall-wart (yay!), but an annoying "wart" halfway down the power cable.

No idea yet... they took some time getting it to my dealer, but stock might have been short. I'm filling out the warranty card tomorrow (yeah, right! That's the problem with dependable gear, you never remember the warranty until it's needed...).

I play mainly progressive metal (Queensryche, Dream Theater, Alice in Chains) and heavy death metal (early Metallica, Testament). This unit does an awesome job there, especially direct. However, I also play blues-rock, and some alternative, and could get a great sound for that as well. For example, I got a great Temple of the Dog or Mad Season sound. It probably won't fool a tube-head, but this unit is as close as it gets.
The price was phenomenal... I got a lead on the web from an online associate (thanks Donpaul!), and my local dealer matched it. Can't seem to find the URL again, but perhaps some other kind soul will post it. Another local dealer was trying to sell it for over $600 (the same place with the fluorescent lights). Because of this price, I'd jack the overall rating up to 10, for such great value. If you wind up paying list (+/- $500 or so), then I'd say it's still an 8 or 9.
This is a good unit. If anyone has any patches besides those on the existing sites, please get in touch.

Very easy to use , I didn't need the manual for instance. It was very easy to get good sounds out of it everything sound I wished for I can get out of it easily. I owned ( still own) a Roland GP-16 and the sounds i got out of that unit were almost the same as I have now, but it took me a few months to make them. and this unit (gx-700) was like a dream come true Tones from heaven/hell and back in a fly!! I have a firmware number 1.09

I use the unit with several guitars and the guitars all keep their character. a Les Paul sounds like a Les Paul and a strat sounds like a Strat. I use this unit with my old faithful Fender amp and it sounds great even when I hook the unit direct to my tapedeck!! All the sounds I ever wished for (Landau,SRV,SATCh,lukather and of course the BROWN SOUND) are all in it. I can go from Mike stern's jazz-chorus to Texas chainsaw sounds and beyond !! All the effects are great, but I couln't do anything useful with the ring-modulator.

I don't know just bought it a few months ago and haven't gigged with it yet.

Roland Benelux have always helped me great!!! when I owned the Me-5 they were great, when I had the GP-16 they were great and now that I have the gx they are stilll great!! I would say thumbs up for Roland benelux's support!!!!!

I would definetely buy it again . I play all kinds of music and the flexibility of the unit is so amazing!!. The only thing that it could use is a Master output level-knob

IT'S FAIRLY EASY TO GET A GOOD SOUND. IF YOU ARE WILLING TO SPEND SOME MORE TIME PROGRAMING YOU CAN GET SOME EXCELLENT TONES. THE MANUAL IS GOOD. I BELIEVE I HAVE THE LATEST VERSION OF THE SOFTWARE (ROLAND TOLD ME THEY UPGRADED IT AFTER I HAD SOME PROBLEMS WITH IT LOCKING UP ON ME).

THE SOUND QUALITY OF THIS UNIT IS AMONG THE BEST IVE HEARD IN IT'S CLASS.(I HAD TRIED OUT SEVERAL OF THE COMPETITION BEFORE BUYING THIS UNIT). THE UNIT IS FAIRLY QUIET. THE EFFECTS ARE PRETTY MUCH ALL GREAT (THE RING MODULATOR IS PHATT). THE SIMULATIONS ARE PRETTY GOOD (IVE EITHER OWNED OR USED MOST OF THE AMPS THE UNIT SIMULATES.) I'VE MOSTLY BEEN USING IT FOR DIRECT RECORDING BUT HAVE ALSO HOOKED IT UP TO SEVERAL TUBE AND SOLID STATE AMPS.

AFTER THE UPGRADE THE UNIT HASN'T GIVEN ME ANY PROBLEMS. I COULD NOT HAVE FAITH ON ANY UNIT AT AGIG WITHOUT SOME BACKUP.

I THINK I COULD HAVE BEEN TREATED BETTER BY THE COMPANY. THEY WANTED TO CHARGE ME FOR THE LABOR ON THE UPGRADE AND I STRONGLY BELIEVE THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE IT AT NO CHARGE. (GIVEN THE PROBLEMS MANY PEOPLE HAVE HAD WITH THE EARLY SOFTWARE.) I REFUSED TO PAY AND AFTER MUCH ARGUING THEY DROPPED THE CHARGE. (ACTUALLY MY PROBLEMS WERE WITH ONE PERSON AT ROLAND.)

THIS UNIT IS VERY VERSATILE I PLAY SEVERAL STYLES OF MUSIC AND IT COMES THROUGH FINE. IT COULD USE SOME BETTER NOISE REDUCTION AND A STEREO EFFECTS LOOP. I PROBABLY WOULD BUY IT AGAIN I BOUGHT IT RIGHT WHEN IT CAME OUT IN 1996. I HAVE NOT TRIED ANY OF THE PROCESORS THAT HAVE COME OUT SINCE THEN BUT THIS UNIT DOES THE TRICK NICELY.