Sony HR-GP5 Guitar Processor

I have used the processor for around 10 years now or more. The preset sounds are ok, at first a toy, and in "real life" I only use 2 or 3 of the preset sounds. Live at least (with headphones, it is a lot of fun to enjoy the stereo effects that make you feel as if you were a great guitarists.
But as others noted, changing presets and reporgramming locations of sounds is quite cumbersome, and I stopped doing it.
The BATTERY is going now. For almost a year (or more) I have been living with "warning, low battery" messages at startup, but the baby still works.

Live, I most often play direct, ie using "bypass". I use only two sounds these days, one with a slight delay and a nice, hardly noticeable flange (for "It's a kind of magic" (queen cover) and "every little thing she does is magic" (an arrangement of a police song), and another one thet puts a quasi-acoustc sound to my fender guitar (I use it for "Give a little bit" (supertramp). Or, qite rare, in order to get a dramatic intro before the first set, I improvise using the SPOOKS sound. that produces a nice atmosphere (see www.geocities.com/wip_band/clips.htm for examples).
Distortion, as others have noted, is not really a problem, if input and output are balanced properly, but background noise for some sounds are indeed not too attractive.

I always use it on a gig. On the other hand, I can do a gig also without the machine (except for the police and queen song (see above) which rely heavily on the GP 5. But laso havea separate digial delay and separate flanger..
it hs been very dependable (except then the battery goes)

Marshall 25/50 combo tube amp. Fender telecaster.
I am indeed thinking of getting another effects machine (I have separate Midi pedal to control the GP 5 and bult myself a floor effects rack, which also includes the AC/DC converters. Now that the battery is going it is an opportuniy to look for an easy, basic effects machine...
It does help me make music. But I still need to play the guitar myslef

I found out how to use it in about 10 minutes

good enough for me

That is the problem.I have an old firmware which tends to freez very often.When I dial through the patches,it usually freezes for 15 minutes. If anyone has firmware upgrade,please send me instalation files. I even can pay for that if it helps to make this processor work. My address is radiar@folk.sk

I contacted manufacturer (Sony Corp.),but nobody there cares about my problem.

Processro sounds good, hall, delay and compressor are briliant. I dislike those overdrive patches(they are muddy).

it's pretty much idiot proof

it sounds good after you play around with the settings

its dependable, but heres the deal, when ever if I hit the button to go pass the 100 effect the stupid thing crashes then I have to unplugge it and wait a few hours for it to reset. the same thing happens if I go i hit the button to go past 1,.. no when it crashs, it the power still comes on but now sound, or nothing on the lcd screen.. but the light for the lcd screen is still on..

over all, i really like it, just as long as I don't do the thing where it crashs,, and after I played with the setting of the effects..


Heres a tip for those who are having battary trouble, When you remove the battary I found the best way to put the new one back in is to hot wire it in.. solder a wire on each of the tacks that originaly held tha battary in, then stick some tape on the top cover to sheld the battary from the steel casing (the casing is ground and would short out the battary. No solder the other end of those wires to the battary (make sure the pararity is right) then tape it to the shelded part of the case.. Its the safest way of doing it, cause to get it in the way it was origanal, you might risk burning parts with the heat of the soldering gun, because the parts are very delicant to heat, and are very easy to break and to destroy

this unit was pretty easy to use. I first used it when a friend owned it, and we were 4tracking. I was just using it as an effect loop for voice, and quickly adjusted decay length and reverbs to suit me

my friend gave it to me after the battery died and I took it to a tech I know who replaced and reset the unit. Until now I have only used stomp boxes for guitar but I own several amps and guitars, so I took advantage of the stereo effects by running my SG into it and sending to a Fender Blues Deluxe and a Yamaha g100-112. The Effects were pretty mindblowing... if you like true stereo, this thing does it great chorus, delays and the leslie sound was just the thing I had been looking for.
It took me a little while to get amps and input/output levels adjusted so the effects weren't too noisy but the tools are there.

Yeah, I guess- I play with a pretty flexible group so I would not have to depend on it if it were to die, but it goes to shows with me and I use it about half the time. the rest is on bypass... I would like to find a foot controller so I could use certain effects to boost it here and there...

Rock- bizarre arrangements of hendrix/RHCP/barry manilow
I like to spin the dial and see what comes up...

I bought this unit last year on E-Bay. Its was used as a demo and came without a manual but it was pretty easy to figure out how to tweak it. Most of the presets needed to be tweaked to get the sound I wanted. The ROM is version 1.10e. Some of the patches take a while to set up just right but thats seems par for the course.

Right now I'm plugging this unit up to my computers sound blaster live 5.1 card. Other wise I would need 2 amps to take advantage of the stereo effects. My strat picks up alot of noise from the monitor but my SG sounds fine. I really like the cleaner effects on this unit and the distortion is just so so. Considering the cost of this unit I'd so you get your moneys worth.

The battery just died on this unit and thats how I found this web site . I did the mod that was sugested with the two aa batteries and its working fine again but I'm having to tweak everything out again.

Its a Sony product so I didn't try to get it serviced though them. They usually tell you it would be cheaper to buy a new unit.

I've been playing guitar for over thirty years now and I just play for enjoyment now. I've gone through many guitars but I always seem to go back to playing my old strat and SG. I like this unit though. The only other effect I use it an old wah pedal made by an Organ company.

Built in presets do not sound that good, had to change most of them by hand, and it was awkward to move from several screens (routing, effects, amp/speaker cab simulator, etc.) to change them, all. However it is doable. The Manual was not needed. I only glanced at it.. so I guess that is why I gave it a 7 for ease of use. Paging is cumbersome. Would have been better if they had a bigger display.

Used a Carvin bolt-on Kit Guitar, Fender 25W practice Amp. The distortions were noisy, and have too much loss of tone. In fact many of the effects were not acceptable in the higher frequencies and very, very muddy sounding, and lots of hiss, regardless of the settings.
I tried to get the rotating speaker sound (ie. clapton/hendrix) to be usable.. it was close but no cigar.

Distortions.. Lots of background noise, even with no guitar plugged in to the metal effects, so I had to crank up the noise gate to help that, then the tone got lost. So, tried turning down the compressor, sounds ok, but you will have to figet with it.

Battery failed, so I lost all my customized settings.. what junk.

No. the sound will have to be tweaked in real time to get what you want. And if you lose your battery, you will have to reset each preset all over again..

Did not have to call support.

Jazz, Rock, some classical. Playing on/off for ~20yrs. Some other hand-build effects from piaa.. and a std Boss Chorus.
I would not buy one again. However, one would need to spend much more to get higher quality dynamic range, etc. So, I guess it is ok.
I hated the battery deal, lost lots of time programming custom sounds, only to lose them..
Once programmed it does help you to make music the way you want to hear it, to spite the noise, and muddy response at times.
Overall, it is slightly above average (5+).

Easier to use than most other multi-effects processors. Large backlit LCD display with context-dependant function keys.

My original firmware is version 1.03E, but I also have the version 1.20E ROM chip. New version has terrible presets, so I took it back out. Will experiment in future to test for improved software.

I use this unit primarily in my studio for direct recording, since the battery was dead when I bought it (see note below on replacement), and I was not able to obtain a HR-RC5 footswitch unit.

Very wide range of effects and algorithms, including vibrato (ala Boss VB-2), "stereo ensemble" (ala Boss DC-2/DC-3), "slow attacker" (ala Boss SG-1), "exciter" (ala Boss EH-2), ring modulator, harmonizer, Leslie simulation, along with all the more standard time-based effects. Unfortunately, use of some effects precludes use of certain other effects.

Distortion effects are nothing to write home about, but then, most solid-state distortions suck.

Inputs are front and back, but outputs are stereo only; wish it had a mono out for more flexibility--if it had a mono output, I would buy another unit to use before my preamp. Headphone jack on front with level adjustment is a plus. External power supply is a minus, but makes for a smaller unit, I guess.

OK, here's the deal with the battery. I bought this unit when Sam Ash was blowing them out for $130US with the rack mount kit and ROM upgrade. Unfortunately, by that time, the lithium coin 2032 batteries they put in these units were long since dead. To my surprise, Sony soldered the batteries directly to two leads projecting from the PCB. I spent all night trying to pry the damn thing out and figuring out the reset procedure, which is not in the manual. I taped a new battery in, but shock from movement would cause the battery to come loose--bye, bye, programming.

So this unit has sat in my studio for the past couple of years collecting dust.

The other day I got a new soldering iron, and some parts from Radio Shack (2 AA battery holder with 9-volt type connector, 9-volt type battery leads, 2 Energizer AA lithium batteries, some sticky Velcro). Soldered the battery connection to the leads on the PCB, stuck tape around them to keep from shorting, attached new battery holder, Velcro'd the holder to the top case.

Works like a charm. I will probably never need to change the batteries again. BTW, I chose the lithium batteries to more closely match the discharge curve of the coin cell; if you use something else, it may not work correctly as the batteries reach the end of their lifecycle.

I'm actually thinking of doing this mod to other equipment, as those damnable coin cells always seem to be half dead when you get them, anyway.

A very bad design decision by Sony for an otherwise excellent product. Since I've never used this on a gig, I give this category a "No Opinion".

Never dealt with Sony customer support for pro music/audio gear, so no comments here.

Other than the lack of a mono-only output, this unit isn't missing anything that other processors aren't also missing. I wish Sony had continued developing guitar effects for the US market, as this unit was very good compared to others.

If I had the HR-RC5, I might actually be able to use this live.

It really is easy to use. The functions are clearly labled and it is very intuitive. The display is very nice and easy to read. I think that the user interface is incredible.

I use this with a number of guitars. I have a strat with singles, some al dimeolia custom wound parker pickups in a custom guitar and I also use it with my Breedlove w/ an active l.r. baggs Ibeam. I have to say, the reverb is incredible. The thing has great sounds for the reverb wheher I am using my acoustic or electric. The distortions suck for what I use. The sound a little crunchy to me but I use a tube preamp to ameloriate this problem. I like warm blues tones for distortion and I have gotten some that are close to what I want but not great. The reverb and oterh effects are an absolute 10 though. I do have to add that it does not like high output pickups though. It really does not like humbucking emg's which I have on another guitar. It tends to distort out on me which I find very anoying.

I haven't had any problems with it at all. It has always performed well for me. I anticipate replacing the bat but no problems as of yet.

no experience

Really, I would buy this twice again. It is great for an acoustic processor. Honestly it is great for a bass processor also. It even handles my active five string. I use this as a second processor for glassy great sounding reverbs or electric and clean. It sounds great for piezo equiped electrics. The distortions are a problem and the distortion in the unit with high output pickups isn't good but all considered it does what I want it to with flying colors. If you want good distortions use a tube.

This unit is very simple to use,even if it has many parameters.The user's guide isn't good help,but I found the processor to be intuitive in programming.Each setting has a good distinctive mnemonic label which helps in understanding what parameter is being changed.
I don't use MIDI ports of this device,but I think it would be difficult because the manual doesn't help so much in MIDI settings.
HR-RC5,the dedicated foot controller,is very easy to use in combination with the unit and it is quite fast.

I use the GP5 with an Ibanez RG-527 (V7 S1 V8 pickups) and a cheap Strato copy through a Cry Baby wah,Johnson DEQ2 through a Trace Elliot Super Tramp.I play metal and trash and the unit sounds good with both guitars,I like the distortion block with its sound and noise reduction and the parametric equalizer which can help in making truly different sounds.Modulation and delay effects are clean and noiseless.The only thing I don't like is the missing sound between patch changes,but you can solve running the unit in manual mode.

This unit is a vital part of my sound.

I needed to change the battery,but I made by myself.I never considered to go to a technician,even if I have an authorized Sony center one chilometer from my home.Changing the battery is very simple,even if you need to open the unit and solder a new one.Upgrading the firmware is very easy too.

This is the best effect unit in its catagory.It is simple to use and has great sounds.It is small too,only half rack.The factory presets are a good base to reach your sound faster and they are really usable.One of the best feature is the possibility to use the processor in manual mode,just like ordinary pedals.The unit isn't fast in patch change but is very fast in turning on and off a single effect.This helps to solve the annoying lost sound between patch changes.

Some people have found that the lithium battery is expiring. (If a battery "dies", you might end up with the blank screen & no sound at all.)

It's actually not a big job to fix this. Although the battery is soldered onto legs, if you (carefully) remove the battery from the legs (it snaps off quite easily really), then replace it with another CR2032 cell.

TIP: I?ve bought "Battery Holder" #270-0430 from RadioShack. This prevents damage to a battery from a short circuit or soldering heat, by letting you to mount the battery holder instead of soldering the battery itself.

Probably you'll have to initialize your processor:
Power the unit on while holding down the "BYPASS" and "EXIT" buttons down. NOTE: after a battery change the user presets will be gone. So keep a good log at them.

Cheers!

Olympus