In the Court of the Black GT - An observation by Burtramb

[Burtramb]

Hello everybody!

1 - I have to thank ALL the guys in the Forum; but I have to name a few of them as Gumtown, Glenn Delaune, Alex Machado, Ricig, lp Bruce, FFries, Karl Houseknecht... thanks indeed!

2 - I am using the new black GT 99% live for Pink Floyd (ish...) tones, then no interest for me in the high gain or direct recording realms.

3 - I will use GT100, in the next 2/3 months, as a stand alone unit, only a booster in front of the input, because I want to set up a live rig for small venues (i.e. miserable budget, obsolete PA, dumb sound guys, if any, and so forth...).
Next step will be the interaction between GT100, Rocktron Patchmate 8 floor and a bunch of stompboxes.

4 - I go stereo in the return of a JC-120, in the hope of the arrival of a pair of Tech 21 PE60.

Well, I traded my GT10 for the 100 on may 9th. Since then I have been following the Forum and tweaking a lot, maybe not as much as I wished, but enough to share my first impressions.

Something strange... amp sims sound usable for my purposes; surprise... the same for cab sims, I use amp sims which I never used before (GT6,8 and 10).

Natural Clean - Twin - Dluxe are my favs; +1 for T-comp; but I am getting very good results, totally unexpected, from Power Drive and even SLO...


OD-DIST are very usable. I like to have a Dist coupled with an OD, in front or after, and having 2 OD/DIST banks is something which was on my wishlist for a new GT...
I use Fuzzes, Rat, Dist+ and others, and I use them with non-extreme drive settings expecially when the amp sim is a Soldano set to low gain. I have nice fat tones, sometime aggressive (Rat and Muff...) but cutting through the mix (as from my bandmates reports) and less noise. Good, less stomps in the S/R.

I also waited for the first gig en-plein-air, before writing any comments, but the response of many people was, Luca, the sound was great.

Compared to GT-10 modulation fxs as phaser and flanger sound more "intense", more deep and more sensitive to minor changes in parameters, on the other hand Uni-vibe sounds too dark... forget about nasal Rotary! Compressors are excellent. Less stomps, indeed.

That's why I started to think to use GT-100 alone, and that's what I am doing.

I think the black one is a good improvement, not a revolution, but, for my purposes, really rocks

I cannot expect that, on that price basis, an mfx could also serve a good espresso, I think it does what it's made for: a great, great, job on stage!!!
With some fine tuning, a few pedals to help, and the passion of all the guys in this Forum, GT 100 will be on our side along the road for, at least, 2 or three years

Only my very personal first observation.

Going to share my patches in a week or two (fine tuning...).

Cheers

Luca

[lp_bruce]

Thanks for posting.

I've been digging my GT-100 since I got it. I've been using it with my JC-120 for gigs lately (with no other pedals) and I'm very happy with the tones I'm getting. I'm using Natural Clean and JC-120 for most of my cleans and various preamps (Marshalls, Crunch, others) and OD/DST sims (Warm, Natural, Blues, and Muff) for dirt.

Peace,

[Ricig]

Hi Luca, good to have you back!

I have been stuck in a rut lately. I think my issue is that I need to play though an amp more and let the GT rig evolve again. I've recently had angst for my GT for the direct-in distortion. But as you say, for a great, great live rig, the GT can be hard to beat when paired with an amp.

I'm very happy for you and your success with the GT-100! I like to hear success stories; very encouraging...makes me want to try harder and persevere!

Do you adjust the input level for your guitar(s)? I'm forever curious as to who tweaks this parameter or just does compensatory tweaks "within" a patch for guitars having disparate output levels.

Oh, that also reminds me (to all) one of the last things I was working on (before I went on my GT angst-a-thon) was another trial at input calibration that used a contrarian philosophy... I know... Forgive me, but the concept got me thinking more.... Instead of calibrating to align the max playing velocity to the midi cc value of 127, I had tried calibrating so that the min playing velocity registered a midi cc value of 0. I did this essentially by reversing the logic of my Input calib patch. long story short... If max calib was -8dB and min calib was -4dB, then the optimum calib would be the middle, such as -6 db(?), but then.... Well ...I'll keep the story short. When I unpack the GT-100 after my cooling off period expires, I'll finish my experiment

Anyhow, happy you're back Luca!!

[Burtramb]

Hi Ricig!!!

Yes, it's nice to be back again, thanks for your welcome.

I have tried your calibration patch and I found that the default setting for input level is ok for me.
Actually, I think I have to dive deeper into that subject; sounds a bit strange to play my two Mexican Strats, one with standard PU (SD SSL-5 bridge) one with EMG DG-20 set, with the same input level; I may be wrong but the EMG's have 1volt output... Definitely I need to upload your patch again and try.

Day after day things change with GT-100, same old story, but yesterday I was surprised when I built up a few patches with custom amps and cabinets... basically JC, Twin, Natural and Voxy tones with close cabinet and 2x15" speakers... well, they sound a little trebly, not a major issue, but when I turned Uni-vibe on, it sounded more than decent, which is just the contrary of what I wrote in my "review"... Today I'll try those patches with EMG's.
One thing about EMG DG 20 and GT-100: the sound is more "alive" and "present" than with GT-10, minor adjustments of EXP and SPC can be finally heard, no need to turn knobs at 10 for a more refined sound.
Last note, it seems that 100 is more sensitive to volume knob roll-off: when playing crunch patches (some of the presets are really cool) it's surely helpful.

Well, now it's time to re-calibrate...

Cheers,

Luca

[Ricig]

Today I wake with a renewed interest in my GT-100 and a desire to establish a 4cm implementation with my Blackstar HT-20! The powerful flexibility of the GT-100 and it's value proposition (stand-alone pedals quickly exceeding the cost of what I already have with the GT-100) is hard to argue against.

In seeking peace with the GT-100 direct-in high-gain tones I must remember this - what I think sounds great in solo mode, rarely sits well in a mix, whether recorded or live. So to bemoan the direct-in tone is really no different than to bemoan the tone an engineer would craft while getting "my" tone to fit in such a mix. So really the tone that is most appropriate for the song, is not likely to be the amp tone I find gratifying when played in solo.

This is the key pitfall I most often have - that BOSS (IMO) provides a direct-in distortion tone that is already engineered for dropping into a recorded mix - skinnier, harsher...none of which gives me the warm and fuzzies when heard in solo mode.

So I'm going to make a quest of getting my 4cm implementation up to snuff. And where I need direct-in / silence I will use the emu out of the Blackstar and then slowly bring into the fold some preamps from the GT when the fancy strikes me. OTOH, the GT is more than capable of providing all the effects and flexibility I'd need in 4cm with my amp.

I am also going to relax on the output select modes. Depending on where the GT send jack hits the amp (front side or backside) I'll use whatever o/s mode sounds best to me and gets me the closest to what I want to hear from the amp. However WRT input sensitivity, my recent trajectory was aiming for a mid-point setting between max calibration and min calibration. I truly believe this is hugely important to optimize the GT to the guitar. I'll share more later on this.

Wish me luck and patience my buddies! This is going to be fun!

[MJ Slaughter]

Good luck on your quest Ricig. I know one of your frustrations with the GT is when listening with headphones. Sorry if I already suggested this before, I know I have on other sites, but you could get something like S Gear for I think $70 and just jam at your PC with headphones. IMO this sounds much better through headphones than the GT, or my GSP1101 for that matter, and when learning songs, you have so much more power doing so on a PC. Side note: if you ever try to learn fast solo work or pick out vocal harmonies a software like Amazing Slow Downer makes it much easier.

Sometimes I think us 4CM guys could use our own section.

[Ricig]

Absolutely, a 4cm forum would be neat! But I could never commit to it! Ha!

I have found that I don't like being dongled to the computer. It doesn't feel manly. I need an amp or some gadget like an fx board. I really wish that kind of power could be put in a box, that would also be useful for my live amp rig.