Dibubba
Sunday 30 July 2006 à 18:39
QUOTE (seabass069 @ Mar 13 2006, 05:06)
I just sold the Boss GT-6 in hopes of buying the GT-8. After some reviews that said the sound reproduction is better on individual pedals, now I am not sure what to buy. Any advice?
You raise an interesting point.I had a home-built pedalboard with 15 Boss pedals on it, all interconnected. At the time, I was playing live 4-5 nights a month, and the band I was in relied on me instead of a keyboardist for effects, strings, etc. (I also have a GR-50). My parts required
instantaneous switching between sounds.
While the sounds were cool, there was a lot of noise simply because of the signal chain through all the pedals. I rarely used all 15 at once, but even the passive effects were pulling down the signal level. I bought a laboratory-grade power supply, which helped, and I soldered jumper wires across all the jacks so they had a common ground, which helped even more... but the thing was still a beast to maintain and transport, and it was quite noisy overall. Again, in a live setting this didn't bother me too much.
At home in the studio, though, it was unusable - just too much noise.
I reasoned that by recording multiple guitar parts, I could overcome the switching-time issue, so I bought a POD, whose sound was lovely. However, that meant my track count was increasing to absurd levels, and at the time I was using 8-track analog tape. When I transitioned to cmputer-based recording, the track limitation went away, but the complexity of managing multiple tracks of multiple guitar parts was frustrating.
I was invited to play a few gigs with a band last summer, whose guitarist had broken his legs and couldn't gig. In preparation, I went and bought a GT-8... and here, I seem to have found a happy compromise. Using the FS-6 footswitch set to turn individual effects on/off per patch, I can get
most of the same functionality as my old board. Not all, mind you - I still miss tap-dancing on that thing as I played!!
So, here are some considerations for you:
- If you only use 1-3 pedals "turned on" at once to get your sound, consider sticking with pedals.
- If you only use 1-6 pedals total, and you own them already, stick with them, and get one common power supply to drive them all. Also, buy new connecting cables once a year, and burnish the connectors at least twice a year.
- If you need more pedals than that, consider a GT-8 or POD XT Live.
One final subjective: Personally, I think the POD XT Live sounds better than the GT-8 for traditional "amp simulation" use. Whatever algorithms Line 6 uses just seem to sound "fatter" to me. However, the GT-8 had more effects and more programming options, which is why I bought that one. Play them both, and make your own decision... but overall, both are VERY MUCH worth the money.
Rock hard, either way!