Boss GT-1000

I have owned a number of digital effect boards in the past (Vox's, the G-System, Firehawk HD, Helix). We could talk about connectivity and related matters: Boss' app can only be used on portrait mode on a tablet or phone for some reason, and it's not as easy or intuitive as the one for the Firehawk / Helix. The Desktop software for the GT1000 is fairly decent and a very nice extra. Not perfect either. We could argue back and forth about which one sounds more "organic", which one is more "plasticky". Certainly the Helix might have an edge in that department, although personally that advantage is not as big as to make it the key aspect to prefer the Helix.

So my contribution to the conversation comes in form of the flexibility of sound manipulation. This is something very important to me, and hopefully it's something a few other users might want to know about. This is in fact, the decisive factor on my decision of purchasing this unit, as someone who enjoys sound design, rather than the purity of classic tones. The GT1000 inherits the innovations of the Boss MS3 in terms of signal routing / signal chain. This is a huge deal, because the different in sound is tremendous just by switching the routing. The same simple arrangement of a delay + pitch shifter + reverb can produce a dramatically different sound when you send the signal to the shifter first, whilst you process in parallel towards the delay and reverb, or ANY combination thereby.

This is what makes the GT1000 unique.

I would love it if the footswitches were as big as the G_System.
I would love it if they didn't feel so close together (maybe it's just a legacy of used the G-System for too long).

However, If sound design/innovation is your focus, there's no parallel to the GT1000.

I'm a previous gt-100 user, mostly 4CM. With 7-months of active use, mostly standalone instead of 4/8CM. For 4CM use, this is fine, but nothing special. This review mostly focused on the negatives.

GT-1000 can sound really good, but not really out of the box. The vast majority of factory presets are not good enough for various reasons. The default settings on amps and effects tend to be poor. If you're not willing to spends hours editing the presets, then I wouldn't recommend this. I say that as someone who likes to tinker with my sounds.

Editing sounds on the device is slow and clunky. Use the software editor. Unfortunately, the editor is also slow and poorly designed. Selecting an fx to edit, can require multiple clicks for no reason for example, and may randomly turn on/off the fx.

There's no batch editing of presets, and due to the slowness if you have a lot of presets to work with, you will waste so much time just waiting for the editor to update and save, as well as for the device to load.

While saving it is is easy to accidentally overwrite stuff, because the saving menus don't tell you what you have in the preset slots.

Stompboxes partly solve this batch edit problem. Some effects have ten Stompbox slots that can operate as linked settings. Editing one updates every instance of that preset in your setlist (midi control doesn't update it) instantly

GT-100 owners: installing GT-1000 drivers breaks the GT-100 drivers, so you can't use both, without uninstallation of the drivers.

The GT-1000 offers more effect blocks and deeper control than the GT-100, but not all of it is better.

The Wah sounds stepped and digital with both the built-in and external expression pedals. GT-100 does not have this problem. Auto Wah, Touch Wah are the smooth alternatives.

There is only one reverb block, and no other reverb, and the available reverbs are basic, you can use the delays to add a bit of pseudo reverb, but it's not great. The shimmer reverb sounds particularly bad. The delays are far better.

3 multifx blocks are available. 4th can be enabled, per preset, but it turns the signal mono. Some effects have improved controls, options, tracking and polyphony. However, a few GT-100 effects are missing, Wave Synth, Tone Modify and Guitar Sim.

Sound Hold is worse than the already limited GT-100 version. Tera Echo can imitate a freeze effect, but this consumes the only reverb block and still sounds mediocre. The octave effect doesn't work on high notes anymore.

GT-1000 increases MIDI-controllable assigns from 8 to 16, but MIDI performance is a bit unreliable. Mine has frozen when receiving a PC message followed by a few CC messages. It also drops CC messages unless they are staggered by a lot. The toggle mode sometimes change state without receiving any MIDI input. The same setup worked correctly with my GT-100.

The USB connection is physically vulnerable when the unit is used on a soft surface or THON-style case. Touching the GT-1000 can disconnect the cable, potentially causing playback problems or freezes. Disconnecting USB before playing is safest. The GT-1000 does fit in a THON GT-100 case.

Conclusion:
GT-1000 can sound significantly better than the GT-100 and expands many of its capabilities. However, poor defaults, an extremely slow editor, awkward preset management, limited reverb and other fx options and unreliable MIDI make it frustrating.

In hindsight, I would prefer the cheaper Core version, especially for a MIDI-controlled setup. The full GT-1000 can sound excellent if you are willing to invest considerable time in it, but it is not a convenient all-in-one solution and you'll probably end up wanting more gear to cover the exclusions/limits.

This was still good and I'm mostly happy, but Roland/BOSS can do better, it's not for everyone, and for 900-1200€ that this often goes for, it's a bit much.