Boss GT-1B Bass Multi-effects Processor Reviews

This pedal is perfect for the bass guitar. Sounds amazing and works seamlessly. Perfect for recording, performing, and more. I would definitely recommend for any bass guitar player

The GT1B is amazing! I can't believe the sounds it creates! I have made my original songs so much better and more interesting with this pedal!

100% satisfied, and so easy to use!

This BOSS pedal is just that! BOSS!!!

Thanks again Sam!

This bass pedal does it all. From adding fun effects to recording. And the price doesn't break the bank. Well worth it.

If you are new to playing bass in a band, but your primary has always been guitar, this is the pedal for you. It has everything you need to familiarize yourself with different playing styles. It has plenty of room to grow with you as a bassist without having to get more pedals... Oh shoot, you gotta play the iconic bass line of the Ghost Busters theme at a Halloween bash!? No biggy! This things got a synth mod in it! Need a warm tone for the 500th time you play "Can't You See"? It has it!

I mostly play jazz these days so I am usually running clean with no effects. But I would like to have the option, and I never wanted to spend a ton of money. Ironically, I ended up wasting a lot more money on cheap, crappy individual pedals that were noisy or just plain bad, and that I ended up never using!

After watching some YouTube videos about the GT-1B, I decided to give it a try, and Sweetwater gave me a great deal on a "demo" unit. (The site listed it in "fair" condition, but it looked absolutely brand new to me! The only flaw was a crease in the cover of the owner's manual!)

This pedal is almost TOO MUCH of a good thing. It has every imaginable standard effect built in, easy to use tools for customizing the sound and the signal chain, and a ton of space to store your presets. My only criticism isn't with the pedal board itself at all… it's the mediocre computer software for programming it. The Mac version doesn't work AT ALL on my M1 MacBook Pro. Luckily I have an old Mac mini at my desk running Windows, because I had to use that to get the software running. (It's built in Adobe Air apparently, which is no longer supported and just straight-up doesn't seem to run on Apple Silicon Macs.)

Well, if bad computer software was a reason to give musical gear a bad review, I'd never give any product a good review! These companies never put adequate resources into their software development and ongoing support, and it's a shame since so much of this hardware depends on it these days. But the GT-1B is an exception in that regard… you don't HAVE to use the computer software at all to get your full use out of it.

So yeah, this thing sounds great and is easy to use. It's also really sturdy and super-compact, so yes, it does fit easily in the side pouch of a gig bag, even the notoriously small one in my Fender tweed gig bag! If you're a bassist looking for a simple, inexpensive, and excellent all-in-one effects rig, THIS IS IT.

Seriously though, this device is a blast. I only found about 5 presets that are useful to me, but I found about 40 that, with modifications, will be great. And that's super easy to accomplish. If I were to change anything it would be a longer throw for the pedal. I'm very happy with this device. Also kudos to Sweetwater's Jeremiah for being awesome.

I use this for most of the shows I play. Great sounds and control. Love this machine.

I had a Zoom B1 which was a good processor but a little dated. I ordered the Boss GT-1B as an early Christmas present to myself. The original was shipped but got lost somewhere in Nashville and never made it to me. I called Sweetwater and they sent out a new package immediately and I got it within two days. I also ordered the power supply and the carrying bag. The Boss in one word is awesome. So easy to control the parameters within the patches to create your own sound. It is intuitive and easy to use. The sounds are great, the pre-set patches are very useable and can be tweaked to your hearts desire. I had read complaints on the tuner but honestly, it tunes as well as my Snark clip on. The only thing I miss was the rhythm machine/metronome that was on my old Zoom. The Boss does not have one. If it had one, that would be great. Anyway, if you are a bassist trying to trim down your pedal board to save space and set-up time, get this. You will love it and never regret your purchase. BTW, the bag and the power supply do their job and they do it well.

Over the years I've included more and more pedals to my signal chain. I know the individual pedals were better quality tones by themselves, But the hassles with big pedal board wasn't for me. This pedal is compact and well built. The tones, effects, and tracking work great for live performance. I also like the functionality of the Control button that allows you to easily switch off effects mid-song.

Overall great value and a good alternative for bass players that want a lot of functionality without a big pedal board or the hassles of powering a number of individual pedals.

this thing has it all. and, it fits into my gig bag.

Still getting to know it, but it is A GAS! Great range of effects, tuner, looper. What else do you need?

I needed a small fly rig that included a wah and delay effects, and this fits the bill 100%. While I would still use my larger rig of pedals for recording and any super important shows, for general gigging and practice this is a life saver. The pre-loaded tones were useless for me and sounded pretty lame, but having dragged this to practice right after receiving, I was able to create the tones I needed in about 10 minutes. If you're not used to setting input gain vs. pedal gain and output gain, it could be easy to get lost and create some very farty tones, but coming at this with the goal of recreating known set-ups, it's incredibly usable and the tones you can get are very musical. The limited number of CTL switches is mitigated by the ability to add footswitches, assign the Pedal FX switch, and the ability to organize patches linearly to satisfy an entire show's worth of tones by simply advancing through your user patches.

Amazing pedal for all types of bass sound from clean and bright to blow your head off and more. From clean warm bass for acoustic guitar and piano songs to rock your socks off, this thing does it all, with extremely high quality sound. The stereo outs make it the perfect solution in the studio.

This thing is great if you want some sound shaping and a few effects to mix into your playing but don't want/need a huge pedalboard. I mostly use it as a preamp and tuner and I'll occasionally mix in a phaser and some overdrive depending on the song (I play in a 70s/80s rock coverband). It's lightweight, simple to use, and has the option to run on batteries. Some don't like the lack of an on/off switch (the unit turns on by plugging a cable into the input jack) but that doesn't bother me.

There are 99 user presets that can be edited and saved. I wish that there were a few blank slots but it's easy enough to get a great sound out of what's there.

For around $... you can't beat the price and you also get the Boss quality.

Fantastic pedal with tons of options. Its really nice to find a product like this for bass players. Definitely worth the money

Nicely made, feels very durable and can handle some abuse. The sound is very good but plan on spending alot of time setting up effects and tones you want cause 80 percent of factory settings are cool sounds but not very usable i think. This thing eats batteries like you wont believe. Three to four hours max on batteries. Buy the roland power adapter and save cause you will go through 20 dollars in batteries your first week jamming on this. Takes a little bit to get used to the controls navigating around but not to bad. Excellent experience with Sweetwater.

I don't usually like a lot of effects with bass, maybe chorus, a touch of overdrive and some compression. I seen this Boss unit and thought for the price it would be worth a shot, all the extras would be something to tinker with..... but the sounds this thing puts out are amazing! All the wah's and distortions you'll need and more! Delays, chorus, looping. Happy as a pig in..... a luxury pig pen!!!

For man years I have stood by the thinking that it doesn't require hundreds or thousands of dollars to make good sounds, and this multi-effect pedal is proof positive. Even on its own it's sound capabilities are outstanding and when you put it in the mix, no one would ever know how little you spent.

The real worthiness is found in the preamp, amp and cabinet simulations and combinations it has, and it's worth its cost just for those. Add to that the multitude of sound modifiers and effects and you end up with a most capable piece for studio and stage (and mine finds itself filling roles in both).

Granted, it has a small footprint and small controls, but that can be an advantage. They are all functional for their size, and there are enough controls and inputs to make this a rock solid choice for the veteran as well as the novice. The additional switch and controller inputs give this some serious potential to be the heart of a larger platform.

I bought the GT-1B because I am primarily a bassist, but I also purchased the GT-1 because I need something massively capable for guitar as well as keyboard and high-range bass (bridge output).

To each their own, but personally and professionally, I don't need to spend $500 or more for a multi-effect pedal when this is available for so little. Worth saving for and worth owning, in my opnion.

Best wishes!

Andrew Woodard,
Charlotte, NC

Listened to these online, then went to try them out at guitar store. Last summer my son picked up my bass and started playing, and now he is getting fairly good at it. He asked to make the bass sound like the bass in the songs he was playing. So I purchased the GT-1B, and it has been a revelation.

All the effects you need are right there, are almost infinitely adjustable, and can be placed in any order. It comes right out of the box with 99 different presets, several of which my son found to be perfect. The PC software allows us to customize 99 of our own combinations. Now my son can play "Another one bites the dust", Daft Punk "Get Lucky", then "Day Tripper" and roll right on through.

You have the ability to find a preset close to where you want to be, and tweak it very easily. It comes right out of the box ready to play. Every day I take on of the standard presets and tweak them on the PC until perfect.

Like it so much I purchased the GT-1 for my six-string.

Amazing pedal, compact and very easy to use! I used to own the grandfather GT10B and that pedal was cool, but it could be a bit tedious to navigate around. This newly designed gt1b makes life very easy. Newly updated sounds and features make it stand out! Simpler controls and it really is a solid pedal! Make sure to allow Nick Tamez to earn your business, you won"t regret it! Thanks sweetwater for always taking care of working musicians and being a standout company from the rest!

I’ll get right to the point folks...if you’re looking at this, you’re thinking about getting one , and you shoul....like now...RIGHT now...from Sweetwater. I’ve had a POG, Ibanez Tube screamer, TC Electronic Corona Chorus, Flashback and Hall Of Fame Reverb, Aguilar Octamizer and an Eden WTDI preamp and got rid of them all without looking back because of this. What makes it so great is you can set it for an ‘always on’ tone & easily dial in whatever flavor of awesomeness you want; be it a subtle reverb on a clean tone or gnarly distortion on some synth-silly shenanigans. HIGHLY recommended you get this thing...like yesterday...caaause it’s great.

This Boss GT-1B is fantastic. I have been playing bass for about 12 years now and have all kinds of gear (chasing the perfect sound). This multi is the best that I've heard and used. The 99+ presets and wah pedal along with the ability to use Boss' ToneCentral and create my own perfect sound is invaluable.

Don't sleep on getting this. I've had it now for about 3 weeks and can't wait to get home from work to use it.
How can Boss sell if for so little ?!!!! Best piece of gear (outside of the bass itself) out there.

I've been playing bass for about 12 years and have a ton of gear and even more basses. After years of some hit and miss multi-effects, this Boss GT-1B is a 5+ star. It does exactly what you want a multi processor to do... give you good quality (Boss) tones depending on your style straight out of the box. This thing rocks!!!!!!!!!!!! I am amazed that it only costs $199! I don't know how Boss does it with their sounds. Don't take my word for it, buy it now before you waste any more money and time on other stuff.

THIS IS THE REAL DEAL for Bassists! The ToneCentral patches coming in September so even more tones!

When I reviewed all the options for multi effects with amp/cab sim, this came up. For me, this is an option for direct to FOH. I looked at all the major player in the market including the smaller names like NUX, Ampero, Sonicake Arena etc. This seemed great to me for a larger selection of bass amps because Line 6 and most of these others focus on guitar. Don't get me wrong, even this one has a handful of guitar amps in it as well.
The main reason I wouldn't give this pedal a perfect rating is the lack of high gain tones. I guess you could theoretically use the internal amps and pedals to get there, but it's not the same as using like a Darkglass pedal for example.
Here are some of my favorite details:
built in volume pedal
runs on 9v 200ma - meaning you can use regular power supplies
runs on 4 AA batteries for about 7 hours - you can play a whole gig or 2 without having to find a power outlet
CTL1 can be programmed to turn on multiple effects all at once without having to buy external footswitches

If you are looking for a simple, but effective tool to improve your sound and creative improvisational skills, this is for you!

It's very simple to use and the effects sound amazing! I love that it's customizable too and you can make your own sounds!

I'll actually agree on the poor review that Dustin Taunton stated. I found that only a small handful of the presets were actually fun. BUT, (big but), I'll say, that as a noob, the more I dig into this device, the better it becomes. I can't tell you how many times over the past year I've been tempted to buy a pedal because I THOUGHT that I didn't have one already. For example, I would spend hours looking up compressor pedals and then look at my bank account and think, "Man, maybe next month." My problem was, I never sat down and look deeper at what I actually had.

To Dustin Taunton, I highly recommend getting a USB cable, plug it into your computer, and get the software/driver. It's much easier to navigate and modify the pedal that way. When I those 95 other presets that you hate, you can make them into whatever you want them to be. When looking at each individual button on the "board", you can tweak, or outright change what the pedal is. Even the foot pedal can be modified.

For example, I've been having a hard time finding time to practice due to work and homeschooling my boy due to the pandemic. So, my technique BLOWS. I knew what I was needing was a compressor. I have a habit of missing strings or grazing them, making my note non-existent or inaudible. Just looking at the surface the first button has a limiter on it. This wasn't helping me. I took the first preset that I hated, MOVED it to the first spot, and changed that button to a compressor and renamed it "Compressor". That was all I needed at the moment. I turned all other features off. Now, when I feather a string, you can hear it. Also, I dig in SUPER HARD. So, now, when I "Hulk Smash" a string, it's normal. This encourages me to take it easy and helps my arthritic hands.

After that, I went poking around to all the other settings and saw a VAST amount of options I can tweak that you wouldn't even know are there just by looking at it. (I do want to mention that you can see these options just by poking around the physical pedal screen, but it's much faster on a computer. Once you save the settings you like, you can unplug it from the computer and you're good to go.) Some of these settings, I couldn't tell much of a difference. Maybe it's because of my flat wounds, maybe it's because my ear is untrained, or maybe it's because I got a 12 year old tornado flying around my while I'm practicing. Either way, I've almost made a ton of pointless, impulse purchases. I actually bought a phaser pedal at a local store (highly marked up), then I realized that I already had one. They wouldn't take it back and I had to sell it on Facebook for half price. Live and learn.

I have one actual complaint about this product. This item can be used as a digital interface. It works. But, not with Rocksmith. The Hz isn't high enough for the software to see it or allow it, even with software mods. I had to buy a Scarlett 2i2 to compensate this. This was a feature that I was really needing at the time. The problem was, I couldn't find the Hz on any form of site stating the Hz until I found a PDF on their site after the fact. And, that info was buried deep. In the end, that's okay. The 2i2 is much better at that anyways, and has a much smaller footprint on my desk.

I would like address some of the complaints that I hear often. I'm not a sound technician. So, I'm not fully sure what the deal with the lack of a bypass button is. But, if the goal is to get a flat sound, You can make a preset where there are zero effects. If you're trying to get to it quickly, you can duplicate this "non-effect" on every other preset and just stomp to the next preset and then you're flat again. Also, you can turn each effect off individually by hitting each red-lit button to turn it off. But, you'll have to bend down to do that.

Another complaint that I heard is that you can't gig with this because the presets are all over the place and it takes too long to swap between them. This is where the software comes in super handy. First, you can rearrange the presets in any order you wish. You can also modify them, clear them out and make them from scratch, and rename them. So, if you got a set you're going to play, move those songs to the front, in order that you're going to play them. If it changes up, your songs are still at the front. So, you can stomp to the next one or bend over and use the dial to get to them. I think this actually much easier than looking at a board with 10 effects and having to know which ones you're going to use for each song, and then remembering the knob settings you may have to change on the fly. A little prep work and you should be fine.

Another complaint that I have is that the online community hasn't uploaded any of their personal presets. I think there are 3 artists who did so. I'm not sure if they work for Boss, or if they were paid by Boss to upload them or not. But, if any of you pros have settings that you think are amazing, I'd love to see them.

My only regret is that I didn't buy this from Sweetwater *ducks*. They have been so good to me and deserved the business. That's why I'm putting my review here.

I can't attest if a pedal like this actually sounds better or worse than a single pedal. But, if I can promise you, if you're looking for something that will let you experiment before actually getting physical pedals, this is perfect.

I'm going from single pedals to the Boss GT-1B and honestly this is all I need to create the sounds I was looking for all in one pedal.

After playing a friends GT1B I decided to sell one of my more expensive stomp boxes and pick up a GT1B. I'm glad I did.

There is quite a bit of functionality in a small package. Most notably is the headphone out, cab sims and being able to connect to a PC. Adjusting and saving patches is a breeze on the interface itself or on PC.

I use this processor for guitar as well and I'm really glad they included guitar preamps and how most effects work fine with guitar. In general the effects sound good. There are a few that either work for bass or guitar better. Some are real close to their real life counterparts. Others like the terra echo miss the mark. I like the majority.

You can use the GT1B as a recording interface when hooked up to the PC. This is great for home recording.

I could go on and on because there is so much inside this processor. It is totally worth it for my use. Just know you'll have to tweak the EQ for most settings to find your sweet spot. Be sure to mess with the compressors, limiters, enhancers and EQs to really shape your tone and get the most out of the processor.

I use a saturnworks dual expression switch as an external expression controller. Look into their offerings before overpaying boss for their oversized expression controller.

Sounds great, easy to use, very easy to record. Perfect for at home jamming and recording. Highly recommended for just about anyone and totally worth the price.

This is a great unit if you are a knob tweaker and in search of that elusive bass tone. It's also great if you want to try some effects but don't have the budget to buy/try them all! I highly recommend it.

The effects quality is very solid and controllable. Sounds spectacular! (you will be well served to use the Tone Cental software that is free, since it EASILY allows editing the effects quickly without having to touch the unit itself) You do have to have it connected to the PC via USB however.
I had an EHX Key emulator but I can get better organ sounds and a huge array of other effects from the Boss unit- (think Green Eyed lady) My favorite sound adjustment with this unit is the pre-amp - because I can make my small amp sound super high end, like my old Modulus/Trace/Eden setup-it has emulations of; Concert Fender, Mark Bass, GK, etc. Also has speaker cab emulations - my amp is a 1X15" but with the 4X10" emulation, it just comes alive! Effects in general are plentiful and highly adjustable Chorus (one preset is named Elephant Chorus - awesome) is lush, reverbs and delays are studio quality and very adjustable. Limiter and compressor (many) are noise free.
For the minus half star rating, here are my reasons.
In order to get the most from this unit, you need to BUY the FS-6 extension control pedal for around $60 AND use the Tone Central software on your computer to assign them correctly. I've gigged with this 4 times in the last month and didn't have good results until now. See next...
My only real complaint is the lack of thorough documentation or applications information. To use the unit like a "stomp box" takes a lot of work, external switches and tedious work-a rounds/programming. There are no examples on how to do much of this. If you don'tlike switching from preset to preset for live performances, you know how difficult this can be, so a built in stomp box mode would be good. The looper is very good and mostly easy to use, but unless you are a solo bass player and do your own backing, it's not a reason to get the unit. The control to stop the loop requires 2 very fast pushes causing the Dub setting be enabled if you are not fast enough, which means the recorded loop continues to play - I'm not that good with it yet.
The tuner is accurate right out of the box. Switches are robust,enclosure is super solid. Does not come with a power supply. Have noticed some AC buzz when using single coil P Bass pickup nearby.

The display is very bright with a white LED backlight - but is too bright for a dark stage, mine kind of flares out my TC Helicon Voice Live Play on the floor and can't see it very well. There is no brightness adjustment. The pedal on the right is kind of useless as is IMO, unless you assign it to a specific parameter on one effect. A nice feature would be the addition of a wet/dry control for the pedal - unless it is buried in the documentation somewhere and couldn't find it.

Any way I strongly recommend you get one because it's sounds are very good and useable, but not right out of the box. Preset to preset volumes are not well balanced, so buyer beware. Spend some time with it and you will not look back after you personalize it. YOUR SOUND IS IN THERE! Enjoy.

Update to my previous review.
After the PC software was released it got better. Octave is still not as solid as my GT10 but.... This thing sounds incredible now. I loaded the Tight&Bright and it's crazy good sounding (At least to me). I tweaked it a little but for how I play it's now my main sound. I finally had a real rehearsal (not direct and in ears) with my cover band last night and I was amazed how much clarity it added to my sound. All my band mates commented on how good it sounded. My rig.....
Fender P Bass Lyte w/Bartiolini P&J
Boss GT1B (With added FS-6 for more on off options)
GK 1001RB Head
Mesa 4x10 Bass Cab

Got this skeptically but I'm very glad with this purchase. Tracks really well and got me playing some keyboard patches during the shows.

Small and light if you use it as a fly rig and also good if you add it to your pedalboard, like I did.

One thing though, these multi-fx have no Bypass button, in case you need to go back and forth from your original tone. In my current configuration, I created a bypass patch for every other effect so I can go in and out of it quickly.

This has quite a few bitchen tones and effects. There is so a Boss online page that has more presets, and I hope there will be more. This is an all around the block, many genre uncorporated little device thats easy to carry amd surprisingly agile and powerful. Good job Boss, 4 stars just cuz the distortions are lacking the "oomph" i like. Good distortiins, but i think this was focusing on the many styles of music out there and it delivers... Just wanted this certain distortion i cant find

Lots of effects to mess around with that you can tweak, the board itself it great and easy to use. The program used to edit the sounds and stuff feels a bit clunky and unintuitive, but that could also just be my inexperience with this type of stuff as this is my first processor. Either way it's a solid product and very fun to experiment with the different sounds

for the cost, it's worth it.

This multi-effect unit is solid. The effects are good quality and very effective. The unit is easy to program and customize. I haven't used the loop function much but it seems to work exactly as you would expect. I like that change the chain order and adjust each dial on each effect. The expression pedal has a pretty good sweep and sensitivity unlike a lot of other multi effect expression pedals that are usually all or nothing. I also like that you can add other foot switches to the unit allowing you more options to turn off or on one of the effects in the chain quickly allowing you to get multiple variations out of a single save slot.

Im happy with this product.

1st unit burned out, liked it so much got another one. 99 programable setting, you can't beat that with a stick.

I give it 4 stars simply because it is capable of a lot and some of the factory presets are actually useable as is. Having owned the SY-300 for around 3 years, I am familiar with the programing part. One big complaint... WHY is there no bypass foot button? The process to bypass isn't in the manual (or I just missed it) and had to look it up on the web. Haven't had time to sit and experiment with programing other than a run through the factory presets and such. Has 100 presets, but as with the SY-300, they are sequential. To go from one to 30 = 30 clicks. No midi like the SY300 has. I run it to a Roland FC-300 and program which patch to where I want it. No clicking from 1 to 10. If you are familiar with the Roland, you understand my meaning. If Boss were to fix these problems it can give you some great bass specific sounds. Maybe they wanted to save money but the lack of quick bypass and SY-300 type of midi was a really bad trade off. Put a bypass foot button and add the midi and will be great add on with the SY-300 controlled by a FC-300 type of midi controller and would be nice add on. I recommend it if you have the patience to work with it.

I really like it it's just what I was looking for Thank You.

The GT-1B is a solid little unit with some great sounds built into it straight out of the box. I just went into them and tweaked them to my prefered taste. The GT-1B is extremely easy to maneuver your way around it's parameters letting you build your own sound just the way you like it. I route mine from my Fender American Jazz bass into the GT-1B and out of the mono output to a Whirlwind IMP-2 directly into the board. The SKB case weighs more than this unit! It's a great little unit... I highly recommend buying one if you're looking to buy a great sounding, portable, light weight unit with easily maneuverable parameters.

I needed to replace an old Line6 Bass Pod. You remember before Line6 abandoned the bass players. I needed a small unit that would let me setup a few basic patches for different styles r switching between basses. The GT-1B does the job. You get amp modeling, EQ, overdrive, compression, and many other options. The amp modeling works pretty good. The pitch shift/octave effects track pretty well also. Using the online editor makes setting up the system much easier. It is small and light and can fit in my gigbag.

Keep in mind this is not a high end processor. Some of the patches/effects still color the sound almost to a synth overtone even when clean. The volume pedal takes getting used to because there is not much travel. Take the time to play with the editor and tweak the board for your instrument, playing style, and how you connect amps and PAs. I tweak the same patch for going direct or to an amp. If you take the time you can get some really good sounds and effects.

Initial thoughts was, Wow this thing sounds great.
Tuner is Easy to use and works good.
Some presets are incredible.
Some are like ?? Who would use this sound?! :)
Programming is fairly easy.
I like my GT10B better because it has more pedals and effects
that are available at once, But it also cost more than twice as much.
This does what I need and is 1/3 the size and weight.
I just have to approach my channel selection a little different.
My only complaint is that the Octave doesn't hold a note like the GT10B does.
The GT10B is rock solid as the note fades, the new GT1B warbles(Only word I can think of to describe it) as the note fades.

Distortion and time based effects function well. Switching and patch routing are adequate and flexible. It would be nice to be able to parallel effects when designing patches, but this isn't a show stopper. I find the octave and harmonist effects unstable. The precision required to get solid over-tones and pitches (intervals) is too twitchy for live performance in my opinion. When using the harmonist in a studio setting with precise picking and use of muting techniques, tracking is still a problem. So far still a decent alternative overall to the hassle and clutter of my pedalboard for live gigs. The ability to fine tune effects on the fly is limited, but designing patches specific to songs beforehand should negate the need to twiddle nobs at a gig. (My old knees don't like crouching down anymore.) I'm still evaluating the subtleties of amp and bass simulation/modeling effects.

Building playlists lists and designing patches is effective (essential) with the Boss Tone Central download. The user interface gives a good overall visual display of routing and parameter settings. I did find that the assigns were touchy, and that I needed to fine tune them on the pedal after the fact to get the controls to function as intended. This anomaly may be due to my inexperience with the software/pedal. Categorizing patches and building play lists in the software and down loading into user patches on the pedal is vital in my opinion. This allows you to order patches in a manner that minimizes scrolling during live gigs. Thus far i have not found a way to instantly recall patches by assigning them to specific controls including the additional controls accessible with an optional footswitch(es) attached. There is no dedicated effect bypass control. My workaround was to design a patch with all effects defeated. I was able to assign multiple instances of my bypass patch next to effected patches in my playlists, so the bypass is only a stomp away from any patch when switching on the fly. Go Boss Tone Central!

I bought this unit because it presented a value over buying ALL the individual pedals I would need to achieve the same results. With that said, the first issue I ran into was the tuner. It jumped around all over the place making it untrustworthy in a live setting. The second issue was that some patches sound terrible on an active bass. After spending some time getting things sorted out I feel more positive about this pedalboard. I've used it live and was pleased after working out my own customized patches which I saved in the User portion of the memory. My feeling is that once I find the right settings for my particular bass, I'll fall in love with this pedalboard. I have added the FS-6 footswitch so that I could assign different effects and use it as a stomp box where applicable. Almost forgot, the lack of an on/off switch means that you have to plug and unplug the instrument to turn it on and off.

First off for the amount of effects and amps presets included you can't really beat the price of this pedal. However a few things keep it back from greatness. First off the tuner is garbage. Secondly there is no bypass which in my opinion makes this pedal pretty much worthless in a live/gig setting. While it does have some cool effects, I don't use this pedal much and I think you could spend $ on something better that actually has a bypass.

Really liked this pedal initially. Nice size, fairly easy to use without a deep menu dive. Some really nice tones and effects, which I used in my home recording studio.
BUT then, I took to a live gig and realized there was no way to easily bypass the effects line, without a awkward toe tapping ballet maneuver. Very disappointing. So now it's just relegated to the studio for occasional recording use.

Nice compact multi effects pedal. Love the volume pedal and the effects sound mighty fine.
The only real issue is, there is no way to effectively by-pass the active effects, unless you engage the tuner, which requires using 2 feet to press 2 buttons simultaneously. That's a big miss in my option. As a result, I rarely ever use in a live setting, and use only for studio work and with my DAW.

This seems to do what it is intended to do and I am still working with it to better learn it. My pet peeve with it is the power situation. I didn't know at the time that it didn't come with a power adapter. I put a fresh set of batteries in it and less than a day later it was prompting me to replace them. Even though I had several ISO blocks and pedalboard power supplies, I was forced to buy the Boss or Roland

The confusion comes where my other power supplies are rated at 300MA or 800MA. The Boss Pedal calls for this one or the Roland which is 500MA. Unfortunately, I don't know if 800MA would cause an issue but the numerous warnings from Boss say that an improper or other Power supply could cause issues..... So if I add this to my board It has to have a separate power supply instead of connecting it to my power block

The effects all sound great and stack nicely without sounding muddy. It's easy enough to design and save patches but one major problem is there's not really a way to just turn the pedal off-you can set up a patch with a preamp and set it flat but it's way more trouble than it's worth.

It's fun to play with at home and sounds great using it to record but - not being able to turn it off and having to tap dance around the sound banks to find your blank patch makes this pedal useless on stage.

The tones, reverbs, delays you can get out of this are great. Unfortunately with my active Schecter bass the pedal peaks making a "farty" type sound. Sounds ok on my fender Pbass but I mostly play active circuit basses so back it goes

With how many different patches this unit has, there are only roughly a dozen or so actual different tones, most of them are just mild variations on one's that already exist. These units still sounds like processors and not the actual amps they claim to "sound like".

Went through each pre set. A whole bunch of crappy distortion sounds. Found about 5 usable tones. Could have been a hit. Oh well.