Boss

review
BOSS GT-1000
110
GUITARIST SUMMER 2018
BOSS GT-1000 £969
CONTACT Roland UK PHONE [phone] WEB www.roland.co.uk
What You Need To Know
Another GT? Isn’t it time Boss
retired that range?
Well no, it might have been around
longer than most floor pedal multi-FX
but as long as Boss continues to
upgrade and make innovations
there’s no reason to ditch a
successful franchise.
So are there innovations here?
Definitely. The newest thing is AIRD
(Augmented Impulse Response
Dynamics), which Boss describes
as “groundbreaking technology that
moves amp modelling, feel, tone and
dynamic response to the next level”.
Is it a Helix killer?
Hmmm? We dare say that the
success of the Line 6 units must have
concentrated minds at Boss...
R
oland’s COSM amp and effects
modelling as seen in the GT series
could be considered a bit long in
the tooth, so a refreshment is no bad
thing. And now Boss have given us a
new acronym, AIRD, which stands for
Augmented Impulse Response Dynamics,
designed to give us more realistic amp
simulations and implemented in the newly
released flagship of the series, the GT-1000.
Seeing as how the GT-100 has been around
since 2012 we’d expect more than just
that though, and we’ve got it: the GT-1000
has a more streamlined form factor and
packs in three times the power with an
ultra-fast DSP engine, 32-bit operation and
96kHz sampling rate. There’s also onboard
Bluetooth so you can remotely edit from
a smartphone or tablet using the Boss
Tone Studio app for iOS and Android.
That editing ability is also available on Mac
or PC via the USB connection, which also
provides audio interface capability.
The GT-1000 has 250 factory patches in
50 banks of five that can’t be overwritten
but it also has the same number of user
patches so there’s plenty of storage for
your own creations. These patches are
created from a chain of blocks that can be
routed in a number of serial and parallel
configurations. The effects cover all genres
and include some of the Boss MDP effects
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2
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and algorithms found in the 500-series
pedals, as well as compact pedal favourites.
Two effects loops let you integrate external
pedals into the system.
Those AIRD amps, of which you can
use two in the signal chain, feature Boss’s
Tube Logic approach and are designed
to recreate the total interaction between
all elements of a guitar amp/speaker
combination, particularly the reactive push
and pull dynamics. Boss has created a range
of great-sounding original amps but also
has a smattering of classic amp emulations.
There’s no cab mixing and matching as all
the amps are said to be paired with the ideal
speaker set up and can take advantage of
the AIRD output, which adjusts the sound
to suit whatever amp (selected from a
menu) you may be plugged into. The idea
is that you shouldn’t have to disable amp/
speaker modelling to plug into a guitar amp.
It worked okay for us, retaining the sound
of the patch using the specified setting with
our AC30, although we wouldn’t normally
use amp sims into a guitar amp.
The main outputs and XLR sub outputs
have independent AIRD Output Select
settings to send simultaneously to different
destinations and if you are going to a PA
or full range speaker system, there’s
provision to use IRs although you can
only store four onboard.
3. Two send and return
loops on the rear panel
allow you to integrate
other pedals into the
system. Each CTL/Exp
socket can take a single
or double footswitch or
an expression pedal
1. Ten footswitches is two
more than the GT-100
and the fact that you can
assign them to so many
different things offers
massive fl exibility in how
you can use it
2. There are no scribble
strips to name footswitch
functions but you have
ten different colours
to assign
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GIT436.rev_boss.indd 110 7/10/18 9:35 PM