Re: the GT-5 LOOPS!

[buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)]

>I'm not familiar with the GT-5.  Is it an effects processor or what?  The
>synth and ring mod modes sound interesting.  How much do they run?

For lots of info, check out American Musical Supply's page on it:

  http://www.webcom.com/promusic/aams/products/bogt5.html
  (root http://www.americanmusical.com/)

There's also Roland's shorter page:

  http://www.rolandus.com/products/MI/MIboss_GME.html#GT-5

AMS's page implies that the other contemporary Boss FX units
should support the same mode.  The GT-5 is $800 from AMS;
the GX-700 is a rackmount that sounds similar, $550 from AMS;
the ME-8 is another pedalFX, sounds similar but without COSM,
$400 from AMS who say it has "up to 2000 ms" delay; they say
the same for the GX-700.  They don't report a time for the
GT-5's delay, but it seems odd that it would be shorter than
the other two.


While we're mentioning FX processors, I'm just looking into getting
some FX that I can use with looping.  Im thinking there are a lot of
places I'd like to be able to put FX:

  before the looper (e.g. traditional guitar FX)
  after the looper (postprocessing)
  in the feedback loop

I figure the last one can be done externally, and the reduction
in sound quality is liveable, although it might be nice
to find a looper+FX pair that could communicate digitally,
but probably not worth worrying about--loops are going to
deteriorate this way no matter what.

For postprocessing the loop, it would be really nice to have
a single box with several knobs that can be turned simultaneously;
are there any midpriced FX boxes with that ability?  I'm thinking
the best thing for it may just be a bunch of stomp boxes, so
all of the knobs are simultaneously accessible.

The other big question is, if I don't want to buy several FX units,
I'll want some way to route different things to the FX unit.
A mixer's fx-loop isn't really the right thing, since it's
a series thing:

   instrument -> FX1 -> looper -> FX2 -> output

Of course, if I have two source instruments (e.g. guitar and vocals),
then I really want the option to send the vocals or the guitar to the
looper, while the other bypasses it.

All of this seems to call for some kind of routing technology, like
a very souped up a/b box, but it doesn't really need mixing (except
for externally feeding back the looper).  Some sort of a
digitally-controlled mini-patchbay, or something.  (Ideally MIDIfied.)

I don't know of anything like that--I imagine there must be something
like it but it's probably very expensive.  Rather than spend many
hundred dollars on such a thing, I'm probably just better off buying
more mid-priced FX boxes.

So my current guess is to just get a stereo FX box which has 
two independent FX processors, get some kind of cheap mixer to
allow for external looping, and one or two a/b boxes...  but
it seems like kindof a pain.

So any of you want to comment on how you deal with this stuff,
specifically the "want to tweak lots of knobs" and the
"how to route it all" issues?

Sean Barrett