So I got a new toy...
 

So, word of advice - Never buy anything made by Line 6. I paid £350 GBP for an X3 Live, and less than 2 years later I'd had to take it apart twice to firm up the support for the PCB, as it bends back over time and ceases to contact.

It also got finicky on the top controls, and the power supply cracked apart since its not vented and was heating up a lot. Total piece of junk, and it was noisy too, since its badly shielded. Line 6 wont even look at them after a year, except for the VERY FIRST RUN, where they accepted returns after a year but ONLY for broken switches.

So, after some time using the X3 in its rather ****ed up state, and seeing its my 21st birthday, I splurged on a better quality replacement.

And oh god did I find it.

BOSS GT-10.

IT. ROCKS. (And it seems to be a damned sight more sturdy than the line6. Quieter at high gain too, with less chopping off of notes by the gate.)

Enough of that, pics - http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5540/sendj.jpg

I sat down with it in the shop for a good hour, and went through every user preset - As usual some good some not so good there, but I was surprised by the ratio. On the line 6 it needed a not inconsiderable amount of tweaking to sound good. This thing has a lot of nice, usable presets straight out of the box. I'd gig with one of these through the PA from brand new, no questions asked. (The EZ tone creator is pretty poor for metal, but the unit as a whole rocks face)





SOUNDS ARE HERE: Download GT-10 tone test.mp3 from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

I think I played with that thing too at a Guitar Center. I was very impressed, I wanted to take it home but if I remember well it was far beyond what I could afford. (We're talking about a kid making his own money here).
How much was it?

£370, and I got the guy to throw in a free cable (There isn't actually that much profit in these big pedalboard things, so I didn't push for more)

They are a hefty chunk of change, but they're so worth it.

Yeah, I'll eventually save up for one. For me, I think Line 6 makes things sound fake in some weird sort of way. I bought one of their infamous PODs an I was truly dissapointed. The effects sounded so cheesy, and the tone was replaced with crappy computer like quality.

I've never really like Line 6's amps or pods but I've always wanted an FM-4 or DL-4. I've never really been a multi-effect kind of guy but now I'm really craving an M9.

Congrats on the newly acquired fun times.

i got my strat on $4.50 an hour. i started actively saving for it in January, picked it up for my b-day in October. 15 years later it's still worth every penny and every minute of waiting. slow and steady makes it far more likely you won't regret things in the long run.


that's a nice looking unit GB glad you dig it but you know how i feel about multi effect units :p: and happy birthday man :beer:

Listen to the soundclip I posted, you'll appreciate my attempt at the whole lotta love solo.

^nice, some good tones in that clip. really like how cleanly it switched from the crunchiness around 1:00 to the clean sound around 1:30. the led zep at the end is cool but i think i like the outer space sounds at the start a bit better heheh :thumb:

Strange thing I've discovered -

Forever and a day using the line 6, I struggled to get super long sustain on notes, without it either being noisy as hell or fading out.

The GT-10, for whatever reason, and I really can't explain it, helps my sustain immensely while still being quieter. Its not a sustain setting in the patches, its not a compressor, sustainer, feedbacker or any of that (The patch that brings all of it to light is a downloaded FTLOG patch that I modded the tone of. I check through and turned off the effects, theres no compressor to begin with. It just SUSTAINS!)

I can only assume that the noise gate and amp modelling in the line 6 is inferior, cutting off notes before they have chance to ring forever, but that wouldn't explain the amount of improvement I'm hearing. The other possibility is that the combination of better shielding, higher quality components, and better noise suppression after the fact, contribute to the Boss unit being much more forgiving of low level signals compressed and boosted by distortion, so patches can be run harder without tripping on the noise gate to battle the buzz.

I would have to agree with that.
Without the help of compression or transient shapers, I don't think you'll get longer sustain out of a note between digital processors unless the components and algorithms are just better in one, or contain some kind of built in compression you have no control of. Assuming you're using the same guitar with the same pickups and all, obviously.