About the Boss GT-10 and external distortion pedals

[Drop-A]

Right, so I recently bought a Boss GT-10. I did some research before buying it and I heard some people say that the distortion models are not very good, that they're very digital sounding and thin. I thought they were just tone snobs and that I wouldn't hear the difference that much. Boy was I wrong. A pedal that comes with billions of different options, I thought I would at least find two or three sounds that I like (don't need more than that anyway), but to no avail.

So to my question. I have a Digitech Metal Master pedal with one setting that I enjoy very much, and has been my main distortion sound for the last couple of years (due to being a poor student and not being able to afford a proper sounding amp). Is it possible for me to put it in the loop of the GT-10 and make it sound good? Will I have the same amount of control as I would have over a built in distortion? I'm talking about assigning it to one of the footswitches, being able to move it around in the simulated effects chain etc. This distortion pedal would be the only thing in the loop.

TL;DR - Boss GT-10 distortion settings sucks and wonders how it would work having a dedicated distortion pedal in the effects loop.

 

[Hybrid138]

You want it in the FX loop of the GT-10 or the amp? If you meant can you have your digitech before or after the GT-10 in the loop, then yes you can. Sorry, if I'm misunderstanding.

 

[Inazone]

You want your distortion ahead of your effects in the signal chain, so you should probably run the Digitech in front of the Boss. I don't see any advantage to putting it in the effects loop.

 

[Drop-A]

I should've clarified. I'm using a headset because I don't have an amp (or rather, I don't have a cabinet for it), so I'm obviously talking about the effects loop of the GT-10. I want it there so I can control it with the pedals on my GT-10. Or else I'd have to have a very large and disfigured foot to be able to switch between my Metal Master and the other effects I want to use.

 

[Albionic]

Sounds a good plan to me u may wanna check in the manual where the loop comes in the effects chain as you really need distortion first I'm not familliar with the gt10 but you may be able to change the order

 

[Drop-A]

I've tried messing around with it, but I can't get it to sound good. The distortion is even worse than the built in ones. Does anyone have any tips? I have zero knowledge about where stuff should be in the chain. Don't think I even saw an option to move the FX loop around.

 

[Rev2010]

Um, I could swear the effects loop is movable to anywhere in the effects chain. I have a GT-10 as well, but I don't use the loop so maybe I'm off here. I'll have to check the manual.

*EDIT - manual doesn't say exactly where S/R (send/return) can be moved to or not. But I seem to recall you can move it to any position. Unfortunately I'm at work and can't test. But if you can, see if you can move S/R to the front, right after the guitar icon. If you can then you can surely place your distortion pedal in the loop with no problem.

Rev.

 

[Eric Christian]

Right, so I recently bought a Boss GT-10. I did some research before buying it and I heard some people say that the distortion models are not very good, that they're very digital sounding and thin. I thought they were just tone snobs and that I wouldn't hear the difference that much. Boy was I wrong. A pedal that comes with billions of different options, I thought I would at least find two or three sounds that I like (don't need more than that anyway), but to no avail.

So to my question. I have a Digitech Metal Master pedal with one setting that I enjoy very much, and has been my main distortion sound for the last couple of years (due to being a poor student and not being able to afford a proper sounding amp). Is it possible for me to put it in the loop of the GT-10 and make it sound good? Will I have the same amount of control as I would have over a built in distortion? I'm talking about assigning it to one of the footswitches, being able to move it around in the simulated effects chain etc. This distortion pedal would be the only thing in the loop.

TL;DR - Boss GT-10 distortion settings sucks and wonders how it would work having a dedicated distortion pedal in the effects loop.

In the original post here you make no mention of what you're actually plugging the GT-10 into to reproduce sound. Then in another post you mention that you don't even have an amp and are using headphones. I'd say this is half your problem. Headphones aren't going to tell you much about the GT-10. You should plug it into a clean solid state amp and a 4X12 cabinet and then tweark around with all the distortions and models.

 

[JC7]

Hey man, if you want it on (I mean the digitech), go to master pedal/fx button and S/R is there
you can switch on/off for the patch youre on and if you scroll there is the fx chain button
where you can mod the chain. I'm doing it too with another pedal (ML-2) and struggle with
EQ's alot at the moment. It's in front of everything (in the chain) and I don't use any preamp.
I suggest not using any either.. They really mess up a good pedal. Be sure to mess with EQ's,
and EQ positions in the chain. You can also try some Tone Modify but I think it sucks tone a
bit if not well equalized. Compressor might be cool, I added some to mine and it sounds really
organic and precise. Be sure to start from scratch cause EZ tone sucks ass. Use initialyze patch.
Also, be sure to checkout the Assign function. Really usefull for clean/dist, dist/boost patches.

 

[Pedrojoca]

Yeah ,i agree, hearing the Boss with headphones can't help you get the sound that you want. My suggestion would be to use the following chain:

Guitar>Digitech Distortion>Boss GT-10>Headphones, or even better, an amp

If you're not connecting your headphones to the Boss headphone output (if it even has one) because the amp out sounds awfull with headphones.

 

[JC7]

Headphones are not bad. I get a good
sound with standard sony headphones.
The problem is with the amp but it's cool
if you can do the 4 cable technique.

 

[Felvin]

I know your problem. I own a GT-10 myself. After a short while of seeing only the positive things (clean & rock) I grew really dissapointed because I just did not manage to get a cool metal sound out of it.

That has changed a bit. I think unless you really want something that sounds a little bit synthetic there's no way to get a good sound out of the GT-10 OD's when using the line-out/headphones but there are ways to get some 'br00tz' out of the preamps of the GT-10.

These links helped:

Video on highgain sounds
Bossgtcentral - heavy sound
XYCL.de - Boss GT-Series

It all comes down to playing around with Preamps, EQ and FX1 (Tone Modify -> Resonators). Putting the Noise Suppressor after the EQ also greatly improved the sound.