Mooer Ge300

[Fred the Shred]

A cab is, fundamentally, a post-amp EQ. Mic'ing further adds tailoring to said EQ, and the cab / mic'ing part is as important if not more to the sound as a whole as the amp itself, so it is only natural the impulse that results from said process will have a part to play. A simple test of how dramatic things get is to just play with different mics with one cab on whatever modeler you wish and then to simply swap cabs around. When we go for high gain tones, it's super noticeable how much of the overall tone shaping is happening at the cab block since many of the subtleties of certain preamps being mitigated by the compression caused by heavier distortion.

In other news, FX spillover is now in beta stage and I'll be testing that today. I'll let you know how that one goes.

 

[LiveOVErdrive]

Mooer must have just shipped out all their youtube demo/shill models cause all the guitar youtubers suddenly have them.

I guess it's a fine advertising model but I also kind of hate that that's the standard these days.

 

[MASS DEFECT]

Watched and heard Ola's demo. It doesn't sound as big and present like the Helix models for that price. Just get an HX stomp or LT. Bonus is when it breaks, repair, customer support, and warranties are stateside.

 

[Fred the Shred]

Playing the devil's advocate, I did use mine with an opening band toting a Helix last saturday and, to be honest, my tone was decimating his. Knowing both units well, it's really more of a "what sound were you dialing in and how successful it was" kind of scenario than any objective flaw or virtue in either unit. With this kind of stuff, once we move past the "yeah, this can totally get the job done" part, we are in murky waters where personal taste and whatever the man reviewing a unit wanted to get play too much of a role - without first hand experience, I'd be well impressed enough to give it a shot, but I always do that anyway.

 

[LiveOVErdrive]

Careful. If we admit that dialing an amp is more important than the amp itself, we shatter the whole foundation upon which our collective gear addiction rests.

 

[spudmunkey]

Mooer must have just shipped out all their youtube demo/shill models cause all the guitar youtubers suddenly have them.

It sounds like at least some of them have been in reviewers hands for at least a few weeks.

 

[MetalHex]

Careful. If we admit that dialing an amp is more important than the amp itself, we shatter the whole foundation upon which our collective gear addiction rests.

Ok, but how was the amp dialed in when they modeled it? And is changing the eq settings on the modeler the same as changing the eq settings on the amp that was modeled?

 

[Fred the Shred]

I can only speak for amps I know well, and the answer is that I notice similar behaviour in most amps on one hand, but with larger tolerance, so to speak. To give you an example, a reference amp for me is the Mesa Mk III, which I used for many years. You can easily nail the tones from the amp, but if you ever worked with it, you'll also notice that the bass knob in particular isn't as extreme as it was in the original, where even gently blowing on the thing could take your tone from "just right" to "outright flub" even with the graphic EQ set to keep things in check. It's also worth mentioning that you can really change things around a LOT using the power section settings, and each preamp has both an original / alternative mode should you want a different take on the thing.

To be honest, my take on these things is that no matter how accurate a given section is, that becomes super irrelevant in light of all the other factors involved, such as cabs, mics, and other sources of EQ such as dedicated EQ's and OD pedals are there to allow you to shape things to your taste. For example, many of the OG Axe FX's models had a number of changes when compared to the original sources, yet that didn't ever stop the unit from sounding great no matter what, and even the MkII and MkIV's differences had zero impact on me getting Mark tones I felt super happy with at the time. Then again, every new version a company puts out is always the plexiest plexi to outplexi every plexi out there, so there's that...

This sort of thing is about two primary aspects for me: getting really good tones and being able to dial them in without spending ages on every patch deep editing everything and the kitchen sink (other than commodity, being a session guy and playing live as often as I do makes it mandatory to have the ability to QUICKLY get things right for the job) and feel. The latter is super important to me, and it's responsible for many a unit getting a "no" from my end, as in spite of all the tech and space age guitars and what other stuff I use, I am an old school dude and my gain control isn't an expression pedal, but the volume pot on the guitar, amidst other things I am used to, like certain amps forcing you to bang the strings to get the desired tone while others have this mega quick, "jump at you" attack. While a number of units covers the first point in spades these days (honestly, Line 6, Fractal and Boss make a damn killer range, to name but 3 brands), my quirks with the second one have excluded quite a few lauded units.

 

[Lozek]

Just pulled the trigger on one, waiting for it to arrive, seems like a whole lot of great features for the price. Planning to use it to replace my Kemper remote and act as a controller that will add redundancy to my fly rig. I'm using the Kemper to shift the guitar into three other tunings and someone who already has one tells me that the pitch shift in the mooer probably isn't up to the job, so I'll probably run an effected DI from the Kemper into the Mooer.

 

[Jazka]

I'm looking to downsize my rig, and the GE-300 seems like a really good option in my price range. The only thing I'm concerned about is some reports of an audible gap when switching patches or switching effects on/off. Does anyone have any experiences with this?

 

[GoldDragon]

I'm looking to downsize my rig, and the GE-300 seems like a really good option in my price range. The only thing I'm concerned about is some reports of an audible gap when switching patches or switching effects on/off. Does anyone have any experiences with this?

It looks cool, but IMO doesnt sound too great. Nor does it have a robust recording interface or high spec converters. Its really expensive at $800. Would go with something else.

 

[Fred the Shred]

I use it myself, and it does sound pretty great IMO (as do quite a few units in the market, mind you), and it has behaved extremely well for over a year now on live gigs. As always, I suggest people give several units a spin trying to get a tone they identify with prior to settling on anything. As far as I'm concerned, the "feel" of the unit is as important as the sound quality, and the GE300 is right up my alley in that regard.

 

[Metropolis]

It looks cool, but IMO doesnt sound too great. Nor does it have a robust recording interface or high spec converters. Its really expensive at $800. Would go with something else.

That is really bad representation for the GE-300. With ir's and little bit of dialing in it would sound totally different. Wonder how some people get so bad tones out of Mooer devices. Because I got myself GE-250 a week ago, and got it sound pretty good or what I'm usually after. What I've learned is not to trust too much youtube demos and instead of that trying things out yourself.

For example this is right up what I'm after.