BOSS GX-10 Effects Processor

One of my first touchpoints with the unit was via its outstanding, large, colorful touchscreen, which provides drag-and-drop capabilities for moving effect blocks in and out of a chain, engaging or disengaging an effect, and a lot more. I found the interface super-intuitive and very mobile device/app-like. This is actually a deeper and more interesting point than it may seem; I generally always favor PC editors or mobile apps for configuring complex digital effects like this, but in a first for me, the look, feel, and functionality of the onboard screen and input device so closely approximated that of the desktop and mobile editors, I felt as comfortable configuring the device directly as I generally do through a more UX-focused and familiar interface. That may sound trivial at first, but is actually a quietly monumental feat; the GX-10 is the first device of its kind I’ve tried that features a human input methodology and complete enough info display to not necessarily need or want a more robust means of navigation and programming.

That said, when using the optional Bluetooth Audio MIDI Dual Adaptor (BT-DUAL) that BOSS was gracious enough to include, connection to the device from my Android phone using the bespoke Tone Studio app was easy and fast, and I loved seeing that changes you make on the unit itself are immediately reflected in the app, and vice versa. You can use both interfaces at the same time without causing any issues, which I love; certain operations are better suited to one set of controls or the other.

Users can specify bass guitar as their input device, both globally and on a Memory by Memory level, and can further customize the pedal’s ¼” and headphones outputs in numerous ways: flat, bass amp with tweeter, and bass amp without tweeter being the options of chief interest, here. The GX-10 includes a very cool polyphonic tuner, even for bass usage, with no special pickup required! I found its accuracy still second best to its more traditional monophonic tuning (at 0.1 cent sensitivity), and its bass tuning modes accommodate only up to 5-string bass, so far, but that could change with additional updates. Regarding the determinable instrument type input settings, I can’t speculate as to why, but I found in every instance I investigated that setting the input to “guitar” rather than “bass guitar” yielded notably better results in quality and absence of digital artifacts when using any of the pitch processing effect blocks – especially for an octave up sound.

When editing a Memory’s effect chain with the EFFECTS PALETTE open, I appreciated how all of the bass effects are conveniently grouped together and located all the way to the right of the side-scrolling menu, making browsing and selection simpler. And I was delighted to find that many of the bass-version effect algorithms do sound more optimized for bass than their typical counterparts towards the left end of the PALETTE.

So, How Does It Sound?

I really enjoyed the Bass X-Comp, Ring Modulator (a staple in my own Combinator music), Overtone, many of the various distortions and overdrives – both bass versioned and not – Phaser (more specifically the Phaser Prime iteration and Step Phaser functionality), and Shimmer Reverb. I have the feeling there are far more gems in here that I’ll be happily stumbling into over the weeks to come! BOSS’ Overtone effect, taken from their MO-2 Multi Overtone stompbox, was a standout in our ME-90B Bass Multiple Effects [insert link] review and is still my favorite effect on the GX-10 for a clean, no-latency, polyphonic octave-up. Even though there are no built-in synth tones per se – as BOSS seems to be strategically maintaining their synthesis offerings solely within the SY series – I was able to build many synth-territory tones by creative usage and ordering of effect blocks. I was tickled to have built a very convincing rock organ tone using the Overtone, Bass X-Comp, Bass Amp, Harmonist, Shimmer Reverb, and Rotary effect blocks, even utilizing the parallel path-producing Divider and Mix blocks to make for a dry bypass tone when desired (see video).

The best value proposition for digital effects is the extreme degree to which configurability and instant reconfigurability is possible. The GX-10 is so flexible in its control assignment functions that it can, at times, be difficult to figure out exactly how or where to assign a physical controller (i.e. one of the footswitches, expression pedal, or knobs) to a specific parameter of an effect. But after learning the system, this extreme flexibility more than pays off. Case in point: I was able to manually map the onboard expression pedal to accomplish three things simultaneously that might have taken three separate actions on another processor; using the rocker to turn on a Ring Modulator block when moving it past a point I dictated, while also turning on the X-Bass Overdrive, and controlling the frequency of that Ring Modulator for the rest of the pedal’s travel. When I rock the pedal all the way back to its heel position, both effects seamlessly turn off. On such a small processor with so few physical buttons, this feature creates a ton of value! The same effect or parameter can be controlled by multiple pedal assignments as well, so I was also able to engage the same X-Bass Overdrive with another button separately. According to BOSS, one switch press can recall up to 20 assignable parameters.

The Bottom Line

Aside from superficial and seemingly minor quibbles, such as preferring the inclusion of a gain reduction meter with at least one of the compressor blocks and implementing direct MIDI control of the GX-10 through a physical jack (you can use however expand its physical control set with several BOSS hardwired and Bluetooth accessories), there’s really nothing to criticize, here. BOSS has done an exceptional job in producing an excellent-sounding, portable, exceedingly flexible, and most importantly highly user-friendly multi-effects processor that not only serves guitarists, but bassists, very well. The GX-10 is pro gear, and a ridiculously easy recommendation for anyone looking for a wide assortment of studio quality effect types, amp models, and all kinds of bonus functionality, within a $400 budget.