With some great sounding amps and effects, integrated audio interfacing and an external effects loop, there’s plenty to admire in this compact Boss floor unit.
Housed in a rugged metal case with a treadle at the right‑hand side, the Boss GX‑10 may resemble a typical ‘floor unit’ type digital guitar processor, but it’s both a very sophisticated piece of kit and very easy to use. Thanks to it using the same large colour touchscreen as the bigger GX‑100, it’s possible to find your way around most of the functions without ever having to dip into the manual, despite there being a wealth of choices and parameter options. In addition to the treadle, the GX‑10 features three footswitches that can be configured for stepping up and down the presets, bank changing or manual bypass of effects. Power comes from a robust external adaptor that connects to its mains cable using a figure‑8 type two‑pin mains connector, rather than the more familiar IEC connector (don’t leave for a gig without the correct cable!).
Key Features
The GX‑10 is also built around the GX‑100’s sound engine, with 24‑bit A‑D and 32‑bit D‑A conversion, 32‑bit floating‑point processing, and a 48kHz sampling rate. The engine uses what Boss call their AIRD (Augmented Impulse Response Dynamics) technology, which models the amp and speaker as a symbiotic system. When it comes to setting up a processing chain, up to 15 locations can be populated from a library of 170 effects and 32 amp types, 23 being guitar amps and nine dedicated to bass. (Some effects consume more DSP cycles than others, so there are some scenarios in which fewer than 15 effects can be deployed.) It’s also possible to create parallel chains containing both amps and effects, and there’s a range of speaker models and miking options plus the facility to import user impulse responses. Up to two footswitches or an expression pedal can be connected, and for those who want to incorporate existing stompboxes, there’s an external effects loop.
The main input is mono, with the choice of mono or stereo outputs, and there are relatively few controls — just six knobs and six buttons — but in conjunction with the touchscreen interface that’s all that’s needed. With the free GX‑10 driver the GX‑10 can act as an audio interface for your DAW software. Connection with your DAW is over USB‑C, and this also supports communication with the free Boss Tone Studio software, which allows patches to be edited on a Mac or Windows computer. The GX‑10 is also compatible with GX‑100 Livesets, which are accessed using Boss’s online Tone Exchange platform. An optional Bluetooth Audio/MIDI Dual Adaptor that fits into a rear‑panel dock allows editing and audio streaming using an iOS or Android device. Input sensitivity settings can be stored for different instruments, which is handy if some of your guitars have much higher outputs than others.
The GX‑10 is a mono‑input, mono/stereo‑output device, and also features a headphone output, an expression pedal input, an external effects loop, and USB for both the control software and audio interfacing.
Block Rocking Effects
As you’d expect, all of the usual suspects are present in the effects section, but all genres are catered for too, from the hardest of hard rock to full‑on ambient floatiness, and there are esoteric treatments available that make it possible to coax almost synth‑like sounds from your guitar. There’s plenty of choice in the distortion, modulation, delay and reverb departments, including an emulation of Roland’s famous Space Echo, but on top of that you’ll find a rotary speaker, with adjustable fast/slow ramping rate, the classic Slow Gear for slow attacks, octaves, harmonic generators, defretter, slicers, shimmer reverb and so on, which can hint at synths, strings and organs.
The top‑panel control centres around a large touchscreen that displays effects as blocks in a signal chain, and offers easy access to adjust pedal‑style parameters.
By default, the four knobs below the screen control the amp gain and its EQ parameters as shown at the bottom edge of the display, though these can be reassigned if you have other needs. Page buttons access controls that extend beyond the four knobs. Each patch or preset can accommodate up to two amps plus effects. The amps and effects are represented as hexagonal blocks on the screen, which also indicates the routing. Blocks can be bypassed when not needed and opened for editing just by touching them. If you need to populate an empty block or replace the effect that’s already in use, a menu of effect types can be displayed along the top of the screen from where you can drag an effect directly to the block of your choice. Blocks can also be reordered by dragging them. You can then select the variation of an effect allocated to a block. For example, after loading Distortion you can then choose from a range of modelled distortion, overdrive and fuzz pedals. The controls can be edited as if you’re turning the knobs of a physical pedal — with just enough parameters to get the job done, but not so many as to make life unnecessarily complicated.
The result of adjustments made either from the front panel or using the Tone Studio software are heard in real time. In many cases there’s more than one way to achieve a specific result, which is great: you can decide on a workflow that best meets your personal preferences. The expression pedal, which includes a toe switch, defaults to switching between volume or wah, but it can also be used to activate the tuner by rocking it fully backwards in volume pedal mode. The tuner, which is impressively large and accurate, may also be accessed using two of the footswitches together. Other pedal functions can be set up using the GX‑10’s assign matrix. The saving, naming and reordering of presets follows a familiar pattern and there’s the expected global setup menu, in which user preferences can be selected. Neatly, these include output options that adjust the output sound for different amplifier types, including their main inputs and, where applicable, their loop return jacks.
Presets & Tweaking
There are 33 banks of three factory presets and 66 banks of user presets, the latter being populated with copies of the factory presets that the user can then adjust or replace. Working through the factory presets reveals a wealth of responsive guitar sounds, from sparkly clean Jazz Chorus up to heavier rock and metal. There are also loads of inspirational ‘guitar but not as wet know it’ patches.
There are relatively few presets that deliver that elusive ‘amp on the edge of breakup’ tone so beloved of blues and country players, but I found it really easy to set up tones of that kind by combining a little gentle compression with something like a Tweed or Deluxe amp model (or, for the more UK‑centric, a Vox‑inspired model). I finally settled on a dual‑amp setup running a Deluxe alongside a Vox model, and managed to get very close to the sound I was after in just a minute or two, and the touch sensitivity of these Boss models delivered a very comfortable playing feel. The drive pedals also somehow manage to feel very analogue. In fact, overall, I’d say that the amp and effect emulations are up there with the best available in the modelling world.
In fact, it’s when you start straying away from the presets that you start to realise just what the GX‑10 is capable of. For example, combining some of the octave and harmonic modes with a rotary speaker emulation produces organ‑like sounds, while Slow Gear into shimmer reverb adds a string‑like pad to the guitar sound. And when you start down this road, you’ll find that working from the Boss Tone Studio software makes patch creation and organisation even faster than working from the front panel. And while I’m on the subject of software, when you record these sounds direct to your DAW, they still come across very convincingly.
An optional BlueTooth adapter allows pairing with an android or iOS device, for control and audio streaming.
The Full Monty?
The GX‑10’s models and effects sound great and cover almost every base. There are lots of user‑adjustable functions, for example to assign new functions to the control knobs and external switches, but if you like an easy life, the default options should suit most users. I think there would be very few occasions when you might run out of effect slots, and the parallel routing options make for useful dual‑amp setups or enhanced stereo arrangements. Also, I really took to the touchscreen and control knobs for efficient patch editing and, when gigging, the displayed patch numbers are huge, so you’re not left squinting!
The GX‑10 could easily replace a complete pedalboard.
All of which means that the GX‑10 could easily replace a complete pedalboard. Still, if you have a favourite analogue overdrive that you just can’t live without, there are the send and return jacks on the back that let you add it into the GX‑10’s signal chain. That being the case, I think Boss have perhaps missed a trick here: it they’d provided a 9V power output jack to power an external pedal that would have saved having additional adaptor cables trailing across the stage. Also, my favourite live amp happens to be a Roland Blues Cube, and I would have found it useful to have that as one of the amp models on offer here — though, that said, you can get very close to a Blues Cube sound by tweaking the Deluxe amp model and its speaker/mic parameters. Maybe one for a future firmware upgrade?
There it is then: the GX‑10 is a compact and rugged alternative to the GX‑100, it is very easy to use, and it offers a broad spectrum of top‑drawer sounds spanning all genres for gigging or DAW recording. And all at an affordable price.
Summary
A compact and rugged multi‑effects floor unit, with audio interfacing capability, a good range of great‑sounding amp and effects emulations, and more power than you might think.
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