Playing with the Boss GT-1

 GUITAR PLAYERS ARE creatures of habit, at the same time as being tinkerers. Who doesn't like fooling around with the latest gadgets and pedals? It's easy to get lost in that kind of stuff, depending on what you do and how much you play.

I keep it pretty simple when playing out. For the bands, it's a Boss Katana or Fender Blues Junior amp, and the pedals (mostly Boss) are tuner, delay, overdrive and chorus. I do plug my acoustic into the chorus and sometimes a compression pedal for HartLess shows. 

The other day I went down the YouTube rabbit hole and found this video about the Boss GT-1000. The amazing Nita Strauss, who plays with Alice Cooper among others, doesn't have any amps or a massive pedal rig. She simply plugs her guitar into the GT-1000 and it goes directly into the PA. I was struck while watching how simple she keeps it for her live gigs, though the GT-1000 has all kinds of great Boss tones and things to play with. You have to have good inner ear monitors for this kind of system, but it eliminates the lengthy setup and potential blowups of amps and pedals. She got amazing tone out of it and I'm tempted to order one from Boss as we are dealers, though it's pricey (around $1,000 retail) and it's not yet in stock.

Here's a much more practical idea if you are tempted to try an awesome modeling pedal - the Boss GT-1. It's $215, it's got a bunch of preset tones and it's super easy to use. Steve Herrington and I have been messing around at Second String Music with one and it's so cool - it has a looper, expression pedal, tuner and it can be powered by batteries. It even has a headphone jack (parents of younger players love this). You can put it on the floor and plug it right into the PA and it rocks.

We only have a few in stock and I doubt we'll have any left by the end of Christmas. If we do, I'll probably snatch one up, but I'll wait until January so we can have as many as possible for sale.

I invite you come in and try it out to see and hear for yourself. Keep rocking and working on your tone, and play, play, play!