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Stepped up to GNX2...
I finally got my paws on a GNX2 this weekend. Now that I've spent some quality time with it, I've got to say that I'm impressed with it's abilities. It can cover a very broad tonal spectrum and do it very well. I went into this purchase with the expectation that I would get a more broad tonal pallete, but at a cost of warmth and realistic sound. I'm glad to say that this pedal exceeded my expectations by quite some margin. It's still not quite as warm as a top end tube amp would be, but it can easily equal several amps I've played and beats lots of others hands down for good tone. If you want it to sound like a tube amp, it delivers in spades with lots of warmth if that is what you dial in. The models are impressive, but I think some are a bit too muddy and indistinct, but I'll need to tweak the EQ a little and see if I can clean them up a bit.
Some things I noticed that impressed me are the differences in the way the pedal sounds with a hot bridge pickup and a low output neck pickup with a warm barely overdriven amp tone like a cranked blackface blended with another model with the warp knob. On the neck pickup, it was bluesy and creamy with only a hint of breakup. On the high output bridge pickup, it was rocking and more distorted with a classic cranked marshall JCM 800 sound. Two very distinct and very usable sounds merely from switching pickups. This is much the same way that a good tube amp works. It isn't something I would normally expect from a modeling floor unit at all. I would expect the distortion to sound similar with little change to the breakup and only a change in the EQ of the pickup. The modeling software recognized the increase in input and drove the amp model harder as a result. That is one preset I'll be keeping for sure.
The stompbox models are not bad, but I don't think they quite live up to their real counterparts. The tube screamer's tone knob covers about half the same range as the real one does. That being said, the model for the tube screamer stompbox is fairly close to the real thing. It doesn't quite color the sound as much as the real one does, but that can be a good thing at times. It's a bit more subtle than the real thing is. I don't know enough about the other stompbox models to make an educated review of them.
The warp knob that blends two different amp models into one model has to be used with the understanding that the models are being summed. Guitar amps generally tend to be midrangy when they are distorted and that leads to very mid-peaky warped sounds on the average. You really have to trim out lots of the midrange EQ on both amps when you warp one amp to the other if they are both distorted to get a balanced and non-mid peaky sound. If you don't, you can actually hear the mids increase wah wah style when you twist the warp knob from one amp to the other. The mids decrease when you reach the point where the other amp's sound predominantly takes over.
The effects and delay are all pretty good. The reverb and compressor needs a bit more work. The reverbs are pretty short and don't seem like they were given much thought or consideration. The comp can be very muddy and unusable with distorted sounds if you aren't careful. This may be true of other comps as well, so that could be a common problem with comps and distortion. I haven't played with the gate much, but it seems to be a little static prone when you reach the threshold. The unit isn't terribly noisy unless you crank the gain without a gate.
I have no use for the divebomb or pitch bending stuff yet. It is fairly well implimented. Maybe I'll play with it later. I haven't tried the talker yet. The auto-yah is annoying. The riffomatic setting is comical and useless to me because I'm not a riffer or a riffer wannabe.
Some things I noticed that impressed me are the differences in the way the pedal sounds with a hot bridge pickup and a low output neck pickup with a warm barely overdriven amp tone like a cranked blackface blended with another model with the warp knob. On the neck pickup, it was bluesy and creamy with only a hint of breakup. On the high output bridge pickup, it was rocking and more distorted with a classic cranked marshall JCM 800 sound. Two very distinct and very usable sounds merely from switching pickups. This is much the same way that a good tube amp works. It isn't something I would normally expect from a modeling floor unit at all. I would expect the distortion to sound similar with little change to the breakup and only a change in the EQ of the pickup. The modeling software recognized the increase in input and drove the amp model harder as a result. That is one preset I'll be keeping for sure.
The stompbox models are not bad, but I don't think they quite live up to their real counterparts. The tube screamer's tone knob covers about half the same range as the real one does. That being said, the model for the tube screamer stompbox is fairly close to the real thing. It doesn't quite color the sound as much as the real one does, but that can be a good thing at times. It's a bit more subtle than the real thing is. I don't know enough about the other stompbox models to make an educated review of them.
The warp knob that blends two different amp models into one model has to be used with the understanding that the models are being summed. Guitar amps generally tend to be midrangy when they are distorted and that leads to very mid-peaky warped sounds on the average. You really have to trim out lots of the midrange EQ on both amps when you warp one amp to the other if they are both distorted to get a balanced and non-mid peaky sound. If you don't, you can actually hear the mids increase wah wah style when you twist the warp knob from one amp to the other. The mids decrease when you reach the point where the other amp's sound predominantly takes over.
The effects and delay are all pretty good. The reverb and compressor needs a bit more work. The reverbs are pretty short and don't seem like they were given much thought or consideration. The comp can be very muddy and unusable with distorted sounds if you aren't careful. This may be true of other comps as well, so that could be a common problem with comps and distortion. I haven't played with the gate much, but it seems to be a little static prone when you reach the threshold. The unit isn't terribly noisy unless you crank the gain without a gate.
I have no use for the divebomb or pitch bending stuff yet. It is fairly well implimented. Maybe I'll play with it later. I haven't tried the talker yet. The auto-yah is annoying. The riffomatic setting is comical and useless to me because I'm not a riffer or a riffer wannabe.
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