VALETON GP-200 Multi-Effects Guitar/Bass Pedal with Expression, FX Loop, MIDI, Amp Modeling, IR Cab Simulation, Stereo, USB Interface

Item came next day for me. Setup was great with the help of the quick start guide in box. There are tons of settings you can tweak to make the “perfect” tone you are looking for. Includes a power code as fyi.Best part is that there are a lot of YouTube tutorials to help you get started and build your own patches. You can work completely on the unit itself or use the software on your laptop to tweak settings.

My PodX3 Live died, RIP. Was looking at video reviews on Youtube of this vs several others. When the BlackFriday dropped to $275 I could not resist. Had seen a few demo videos and breezed over the manual the day before. I had it up in 10 minutes and the interface is so easy and intuitive I was running guitar and fretless bass rigs in literally 20 minutes later.The Sound: the sound is completely indifferentiable from the real thing. There are 70 amps and 70 speaker cabinets. There are hundreds of stomp boxes, eq, delays, mods. The sound is better than my PodX3 was. The people who reviewed this in the Youtube videos consistently chose it over the other Mods out there, and I agree completely having heard it myself in my own studio headphones. The price is 1/5 of that of the comparable unit that holds 70 amp models and 70 speaker cabinets. In fact, no other unit has 70- speaker cabinets. Even the Helix has only 45.Another feature is that the factory settings are all usable. For some bizarre reason every other emulator I've tested has all of these factory models that are completely absurd and useless; e.g., whacky effects and unusable noises. All of the factory presets can be immediately useable even on stage.It is built tough. It weighs a good 7-pounds, all metal, all heavy gauged metal, even the knobs are metal, there are no plastic parts whatsoever. they built this thing to take punishment, like being carried around to gigs as was intended. The display is Gorilla Glass, not plastic, but ballistic glass. The input output jacks are solid steel all around.Best part is on my Amazon card 0% is 23/month. How could I resist replacing my old dead unit for just 23/month.It has been a week now and there are a few things to know about this unit. You have to pay attention to the fine details of each layer of each setting in order to get the exact sound you want. For example, I have a fretless bass and several guitars, all of which require an entirely different tonal quality for a full bodied sound. On my former PodX3 [now extinct legacy product] it was a very laborious process of finding endless submenues, all of which existed but were difficult to find and keep track of. The GP200 is basically a 3-layered device, meaning, you will never have to dive deeper than 2-layers beyond the welcome screen to fine tune every amp, cabinet, pedal, mod, etc.There is a global set of settings which you need to adjust parametrically based on rather you are in headphones or a real speaker system. However, getting to that menu is one button. And you really need stereo to develop the speaker cabinet emulation properly. running mono doesn't quite cut it.Also you need to know that the system comes with the speaker emulation as OFF as a domestic global setting. you need to go into the cabinet menu and select ON. That is also true in the global settings.Sounds complicated, but again, everything is only 2-layers below the welcome screen. every fine tuning parameter has a hard button for immediate access, such as the amp, cabinets, pedals, and so on, are all hard switches rather than a layer of submenues.I find the ease of this compared to older technology like the difference between DOS and Windows, for those of you who no someone old enough to know what DOS was. If you fine tune everything, the sound is also superior to technology just about five years ago.Thus far I have not found anything I do not love about this unit. At first I thought I had a crackling problem in the audio, but that was just a global setting in the inputs and outputs high frequency cutoff range and limit. took me five minutes to find and correct.

I had a really hard time deciding between this and the Boss ME-90, but I’m happy with my choice.Here’s some things I prefer about the Valeton GP-200. It has a screen. I thought this might be a negative (menu diving) until I realized that with the boss you have to remember what your patches are by number unless you refer to the app. The screen also makes the tuner more functional, providing a better visual of how close you are to being in tune. You can’t set it to non-standard tunings, but it will detect if you are trying to tune a string to C, for example. The screen also makes it easier to use the looper, and the looper has a longer record time. The Valeton is better for amp modeling, having more presets and IR slots. The effects chain can be re-ordered via the app, which has a nice visual interface, and is easy to use. There are presets for Bass guitar (Boss sells an entirely separate unit for Bass). It has a built-in drum machine with lots of options, which is great for practicing. Finally, it has a smaller footprint than the ME-90. Oh, and it comes with a power block.Here are some reasons you might prefer the Boss. It’s a trusted brand that’s known for quality, so it might be more durable. (I actually have a 20 year old ME-30 that still works perfectly, but its unlit screen is really hard to read.) However, I was pleasantly surprised by the build quality of the Valeton. I thought it might be plastic, but it has a metal body and expression pedal. Of course, the main reason to get the ME-90 is the simplicity of using knobs. It might be a better choice if you plan on playing through a real amp and using it in stomp-box mode. I prefer the Boss-style flatter footswitches, especially for barefoot home use. I might try getting some caps for the Valeton. People also say the Boss has a faster response time, which could be important if you are a more serious musician than I am. Neither unit comes with bluetooth, but you can buy an adapter for the Boss.Also, a note about using either of these. There are so many ways to connect them, whether you want to play through an amp, speakers, PA, headphones, or a computer. I’ve actually enjoyed playing through the headphone out to be able to take advantage of the amp modeling capabilities. I’ve used it through my computer speakers to enjoy stereo effects, and I’ve played it through the aux-in of my bass amp, even with guitar (my guitar amp doesn’t have an aux port). Don’t overlook that option.