Boss GX-10

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....