Boss GX-10 review – this guitar effects processor swipes aside barriers to creativity

$399/£379, boss.info

Nowadays, you’re only ever a few turns of a dial away from sounding quite a lot like Jimi Hendrix, Meshuggah, Pearl Jam or Ed Sheeran. This mingled blessing comes courtesy of multi-effects units like the Boss GX-10, which I’ve been putting through its paces. With 32 digital amp models and 170 on-board effects, this guitar effects processor is a pint-sized portal to sounding all kinds of ways.

• READ MORE: HeadRush Flex Prime review – a small guitar processor with some big ideas

The GX-10 has the same engine as the popular GX-100, but it’s considerably smaller, costs less and has just three footswitches instead of eight. On paper, it looks like you’re getting the same sounds in a cheaper and less cumbersome format, with the same intuitive combination of touchscreen and physical controls – although perhaps at the cost of some giggability.

To find out whether the sound and user experience of the GX-10 match up to its considerable promise, I took one to my practice space for some tonally varied jams and writing sessions, using a selection of electric and bass guitars. Read on to learn what I thought of Boss’s latest and neatest guitar effects processor.

Boss GX-10 – what is it?

Don’t think of this as a multi-effects pedal; think of it as a tiny treasure trove of fully formed (yet fully adjustable) guitar sounds that will sit neatly on your pedalboard or desk.

Like many of the best guitar effects processors, the Boss GX-10 is packed with functionality. It gives you access to 170 Boss effects and 32 of the brand’s AIRD amp models, which you can either configure into your own ‘chain’ or enjoy effortlessly as a selection of ready-mixed presets.

Bass guitars and acoustic guitars are catered for by the GX-10’s extensive repertoire, although it does skew towards electric guitar tones – at least in terms of the volume of suitable amp models and effects.

Your first instinct might be to run the GX-10 through an amp – and that’d certainly be a good idea if you’re using it for gigs – but Boss’s box of tricks also works really well as a headphone amp. Simply plug your cans into the ¾-inch ‘Phones’ port on the back of the unit, and you can glide into your own little world of audio creativity for hours on end. You can also plug it directly into your computer for recording.

Boss GX-10 – hands on

The most accessible way to use the GX-10 – and likely the first way you will use it – is via its presets. These are the ready-made combinations of effects, amps and other parameters that Boss has dreamt up to give you a genre-hopping cornucopia of sounds, which you can navigate through at the merest twiddle of a knob (or swipe of a touchscreen).

To tweak a preset, you tap through on the GX-10’s screen to access the current effects chain, which is visualised as a series of hexagons. Here, you can finetune the effects and the amp that make up the preset – or replace them with other options. There’s impressive depth to the sounds available. For example, within the wah category, you’ll find crybaby, fat, light and seven-string wahs – plus my favourite, reso wah.

It’s easy to control effect levels and other parameters using the GX-10’s control knobs and touchscreen, and you simply drag and drop to add a new effect or amp to a chain. You’ll soon figure out when it’s best to turn a physical dial, and when it’s more efficient to swipe or press the touchscreen instead.

Of course, if you’ve spent ages perfecting a preset, you’ll want to preserve that creation. The GX-10 gives you ample options to save and organise your sounds, with ‘write’, ‘exchange’ (reorder), ‘initialise’ (restore a memory slot to its original settings) and ‘insert’ functions to choose between. It’s a lot to get your head around, but the capability to build and manage your preset library is worth the effort.

While the left and middle footswitches are mostly used to cycle through presets, the C1 footswitch on the right can be used as a tap/tempo with relevant effects such as delays and echos. You know the drill.

One minor downside to the GX-10 is that you can’t easily access its individual effects. If you’re going to gig with the pedal and just want to use isolated effects, then you’ll need to save suitably stripped-back presets.

A final, less exciting note on usability: the GX-10’s tuner is excellent. The graphic on the digital display gives you a highly responsive read-out on the frequencies from your strings, which makes it easy to tune them up or down without overshooting. You can select the tuning function either by pressing the left and middle footswitches at the same time, or fully pressing down the expression pedal (when it’s acting as a volume control). Of course, you can also use the pedal to control certain effects, such as wah, when selected.

Boss GX-10 – sounds

Digital amp models are divisive, but the selection you get with the GX-10 is more crowd-pleasing than most. The unit is kitted out with AIRD, a BOSS digital preamp designed to deliver touch-responsive sound and ‘authentic tube tone’. Some of the on-board amp models do sound fairly tube-like, although I won’t be throwing my Twin in the bin just yet.

What I can say is that the feel of my playing came through well while I tested the GX-10, and some of its sounds are very characterful. As a guitarist who generally prefers analogue gear, I was seriously impressed.

There are dozens of presets to explore – most of them worthwhile, some fantastic, and only a minority of them naff. I particularly like ‘Rotary + Echo’, which drenches your guitar in space echo, and the groovily gritty ‘Poly Octave + Fuzz’. There are plenty of drier options too, so you can use the pedal to emulate various clean or driven amp sounds, perhaps with just a little reverb thrown in.

It’s endless fun just trying all the different sounds the GX-10 has to offer. And once you do settle on the ones you really like, that’s when you can take things up a notch by tweaking some parameters and saving your own personalised creations.

Of course, some of the GX-10’s effects will sound a little tacky to guitarists who are accustomed to premium analogue pedals. For instance, the shimmer reverb is a little ersatz, to put it kindly. But you’re still getting an awful lot of good sounds for your money here.

Should you buy the BOSS GX-10?

The GX-10 is a device that’s full of creative possibilities and inspiration, and it’ll make a vast range of sounds accessible to you right out of the box. Even if you don’t end up using some of the presets or effects, it’s a jumping off point for discovering new sounds and sparking ideas. All this, and you don’t even need to plug it into an amp.

I see this pedal as an especially useful choice for songwriters who want to play around with their sound, or for cover artists who need to switch styles throughout a set in chameleon-like fashion. It’s also ideal for beginners or downsizers who want to get a lot of amp and effect sounds from one small unit, rather than roomfuls of expensive boxes.

Although it’s relatively cheap as guitar effects processors go, the GX-10 is still an investment. Make sure you really need a guitar effects processor – rather than a simpler multi-FX pedal – before you shell out.

Boss GX-10 alternatives

Of course, the BOSS GX-10 isn’t the only guitar effects processor capable of devouring your free time and sparking your creativity. The larger Boss GX-100 ($499/£499) is highly similar, but better suited for jamming and gigging thanks to its greater number of foot switches. (It also has a more comprehensive set of rear panel connections.) Meanwhile, for an arguably more impressive library of amp models and some alternative functionalities, you might consider the HeadRush Flex Prime ($499/£459) – a more boutique-y option in sound, style and price.