GT-5, anyone?

[SamXTherapy]

Anyone other than me still using one?

Bought mine new, almost 20 years ago for £500! Never once regretted it and it's been an integral part of my rig ever since. Considering the age of the thing, it's in tip top condition, having been gigged, rehearsed with and generally used for almost every day. Still on the original battery, too.

Time moves on and I'm thinking of retiring it - but not selling - so it can become a home only unit. I don't think I'll ever go down the multi FX route again but the GT-5 has certainly been a useful piece of kit.

For reference, I always use it 4 cable with my amp and never use the preamp/cab sims. At home, I use the preamp and cabs for easy and quiet jamming/rehearsal/writing. It may lack the tonal finesse of newer amp and cab modelling gear but for the time it was hard to find an equal, and for the most part, the effects are - IMO - as good as anything else out there, and in many cases, better. One exception being the Harmonist, which was really disappointing, compared to an older, much cheaper Zoom unit I had. Oh, and the Acoustic Sim, which is plain horrible.

[chromandre]

I absolutely love the GT-5! I actually gig with it, and have a backup just in case. The only issue I've ever had is the pot in the expression pedal but other than this absolutely perfect multi effects pedal.

Try using hold function with "smooth" delay and change the delay time.

[SamXTherapy]

I still gig with mine. My one and only problem is the Parameter wheel is a bit flakey and sometimes takes a bit of patience and a lot of swearing at it before it gets where it should be. Fortunately, I never use that live. I have a couple of banks set aside for live work, which I almost always use in Manual mode.

The smooth delay function is a lot of fun, for sure. You can also do some interesting stuff with the expression control on the Flanger, too.

[Franzoni]

I had a lend of a GT-5 for a while but couldn't bond with it as the rotary effect wasn't as good as my RT-20 but i liked the idea of being able to use it in the 4CM...

I finally took the plunge a few years ago and picked up a secondhand GT-8 for €100 and haven't look back since.....i don't use any of the sims or the overdrives as i use it with a two channel amp just use the basic effects Comp,chorus,tremolo,phaser,rotary, delay reverb etc.....and of course the channel switching....

The ability to go from clean to crunch or lead with a bit of delay with one tap on the foot in a live setting works for me over getting into the merits of various pedals,switching systems plus all the cables and power supplies that go with it....

I have a small board made up with a few spare pedals but to be honest i haven't used it in ages......

[chromandre]

I had a lend of a GT-5 for a while but couldn't bond with it as the rotary effect wasn't as good as my RT-20 but i liked the idea of being able to use it in the 4CM...

I finally took the plunge a few years ago and picked up a secondhand GT-8 for €100 and haven't look back since.....i don't use any of the sims or the overdrives as i use it with a two channel amp just use the basic effects Comp,chorus,tremolo,phaser,rotary, delay reverb etc.....and of course the channel switching....

The ability to go from clean to crunch or lead with a bit of delay with one tap on the foot in a live setting works for me over getting into the merits of various pedals,switching systems plus all the cables and power supplies that go with it....

I have a small board made up with a few spare pedals but to be honest i haven't used it in ages......

To be fair, the GT-5 didn't really have a rotary effect per se, the "rotary" patch was really just phaser + chorus + stereo panner. I would also like it if the the GT-5 had the GT-8's rotary sim and analog delay sim but I found the flanger and the hicut delay are workable substitutes. Anyways theyre all lovely boxes, I wonder if I'll ever justify owning the GT-1000

[SamXTherapy]

I couldn't ever justify buying the GT-1000, nice though it is. I get my amp tones from my amp, so the most I'd need is a set of effects units. The GT-5 kept its place in my rig because of the useful effects but since it's getting long in the tooth, it's time to retire the thing.

The nearest I'd get to something like that would be the big box units such as the DD-500 or RV-500 but even they are overkill for my needs. Priority is to replace some of the GT-5 effects with individual stomps and maybe at a later stage, a loop switcher to make life easier for controlling them all.

I know there are many guitarists using their amps as a pedal platform, but for me, I don't see the point. I have the perfect tone from my rig, and use effects for texture. If I was doing a lot of session work or long tours maybe I'd consider the GT-1000 as a workable alternative to dragging round a tube head and cabs, but for the gigs I do, my Marshall is the weapon of choice.