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Being able to assign the expression pedal to dictate the amount of gain on drive patches to take it from mild to full-on drive is also very neat. Essentially you have the option of assigning the expression pedal to any parameter of any particular fx in the chain. Possibilities are endless... All this stuff is obviously do-able on the Core with an external expression pedal, but having one on the pedal itself definitely focuses the mind on the additional possibilities.

There's far too much overthinking going on for my original question. Put it like this: a box contains a completely unidentified bass which is to perform a completely unidentified function which will fall within its capabilities. You are not buying it[1]. If someone said to you "the bass in there is £x", how much would x have to be for you to think it was an expensive bass? [1] But you could make me an offer.

Did it come with a power supply? I have seen some listings saying it does (Thomman) and some saying it doesn’t (Andertons). thanks

Have to agree with you - the amp sims on the Boss are very good! My GT Core's main function was as an always on preamp with added fx thrown in for occasional use, with a very decent tuner. Boss do make it easy to get a great bass tone with little faff.

For me, it comes down to what I'm going to be using the bass for, how often and then what I can afford or justify spending. I love vintage Japanese Fender's so anything from the 1980's and pre 1990's. The only mod I have to do is upgrade the pickups but these are good enough for pub gigs, club gigs and all the way up to big venues including stadiums and can be had for under £1k. I'd also happily spend a little more and buy an American Vintage Fender which will again, do all of the above, be a little more unique but come in at around the £2k range. I wouldn't however buy a standard American Fender as they are no better than the vintage Japanese Fender's and for me in a lot of cases, poorer yet more expensive. If I was pro or doing a lot of paid work then my budget would probably be between £2k - £2.5k and I would settle on an Fender American Vintage. I do have a bass on my list to buy, a late 1970's fretless Fender Precision. My budget is around £2k, anything over that and I feel it's a waste.

It doesn't really put a new perspective on it. If I was in that situation, I'd buy the Hooky but I would regard it as an expensive bass (my threshold being £1000). I have several basses that cost me over £1k but none that cost me over £2k, and the ones that cost me over £1k I regard as expensive. Just because a bass comes over the "expensive" threshold doesn't mean I won't buy it, although I do have a nebulous "too f*cking expensive" threshold that's somewhere round £3k beyond which I almost certainly wouldn't pay that for a bass.

Well, this was a bit of a change. We had our last gig before christmas today, a short 2 hour one on a sunday afternoon at one of our local pubs, a pub owned by the guy who gives us our free practice space. We were going to get the other christmas song sorted but the guitarist was ill on thursday, so we didn't. I was looking forward to it - short, in the evening and local. The last two gigs hadn't been great, the one before last I had covid (didn't realise at the time, but felt really bad), then the last one my wife had a heart attack while I was away and ended up in A&E until 2 and visiting every day of the next week, still dealing with the fallout from that. So a chance for a gig that didn't have that would be great. 2 hours before we were ready to go and setup for the gig, got a message from the guitarist, who had said yesterday he was good for both christmas songs that he was too ill to come. Quick panic, not enough time to arrange anything. Asked the drummer who is in another group, but they couldn't cover - we really didn't want to let this landlord down at this short notice. The singer contacted the keyboard player who left about a year ago and he agreed to cover, so we quickly packed and headed down there, huddled over an iPad working out what we could play without the guitar. Turns out as it is only a 2 hour gig, we had more than enough songs we thought we could do ok. The pub was heaving, wasn't really expecting that. Set up, the first 2 songs went through fine so got a bit more confidence and after about 5 songs people came to the front dancing. Had a brief 10 minute break and back on. Some of the songs were a bit.. creative and we did moondance and I think he was a fifth out from where i was, but you know, jazz! Some of the songs however went really well, and the last run of 5 (ie, last song and 2 encores) songs was just solid dancing from everywhere and we did nail them. Packing up and the landlord came over, really happy with how it went, and loads of people thanking us for a great evening, so came away happy. And honestly even when things were going wrong in some songs, I enjoyed it just fine. In fact, I haven't enjoyed a gig as much for a while, it was just fun. Although maybe if i am going to play guitar on a song I should run through it at least once beforehand! Oh - I played the bongo 5, the light up acrylic bass, a indie tribal guitar, all through the dwarf and a bam200 to the PA. Shoes provided by solivair, my old pair that are broken, as my feet are still sensitive for how ripped apart they got trying to walk in my new pair!

Nope! But it's surprisingly usable for +1 / -1 and +2 / -2 semis (using the pitch shift fx) which is predominantly what I'll need to handle key changes between our soprano and alto singers who separately front the band. (Not sure why I didn't discover this on the GT Core?) I wouldn't want to go further, whereas with the dedicated pedals you can go down/up a bit further to +/- 3 or 4 semis. The poly octave down is good! There's a few options for octave up on the GX10 (which the XS-1 and 100 do very well). I found a couple of them (Harmonist and Pitch Shift) are pretty bad when used for this. But the "overtone" patch is very usable for octave up. It allows you to simultaneously have octave down and up, with independent volume levels for each, very similar to the OC5, which gives a tasteful thickening-up of the bass. But additionally on the GX10 you can then also add in a detune and, very neatly, set the expression pedal to control the volume of eg just the octave up (with min and max set which ever way around you want to use the expression pedal), which could be fun / useful live.

Just be to a bit nerdy, it sounds like we could think about how expensive something is as the ratio between: How much someone can afford : how valuable the object is. Affordability : Value So maybe 1:1 is great, 2:1 is a decent deal, 10:1 is super expensive. Both sides are relative, as we all have different incomes/lifestyles etc, and we all perceive value differently. I think the value factor is equally important, in the sense that you might think a £500 bass is expensive, but we all would probably think a £500 car is cheap. For example, my disposable income wouldn't let me spend more anywhere near £500 on a bass right now, but I don't think a £1500-2000 USA Fender is expensive. However, I do think a £1500-2000 luthier custom is expensive. For me, the value of a Fender isn't as much in the component parts or particular build quality; it's in the value of it being a known entity. Sound engineers, other musicians, even some punters - we all know what a Precision bass is about. Engineers like it as it's a familiar/iconic sound. It won't go wrong and no-one worries about it. It'll retain its value pretty well too. The luthier custom would probably be a much better instrument objectively and hopefully fit the specific need, but there's no familiarity factor, it's a risk for a sound engineer, and it probably wouldn't retain its value as well. However if I was in the position to splash out, I'd be more excited about the luthier job than a USA Fender Precision. We're weird creatures.

I've got a gorgeous 1987 Fender Japan 62RI Jazz that my dad bought me brand new when I was just starting out. It's the best sounding and playing bass I've ever had and is my no.1. I've played this bass at thousands of gigs and pretty much on everything I've done, from tours, TV, 2x John Peel Sessions, Radio 1 roadshows and so much more. Its incredibly sentimental to me as my dad supported me all the way up to getting signed but passed away a few months before I signed. The bass has been fretless for the last 14 years and still gets played at gigs all year. However, I got asked to play Glastonbury this year and it was a fretted gig and I was so torn from putting the original fretted neck back on or use my Fender Japan Precision. I felt so bad for not playing Glastonbury with the bass my dad got me and have that extra bit of history sealed into that bass. In the end I did use my fretted Precision but I felt very guilty for not using my no.1 bass. What it does mean though is I'll never sell my Precision bass as that's the bass I played Glastonbury 🤣

I was asked to play this with a few days notice on a gig. Safe to say I didn't get it down by then, but spent another week or so trying to get it nailed down:

DanDan, could you update us on the quality and some pics? I dig Luca's work and am again pondering "throwing caution to the wind..."

When I blister, I put a couple of drops of superglue (liquid, not gel) on a piece of paper, rub the blister and the areas around it in it and carry on playing. I am not joking.

Hexham Abbey last night - last gig of the year for my Eagles trib, and our first 'Unplugged and candlelit' show. As you can imagine, it's a spectacular location with 'acoustic challenges'. We're lucky to have an amazing engineer - we kept the volume down, had speakers all around the audience with delays, and apparently it sounded spot-on. Lots of new arrangements, and I'm continuing to wean myself on to IEMs, so it took me a couple of songs to fully settle into it. I used my usual Handbox head, my 66RI Jazz, and my little TKS cab, just to move a bit of air around the back of my legs. It's been a great year for this band. They're an absolutely champion bunch of lads. Looking forward to a mix of electric and acoustic shows in 2026. \

War Pigs - Black Sabbath

Battle Without Honor Or Humanity - HOTEI

Waterloo - ABBA

... it still sounded like Chris Squire.

So is your GX10 pitch shift s good as the XS-1 (and 100)?

And in answer to my own question, have managed to get some decently usable pitch shift patches on my GX10 ( and making me ponder whether to hold onto my dedicated Boss pitch shift pedals - OC5, XS-1 and XS-100?)