G System = Tone suck?

[Mrjason]

Hello fellow Mark V owners

I have an opportunity to trade my old Rectoverb Head that i havent touched since I bought my Mark V for a G system. I have been reading as much as I can on the forums and videos from youtube. My question before I have this guy come over to check out my Rectoverb is what is the opinion of others who own one about tone. I have read some people say it sucks tone like a bad pedal and others say it works well with the Mark V. I am aware that I will need to get a amp gizmo to properly use it for channel switching.
I am more interested in how if at all it changes the tone in the loop. Can the G system be set to subtle effect or is it all on or nothing?

Any opinions would be appreciated to help me make up my mind.

Thanks in advance!

 

[paulg2uk]

I use the Mark V with my G system and I have to admit it takes a little tweaking to sound good with the mark v especially after coming from the road king 2. There are so many different ways of configuring the g system. When you say subtle, what do you mean?

 

[Mrjason]

Well i man be thinking too much about it but I like a tiny bit of chorus to fatten up the sound of my PRS. Most of the G-system demo videos I found on youtube are people using imo rediculous amounts of flange/chorus effects. Too swooshy. Maybe there just trying to show the effect but I wouldnt use that much. I like to set up a more of just a dry guitar tone with just a touch of effect thats not overpowering to thicken things up. . With that said ... will the dry singnal going through the prossesor dramatically change my natural guitar tone.

It takes me a while to get used to new gear. I still getting used to the Mark V and Ive owned it for six months. Love the amp but it really makes a difference on what type of cables and pickups and pedals ect .... compaired to my old Rectoverb. Where i never noticed a difference with cables or pedals. The G system seems like a complicated peice of equipment that will take some tweaking to get used to. I guess I'm just looking for opinions on it to help me decide weither or not I want to give up a amp head for it. I bought a DD-20 delay not long ago and was kinda dissapointed on how it changed my guitar tone verses an older DD-6. Never was a prossesor guy but this G system does allot of kewl things. Just dont want to be dissapointed on a expensive peice of gear like this.

I tend to ramble on allot so forgive me if I'm not making sense.

 

[paulg2uk]

Well i man be thinking too much about it but I like a tiny bit of chorus to fatten up the sound of my PRS. Most of the G-system demo videos I found on youtube are people using imo rediculous amounts of flange/chorus effects. Too swooshy. Maybe there just trying to show the effect but I wouldnt use that much. I like to set up a more of just a dry guitar tone with just a touch of effect thats not overpowering to thicken things up. . With that said ... will the dry singnal going through the prossesor dramatically change my natural guitar tone.

It takes me a while to get used to new gear. I still getting used to the Mark V and Ive owned it for six months. Love the amp but it really makes a difference on what type of cables and pickups and pedals ect .... compaired to my old Rectoverb. Where i never noticed a difference with cables or pedals. The G system seems like a complicated peice of equipment that will take some tweaking to get used to. I guess I'm just looking for opinions on it to help me decide weither or not I want to give up a amp head for it. I bought a DD-20 delay not long ago and was kinda dissapointed on how it changed my guitar tone verses an older DD-6. Never was a prossesor guy but this G system does allot of kewl things. Just dont want to be dissapointed on a expensive peice of gear like this.

I tend to ramble on allot so forgive me if I'm not making sense.

Lol no worries. You can use the G sys to do subtle stuff there's so many different settings and levels. Once you get the hang of it then no probs. You could even turn the fx level send down on the mark v. If you didn't want to buy the g ys due to expense then I'd recommend the nova system, that too is a great little fx unit. However you get more control in the g sys the possibilities are endless.

There's a guy on youtube Scott his name is and has a g sys channel where he shows you how to get a certain sound on the g sys. He sometimes uses his in the same way you described. Check out his channel http://www.youtube.com/user/gsystemvideos

Hope that helps a little

 

[SteveO]

I have a G System, and have had no problems with tone loss with my Mark V. Getting all of the levels set takes a bit of time, but once you get it dialed in you don't really have to mess with those settings again. The effects are all really good quality, and can be as subtle or as freaky as you want them to be. Also, the relays in the G-S will handle channel switching on the V just fine, no need for an Amp Gizmo if that's all you plan on doing.

 

[elvis]

There is a step-by-step guide for setting up the G system written by Laird Williams. Just do a search. Take your time, and you should have excellent results. Most problems with the G system are due to a lack of understanding of how amps and FX boxes work. The G system forum is a fantastic resource.

 

[Mrjason]

I am going to go ahead and get this thing on Friday. The guy who wants to trade me seems pretty kewl and he offered to come over and spend a little time with me showing me how to set it up. He also emailed me that guide by Laird Williams. I'm sure i will reading that a few times once I get the hang of it. Thanks for the replies. I'll report back once i play with it a while!

@ SteveO --- I read your earlier posts about channel switching with no problem using Y cables. After I searched a bit more I found another post that read :
"I spoke with Chris from Mesa regarding this today and he strongly discouraged me from using the G-System to switch the V. The reason being that the ground voltage from the G-System is not compatible with most Mesas."
That kinda spooks me out! I'm an electronics technician and Ive seen some funny things happen from a little ground spike. I would prefur not to have to pay for one of course but I may pick up a gizmo/cable just to ease my mind.

 

[SteveO]

@ SteveO --- I read your earlier posts about channel switching with no problem using Y cables. After I searched a bit more I found another post that read :
"I spoke with Chris from Mesa regarding this today and he strongly discouraged me from using the G-System to switch the V. The reason being that the ground voltage from the G-System is not compatible with most Mesas."
That kinda spooks me out! I'm an electronics technician and Ive seen some funny things happen from a little ground spike. I would prefur not to have to pay for one of course but I may pick up a gizmo/cable just to ease my mind.

There are some Mesa amps that have compatibility issues with the G-System relays, but I researched this a bit on the TC site when I first bought my G-S and the Mark V was not one of the problem amps. I have been using the two together for about a year and a half with no issues. I am only using one relay, to control the channel switching. It seems to me that the relay in the G-S should only show itself to the Mark V as a latching switch, so I don't know how voltage could be an issue.

 

[Chester]

FWIW - I used a G Force with a Triaxis / 2:90 set up which was excellent. It is now redundant through the MKV / LSC heads I use today

TC produces excellent gear, which has it's place. Today, I get the response I am looking for from both heads in hard bypass, with nothing additional in the signal chain. Now that my ear is attuned to that sound, the G Force sucks too much tone and is redundant

In contrast, it added a lot to a Marshall VM head I owned until last year, and made an average amp very usable, but to me, it has the opposite effect on my current Mesas

We all hear sound differently, so what works for me may not hold true for anyone else. Enjoy the ride

 

[Mrjason]

I just wanted to pass this along for those researching about hooking up a G System to a Mark V. That older post I found discouraging people from using the G/S to switch channels was from 2008 and I thought I would call Boogie myself and ask. I talked to Chris at Boogie and was told that it will work fine without risk to the amp. There is no ground voltage incompatibility problems between he G System and a Mesa Mark V. It's not that I didnt trust SteveO but I do feel better hearing that from a Mesa engineer. Now I feel like a kid on X-mas eve .. cant wait to begin toying with this thang.

Cheers

 

[screamingdaisy]

Is there a list of which amps are incompatible? I'm looking at getting a G-System and have a few different amps I may use it with...

 

[Mrjason]

I found this posted on the Petrucci forums. It was taken from the TC forums apparently back in 2008.

Question

What kind of cable should I use to connect the G-Major / G-System with my Mesa Boogie Amp in order to switch its channels.

Answer

This answer is valid for all these models: Dual and Triple Rectifier, Rectoverb, Lone Star and Lone Star Special, Solo 50, Roadking, Express.

According to Mesa Boogie Tech dept, these units require an isolated ground connection for each of the rear panel 1/4" external switching inputs.Since Y-Split cables are sharing the ground, they cannot be used from the G-System or G-Major (which output connection is TRS) because they could cause damage to the amp switching network.

You can still use mono cables from the GMajor / G-System to any of this amp. This will obviously divide by 2 the switching possibilities since only 1 relay per output can be used.

An other solution is to use a switching device such as AXESS ELECTRONIC CFX4 or MIDI SOLUTION R8 in combination with the G-System. Note that the R8 is midi powered only and requires an adapter available at MIDI SOLUTIONS that can be powered by one of the DC 9V outs of the G-System : The G-System does NOT provide Midi power.

Other switching devices :

Nobel MS4, VINTECK (http://www.vinteck.com ) , RJM Amp Gizmo.

The Mark series (Mark 2,3 & 4, Quad, Studio Preamp, formula Preamp, V-Twin rack Preamp) can be used with Y-Split cables.