I own quite a few bits and pieces when it comes to effects and I find that without any doubt that given the desert island scenario of taking just one unit, it would be my Boss GT6, this giving me the closest I can imagine to the perfect unit (not withstanding the new GT8). However, Boss lowering the price of the GT8 to considerably less than the GT6 was new, will make the secondhand market cringe a bit as you are left in the dilemma of if you want to upgrade, having to sell your 6 very very cheap as people will no way buy your’s when they can pick up a new 8 for just a little more.

With the tremendous upsurge in guitaring interest, the effects market has exploded to match – and originally I bought a Korg Pandora PX4 which for what it was, is very good. This of course is very limited and I then got a Line 6 Kidney Bean (Pod), which highlighted what in my opinion is the biggest problem with effects processors. Many claim to have say 200 effects/patches/call them what you will, BUT at least half are virtually the same. The beauty of the PX4 is that each patch is different, the Pod is let down that it is difficult to distinguish half the presets from each other.

I also have a Boss 864 8 track recorder and the built-in effects are exceptional – very good range of variations. Add to this, my Line 6 Uber Metal pedal and I can just about get every basic guitar tweaked sound I can imagine.

My dream unit would be a model called ‘Flagship’ – this would be an armour plated unit (weight is very UNimportant to me) – I place build quality very high on my demand list. It would be encassed in heavy duty rubber on both ends.
This would produce acoustically everything all Line 6 Variax models do, have the 99 patches from my Boss 864 (plus the Melissa patch from my Pandora), Wah pedal, echo, 5 minute phrase trainer (incremented in 10 second bites), plus every effect from the Roland GR20 guitar synth. Forget any amp modelling, that is simply a lot of old pants.
It would come with an INCLUDED power supply unit and a 5 year unconditional warranty and a carrying bag, retailing at £500/$940.

Of course, I expect to be the proud owner of a ‘Toadworks Flagship’ with 24 months.

Make it so.

Without any doubt it is false economy to buy a cheap instrument. There will be those that disagree with this as you can buy really quite good ‘cheap’ guitars – BUT I feel that the longevity of a novice guitarist’s career is more often than not cut short when the guitar is difficult to play. This is not to say in terms of where to put your fingers, but some guitars are more difficult to play than others and cheap guitars tend to fall into the category of being less well made, so less easy to play.
My own choice would be to purchase a Yamaha from the APX range – the type with a cutaway making upper fret access possible. These are exceptionally well made for the money, I own two and compared to Takemine and the like, they hold up very well.
Make sure you buy a music stand too as you will find this very benefical when learning from any printed material (you’ll see what I mean when you try propping a book up against a vase or old bottle of tomato ketchup).

[quote=”truckstopjesus”]Anybody have one?I’ve had mine for about two years , and recently it froze up.O ver the last two years I’ve owned it, it would sometimes freeze in the middle of a recording and produce a high pitched beep.I think it needs to be sent to Roland for servicing since I can’t even get past the hard drive error indicator.Anyone else have this problem?Other than this, the machine is awsome and I highly recomend it.[/quote

I have had the smaller version, the Boss 864 for about 18 months. This worked flawlessly for the]first 13 months, then like your’s it froze during use. I returned it for repair/a diagnosis and after 7 weeks it was returned but within a month the fault remanifested itself. Again another lengthy period and it was returned and touch wood, no problems since.
I would add, that the claims that it is very easy to use are simply not true. Yes, you can slap a guitar in and record with little fuss, BUT the moment you attempt to step outside the box and attempt anything else and you get into the horrific cycle of menus and coupled with the dire instruction book, you will waste hours attempting to do something that really should be easy- be warned, it is NOT a simple piece of kit and far far far too complicated for its own good.