I originally picked up a Valeton GP-200, a budget multi-effects processor to use with my guitars, but why not give it a go with my synths too. The GP-200 is about the size of a laptop and has all the footswitches you would expect and also an expression pedal. A clear touchscreen, although its not touchscreen and a simple menu system. It can also be controlled by a PC.
Design and Features
On the bacl it has a 1/4 inch input, a 1/4 inch output, which can be stereo (yay!) a 1/8 inch aux input, a 1/8 inch headphone output, a MIDI input and output, a USB port, and a power input. It can be powered by a 9V adapter or by USB.
The GP-200 is stuffed full of 100’s of amp and cab simulations, which whilst nice for guitar, on the face of it don’t seem very useful for synths, they come across more like EQ presets than anything else. More importantly, there are 240 effects, which can be combined and customized to create your own sounds. The effects include modulation (such as chorus, flangers), delay, reverb, distortion, filter, pitch. Also it includes a looper function and a very basic drum machine with preset patterns.
Sound and Performance
The GP-200 sounds very clear and as mentioned has the stereo outs, so you can feed the monosynth in and extract a stereo delay effect. So this all sounds great, right? Well much like using the Zoom MS-70CDR (which is half the price of this), multifx with DAWless only get you so far. We dont have complex control over the reverb and delay, or fancy shimmer reverb FX. and of course although its multiFX it is only 1 chain, so can only be applied to one synth at a time, or the same effect to many using send/return on a mixer.
Conclusion
So yes the GP-200, its fun to play around with, but for the size it takes up, this is not going to be your goto FX in a DAWless environment. A lot more fun and versatility can be had with a bunch of different pedals that each do one thing well. Or if you want to try out lots of single FX, you are probably better off testing that with a latop or ipad, before committing to what kinds of pedals you want to buy.
Valeton GP-200 on Amazon find a Valeton GP-200 on eBay US
or the more portable Zoom MS-70CDR on Amazon
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Ambient Live Looping with Behringer Crave and Valeton GP-200
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