Boss JS-10 eBand

[Dynamic Mike]

The Boss JS-10 has been around a while (2013) but has somehow stayed under my radar. However, it seemed like a good practice tool so I took a punt on it for £312 and had it a week or two now. First impressions were that it looks like the upright CD player your mum had in the kitchen in 2001. I'm convinced buglars would leave it behind and the grounds it wasn't worth nicking. It comes with 350 songs/loops pre-loaded (some in 2 versions full & just drums and bass) on an SD card. You can add to & edit the SD card, replace it or use a USB stick. It only plays WAV's & mp3's which suits me.

There are 2 independent inputs so you can play along with another guitar/bass or vocalist plus an additional line in. There are 21 amp models & a shedload of effects. All of which are useable COSM though I don't know how accurate all the models are. The Boss fx obviously sound 100% but there are plenty of others available Tubescreamer/RAT/Guv'nor etc.

You can record direct to the JS-10, via line-out or to the PC via USB (not tried this yet).

When you choose a song it automatically picks a suitable guitar sound. You can change this but it's so good I haven't bothered yet. You can edit sounds in depth. You can change the playback speed & even the key. You can also get the family involved in the 'that song's a lot like..' game.

Faults. None really, some of the menus are a bit deep & a pain to access but that's mostly due to the compact format. In fairness you can edit songs/effects/playlists on the PC via USB which would be much easier. A global key shift for when you're tuned to E Flat would be nice but I'm really nit-picking.

Was it worth it? Every penny without doubt (even though it's been christened Billy No-Band) just for the fun factor. It's the sort of thing you plug in for 10 minutes & realise 4 hours later you've not moved. If you fancy trying different genres & different key/time signatures for practicing I say go for it. If you're on the move & need to practice in hotel rooms etc it would be ideal, even sounds great through headphones.

[ManFromGlass]

This looks like fun. And yes it is ugly! But it produces "room shaking sound"!

Are the loops minus both guitar and bass, or do you have a choice of muting guitar or bass or both?

[Martin Walker]

Just to help those like me who had to go off and do an internet search for this 'ugly beast', here it is in person:



And personally I don't think its looks are as bad as you make out

Martin

[Dynamic Mike]

Are the loops minus both guitar and bass, or do you have a choice of muting guitar or bass or both?

The bass songs are all together at the end and I've not investigated them yet. They might be the same, I'll check tonight and report back. There's no option to mute items as such, there's just different versions available.

[ManFromGlass]

And personally I don't think its looks are as bad as you make out

Martin

Ok maybe like a squatting bulldog with a really huge digital mouth wide open!
( and I like bulldogs )

[Sam Spoons]

Are the loops minus both guitar and bass, or do you have a choice of muting guitar or bass or both?

The bass songs are all together at the end and I've not investigated them yet. They might be the same, I'll check tonight and report back. There's no option to mute items as such, there's just different versions available.

Muting individual instruments would require full on multitrack recordings and multitrack capability. I guess that's well beyond the remit of this. Much easier to just supply a separate stereo mix without the instrument in question.

[Dynamic Mike]

Scrolling through all the options it appears there are 30 original songs for Bass players. There's no real multitrack options available, just basic overdubbing when you record which are saved as new tracks rather than overwriting the original. There's around 130 hours on the SD card & with USB & PC options available space isn't going to be an issue.

You can always mute individual tracks in your DAW and drag & drop to the JS-10 (which is probably what I'll do) to practice. I've only got a cheap Yamaha bass but it sounds really good plugged in. It's actually a better sound than I can generally from plug-ins in Cubase but I think that's mostly down to my lack of production skills.

I still think Martin's picture flatters it but it's looks are slowly growing on me as we're starting to bond. I'm also starting to notice some neat little features. There's a small metal bar which means you need to undo 2 screws to get the supplied SD card out, presumably to stop anyone nicking it or reformatting it. The 2 USB slots face upwards but have plastic dummy plugs to keep the dust & crap (and beer) out. The feet are really grippy so it stays put even if you use heavy leads. I reckon the jack plug would probably pull out before you pulled it over.

I'm not sure about 'room shaking bass' but it's louder than I expected & the sub-woofer is quite musical, it adds more than just a thud. I've not tried the microphone option yet (there's a centre cancel option for impromtu karaoke) because there's no phantom power and despite the forum moniker I don't currently have a dynamic mic! I do have an old Shure back-electret tucked away somewhere so I'll give that a try over the weekend.

[ManFromGlass]

I’m usually a sucker for products like this because I think I will have so much fun that I will practice more. Something I sorely need. But by now deep down I should probably admit I don’t like to practice and eventually I’ll tire of the unit. I have a few similar products collecting dust.

I’ll spend long hours at the computer creating and mixing music but never find the time to spend even a half hour practicing anything on any instrument.

[Wonks]

It reminds me of a different format version of the Fender G-Dec amps. These first came out 12 years ago (so a good 3 years before the Boss unit) and are now discontinued. A friend who was just starting to learn guitar got one (with my guidance) and he loved it. Great fun for rehearsing and jamming, but not a serious performance amp.

[Sam Spoons]

I use a looper for practice (particularly Gypsy Jazz tunes), one with a few mins loop time and no save feature (like the TC Ditto or Boss RC1) is good 'cos I need to play through the rhythm part before I can practice improvising and if I get it wrong I have to do it again 'till it's right. Its very easy just to practice lead parts and neglect the essential supporting stuff.

I do have a couple of Boss loopers with storage 'cos playing the rhythm of every tune before getting started gets a bit tiresome for the listening audience but,when practicing, even when I'm using those, I do make a point of playing the rhythm through to a new loop.

[Dynamic Mike]

I’m usually a sucker for products like this because I think I will have so much fun that I will practice more. Something I sorely need. But by now deep down I should probably admit I don’t like to practice and eventually I’ll tire of the unit. I have a few similar products collecting dust.

I’ll spend long hours at the computer creating and mixing music but never find the time to spend even a half hour practicing anything on any instrument.

All sounds familiar to me! To be honest it feels more like jamming or improvising than practicing. The biggest difference for me is NOT being at the computer. I've got everything I need in one box sat on the kitchen table. It's the immediacy that's made the difference rather than the tech itself.