This is an analog, single-channel amp simulator in a pedal. Apart from the basic (self-explicit) Level, High, Low and Drive controls, you have three 3-position switches to help you shape your tone:
- Amp: determines which kind of amp will be emulated. Possibilities include Tweed (Fender), British (Marshall-ish sounds) and California (for Mesa-esque tones).
- Mod: choose between Clean, Hi-Gain and Hot Rod.
- Mic: Since this pedal includes a cab simulation, you can choose how your virtual mic would be placed, choose between Classic, Center (close miking at the center of the loudspeaker) or Off-axis (close miking once again but this time with the mic at the edge of the speakercone).

Beware: contrarily to the GT2's celebrated predecessor, the Sansamp Classic (or the original SansAmp for, the lucky -few- ones who have one) the cab sim on this model can NOT de deactivated: the GT2 was NOT designed as a "normal" distortion box, but aimed at being plugged directly in a mixing board/recorder/soundcard (NOT an amp), as a sort of DI box --which by the way makes it all the more a shame that no XLR output is provided in addition to the 1/4 jack, doesn't it?
With the poweramp stage and the cab being emulated, an effect loop (even one with an insert like on Marshall's original Guv'nor) also would have been welcome...

The manual is clear, yet it will take you a little while to get through all the possible configurations, but everything is rather simple to understand... And if you just can't, well, consider yourself lucky not to have spent more in a real amp.

I can hardly compare these simulations with the original amps but they all sound good to me. I use it with a Mexican Fender Fat Strat and occasionally with a cheap mic (but the GT2 can be used with a bass too).

I don't like the British (Marshall) settings too much as it's a bit too much in the high-mids, but the Celifornia (Mesa) mode is perfect in my opinion as far as distortion is concerned. Both provide powerful sounds although none tend to range on the modern side (it's OK to play ACDC, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana or early Metallica, but don't expect modern heavy or nü metal sounds). Oh, and by the way, turn your guitar's volume knob WAY down if you expect any clean sound from either of these two modes -- even with single coils...
The Tweed (Fender) emulation is in my opinion one of the strongest points in this unit. Not only does it give a great clean sound, but it also reacts surprisingly well to virtually any distortion pedal placed ahead of it (I tried with a Big Muff, a Boss DF-2, a cheap Belcat OD, a Metal Muff and a Zoom Tri-Metal), which can make up for the lack of a second channel.
The cab sims sound average to good, sometimes a bit muddy, but at least from one setting to another you definitely can hear a difference.

The GT2 does respect the dynamics in your sound and contrarily to many other amp simulators its organic sound WILL give you the sensations that you'd feel playing on a REAL amp -- even if you play it with headphones!!! In high-gain settings there tends to be a certain hiss but a good noise reducer (ISP's Decimator for instance) will do the trick.

No problem whatsoever, the instructions are clear enough.

Whatever your setup, if you don't have a good, ASIO-compatible soundcard with stable drivers you will NEED this if you want to work properly on anything computer-music related. No stability problem , the result is really satisfying provided you take the time to set the ASIO buffer & latency compensation values correctly.

These are really good strings, I've used them on my Fender Fat Strat for a while now (3 or 4 years approximately) and from the start I've been impressed by how they sound better and live longer than the Dean Markley and d'Addario that I used before. Even new they don't have that excessive brightness in sound that some other brands provide, and the sound doesn't seem to deteriorate significantly with time (provided a little care, of course -- I use GHS' Fast Fret regularly). I couldn't expect better...

This product is used to both clean and lubricate the strings. It also takes care of the fretboard's wood. Use it first before playing to ensure noiseless slides, and then at the end of your show/rehearsal to keep the strings free from any moisture-related degradation which could occure.

I've used exclusively this brand on my pedalboard for a few months now. The sound is clear, all frequencies seem to be correctly rendered, the patches are adjustable and resizable at need with no necesity to ever solder anything -- what more could we ask!? Signal carried through George L's cables sounds WAY better than Yellow Cables and Fastline, a bit ahead compared with Planet Waves, and no obvious difference can be heard when compared with Monster Cables. For a studio/home studio installation it seems like the perfect cable, still unsure whether it would pass the test of playing on stage with it though (shielding seems a bit unsufficient for this -- but this is the price to pay for such a clear signal sound for recording)...

The Small Clone is a monaural analog chorus pedal with only one knob and one (two-position) switch. Seems rather sturdy, although the (non-true bypass) switch on mine is kind of messed up (it is almost detached from the metal case, still works though). Uses 9V battery or can be plugged using an adequate 3.5 jack AC adapter.

I bought it used so there was no manual provided with it. The pdf available on Electro-Harmonix's website seems pretty useless though, unless you've never seen a stompbox in your whole life and/or don't trust your ears to set up that kind of basic pedals.

Used with a Fender Fat Strat through a SansAmp GT-2 with the Small Clone in between (although most people use it in their amp's effect loop that is after the preamp). In both clean and distorted sounds, this pedal brings both warmth (a REAL LOT of) and clarity to any clean sound, while it will smoothen the harshest distortion. I love the way it sounds, very reminiscent of Nirvana's Nevermind (remember the vintage Small Clone was one of Cobain's favorites before he turned to the Polychorus). With the depth switch drawn in the upper position, the chorus sound is noticeably detuned, which may remind of some 80s-90s experimental rock bands such as Sonic Youth -- thus not very easy to use in most context... With extreme settings of the "rate" knob the effect is a little more on the Leslie side. Contrarily to what I've read here and there I haven't noticed a drop in volume when this pedal is active -- maybe it's different in an effect loop?

No problem to install, you'll need an internet connection to authorize it. You can install it on two different computers at once but the number of swaps you are entitled to is limited.

The manual is a .pdf file which provides all the informations you may need.

I have a Intel Dual Core processor with 2Gb RAM. I don't yet have a proper sound card but using Asio4All makes up for that (yes it DOES work with a basic, default multimedia soundcard). I use it with Cubase Studio 4 and Toontrack's new tool "Toontrack solo" which allows to use either of Toontrack's compatible drums samplers (EZ drummer or Drumkit from Hell Superior) in standalone mode, with no incompatibility yet.

Depending on the available resources on your system you can choose to have the drumset come out either as a single stereo mix or 8 tracks (corresponding to the virtual microphones on your virtual drums room), which allows you to apply your effects seperately on each item from the kit (e.g. compression on the snare, distortion on the kick, flange on the toms etc) and to adjust the volume of each element (as in a real-life studio you can't isolate each cymbal but you can turn off the recording of the rest of the kit by the overhead). The most common kits eat up approximately 250Mb of RAM, but you can easily alleviate the burden to your system by unloading the individual elements which you don't intend to use.

It is an analog overdrive pedal based on the famous Ibanez TS series. Only three knobs (tone, level, drive). Although the pedal's price is cheap, the metal case seems rather sturdy (much heavier than a Boss for approximately the same size). The switch is a bit messy though, not only does it cause a strange "bleeep!" when you activate it but also it switches on automatically whenever you plug the pedal.

Don't remember if there even was a manual, but it definitely isn't needed -- hey, we're talking about a stompbox with THREE MERE KNOBS! If you can read, you can use it, period. And if you can't read... well, then what are you doing here anyway?

A good sounding pedal that can go from a nice boost to creamy overdrive with the drive knob all ways up and the volume kept down to a fatter sound with the volume control turned higher. Will do the job for any Hendrixian to Pearl Jamesque sound you could ever want, including everything in between -- but don't expect to play metal with it. It is also very efficient in boosting an Electro Harmonix Big Muff while providing the mids the B.M. originally lacks...