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Section 16
Slicer
from the timings that each time slice spans a time from as
long as 187.50ms down to as little as 31.25ms, which is an
extremely short length of time.
One thing that isn't immediately obvious from the tables is
how well suited the 4 beat rates of 40 or 100 are suited to
songs using 60 or 120 beats per minute.
Problems
Unfortunately just like the Slow Gear, there appears to be a
break through of sound lasting 10ms followed by a silence
of 14ms before the pattern actually gets going. Often this
becomes evident in a disruption during the first time slice,
and the initial pattern often appears to be shorter by roughly
10-20ms. This 'thinking' time appears just to be the GT-3
getting itself sorted out—after that it's OK, and this time
spent prating about shouldn't affect the sound.
Trigger Sensitivity
There are two things of note here. Firstly the official
Manual is completely incorrect. The text was just copied
from auto-riff trigger sensitivity description! Nothing like a
good bit of cut and paste eh?
Anyway, Trigger sensitivity seems to make only a minor
difference in playing. It's not like the Slow Gear where the
sensitivity determines when the effect kicks off or when it
doesn't. Oh no. Here the sensitivity is down to how the re-
triggering occurs. I have only really tried it at the extremes
of 0 and 100 so that I could find out what it is doing. To be
honest with you I think this will be tricky to use in practice,
and you will find people using 0 or 100 (i.e. the extremes).
Anyway, back to the plot. With the sensitivity at 0 it is
extremely hard to get it to re-trigger unless you insert a brief
pause. When sensitivity is at 100 it is easier to get it to re-
trigger but by 'eck its touchy and unreliable. Sheesh.
When playing chords with the Slicer, the actual chord sound
is less well defined, and a more general rhythmic feeling is
imparted.
Strumming whilst using the Slicer can cause some
interesting
interactions—for
chord at the start of an 'ON' slice, preferably where the
relative volume is 8.
Using It For Effect
We can use the Slicer to make your guitar sound like a
Gibson Les Paul with a cutout switch. Well, this is a tiny lie
as the cutout switch – well, it's not a cutout switch at all.
The Gibson has independent volume controls for the two
pickups and a normal pickup selector switch. What you do
is set one pickup at zero and the other as required. Then by
flipping the pickup selector switch you get the slicing
sound. Typically people tend to vary the rate but here we
will look at a fixed rate patch.
© Copyright 2000-2002 Barry S. Pearce et al.
smoothness strum/change
The patch I have created is called 'Metal GibSL' and is
based once again on 'Metal Dist*'. All you have to do is turn
on the Slicer, Pattern P1, Rate 60, and Trigger Sensitivity =
0, and make sure that the SL has been moved to the first
item in the effects chain, and hey presto! There you go. OK
I know it's not as flexible, but you can see where to start.
The section on control assigns will improve this patch using
the expression pedal to provide a better control, and give us
the variable rate we desire. Also, I think the patch works
better with chords rather than single notes. See what you
think.
It should be said that the Slicer cannot be re-created using
the volume pedal as you just cannot move the volume pedal
fast enough!
Presets
Just before I finish with the Slicer, I think we should take a
look at what the preset patches are doing with the Slicer.
This list is extremely long and will no doubt take you more
than 24 hours to work your way through. Boss obviously
felt it was a really useful effect. Ho hum.
Patch
P'tn
37-4
P6
SLICE WAH
67-1
P5
SLICEN DICE
77-2
P5
SLICE METAL
81-4
P5
PANNING SL
Well, no great surprises there, low-medium rates and trigger
sensitivity set at one of the extremes. Patch 'SLICE
METAL' doesn't have the Slicer on permanently—it is
switch via the CTL pedal, which is configured to be
momentary so the Slicer is only on when you have the CTL
pedal depressed. Interestingly enough, the preset patches
don't use any of the Quick Settings!
For best effect I think SLICEN DICE and PANNING SL
show the Slicer in the best light, with SLICEN DICE as my
top patch in this little group.
One last note on the Quick Settings I prefer 'SLICER 1' and
I'm fairly sure most of you will – the rest are just not set-up
in a way that yields a reasonable sound (IMHO).
Rate
Trigger
Quick
Sens
Setting
50
0
7
80
50
0
4.0*
0
BPM
92
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