Boss COSM modelling...is it really as bad as people make out ?

siraxeman

I've owned all the Boss GTs except the GT-3, and way back also a VG-8EX and so am pretty familiar with the development of the Boss Cosm modelling...and well whilst I'm not a huge fan (of the COSM) as such, its not like as bad as many make out. I mean I've also owned the Vox Tonelab SE and LE, Digitech GNX3000 and Pod  XT...and played some others from Zoom etc along the way.

I do agree that Line 6 and Digitech do better here, cant remember being bowled over by the Tonelabs but they were ok to. But anyway watch these 2 for a comparison one being the Pod HD and the other being the GT-100...same player etc! Both sound very decent in the right hands IMO. So why does Boss get so much stick for its COSM modelling? In fact they were the very first to do it as well beating Line 6 by a few years. Fair enough I think Line 6 sound better on the modelling front, but anyway.....

fretmeister

I played in a cover band where the guitarist used a GT8 into a clean amp and it sounded great.

She did the proper thing of course, and binned all the presets. Best of all, it was consistent show after show.

monquixote

Having recently obtained a GT-100 which has the "new improved" COSM I'm not overly impressed. The clean sounds are alright, but the drive sounds are a bit poo. The best drive sounds actually come from a clean model with a simulated overdrive. 

The modeling on my G3 is better though not especially great and it takes pedals really badly. 

The Fender Mustang was quite impressive for cleans, but total shit for drive sounds and again hated pedals.

The Blackstar ID TVP I tried was the best thing I've heard other than AxeFX and it actually likes dirt boxes.

ICBM

siraxeman said:

Boss COSM modelling...is it really as bad as people make out ?

I'm sure I read somewhere that it actually stands for Character Obliterating Sterile Mush, so probably...












I've never been a fan, although there are a very few applications it seems to work OK in. One or possibly two of the drive models on the ME-50 were quite good. (The 'Natural Overdrive', which very surprisingly was, and I think the octave fuzz but I can't remember for sure.)

I actually blame COSM for what I think is probably my over-sensitivity to digital sounds - the very first modeller I tried was the GP-100 (not GT-100!), and I think it somehow sensitised my ears to that odd glitchy/glassy sound that (to me) is so characteristic of almost all modellers.

Fuzzdog

I've used pretty much all the modelling thingies that have been available over the years, and I think the conclusion I've come to is that pretty much all of them can sound great - it's the ease of getting them to sound great which seems to differ.  Some require a lot more fiddling than others, and I think COSM (particularly the older versions) is one of those.

That said, I remember doing a whole album with me sat in the control room plugged into the desk via a GT-5, mostly as my JCM800 had decided that it would rather sit there going 'BZZZZT' than take part in the session.  I was very pleasantly surprised at how good the Boss sounded, and ended up using it for a lot of sessions after that.

ICBM said:

I actually blame COSM for what I think is probably my over-sensitivity to digital sounds - the very first modeller I tried was the GP-100 (not GT-100!), and I think it somehow sensitised my ears to that odd glitchy/glassy sound that (to me) is so characteristic of almost all modellers.

I had a GP-100 shortly after the GT-5 - I could not get that thing to sound good direct no matter how many hours I fiddled with it.  Weirdly, I also had a GX-700 (essentially the same unit, just Boss branded rather than Roland, buttons rather than knobs and less I/O) at the time, and that sounded great.  Could never work out why that was!

I actually bought another GP100 last year on a whim, as I thought there's no way it could have sounded as bad as it did on the amp sim side.  It did, and went straight back on eBay.  )

dindude

My annoyance with digital modelling (lower level, I'm not talking AXE FX, can't really comment here) in general is the lack of dynamics, at first they sound superficially great, but feel wise the notes can sound either on or off, like you're playing a cheap keyboard with no touch sensitivity, or pressing buttons. You lose the dynamics that make the guitar such an expressive instrument.

Boss COSM is one of the worst for this, and the recent digitech unit I had (one of the new ones, although it's pretty much repackaged tech from 2007), was just appalling. 

Fender mustang on clean and breakup was probably the best low cost modelling I've heard, but even that started to grate after a while.

I've tried so hard, Fender mustang, Yamaha THR, Roland COSM, Digitech, Vox, ipad apps. Frankly they all sound shit in the end.

ICBM

Fuzzdog said:

Weirdly, I also had a GX-700 (essentially the same unit, just Boss branded rather than Roland, buttons rather than knobs and less I/O) at the time, and that sounded great.  Could never work out why that was!

It's because the GX-700 is not at all the same, and uses analogue overdrive/distortion .

It's from the previous generation, before modelling - I still have my half-rack SE-70 from that era, and it still sounds great. In fact I should probably just start using it again, although it's a bit of a faff because it needs a double footswitch and an expression pedal to get even close to the same functionality as a modern all-in-one multi-FX.

I used that as my main sound generator for several years - I only stopped when the footswitch broke just before a gig and I used three Boss pedals instead... I just found I preferred the convenience of them and never went back to the multi-FX.

siraxeman

Not sure if I read right but heard also that the GT-5 (my first and favourite GT) had analogue ODs...I used the GT-5 live a lot as my main sound for a few years...The GT-6 I never got on with at all couldn't edit this fuzziness out of the dirty sounds no matter how hard I tried...always wondered if mine was faulty. The GT-8 was nice but I sold it got the 10 which I liked less...now on the GT-100 which I think is good but I just don't use it much and when I do its nearly always  at home....become a staunch pedals man in recent years.

ICBM

siraxeman said:

Not sure if I read right but heard also that the GT-5 (my first and favourite GT) had analogue ODs

Yes, it does. It's actually very similar to a GX-700 in a floor unit.

It's interesting that people with little or no knowledge of the technology being used prefer the sound of analogue overdrive/distortion, even though it's still solid-state. (At least to COSM.)

I think there's something in that.

Fuzzdog

ICBM said:

It's because the GX-700 is not at all the same, and uses analogue overdrive/distortion .

It's from the previous generation, before modelling

GX-700 was definitely COSM (same chipset as the GP aside from the GX having a lower amount of memory, I had them both apart next to each other at one point poking around inside to see what the differences were because I'm a nosey bar steward!), and came out about a year after the GP-100. 

The overdrives and distortions on the GX were indeed analogue (and rather decent), but even not using those, the COSM amps on the GX just sounded far better.  The GP just sounded somehow wrong to me.

The biggest advantage the GX had over the GP was it only had one rotary encoder to replace, and an interface which required you to use it a lot less often - I'm pretty sure Roland made them out of cheese, as they lasted for about five minutes on the GP.  (

ICBM

My mistake. I do remember the overdrive and distortion on the GX-700 definitely being analogue.

Does that mean that the amp sim on the GT-5 is COSM as well?

ToneControl

I had a vg99 and a Gt10, and felt the amp modelling was well behind anything on a PC at the time

Fuzzdog

ICBM said:

My mistake. I do remember the overdrive and distortion on the GX-700 definitely being analogue.

Does that mean that the amp sim on the GT-5 is COSM as well?

Yup, and on the GT-3 as well.

Flanging_Fred

I had a gx700. The amp sims were COSM but the overdrive was analogue IIRC. I also have an old BR864 recorder with COSM and I found it was useable but you needed to do a lot of tweaking with EQ & noise gates to get it right.

I had one of the Fender Deluxe reverb pedals and had a chance to put it up against a real 65 deluxe reverb in NOS condition. The pedal's overdrive was more gritty but otherwise it was surprisingly close.

Fortheloveofguitar

The overdrives are truly shite. Cringeworthy infact.

hugbot

I just picked up an OD20 for £50, I get the sense the shop guy wanted to get rid of it because it was COSM.

Anyway, it doesent sound significantly better or worse than the M13 I had, albeit better on some models and worse on others. The RAT has some kind of awful stuck wah sound on it I'm not digging at all, but the low gain drives seem better than the Line 6 equivilents.

I think COSM is hated largely because Boss were trying to shove it down everyones throats for a few years.

monquixote

On the GT-100 the amp sims are a bit poo (other than the JC-120 natch), but the simulated drives are quite good.

ThePrettyDamned

The boss dyna drive uses cosm and is actually really quite good, it's based off of the dynamic drive sound or something...?

ICBM

Fuzzdog said:

Yup, and on the GT-3 as well.

I know it is on the 3, it says so on the front .

The 5 came first (surprisingly!) and doesn't, which is why I wasn't sure.

Flanging_Fred said:

I had one of the Fender Deluxe reverb pedals and had a chance to put it up against a real 65 deluxe reverb in NOS condition. The pedal's overdrive was more gritty but otherwise it was surprisingly close.

I like the sound of those a lot but they're so poorly designed functionally for a gigging player (see Multi-FX thread! ) that I couldn't own one.

- No speaker-emulated output. What's the point of an amp sim you can't use direct?

- No tremolo or reverb footswitching option (internal or remote), you can only turn the whole pedal off.

- Gain and volume controls (the ones you use most) on a fiddly dual pot, reverb and tremolo controls (which you have to use a lot due to lack of footswitch) on another fiddly dual pot, but treble and bass (which you rarely use) on two nice large ones.

- What idiot designed this thing?

If it had the emulated output, the ability to assign just the tremolo on/off to the footswitch, and the controls sensibly laid out (GAIN, treble/bass, reverb/tremolo, VOLUME), I would buy one immediately.

JDE

I can't notice much difference between COSM chorus (I use the much maligned CE-20 quite a lot), and I thought the COSM in the RE-20, while not exceptionally close to a real Space Echo, sounded great.

All COSM dirt I've played I didn't like and almost always had to run a compressor afterwards to smooth out the crappy note decay.

siraxeman

I wonder if its deliberate in distancing themselves from the COSM name with the digital pedals like the Power Stack...digital pedal from Boss but they don't say its COSM...in fact you have to fish for info to even get an admission its digital at all!! Sounds fantastic DI'd tho...not quite as good thru a loud amp I found. Same thing seems to be happening now with the DS-1X and OD-1X...digital but no mention of COSM....is this a sign that they might be dropping the COSM name ?