Boss GM-800 Guitar Synthesizer

Introduction:
Over the decades, in my search for the perfect guitar synth, i've owned several, ranging from the Roland GM-70 which was only a guitar to MIDI converter that allowed you to play sounds from other synths, through the GR and GK Series, a Godin LGXT Black Pearl guitar with a built in 16 pin Roland pickup and another Godin Montreal Premier fitted with the Fishman TriplePlay pickup, but the GM-800 bundle has been my most disappointing purchase because of the extremely high expectations i had for it.
After watching all the hype on YouTube showing the 'wonderful' tracking capabilities of the new GK-5 pickup, i couldn't wait to get my hands on the unit and ordered it as soon as it became available on Thomann.
When it arrived i immediately unboxed it just to check it out, however before i could install it on my Schecter C-1 SLS Elite guitar, (also purchased from Thomann) i had some health challenges and finally only got to install it on my guitar recently.

Rationale:
The main improvement in the GM-800 from previous Roland/Boss offerings is that it has richer and better sounds. Other than that, i was very disappointed with the bundle.
The GK-5 pickup has absolutely no controls on it so everything including volume control must be done from the GM-800 which is a real pain, and for me, tracking was so full of rogue notes i couldn't enjoy playing the unit.
I made several attempts to eliminate the rogue notes by adjusting the string sensitivity, the height of the pickup and even playing with great care so as not to trigger unwanted notes, all to no avail and it only made playing my guitar less enjoyable.
I regret buying this bundle and i don't think i will ever buy another guitar synth unless some revolutionary new technology is introduced. They simply haven't been able to solve the same old problems that have been plaguing guitar synths from the early days. It's just old wine in new packaging.

Conclusion:
If i could return the unit i would have. My advice, don't rely on YouTube videos. Try it out before you buy. Unfortunately in my part of the world, we don't have that luxury.

I've owned the GR20/GK3 in the past, TWICE.

The GM800/Gk5 combo has better tracking (NOT perfect, far from it, it's just the nature of the beast, triggering sounds via hex pups) and less glitches in general.

In my humble opinion, this has nothing to do with the Gk5 vs Gk3 debate as a hex pup, is just a hex pup, a passive component. It has to do with the fact that the GM800 is a computational beast in comparisson.

More that 1000 sounds available (and as always, not all are good), great customization, small size but it doesn't have a built in expression pedal which is good in terms of modularity and size, but bad because chances are you will need one and that means you have to pay for it.

Great PC editor via USB but a bit slow for my tastes, it gets the job done.

The front panel menu reminds me of digital devices 20 years ago and for me it's not intuitive either. So, thank God, the editor works.

Kudos to Boss for moving away from the 13pin cables, which to me were just a PITA in terms of reliability.

To update the firmware you need a USB flash drive, which begs the question, why Boss didn't just gave this device the capability to update the firmware via the USB cable.

Firmware 1.0.3 ist nötig um das BOSS Tone Studio zu benutzen, auf dem Gerät ist nur 1.0.2 installiert (obwohl 1.0.3 vor einem halben Jahr veröffentlicht wurde) und das Update läuft (trotz vorhandener USB-Schnittstelle) über einen USB Flash Drive. Doof wenn man seine schon vor zehn Jahren entsorgt hat, mitgeliefert wird jedenfalls keiner. Schwaches Bild, ein Stern Abzug. Sound und Verarbeitung sind aber top!