Boss JS8 Eband, great bit of kit?

[Geraint Jones]

I bought one of these after the Christmas rush and my fingers are now bleeding .The unit itself is reasonably small like an i pod dock with a 3 inch lcd screen and some 3 watt speakers.Plug your guitar in the front and dial up your backing track, the effects from the GT10 effects chip are usually preset for you and away you go.
I was a bit sceptical at first,getting it out of the box and quickly going thru the 300 odd preset tracks grouped into various genres of music , I thought it was a bit of a gimmick, 3 hours later I'm wondering where the day went . Transporting your own backing tracks onto it is easy and I like the fact its self contained as opposed to the gig rig my mates got that relies on using your computer . The speakers are a bit small but I'm thinking of hooking them up to some monitors in the future . One thing I'll say about it, my lead playing has come on leaps and bounds which can't be a bad thing .

[Spudman***]

That's pretty cool. I hadn't hear about this gizmo. I'm guessing in a pinch you could use it as a back up amph since it has a variety of outputs. However, I think the patches sound pretty digital.