Amazing

This pedal is so versatile. Can be used as a preamp which gives a serious tube amp sound that I love. I found I can run it to my orange crush pro to the fx return and get an unbelievable sound out of my rig. So happy I picked up this pedal!

Great distortion for guitar and bass

This is a 90's analog all in one distortion + amp & cab-sim pedal, and it sounds great (not as a cabsim though). Obviously compared to modern digital pedals the cabinet simulation aspect of the GT2 is lacking, however this pedal still offers a diverse range of tube-like sounds which work great for guitars and for bass too. The distortion circuit limits the output, and adds a significant amount of sustain and tube-like saturation even on the cleanest settings. This circuit communicates dynamics extremely well, while maintaining a certain output level, which makes playing with it really awesome. Its worth noting that GT2 doesn't really ruin note definition on most settings, with the exception of mid to high gain hot-wired "california" setting. The circuit tends to be noisy on high-gain and hot-wired settings, but is well behaved on the clean setting. Older models (like mine, which is a revision 2, 5-digit model) do tend to be noisier though.
As a bass player I can only use it in a parallel loop with the mic switch in the center position, mixing it with the dry signal to maintain low-end, when running hot-wired or hi-gain settings. It's a great distortion pedal for bass when used in this arrangement, and although it doesn't give a huge upper harmonic boost like a darkglass pedal, it offers an easily recognizable mid-high range growl, that helps cut through the mix without much interference with other instruments and without any loss in definition. But this is not the only use case for this pedal: the GT2 works great as a subtle saturator or clean boost - it's fairly easy to dial in a clean, but gritty and bright bass tone without loosing low-end (in this use-case you don't even need a parallel effects loop setup), which works well in a huge range of genres and sounds almost like tones that you can get out of a real tube amp. Overall it's a pretty great and versatile tool for both bass players and guitarists and it offers enough tonal diversity to make it a worthwhile purchase for a wide range of genres.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Pretty pretty pretty great

In its subtle form its nirvana clean tones - in its extreme form it can sizzle & fry. There are creative tonal options that make this stand out.

Blown away by this sleeper

My dad recently gave me a bunch of his old guitar gadgets and this was one of the things in the box. I had never heard of it before so I hooked it up to my rig and gave it a try. I couldn't believe the sound I was hearing. Immediately I was shocked at how perfect it sounded. I was on the British/Hi Gain/Classic setting and it was the most perfect lead tone I had ever managed to get out of my setup. I previously had a Friedman BE-OD Deluxe and, while there are things I liked about that pedal, I can say I prefer this a thousand times over it. My only gripe is that you can really only use one setting at a time but the setting I use is so good that it doesn't really matter. Great pedal!

a decent sansamp aimed at guitar only

I found this in a box of junk.... I don't remember buying one so someone must have given it to me years ago. I started using it recently for nasty DI guitar sounds and I really like it. You have to embrace the fact that its not replacing an amp but it has a sound of its own that's pure trash.

A great choice of distorcion

I used a lot DS-1, DS-2, Metal Muff, but this has a place in my pedal board. It is very versatile and always find myself with it, regardless of the guitar or pickup that I'm using.

It's good, a little noisy.

I use this as a clean boost, and it's perfect as a boost, just a little noisy.

Awesome pedal

Sounds pretty good with even shitty instrument. Adds natural tube sounding when playing in line out. I'm using it with both guitar and bass

Still one of the best

Amp modelling before it existed. Completely analogue and just great sounding.

Crunch Marshall

Especial Sustain with gain ........................................