Overall User Ratings (based on 37 ratings)
  • Overall:
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Sound:
    4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Features:
    4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Ease of Use:
    3.5 out of 5 stars
  • Quality:
    4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Value:
    4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Manufacturer Support:
    4 out of 5 stars
  • The Wow Factor:
    4.5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4 out of 5 stars
(37) (see rating details)
Submitted March 11, 2009 by a customer from comcast.net

"The Only Amp You Will Ever Need"

Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
Overall its worth every cent and i hope will last for years to come with the pedal it is the only amp i need feed it into the house system and you can rock away.
Sound
This Amp Can give you any sound your looking for the more time you spend with it the more you learn also there is now a g dec weeb site to share ideas and info about your g dec Go to my G-Dec.com all users should log on and share ideas.
Features
Like i said the more time you put into the amp the more you will find out about it evrything you get plus the support from Fender is worth it.
Ease of Use
Some geting use to but just keep tweeking away and you wont grow tired of all this amp can and will do.
Quality
Just 2 small Issues First the speaker could be a little more beefey but i have tryed a external cab and it sounds even better just wish fender would have put a more powerfull speaker in for more Bass punch on play back. And Second My CD/Aux In put is not working so i have called Fender and they are going to send a new amp out to exchange.
Value
Worth the money and when i hope they come out with a 100 watt Gdec I will Buy It for the power i hope.
Manufacturer Support
Like I said they are working to help me with my problem and i like to say thanks to Scott At Fender for his Help.

Musical Background:

Semi pro

Musical Style:

Blues/ Rock
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Submitted February 17, 2008 by a customer from gmail.com

"The Swiss Army Knife Guitar Amp"

Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
This is a great practice amp. You could drive a small hall with it but it is just a 30 watt amp. I use it for practice, rehersals, compsition and jusyt plain shredding with all of it's effects
Sound
With it's 17 amplifier models and 29 digital effects you can sculpt your sound to be warm like a vintage Tweed or have the high end crunch of British electronics. You have all of the popular effects like distortion, delay, chorus, phase shift, flanger, etc, each with customizable variables.
Features
This is the Swiss Army Knife of guitar amps. Along with the features listed above there are also 50 factory preset backing track each with drumtrack, bassline and even some accompaniment. There are also 50 user programmable memory slots for your own compositions. This amp has a MIDI I/O for true robust composition using a sequencer and a computer.
Ease of Use
I would have given it a 10 except that the instructions are sparse and the user interface is not very intuitive. There is a bit of a learning curve you'll have to overcome. Once you do get it though it's pretty easy.
Quality
What can I say, it's a Fender. When I think Fender I think "Icon", "Legend" and "Quintessential". The quaility, the fit and finish of this this amp lives up to all I think Fender to be. It has the classic look of a Fender product and deversity of its features makes it a pleasure to play through.
Value
Factor in the cost of an amp, drum machine, rythm machine, the different amp models and digital effect purchsed sepparately versus the $370.00 street price of this item. If you do the math you'll recognize the value
Manufacturer Support
I haven't had need for any repairs or upgrades but Fender has a lot of material online to help you along. Almost anything you need in terms of product support is available through their web site. This product also comes with a five year limited warrantee.
The Wow Factor
Oh it's sexy alright. What all it does is pretty amazing!

Musical Background:

semi-pro

Musical Style:

Blue, Rock, Classic Rock, Jazz Fusion
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Submitted May 11, 2008 by a customer from comcast.net

"Really Good Practice Amp for the Serious Guitar Player"

Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
I'll keep it as my primary rehearsal amp for a long time, but won't ever use it for live performance because the controls are not really accessible quickly, especially on a dark stage!
Sound
Standard fender tones plus a decent attempt at creating distorted and overdriven sounds
Features
the footswitch is great - very compact, runs in three modes, and once you get used to that idea, each of the modes does important things. mode 1 is just a three way patch switch between the first 3 of 40 banks, so that gives you three tones to pick from if you were ever going to use it for live performance. mode 2 is the up and down the patch list mode, and mode 3 lets you control sampling and playback with the potential to overdub on the fly.
Ease of Use
It takes a lot of patience to dial in great tones - both the amp list of properties and the effects list have settings that need to be looked at. the LCD is pretty small - don't think you'll ever be able to do live performance and modify your patches on the fly - everything is driven off the LCD menus - if you had a computer that had the virtual dials it might be managable - but this amp is not one that you can dial in settngs quickly with. and when you change settings such as the effect, lots of defaults have to be looked at all over again. once a setting is dialed in properly it's there for recall instantly and there are 50 preset patches to put in custom tones.
Quality
typical solid Fender product
Value
The value of this amp is that you can practice like crazy with a drum beat that you dial in, which can be different on all 50 of your patches. So once you get the perfect drum beat, then you add up to about 28 seconds of backing track that loops, using the footswitch, and then just jam along with it. I used to have a drum machine with midi cable to a "jam man" sampler unit, and the G-DEC does the exact same thing all in one component.
Manufacturer Support
no
The Wow Factor
This is a real practical amp for serious guitar players that want to know how they sound soloing with a band. for songwriters, lots of opportunities to creat layers of sound with a huge palette of tone and effect combinations.

Musical Background:

active musician

Musical Style:

rock, blues, pop
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Submitted January 22, 2007 by a customer from comcast.net

"GDEC-30"

Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
Sound
This amp does a great job of modeling a pretty good range of amps.
Features
The unbelievable ;feature for this amp is the ability to download complete midi songs for backing tracks. That was the big drawback (imho) for the GDEC 15. Now you can write your own progressions "on-board" or compose on your computer and download to the amp, or find a suitable backing track on-line and transfer to the amp. GREAT. It was difficult at first to sort through the process of downloading via midi (since I am computer literate, but midi stupid), but after determining that my sound card was a problem, I purchased a $41 cable/midi (MIDISPORT UNO) which made it simple and without problems.
Ease of Use
Very user friendly when it comes to altering tones and guitar sounds.
Manufacturer Support
Fender, as you know, is difficult to reach with questions/problems.

Musical Background:

Former rocker, current hobbyist and sometimes rocker

Musical Style:

blues
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Submitted April 14, 2010 by a customer from gmail.com

"Don't expect audio playback from the SD Card slot"

Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
Sound
Presets are good, a lot of emphasis on distorted tones. Just because Jeff Beck sounds a certain way when playing, you probably won't sound like him when you use his preset.
Features
I bought this amp because of the feature of the amp having an SD Card reader which is supposed to be able to have the ability to play back wav. and mp3 sounds stored on the card. It was my intention to load the SD Card with the MP3 files from the CD accompanying a music book and then play along with the tablature. The Fender Amp formatted the card and created a file for "Audio". I loaded some MP3 files in the folder but I was not able to get this to work. I contacted technical support from Fender and this feature is very limited. You have to import a couple of files in a complicated way. The store where I made the purchase was not able to get the SD Card to play audio. I returned the amp.
Ease of Use
Extremely easy to customize sounds. Documentation is poor but it is intuitive to use.
Quality
Very well made and sturdy. Easy to carry. Loud.
Value
The product would be worth the asking price if the SD Card was played back as audio to which guitar accompaniment can be played. This amp does not do that.
Manufacturer Support
I own an old G Dec, a Princeton, 2 Stratocasters and a Telecaster so I have been loyal to Fender products.

Musical Background:

Weekend Player.

Musical Style:

Ethnic, Alt Rock, Country
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Submitted May 14, 2007 by a customer from gmail.com

"Needs better documentation"

Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
I plan to keep it for quite some time, unless something remarkably better comes along.
Sound
It's ok so far, although I'm still getting used to it. A lot better than the GDEC15, which I owned previously
Features
All in one unit, as far as hardware. I plan to get the pedal as soon as I get past a few downloading issues.
Ease of Use
I get great sounds, and the interface (human to amp), is easy enough once you get used to it. The manual leaves a whole lot to be desired, though. In fact, there are a lot of things you just have to figure out. It would be nice if Fender included some hints and recommendations. I fought for a week trying to get a Yamaha USB/MIDI cable to work, only to discover on the web that it's not recommended.
Quality
I was quite satisfied with the GDEC15, and more so with the 30.
Value
I think it's a pretty good value.
Manufacturer Support
I have not dealt with the company, but read other reviews that gave them high marks.
The Wow Factor
Good practical addition.

Musical Background:

Hobbyist

Musical Style:

country, bluegrass, blues
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Submitted February 12, 2007

"Not what I expected"

Overall: 2.5 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
Sound
I have played my Parker Fly Mojo at the music store with this amp, every day for the past 4 days. I own a Bogner Duende that gives great, thick sound with the full bridge position, and an awesome Strat with the split, but I blowed up 2 tubes in the last 2 months during practice, and they are kind of expensive. So I am looking for a practice amp, loud enough to play with the dudes, and versatile enough to experiment with it, and decrease my pedal load. What a dissapointment. The amp (when cranked up) sound like there's a dog dying inside, and at low volume (5 and less) either can't hear it over the drums or sounds just like the Peavey practice amp (which incidentally is way cheaper) whatever the name is. I dialed up every sound, and tried with both neck and bridge (full and splitted) and the on-board acoustic pre-amp. Before showing up I read the online manual and visited some G-Dec Geek forum with tips and the like. I'll try to comment briefly on all below.
Features
In terms of accesories, there's a pedal that allows some control, but I couldn't learn how to use it over the time I tried it (OK I may be a little slow, but neither the guy at the store could figure it out). It has 4 buttons that either are memory positions for previously saved settings, or something like it. Is not cheap, and the wretched pedal is even more difficult to find that the amp (the one in the store was the only one, and only for demo purposes). If you want to interface with your computer you MUST buy a MIDI cable. I bought the Yamaha one (UNO I think, the bue one, USB) for 39 bucks a few weeks ago, but didn't get to plug to my laptop (forgot the computer once, and the cable next time). For MIDI I use Power Tab editor 1.7 (shareware) which I've asked and can interface with the G-DEC. The forum and Google has some settings to download, but since I couldn't make it work I've only tried the factory settings. Setting #1 (G-DEC rock or something like that) is WAY too distorted and thin, even with a full bridge and tone all the way down. The blues settings sounded acceptable with the splitted neck, but again volume was an issue. The British sets had nothing on a Marshall. I was able to hear some Hendrix at that setting, but again volume was problematic. I guess I could mike it, but that defeats the purpose, which is simplicity and decrease the equipment load. I liked the metal settings.
Ease of Use
OK is easy to use when in front of it dialing. The panel is lighted, so if the stage (or my bedroom) is dark I still can dial the right thing. BUt I could not hear aby difference when moving the tone dial with, say, the comic whatever (lots of chorus) setting.
Quality
I don't think it will survive a ride in the back of the pickup, but again, neither my Bogner will (it rides with me in the back seat). Steve's light poles will probably crush it. It will look pretty in the bedroom though.
Value
I'll say this: if you are serious about your tone, there are much better choices there. For a practice amp, is way overpriced. Although I own a tube amp, I have tried solid states before, there are better modelers (the Roland cube 60 is cool, and there's a pedal by Boss that delivers).
Manufacturer Support
The guy in the store was so patient, and actually offered to loan it for a gig (I declined). He said that if it ever breaks or anything he will take care of it. Since Chet buyed his bass (a really pretty Yamaha) with his box here, we totally trust the guy. I know nothing about Fender, but who cares if the store dude will take care of it...

Musical Background:

Making a living out of music.

Musical Style:

Covers of rock, pop and ballads. Our own material is more blues and Alternative
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