Mooer GE 300 Amp Modeling

Let's get the things out of the way that I don't like:
GE studio is a mess. It's not exactly self-explanatory and understanding how things work takes a lot of time. There are no descriptions, no online help and not everything is obvious and easy to understand. And doing the wrong thing can be hard to undo.
MIDI CC outgoing works only for patches. Expression pedals and other foot switches don't send CC messages, that's pretty disappointing
You need a lot of light to even see the labels on the device. Changing things on the fly? You better know what is what by heart.
Changing stuff through the buttons on the device can be a tedious process, although some things are only accessible that way, like expression pedal calibration

Apart from that it's a great device. Compact, robust, sounds pretty great to my ears and has all the connectors I need, for every scenario imaginable. I've replaced BIAS FX2/Amp2 with this and while I've lost a little bit of functionality (the GE300 does 2 OD/Boost/Distortion pedals max) it was more than worth it.

All in all, a great budget option if you want a "premium modeller". It sounds fantastic, the unit's interface is the best and the most intuitive out of all the modellers I've used (Quad Cortex, Helix, Ampero), but...
Software is a bit hit and miss. The PC editor looks and feels really cheap, looks like a mid 90's program with almost no visual representation of different amps, cabs and effects.

And don't get me even started on getting the software to work. There's a big chance that your browser won't even let you download the drivers, because it registers them as virus. Also, the software won't work if you download the latest edition. You have to download ALL the editions and then install them in order. Also, sometimes the updates aren't available on the English site, so you have to download them from the Chinese site.

I have bought the unit for playing in a live band, adding effects to a real amp and cab. With the 4 cable

The fun stuff:
- the expression pedal can control numerous parameters so you can make very crazy patches
- combined with the sound of my real tube amp, I could get some really good sounds out of it
- built really well
- worked as expected in live situations

The meh stuff:
- the cabinets are not really good, you have to use your best IRs if you want a great sound
- the synth thing is very-very-very basic and have a very easily felt lag, so either you go with pads and effect it to death or you go with the arpeggiator - which has a good amount settings, but you won't have a clue if it is major, or minor they are identified by numbers
- some settings are painful to adjust, like the lo-fi effect's sample rate: you can by 1Hz adjust the sample rate down from 22500 Hz - that is a lot of turns of a knob!
- creating a new patch and settings are very tedious on the machine, the app works better
- some things I could never figure out, for example to control more than 1 parameter with the expression pedal I always had to use the dedicated application


Things that are really missing:
- you can't lower the input gain; what the support would say is that, "Yes, you can do it", but only the audio _after_ the analog-digital conversion. Which means if you are using it with the very high output pick up (like an active bass pick up), it is already going to be clipped and you can't do anything about ut.
- proper support: many of us reported that the delay is lagging (say, you set 100bpm and it is 102bpm or something) on firmware version 4.0.1. The support told us they know about it. About half a year later the bug is still there.
- the ability to do subtractive or FM synthesis: when you have more than 1 oscillators a lot of great sounds come out if you can combine the oscillators
- good company vibe: the whole company feels like they are just dropping the next thing with as little people as possible. After the delay bug issue I can't trust the company being there on the long run.
- modern basics: things like high-pass, low-pass filters on EQs, making sure that different tube models have the same loudness
- great tutorials to get the most out of the unit: it took me a lot of reading random pages to figure out how to make the 4 cable method working - and still some claim I can switch channels on the amp with the unit - but there is nothing about in the docs, nor there is an official company Youtube channel teaching you these things.

All in all, I like using the unit, but I can't wholly recommend because of how slow is the firmware update cycle of the company. What I have listed could have been easily corrected with regular firmware updates and with an ear to the customers. My guess is that the company bosses are putting cost optimization over customer happiness which doesn't build trust.