We can also use the C1 footswitch to flip between two channels and, unless we customise it for another purpose, C2 to silence the outputs and engage the tuner. These aren’t just any presets either, with several of the patches having been created by popular players – so should you be inclined, you can check out sounds created by John Browne (of Monuments), Jack Gardiner and Jay Leonard J. Once we’ve used the up and down footswitches to select one of the 25 banks of factory presets, the numbered switches along the bottom row let us hop between the four sounds in that bank. Here, though, we’re doing most of our exploring in memory mode.

There’s also a manual mode, in which all those footswitches can be assigned to turn individual effects on and off. And if that’s a bigger step than you’re ready to take, don’t worry: there are still plenty of knobs and buttons too, which replicate all those key tap/swipe functions. It’s not the biggest or the sharpest screen – at little more than four inches it’s smaller than you’ll find on the average modern smartphone – but it still feels like a significant step forward for Boss. But what truly sets the GX-100 apart from Boss’s GT devices is its full-colour LCD touchscreen, which grants users a more intuitive way to navigate signal chains and settings than twiddling and scrolling with knobs and buttons.

Given how much cheaper this unit is than the flagship GT-1000, you might be sold on it already. There’s an assignable expression pedal, a looper and a tuner, and USB connectivity to make use of Boss’s fine Tone Studio desktop editing software. It comes with 100 factory presets, plus 200 free slots for storing your own. This is a reasonably compact floor-based processor with 154 effects and 23 amps, which can be strung together in any combination of up to 15 modules. Most of the headline specs here are straightforward enough. Yes, Boss’s latest portable cornucopia of digital effects and amplifier sims is full-on touchy-feely.

But it’s only when an idea turns up on a Boss unit that you know it’s gone properly mainstream – and that’s what’s happened with the GX-100. There have been multi-effects processors with touchscreens on the market for a while now.

READ MORE: Schmidt Array SA350XDM pedalboard review: can this precision-engineered board revolutionise your setup?.

Did you know that the first touchscreen was developed in the 1940s? We’re not sure what they used it for – Angry Birds hadn’t been invented yet – but it’s certainly taken a long time for that tech to filter down to the world of guitar.

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