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rolandh
Published on 04/17/07 at 12:50
This is a tube preamp (12AX7) with multi-effect DSP which has 99 editable patch and 99 factory patches. It is noon, features two insert effects: a mono and a stereo. It has an input jack and a stereo output (jack) and a headphone output, an input level knob and a knob for output level. In short, very complete.
UTILIZATION
I think this is a strong point of this device: in 10 minutes, it was all inclusive. The effects are easily editable and easy to use. You get what you want almost as fast as the pedals. The manual is clear, but almost useless.
SOUND QUALITY
There are four sections: Preamp, EQ, MOD, DELAY, REVERB module and a TOTAL (general settings) and a bypass. The preamp has a compressor stage and a floor clean overdrive with two configurations (solid and tube), two crush, two overdrives and two leads. Given the age of the unit, one would expect only vintage sounds. Well no! This is the big surprise, it was almost like his, from clean to heavy metal, metal or even simply if you use the "turbo", from vintage to modern sound. Amazing! The vintage sounds are very pure and warm, the more modern sounds very accurate. A complete preamp section also has an entry for the external effects and monitoring parameters for an external pedal. Finally, and this is the weak point of this device in my opinion, the section concludes with a preamp ZNR, Zoom Noise Reduction, in short, a noise gate, which is doing well but is completely up to overdrive exceeded if we want touching configurations lead, especially if the "turbo" is engaged. Either it leaves too much to spend, or it's the food ... Therefore, provide a good noise gate for such use.
The other sections are also classics efficient. EQ can be configured to equalize in enhancer (not bad) or Wah. Section MOD pitch, phase, flanger, chorus, tremolo, step (I never understood how you could use a similar effect ...) or rotary. The delay in mono, tennis and auto-pan. IF you do not use reverb, delay time, which is 900 ms max can go to 1.8 s. As I said before, this is all very well made and it is not drowned in a multitude of parameters. In short, it is for players, not for sound engineers. So sound quality issue, I will put 8 because of the noise gate a little bit ...
OVERALL OPINION
Truly amazing this little preamp. I bought it for 150 euros OCCAZ and I really regret it. I was really surprised by the quality of this device that seems misunderstood and wrongly. Well, obviously it's not worth a Mesa or Engl, but it's not the same price either. I used it with my guitars on a Marshall 9001 power amp and really, it does! I also used in home studio on vocals, and we know things come out frankly interesting.
UTILIZATION
I think this is a strong point of this device: in 10 minutes, it was all inclusive. The effects are easily editable and easy to use. You get what you want almost as fast as the pedals. The manual is clear, but almost useless.
SOUND QUALITY
There are four sections: Preamp, EQ, MOD, DELAY, REVERB module and a TOTAL (general settings) and a bypass. The preamp has a compressor stage and a floor clean overdrive with two configurations (solid and tube), two crush, two overdrives and two leads. Given the age of the unit, one would expect only vintage sounds. Well no! This is the big surprise, it was almost like his, from clean to heavy metal, metal or even simply if you use the "turbo", from vintage to modern sound. Amazing! The vintage sounds are very pure and warm, the more modern sounds very accurate. A complete preamp section also has an entry for the external effects and monitoring parameters for an external pedal. Finally, and this is the weak point of this device in my opinion, the section concludes with a preamp ZNR, Zoom Noise Reduction, in short, a noise gate, which is doing well but is completely up to overdrive exceeded if we want touching configurations lead, especially if the "turbo" is engaged. Either it leaves too much to spend, or it's the food ... Therefore, provide a good noise gate for such use.
The other sections are also classics efficient. EQ can be configured to equalize in enhancer (not bad) or Wah. Section MOD pitch, phase, flanger, chorus, tremolo, step (I never understood how you could use a similar effect ...) or rotary. The delay in mono, tennis and auto-pan. IF you do not use reverb, delay time, which is 900 ms max can go to 1.8 s. As I said before, this is all very well made and it is not drowned in a multitude of parameters. In short, it is for players, not for sound engineers. So sound quality issue, I will put 8 because of the noise gate a little bit ...
OVERALL OPINION
Truly amazing this little preamp. I bought it for 150 euros OCCAZ and I really regret it. I was really surprised by the quality of this device that seems misunderstood and wrongly. Well, obviously it's not worth a Mesa or Engl, but it's not the same price either. I used it with my guitars on a Marshall 9001 power amp and really, it does! I also used in home studio on vocals, and we know things come out frankly interesting.