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kyleohare « If you like Tube Overdrive, and sparkling cleans - this one is for you. »
Published on 05/08/12 at 17:42This unit uses two 12AX7 tubes to produce some amazing tube overdrive / distortion tones. The cleans sound brilliant too.
Does Overdrives, Distortions, EQ, Delay, Reverb, and Stereo (panning) effects as well as a bunch of other stuff like 'Quad Delay', has left/ right amp out mono jacks - and when used between two amps in stereo , does some pretty amazing stuff, like a rotary simulations / phasers and panning delays. Very cool.
Upgraded mine to the 2120 with a really simple EPROM chip swap. Swapped out the stock tubes for Groove Tubes, and went to Ruby Tubes now. Sounds great with pretty much all. It's hard to tell, personally with tube swapping that your tone has changed ' a lot ', it's only a minor change. I think you could even use 12AU7's in here for less distortion , if that's what you were after and 'soften' things up a bit for blues, country, etc...
UTILIZATION
Even the presets on this thing sound GREAT, and are very useful as a guitar player - and maybe even a Bass player / keyboardist could use one of these to get some really cool stuff. I had a BOSS GT-6, and GT-8 but don't have anything good to say about those. They sound horrid compared to this unit, though it's older than both of those!
Tubes are what make this baby really cook. It's one of the best FX processors I've ever used because it sounds 'analog', and not 'tinny' or 'digital'.
SOUNDS
I use the unit for Delay, and most of my distortion tones. I get both a Chandler Tube Driver tone, which I use most of the time for that Pink Floyd / David Gilmour sound. Cleans are AWESOME, and very useful. Quite a few blues tones to play with in there too, and everything is super customizable.
One of my friends is a guitar player, and he ditched his BOSS GT for one as well. He plays metal, and Punk and gets a really authentic Mesa Dual Rectifier tone out of it through his twin after tweaking one of the stock 'mid scooped' distortion settings. He was also a 'purist' before owning one, always ragging on his digital equipment and using mainly analog stuff. Now the pedals are back in their box, and this unit has really simplified his rig setup.
I don't like the 'noise gate' feature, and always turn it off. Distortions are OK, but the Tube sounds / overdrive modes are what really make this guy sound great. I love the Compressor, EQ, and pretty much everything about its sound except for some settings such as the Whammy, (which doesn't sound like the red whammy pedal), noise gate, and some other stuff I don't use. It's packed with features. If you're not getting a good tone out of this unit, yours is either defective or you're tone deaf!
Controls take some time to get used to, and I feel like some of it's features are rather buried. I don't like that aspect of it. That's about it.
OVERALL OPINION
The thing I like the least about it? Well, the Wah tone is merely 'OK' , and the Pedal Board (control one) feels cheap and slides around on the floor because its too light if you buy that accessory. I broke quite a few MIDI cables because of that.
I don't like the menus / sub menu crap to get to certain aspects of it because it's very complicated at first. Then I guess you kind of get used to it and it becomes easier to use. Probably one of the main reasons you can still find them used!
I LOVE the sound. That's why I bought it. This thing is super responsive, and I can't see a guitar player not connecting with one and wanting to push it for hours. Lots of guitar player friends of mine have been 'lost in la la land' for hours playing through this thing on my rig.
Does Overdrives, Distortions, EQ, Delay, Reverb, and Stereo (panning) effects as well as a bunch of other stuff like 'Quad Delay', has left/ right amp out mono jacks - and when used between two amps in stereo , does some pretty amazing stuff, like a rotary simulations / phasers and panning delays. Very cool.
Upgraded mine to the 2120 with a really simple EPROM chip swap. Swapped out the stock tubes for Groove Tubes, and went to Ruby Tubes now. Sounds great with pretty much all. It's hard to tell, personally with tube swapping that your tone has changed ' a lot ', it's only a minor change. I think you could even use 12AU7's in here for less distortion , if that's what you were after and 'soften' things up a bit for blues, country, etc...
UTILIZATION
Even the presets on this thing sound GREAT, and are very useful as a guitar player - and maybe even a Bass player / keyboardist could use one of these to get some really cool stuff. I had a BOSS GT-6, and GT-8 but don't have anything good to say about those. They sound horrid compared to this unit, though it's older than both of those!
Tubes are what make this baby really cook. It's one of the best FX processors I've ever used because it sounds 'analog', and not 'tinny' or 'digital'.
SOUNDS
I use the unit for Delay, and most of my distortion tones. I get both a Chandler Tube Driver tone, which I use most of the time for that Pink Floyd / David Gilmour sound. Cleans are AWESOME, and very useful. Quite a few blues tones to play with in there too, and everything is super customizable.
One of my friends is a guitar player, and he ditched his BOSS GT for one as well. He plays metal, and Punk and gets a really authentic Mesa Dual Rectifier tone out of it through his twin after tweaking one of the stock 'mid scooped' distortion settings. He was also a 'purist' before owning one, always ragging on his digital equipment and using mainly analog stuff. Now the pedals are back in their box, and this unit has really simplified his rig setup.
I don't like the 'noise gate' feature, and always turn it off. Distortions are OK, but the Tube sounds / overdrive modes are what really make this guy sound great. I love the Compressor, EQ, and pretty much everything about its sound except for some settings such as the Whammy, (which doesn't sound like the red whammy pedal), noise gate, and some other stuff I don't use. It's packed with features. If you're not getting a good tone out of this unit, yours is either defective or you're tone deaf!
Controls take some time to get used to, and I feel like some of it's features are rather buried. I don't like that aspect of it. That's about it.
OVERALL OPINION
The thing I like the least about it? Well, the Wah tone is merely 'OK' , and the Pedal Board (control one) feels cheap and slides around on the floor because its too light if you buy that accessory. I broke quite a few MIDI cables because of that.
I don't like the menus / sub menu crap to get to certain aspects of it because it's very complicated at first. Then I guess you kind of get used to it and it becomes easier to use. Probably one of the main reasons you can still find them used!
I LOVE the sound. That's why I bought it. This thing is super responsive, and I can't see a guitar player not connecting with one and wanting to push it for hours. Lots of guitar player friends of mine have been 'lost in la la land' for hours playing through this thing on my rig.