rackattack's Reviews

perfectly good old distortion in the style of a DS-1

I don't think it offers much in comparison to its boss cousin, but it also isn't worse. Sadly made out of plastic, made in Korea. Keeping in mind that these are old, but maybe you look for that sound particularly.

decent gate

It is decent gate. I am generally not impressed with gates. Even with the low price I don't think it deserves a 5 stars since there is still a lot of tone muck it creates (like all other in that price range). If you just go for guitar distortion noise it does as good a job as other cheap noise gates. I bought it as a test to see how well it reduces noise from old effects and maybe buy some in bulk and I'd say it does not a sufficient enough job for me.

the ufo landed

unique pedal, just look at it. comes with a 12V power supply, but says it takes 12 to even 14V. the input and output are in unusual order and it is certainly not something you buy, when you want a tight small pedal board. it basically sounds like you would expect it to sound, the warp factor is its main appeal for tone shaping, plus the higher voltage, it also has an additional tone switch. they can be had quite cheap, deffo buy with the power supply.

decent old budget fx unit

It is a nice old budget multifx rack unit. release wise I would assume it sits somewhere in the middle or towards the end, giving later budget vibes. It has dual input and output and as other peavey fx needs a hard to get 16 VAC power supply. The strength of the unit I would say lies in its delays and phaser, flanger and rotary. It has no programmability, but the two parameter knobs offer a surprisingly wide range. it has 4 delays, bright, warm, dark and ping pong of which the dark one might be the most experimentally unique and interesting. chorus, phaser, flanger and rotary are all fine and can get unique. the stacked delay and reverb did not impress me. it also offers gated, reverse, spring, cathedral, room, chamber and plate which are all fine, but nothing outstandingly unique to my ears. a noise floor is to be expected. of course this is not a high end machine, so if you take budget and age in to account I can generally recommend it.

quality distortion

It is a great distortion, there is no question about it. It seems pretty unforgiving of bad input signal. It also seems to be a pedal with a learning curve. As expected the tonality is very precise and it does a great job for fast and intricate playing. the bass and the treble are both really good, but is it missing some middle frequencies? there seems to be some scoop or some from of modeling that I have to test further. the case is pretty wide and you will not find a sturdier pedal. the controls have small steps like the control of a safe, so there is a great quality feel here. amazing metallic color. the step up from crunch setting to saturated is quite steep. you can find a great overdrive sound in this pedal too. the scoop and the distortion noise are two areas where I would say the rocktron reaction distortion I does an equal or a better job for half the price.

my taste, sweet spot

I was postponing getting one besides knowing I like its clones. Finally got one and I am not the biggest boss fan, but this one is special, it has a tone, a melodiousness that is instant home for me. will test how well it works with old reverbs and delays, but it gives me that sweet 90s feeling.

good drive, really sturdy

It is good, I am keeping it, not a special drive. compared with the distortions of that line not the most tone shaping abilities. very sturdy and very heavy.

good series, but not my most favorite

same as joyo, you can also find this series in other casings with other names. part of a budget rip off series of Tech 21 pedals. I had the american, which is one of the best budget pedals imo, so I had hoped this one would sound better, considering that it should replicate some of mesa boogies mojo supposedly, but actually I don't use it much. I intend to get some Tech 21 originals in the future, but prob not the california first.

great affordable unit

to me this is an in between alesis reverb, it sits somewhat between the quadraverb generation and the quadraverb 2 generation in sound and controls. it can be had cheap since it seems to be the longest produced reverb. there are excellent videos on youtube about it. it comes both in 18 and 24 bit and the 24 seems less common. I have to admit I haven't used it enough since my specimen has an issue. sadly a lot of the used available units have an issue now with the brightness of the display, so when buying I would advise to make sure the display works. gives you good ability to create your own patches similar like quadraverb, but with much less arduous controls. here is the makers legacy site for it: https://www.alesis.com/products/view/midiverb4.html

pretty good

it's pretty good. I wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised. pretty good simple delay with no dial in hassle.

okay

nothing wrong with this reverb, it is compact, has some nice settings. I had hoped it'd be a tad better than other mini pedal reverbs. it is cheap and its big brother has good reviews so I had to test it. not my cup of reverb, I find the reverbs boring, not impressed.

decent stereo recorder with intuitive functionality

I used to record dawless with a microphone and a mixer, hesitant to go involve an interface, but I'd say the upgrade to this device was worth with distinctly less noise and an ability to have a headphone option. The unit is pretty intuitive to operate and works out of the box on linux. While really good, I would say the sound is not as clear as could be, but it might be the rest of my setup that is not optimal since the headphone sound often is better than the actual recording. I used ardour and audacity. sturdy - mine dropped and seems to have no issues. all in all a medium budget device, very intuitive, good features, but not to much, and of course and most importantly stereo recording. I have no comparison experience.

good to have

first I wasn't super impressed, but I use it often. it has a tiny bit of normal distortion noise. it can warm up the tone, so I tend to use it in combination with other drives. I am not the biggest boss fan, but this one has value imo, I tend to grab it quite often. warm, transparent, bit normal noise.

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I love it

I love it. I had the hot rod, the screaming blues, the famous monkey, the clapton one, but this is the one staying. why do I like it, I don't know, prob the two tone knobs. not a fan of the amp sim in the whole X series, so I only use the amp out. if you want to know more about the X-Series use the waybackmachine with year 2006 or so.

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good reverse reverb and splitter

good delay out of a great series. I use it for the reverse setting and as a splitter. have used it happily together with many rack reverbs, for example as a dual out delay in front dual input rack reverbs. reliable workhorse.

my go to for my baritone

they are my standard strings for my electric 30" baritone. the tension difference is not perfect, but I had trouble with the low string in the XL158 set. I must have had around 10 to 15 sets of these, they hold long and rust slower than other sets. I tested many other sets and they stayed my favorite. when it comes to baritone strings the range of guitars and different genres is big and availability low, so everybody needs to check for themselves and I recommend getting several sets and testing which works best for the specific guitar and sound. I like the sound, they hold long, definitely quality strings.

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noisy but a keeper

it seems like a noisy budget offering, but the trailing of some presets are still so fun to use, maybe it is the magic of the era in which it was made? It has grown on me. the controls are intuitive and the presets very quick to reach, the effect mix has kind of a sudden point, so should be adjusted with care, the eq sections is a very nice bonus. love the front and classic font.

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an interesting blues drive

rare and interesting. not sure what the mojo knob does, kinda thickens the sounds, I have it rather low since I like a bright sound. a good transparent blues drive that gets dirty from around 10 or 11 onwards. as you would expect not to much distortion range. love the silvery heavy metal casing. the fact that it comes from iSP makes it even more interesting in my eyes. I see no need to upgrade in the moment.

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a very fun unit

if you look at zooms history it is actually introduced rather late and when you open it up the board is pretty small. the sound is still a vintage sound and I wonder if they intended it to be. it has two siblings in the 1202 and the 1204. A very fun unit, driven by knobs. the font on the aluminum back is hard to read, especially in a dark environment, so I recommend fixing that before a gig. together with other rack unit it can be a bit dominant. if you are looking for a unit with a vintage sound that has lots of experimental potential I certainly recommend it.

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a small upgrade to the original

It is pretty similar to the quadraverb, in the end it is a eprom upgrade. They managed to make the sound less noisy, maybe due to difference in reverb convolution, and introduced some very interesting effects in the 80s program range and if I am not mistaken also minimal differences in the programming of the patches. It is a slightly different beast and I could see why you would prefer one or the other or want to have both. Apart from the things mentioned it is the same in usability.