The Watering Hole

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I am in love. This thing is exactly what I wish my Pods, GTs, Tonelabs, etc... sounded like. I have not loved a guitar tone so much since the days when I was toting around Mesa Mark IV's or Mesa rack stuff. Seriously, this tone is making me feel a decade younger. It's like "yeah, that's what a guitar is supposed to sound and feel like!!"

When I first plugged it in to my DAW and started playing I was like "eh, this is it? Really? Not much better than a GT-10 or RP1000." I was underwhelmed. But I tweaked for a very long 2 minutes and have the tone I really have been struggling to get out of all the modellers for the past 5 years.

Aspects of the tone I love: 1)Nice "organic sound". I know, organic is such a misnomer, as there is nothing "organic" about a signal passing through an audio circuit. But you know what I mean, all that digital harshness present in every modeller I have played is just not there. 2)Dynamic!!Both volume knob variations and pick attack subtlties really translate well with this thing. When I palm mute little 64th note runs, I don't get that grainy, thin, wierd sounding noise, I can actually feel every little note coming through the speakers.

It is just a nice, warm, beautiful sounding preamp, and this is running direct. I can only imagine using this thing as a preamp through a decent tube power amp and 4x12.

It is somewhat limited in function of course, unless you like tweaking knobes during a show, which I do not!!! But for the tones I want, set it and forget it. The Pre EQ is sweet. Both EQ are very powerful.

I set it like this: Drive and Compresser .. all the way up. Yep, I know, noisey, maybe overkill when I plug it into a PA system, but for my home monitors (Behringer Truth B2031A) this works well. Pre EQ, frequency all the way to treble, gain all the way up. Post EQ, Scoop lmost all the way down and Trebleset to about 11 oclock. Sounds good both in normal and Nuclear modes this way. I figure, depending on further testing of course, that I will end up using Normal mode for the stuff we play like Foo Fighters, Bush, ZZ Top, Hinder, Theory of a Deadman, Alice In Cahins, etc... and save the Nuclear mode for Godsmack, Metallica, SOAD, Sixx AM, Tool, etc...

Yeah, listening to the sample I recorded as I type this, wow. Overtones, nice richness, just really beautiful. I know, it's like being in the honeymoon phase with that chic you have had your eye on for a while, but so far she is rockin my world!!

I can honestly say that this pedal has rescued me from digital Limbo. I am willing to sacrifice some of the convenience and cost effectiveness of digital pedals in order to build a rig around sounds of this quality. I am not going to make any rash, first day decisions, but I think what will end up happening is the GT-10 will go back (don't want my precious analog signal passing through it's cheap converters) and I will use the refund from AMS as part of a downpayment on a Womanizer and Timeline or Nexus and a Line Selector. Then I will need a really good wah, tuner and maybe an Xotic RC Booster for solos, although I find with my Vetta I rarely boost my solos because my other guitar player uses a really scooped sound (my mid heavy sound comes through nicely, no matter what gear I use).

If all that sounds as good as I really hope (and believe) it will, then I will end up selling the Vetta for either an Atomic Reactor 2x12 or a 4x12 and tube power amp.

Anyhow, those of you who have been preaching the sweetness of DC pedals to me were right, I am hooked. This thing makes me sound like a much better player than I actually am!!!!

spaivxx — Mar 05, 2009----------------------------------------------------------------------------Yeah, listening to the sample I recorded as I type this, wow. Overtones, nice richness, just really beautiful. I know, it's like being in the honeymoon phase with that chic you have had your eye on for a while, but so far she is rockin my world!!

And to think, we could be listening to that very same sample...

Yall dont wanna hear my mindless noodling.... But I will post some samples tonite or tomorrow.

I had a Womanizer once, I sent it back because I could not improve on my recorded sound from the modelers. However it sounded great through a tube amp. I am sure the Demonizer sounds great that a way as well.

charger — Mar 05, 2009[quote author=spaivxx link=1236284039/0#0 date=1236284039]----------------------------------------------------------------------------Yeah, listening to the sample I recorded as I type this, wow. Overtones, nice richness, just really beautiful. I know, it's like being in the honeymoon phase with that chic you have had your eye on for a while, but so far she is rockin my world!!

And to think, we could be listening to that very same sample...


LOL!  ;D

spaivxx — Mar 05, 2009Yall dont wanna hear my mindless noodling....

whatchu talkin' bout, Willis?  I love mindless noodling!  It's all I do.   ;D

DreamTheaterRules — Mar 05, 2009[quote author=spaivxx link=1236284039/0#2 date=1236286006]Yall dont wanna hear my mindless noodling....

whatchu talkin' bout, Willis?  I love mindless noodling!  It's all I do.   ;D

But just not in the recorded sense, heh?

nah, because to quote the hooded one, "you don't want to hear my mindless noodling"   ;D

Here are a few clips from today when I was experienting with the GT-10 and Demonizer. I don't usually post stuff like this, I have over 100GB of this junk on my drive from the last few months of testing the Vetta DI, Pod, GT, TLSE, TLLE, RP1000, etc... But since I really love the Demonizer pedal in a way I have not loved a piece of gear in many years, I figured I would post some of this.

Keep in mind, I was noodling. This is not performance grade material, I was jsut playing to hear the gear. All clips were done with my el cheapo Ibanez SZ520QM with stock pickups. Unless noted, bridge pickup used, although it is obvious which I am using in each clip. There may be a switched pickup or two mid clip but you hear that too...

No FX, processing, etc... except for what is noted in the clip title. Again, forgive the noodle-ish nature of the noodling... I played certain things to hear the way the preamp and fx responded. I picked the shortst clips I had that showed a little variety of tones, some times the tone difference from clip to clip is more subtle, so... ALso, encoded at 128ks

Some of you will no boubt say: That's nothing special, heck my First Act strat copy into my V-Amp sounds better than that". and others will say "nice" and whatever. That's cool, perhaps I don't do the sounds justice in places, but I love the way this pedal responds to my playing. I am very happy with it and find it's tones very inspiring.

Dry Rhythm followed by wankage: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7398608

Dry Gilbert Tone (extra treble): http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7398613

Dry Neck Pup: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7398616

Thru GT-10 no FX: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7398587

With GT-10 Parametric: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7398605

With GT-10 Resonator http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7398595

With GT-10 Delay http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7398603

With GT-10 Delay, Neck Pup http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7398619

With gT-10 Delay, V knob rolloff http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7398591

With GT-10 Harmonizer http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7398594


I realize this is not as cool as if I had done a proper review or played over backing tracks or whatever, just thought some of you might want to hear samples of what this pedal can do. I am very pleased with it.

Not bad.  It definitely has the tube vibe to it.  Rock on!!

I listened to the clip on top Dry Rhythm followed by wankage, (I think)

Sounded pretty cool to me.

That's got some potential to it, a bit too pick-attacky for my taste, but I bet it would sound sweet thru a power amp and cab, or direct thru some good cab impulses.  Thanks for posting.  If I ever come across one at a bargain rate I might grab it.

To me it sounds exactly as bad in your clips as I remember it to be when I had one way back for about a month.
(No offense though! You are a good player from what I hear in those clips)
I had posted some clips of it aswell back in the WH days.

All I remember is ice-picky sounds, too much bass and plenty of noise.

What really bothered me with the Demonizer was that there was a constat scoop of the mids that you can't turn of. You can control the frequency but you cannot turn off the scoop.
A good post-midrange EQ with frequency select would have been the way to go IMO.
Plus, you cannot control the amount of bass (if I remember correctly). I had way too much bass with the D.

And the worst thing on my unit was the noise. I had to turn the Drive knob all the way up and the distortion was still not gainy enough, no power to it at all.
I remember having to dial in quite a decent amount of opto compression plus the +20db nuclear button - then the D would get me an adequate lead sound with good sustain, but by then there was so much noise that it was almost unbearable.

I lasted about 2 weeks with this thing and then sent it back in disgust.

Or not!  LOL  :D