Akai D1 Shred-O-Matic

Basic controls are easy as it gets, the switches and "volume type" pedal just add different distortion voicings...doesn't take long to find the one that suits you and your amp.

Use this with a Les Paul Classic and ESP H 1000 LTD into a couple of different tube amps. Isn't noisy at all...I go for a very heavy "Slayerish" early Metallica sound and this thing grinds, screams the right way, very much has that heavy chunky sound that I love.

Some people have claimed that the tube doesn't really do anything, but I have to disagree...it may not be a full-on hot plate tube set up in there, but it's a total improvement over any standard analog pedal. The tube does what a tube should, it "Warms" up the sound well.
Some people have complained about the lack of mid control...I haven't found this to be an issue...could have something to do with the amp they're running in into (you might try bypassing your amps preamp section-just run this pedal in to the loop bcz your pre-amp is probably coloring the sound). I have no complaints about the tone-it's got that METAL tone-thick bass, nice highs, the right kinda middle- thick crunchy and sinister.

Never a problem with it...different tubes seem like an improvement over stock

Never had to deal with 'em

I'll give it an "9"...not sure what a 10 is, but I'm still looking for it. For a distortion pedal though, you really can't do any better than this one. The only pedal I have ever had that comes close is a Zoom Tri-Metal which still sounds thin compared to this one. My Keeley MetalZone wasn't near as good as this one either. I've had just about every distortion pedal under the sun, and I've never been able to replace this one yet.

easy to use. bass, treble, gain nad volume control. a switch to turn it on and off a switch to select between tube, diode and two mixmodes and a pedal to control amount of distortion or volume while playing.

i use a epiphone lp studio through the d1 through an ibanez eq into a seventy's fender replica clean channel(250 watt, transistor)with a behringer bg412h 4*12 cab.
i changed the original sovtek tube first i used the preamp tube of a marshall valvestate combo, than i bought one from tubeampdoctor. now it sounds great. i normally use the tube setting when playing, only sometimes i turn it to diode when i want some mid-less pig sound.

never had problems, i have it for over a year now and never took a backup to the gigs or the rehearsal room. but i always have a spare tube with me.

don't know, but i liked it that you can download the manual from akai's homepage, because i bought it without a manual

i play hardcore with some metal influence and it fits this style. like i mentioned above i sometimes use the diode setting- thats when i tune down to c and play some sludgecore (normally i play tuned to d). i especially like the pedal to change the amount of distortion. it's like having a three channel amp: clean, semidistorted and distorted.
what i don't like about this thing is that it has no control for the mid-range, that's why i use an eq to pull up the lower-mid frequencys and pull down the "real" mids.

Pretty easy to use, the controls are not unlike any other distortion pedal, except for the expression pedal.

I love this pedal, but only through my setup. If you plug your guitar into this pedal, and then straight into an amp, it'll suck. But I run it into a Behringer sonic enhancer, and it REALLY helps. I think this pedal has too much midrange by itself, and the sonic enhancer helps me to correct that. Once I have everything dialed in perfectly, I love the sound. I use it for a 80's hard rock kinda sound, sorta like Extreme's "Get the Funk out", although it's not quite so one dimensional as that particular song. I use this pedal mostly with a Hamer Diablo loaded with Dimarzio Evolution pickups, although I'll also play my Aria 7 string through it.

I use it with a Fender Hot Rod deluxe, and I think it sounds really good. Helps bring out some of the low end that the Fender doesn't naturally have. I don't know how noisy it is, really. The sonic enhancer has noise suppresion built in, so I havn't paid attention to that.

Deffintely dependable, and I've gigged without a backup. Had it for a couple years now with no problems.

Never had the pleasure.

I play worship, prog-metal, blues, classic rock, etc. I mostly use it for 80's era classic rock, like Van Halen and the like. If you darken it up a bit, it will go metal, but that's not where it shines, I don't think. If it were stolen or lost, I would buy another, and actually did just in case that happened (it did). I don't use it as often as I used to, since I've been playing with a different band, but I still really like it. The only thing I wish it had were a mid EQ knob, because it tends to have too much mids, I think. If you could scoop them a bit more, I think it would be killer.

Before you throw it out cuz you hate the eq AND buzzsaw grind....

1. BYPASS THE EQ BY TURNING HIGH AND LOW TO ZERO
2. turn the drive to zero
3. Assign the expression pedal to Output

Now you have your guitars signal routed through either a tube filter (overdrive) or a diode circuit (compression and odd order harmonics) that will clean up with your volume knob and a BOOST using the expression pedal.

I'm using a BOSS powersupply from a small mixer and the pedal is very quiet. This pedal doesn't like my one spot, but I dont either cuz I only use one pedal now.

I've used it for about a year now in various setups with various results tonally. The settings above are now my Gibson Goldatone's 2nd channel, comes through sounding like my goldtone with a some sizzle and sustain for days.

I'ts the most frustrating pedal I've ever owned.

It is easy to operate this unit however, it is not so quickly easy to get an immediately good sound out of it. It comes nowhere even close to a Fulldrive 2 or ToneBone Hot British. I bought mine a few years back when everyone was blowing them out at $50.00 new. I feel sorry for the folks who paid the full price of these when they first came out. I laugh when I see them higher than $50 bucks on ebay. I have gigged with it but, wasn't very impressed with the sound so, I boxed and closeted it. Now, after reading some of the reviews here, I decided to experiment with it and give it a fair workout using a DOD stompbox EQ, A Rocktron Nitro tonal enhancer and a very necessary Boss NS-2 noise suppressor.

For my experiment I used a Fernandes Sustainer Monterey Elite into the Boss NS-2. I used the loop of the NS-2 like this. SEND Rocktron Nitro > Akai D1 Shred-O-Matic > DOD FX40 Graphic Equalizer > RETURN of NS-2 into a Mesa Boogie Nomad 45 1X12 combo on the clean channel #1. I dialed in the cleanest sound possible on the amp first.

Thr drive knob goes to a hard overdrive in hardly any movement at all.
At 8:00 it was already way beyond any light overdrive. I tweaked the onboard high and lows relentlessly for awhile settling for straight up 12:00 noon on both. Then I worked in the magic with the EQ pedal. I have to say that, I have read the reviews on many harder distortion pedals and have to agree with many reviewers that, an EQ just after them, makes a world of difference. I've heard this is very true of the un-modded stock Boss MT-2 metal zone pedals too.

The Boss NS-2 kept the noise down very well. I believe it was a very necessary part of the Shred's signal chain.

The Rocktron Nitro added some nice sparkle to the overall sound. I think it has some slight compression in it.

The EQ settings were somewhat "smiley faced" but tended to go higher on the bass side, mids in the center and a slight rise on the brights.
Within 20 minutes I had a very workable general purposed Bad Company
"Can't Get Enough Of Your Love" crunch going on. Once I got to 11:00 and beyond on the drive knob, things started to blur and were less defined. The pedal in DRIVE mode is kind of weird. With the drive knob setting all the way off, it causes the pedal to default to the highest gain setting the pedal has. I preferred the TUBE mode. The
other settings yielded a harder and colder response in my opinion. I guess it's all about what YOU need it for.

It's been working for me for years without a problem.

Haven't a clue and for what I paid for it, it could burn up tomorrow and I wouldn't be lost without it. I'm going right in the middle with this one with a five. I really don't know about their support though.
They haven't made them for a while now so whats to support?

I play classic rock. It doesn't suit what I am currently doing. Been playing since Oct 1964. Been playing out professionally since 1993. I
am a Gear Acquistion Syndrome sufferer. I own way too much gear to list. I've tried out and, in many case bought, pretty much everything. I wouldn't buy another one. It should have had a better onboard EQ when it was designed. I bought it because I heard a very nice demo of it from a CD which came from Guitarist magazine (UK) and those guys make everything sound pretty damn good. Plus,it was only $50 bucks. I'd really love to try it with a JJ 12AU7 or JJ 12AT7 tube in it.

This is NOT a plug and play pedal. Like any decent distortion device, it requires the owner to actually spend some time learning its nuances. If you want a convenient, knob turning buzz-box, go to your nearest big box retailer and buy the latest nu-metalesque toy. This distortion unit is for the big boys.
The pedal speaks for itself. If you want to control the volume, switch to volume mode. If you want to control the gain, switch to gain mode. To bypass? Keep the switch in the middle. Enough said.

The amp, like any distortion device, when dimed out, can roar; so you'll want a good noise suppression device if you're going after the violin-shred tones. In tube mode, the changes in tone are less dramatic than with the solid state mode but I've taken a liking to the mix mode, which seems to really provide that saturated distortion sound which spoke for an entire generation of NWOBHM (if you don't know what that is...skip the rest of the review). This won't give you a Pantera or Metallica style of distortion in of itself because the two tone controls are about as useful as boobs on a bull. Rotating them full circle doesn't do much for the sound but when used with a sublimental eq pedal, holy cow! The Akai comes to life. Makes me wonder why the company didn't pay a bit more attention to the tone shaping of the unit. Think of this as simply an incredible distortion device for the money (most, can be had for 1/2 of what a new Rocktron Silver Dragon goes for and THAT 12AX7 dual-tube/solid state pedal doesn't come with it's own foot pedal which can adjust level and gain while standing).
This device can best be used through the clean channel to give you an added "lead channel" or hell...with the gain judiciously used, will even work on your own amp's lead channel if your current combo needs that extra push to get the real saturated tube-like singing sustain. It definitely will warm up a solid state, especially if run through your clean channel.
This is a distortion device, so I rate it simply based on the quality of the distortion provided.

Built like a tank. No problems ever.

Akai hardly even knows this unit existed. It must of been made by some of their rogue engineers on the sly with intentions of "let's see if we can make a great distortion pedal while the suits are on vacation."

You're on your own here.

I play 80's metal and this unit nails that era of tones. I can mirror about 75% of the Lynch, Vai, Malmsteen, etc tones with just my Strat (X2N rear humbucker), reverse headstock...yada..yada...yada, and my stock combo...a Roland VGA-3 (unbelievable amp). You'll need an eq pedal and noise gate for things to really come to life (with some control) but without a doubt, this is the best $65 distortion pedal you'll ever hear IF (and only if) you like creamy distortion and not chainsaw buzz.

Easy enough for a guitarist. A drummer, on the other hand, would find it incomprehensible.

I used my guitar, the electric one, and six Hi Watt 200 full stacks. Couldn't really tell what the D1's effect was as I get plenty of shredding sound anyway. Being partially deaf couldn't help either.

I suppose it is dependable. As for using it at a gig without a backup (?) Was I suppose to have two? Please advise.

Customer support hadn't heard of the thing. Said it wasn't in their database. Which I could vouch for because it was on my floor. They were friendly though, offered to come around and set me right.

I play electric guitar style and it is for electric guitar. So I say it is a good match.

I have been playing for about three hours and then I got online for something (forgot what) and then somehow I ended up doing this opinion poll. Will continue playing as soon as I finish here.

If it were lost or stolen I wouldn't have it anymore. But that's fine because I stole it first.

I love the foot part-pedal thingy. The glowy bits. I hate paying for equipment. I liked that my leads (cords) fit into it so I didn't have to steal special ones.

I can't compare it to anything as I have never used such a product before, it was just closest to the door at the shop.

I wish it had wheels to cart it around. It's a bit unruly.

It doesn't help me play music but it sometimes gets in the way. I once kicked it into the audience and put out some poor fecker's eye. No laughing matter. It's been months and I'm still picking out bits of eye.

How about that bloke's girlfriend?

VERY easy to use.

I set the output at 9:00 (superstition), the bass and treble at 1:00-3:00, drive JUST above zero, and set the pedal to "drive". Usually I run it on "tube", but frequently on diode (each has its unique sounds).

I use an electric singing saw of my own design [an M&W tenor saw w/ a Gibson(?) humbucker], into the Akai (set up as above), thence into a Behringer X-Vamp, and from that into a 1965 Univox U-155R.

Sometimes I use a Charlie Blacklock "bass" saw equipped with a BC Rich humbucker; and occasionally into a Univox U-305R.

(I don't believe in "10" ratings.)

Yes, and Yes...as said, solid metal, tube etc. should last forever....

I don't think that they want to know about this thing....

Yes, this pedal honks, although who knows, with a *&^%! saw? Besides, I think most musicians these days are so used to cranking the treble and bass, that a FLAT frequency response sounds like it has a huge mid-range hump. However, it also kicks a_s!! I don't get s--t out of my saw and X-Vamp w/out the S-O-M; with it, I can trade licks w/ Albert, or Luther, or whoever you like.
Originally, I bought this pedal to "warm up" my Roland (ss) amp (vain hope, of course- I took it apart too, and saw the l.e.d. under the tube), BUT I found thet I NEEDED it with my Korg multieffects pedal, or all I got was a thump and a faint wail. BTW, while I had it apart, I replaced the Sovtek that was in it (what IS the original tube, Russian or Chinese?) with a nice Mullard that I happened to have from one of my Univoxes- the improvement was dramatic, but it didn't eliminate the "honk".

In any event "de gustibus non disputandum"- i.e., "in matters of taste there is no dispute" (cause I'm always right), and like a bunch of the people below, I LIKE the sound of this pedal! In addition, my setup wouldn't work at all w/out it, so I find it ESSENTIAL! Also, the sound is UNIQUE (you won't see everybody else driving one).

BTW, I've tried Ibanez, Boss, Digitech, etc., and this pedal is the Magoo, AFAIC.

Simple purchased in 1999 many have come and gone and it still remains.

I'm using a Boss compressor-D1(peddel set to gain amount)-digitech Rp5 .I have used several different amps with this set up,I'm running it into a traynor YC40WR that is slaed out to a sound city 120 the left cannel of the RP5 feeds a Randall RH 100 all the amps are set clean (to many custom guitars to list,some inexpesive ones to ).No noise unless it is set at max gain. I don't like the tube channel of the peddel it is fairly useless.I don't care what mod anyone does it will never sound like a true tube dist.Lets face it if you don't feed a tube the proper voltage it will always be brittle. That being said the solid tate channel sounds great.This is one of the best I have used and I've had a lot to many to list ( been playing for 21 years ) I would have loved to rate it higher but unfortunaly the crapy tube channel will limit this.

Extremly reliable I have been using it for five years . It has had a tough life.Still works like new.

Never used it

I play heavy alt .I've been playing 21 years.

Pretty easy to use. Functions all seem logical. Rocker pedal isn't super smooth...

Peak in mids makes it unusable. I use a JC120 and a MUSICMAN 210 amp, with a les paul custom. The distortion sounds thin in either tube or diode mode. EQ is practically useless, and does nothing to counter the huge midrange peak. Great idea poorly exacuted. Someone mentioned its great after changing the valve. someone else said let it burn in for 30 hours first. Maybe, maybe not. I'm not going to waste my time fiddling with an ultimatly flawed design. Maybe mach 2 will be better, but from the looks of the headrush 2, I seriously doubt it.

Solid enough.

Don't know

I play rock music. If your after a really shrill nasal lead tone with good sustain, it may have a valid use for you. I like my distortion to sound full. This it doesnt deliver. In my live rig I use a akai headrush, which has certain design faults. I have tried the new version, and none of those faults were fixed. I guess what I mean is Akai seem to be trying, but have coped out just before the finish line.