Rocktron Chameleon 2000

This things a breeze to use. It's just like any other piece of digital equipment, you turn knobs and press buttons and store.

I have a B.C. Rich Mockingbird with 2 humbuckers, and this thing sounds great with 'em. All the channels except for british are excelent. The clean is pristine, texas is very bluesy, and mega is hardcore. The effects are all usable even on the wacked out settings (try setting the pitchshifter to -2400 and set another pitchshifter to 2 octaves up, its crazy) You can creat loops with the delay which is cool. The flanger and chorus are the best, trem is good for creating pulses and the phaser sounds good just the filter sweeps are harsh at the top and the bottom. The coolest thing is that you can set the speeds of effects different on the left and right channels, and the delay time.

Right now I'll give it a 10 because I've had it only a few weeks and I haven't gigged with it outside yet but it seems it can take a beating.

Haven't had to yet

I play anything from fusion to thrash to drum'n'bass, and the rocktron dishes it out. The processor sounds incredinble since it is 24bit instead of 16bit like most processors. I've been playing 4 years, I own 4 guitars - 2 electrics an acoustic and a classical, a bass, a dijeridoo, a piano, a terrible casio keyboard which is fun to play, a korg AX1G, a Nady wireless, and I have a 4-track recorder. I've played all my instruments through this and they all sound great, it makes the keyboard sound analog unbelievably. I've already compossed 4 or 5 songs which all my friends are raving about so I think this unit deserves to be looked at by anyone who wants to start a rack system.

Like any other programable unit its a pain to use when you first start. But after a while you get the hang of it and its fairly simple. But still on occation ill entend to edit a parameter and accidently turn the wrong nob and erase what i just did. For a programable preamp its fairly easy to use.

Sounds are very good. Im using it with a samson servo 120 solid state power amp. It sounds MUCH better with a tube power amp. I tried it at the store on a Mesa 2/90. I was pleased. Clean channel is very nice. Not much id change on it. It can be very clean to a little punchy like a country twang sound. Blues channel is ok. I dont use it much but Im sure it will come in handing at church. In my opinion the british channel sounds the best. It can sound thin or thick. It can get dirtier than a JCM 2000. Mega channel is cool for shredding but it sounds more like a metal zone. Not TOO exciting for lead solo work. However, keep in mind that im still useing a solid state amp. Effects are completely awesome although I only use reverb and sometimes delay or chorus. They are there if you want em but i mainly got the unit for the preamp.

Ive only had it since Christmas 99. So for so good.

Good people. answered all my questions very well.

It doesnt have balanced XLR outs or a parametric eq like the voodu or old chameleon. But id buy it again. I think its far superior than digitch or zoom. I got mine at www.8thstreet.com for $420. Ask for Forest.

Sounded good out of the box. This is my first piece of rack gear, and I was a little bit sketchy, but it's worked well so far. Contains a wide variety of patches/presets so there's most likely a tone similar to what you are looking for. Minor tweaking may be necessary, though, if you really want to hit it on the head. Editing format is simple and intuitive. It can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. The manual's decent, but I had to go to the web for minor details about the different effect and their parameters. Probably my own ignorance showing. Overall, this little box gets it done quick and easy.

First off, I'm using it with a jackson KE-1, a Gibson LP Studio (Alder body), and a Fender Strat with Texas Specials. I use a Marshall Valvestate 8200, with the Chameleon going into the power amps, so the Marshall doesn't contribute anything but 100w per channel of juice. For under $500, this unit rips! The clean channel is crisp, and the mega gain channel seethes. The Texas and British channels are not quite as good, but are certainly usable. The texas setting is obviously digital, and the british is kind of flabby. They dont have quite as versatile eq as the other channels: e.g. the clean has a bright switch and the mega has a mid-scoop. Overall, though the sounds are better than you would think from the digital sature of the beast and the price. I prefer to turn down the presence and variac controls to warm it up a bit, and to cut out a slightly shrill sound, at least on the high gain. Hush NR is quite effective, and the compressor is acceptable. The wah effect is servicable, but don't sell your crybaby. The pitch shift is OK. The other effects are all killer. Reverb, delay, chorus, tremolo, phaser, and flanger are all inspiring. The delay is awesome! For the money, or more money for that matter, it's a winner, mucho bang for your buck. It excels at clean and high-gain sounds, not quite as good in between. That's typical of my experience with solid-state, and not just this unit though. Good for doing Pantera, Slayer, Metallica, ZZ Top, GNR, etc. I found that it favors humbuckers over the single coils, esp on distorted sounds, but the strat's clean tone sings on this little guy! i actually give it an 8.75 just to be obstinate.

No problems yet, but I haven't taken it far. It's built like a tank, and rocktron gear has a good rep in this area. Time will tell, but i have reason to be optimistic.

Haven't needed it yet.

This is killer, but with a few small caveats. It's a $500 unit, so there are a few minor compromises. You have to pick your effect, basically one to a preset (Gain level+Compressor+Hush+Effect+Delay+Reverb)So you can have tremolo OR Chorus OR Wah OR Flanger etc. but not all of them MIDI Selectable within a single preset. Tones are good, but you wouldn't mistake it for a tube amp, but hey it's under half a grand, what do you expect? I wish there were blank presets, instead of having to write over factory ones. Half of the 254 presets are just the same as the first 128, but with the speaker simulation added, though, so it's workable. This is a fairly versatile unit, and I've found it useful. I do plan to put a BBE sonic maximizer in my rack with it though. You can scroll through the presets, and be inspired by most of them. This is the best 500 or so bones that I've put into my rig yet. If it were lost or stolen, I would buy another right away, pausing only to slay the person responsible for my loss. Bottom line: Fundamental tones are good, effects range from good to awesome, easy to use, and cost effective. The only real downside is that I spent time writing this review that I could have spent playing.