Rocktron Piranha Tube Guitar Preamp

It's a great preamp. I use it in the return of a TSL100 Marshall head, with a Gmajor in line, and it kicks major butt !!! Cool clean tones ( very john petrucci on Images and words if you know how to tweak ), the classic distortion is really great and the modern is almost too heavy so I don't go all the way with the gain...Actually the classic mode crancked to max gain is all I need and more. THe cool thing is the parametric mids EQ, with this feature and if you know how to use the treble settings, you can dial any type of tone, very sharp or mellow and sustaining...anything is in there for the tweaking guitar player...sounds really between a marshall and a boogie if you look hard enough...

Old tube preamp by rocktron, but to me at least, the best they ever made. 3 channels, all tube, midi, loop w/level, XLR direct out.

It's probably 10 years old and works like a charm...'nuff said

A really cool unit, it's kind of forgotten now by most people, but it's in my rack and not going anywhere. If rocktron reissues it, I'm on the line of customers

This unit is very east to use. The knobs are sturdy, and have a definite feel as each parameter is edited. The light-up buttons tell you what's on, and there are two simple number displays.

There's a global setting button which allows you to adjust a parameter for all the patches, though the price is having to change them all back to different values. There are also separate input and output knobs, which is handy where you are simply plugging into a different output, or using a louder guitar.


The EQ is limited, but it gets it right where it does work - sensibly there is a mid frequency control as well as a cut/boost. These are the frequencies that make or break a guitar sound, and there is lots of room for adjustment.

Midi control works fine. You can really only change patches, but given you can store 99 of them, you should be able to set up all the individual parameters you want anyway.

You need three different screwdrivers to get into and replace the valves, but you shouldn't need to do this often.

There is a wealth of outputs and inputs.The effects loop has a midi-programmable button. meaning you can put an effects unit in the loop, and program it in.

With some new valves, this sounded excellent - you get an excellent marshally drive, that doesn't sound so good at extremely high gains, or have cleans with a lot of presence.

You can't quite get full modern metal, or classic fuzz, but the tone of the unit is very good - it won't do everything, but what it does, does well.

The clean channel gives the warmest,bluesiest distortion, while the "distort and even-more-distorted" settings provide a nice crisp, full sound.

As each valve is for a separate channel, you can opt for a different tube to give the clean channel more headroom.

It's a very quiet unit, and the hush noise gate (good as any other I've heard) is not often neccessary.

Finally, it's worth saying that whether it was into computer, or solid state and valve amps, the Piranha is consistent and sounds good.

This thing is built of very sturdy metal, and the rackmount wings a reinforced, so they won't bend or snap off. As said earlier, the knobs are great, smooth.

THe unit I have is a few years old, but it has none of the signs of age - bad input sockets, scratchy pots etc.

Rocktron answered both my questions quickly, telling me how to indentify the clean tube, for example. Considering this product is discontinued, and I bought second hand, they were excellent.

I play all sorts of music, and I think this is one of the best distortion units I've used. It sounds genuinely 'valve-y', and I really haven't found myself wanting for much.

Well, a lot of sounds, a lot to controls.. hm.. had some difficulties to find my BRUTAL DEATHMETAL sound

the record out is shit...
the main sound is, if very distorted and with a lot of gain very hissi.. but if you took the piranha in front of a marshall or boogie the piranha is very sadistic..:) he beats other fx in any way.. IF YOU LIKE BRUTAL DISTORTION, and play extreeeem metal, it's the best choice.

hm, bought it secondhand, and after 4 month it went away.. had to change the tubes..

very fast. i mailed to jim from rocktron and yes:) believe it or not he sent me next day all the plans for the piranha by fax.

Get this bitch if you play metal.. no other unit gives you such fat sound.. but remember to use a tubeamp..

This is the best sounding preamp on the market!!I just don't understand why Rocktron decided to take it out of production??!Nothing comes close to this thing.Nice cleans(well it's not a Roland Jazzchorus).If you add gain to the clean channel you can go from a bluesy crunch to a pretty nice Brown-Sound.
The distortion is offering two different modes.The first one is a "classic" distortion channel with a lot of gain and great sustain!Just think a hot-rodded jcm800 or 5150.The modern distortion adds even more gain and natural compression(TUBE-compression!!!) and sounds more agressive.You can have the Rectifier distortion with a very tight bottom end,backed mids and with even more gain(yes!!)but without losing clarity an definition(like it's the case with the Rectos).No matter wich channel you use,this thing sings!I use the Piranha with Ibanez Jem guitars,tc electronic gmajor and Rocktron Velocity 300.I owned: Marshall hot-rodded jcm 800,dsl 100,Laney vhr100 and tt100h,Line 6 Pod xt pro,Ada mp1 three tube mod(a mess of a preamp!!)and a x-88.The Piranha is the best one,because it has three very good channels and not only one.You don't have to compromise( like i used to do with the jcm800:great crunch/distortion but no clean channel,same thing with the x-88).Just go for it!No matter what sounds you need,they are here!

Very versatile preamp.Has evrything you might need.Very cool feature is the control for the mid band information.If you try tweaking it a bit,you can produce any sound you need.The built in Hush noisereduction works great,although the amp is very quiet!midi controlable plus a very good effects loop.

Never had a problem with Rocktron gear!

No idea.

I play a couple of different bands an styles.From jazz to pop to classic,heavy rock and the piranha can do it all.Just take your time to tweak and you'll find your voice!

I have 2 guitars hand-made with humbuckers Gibson 500T each one. Also the same wood of the gibson guitars. I use the distortion of the Piranha and the Hush, i think it, the best noise gate in the world. I use the Behringer Virtualizer PRO 2024DSP only for FX, in a power amp of a 5150 head. Marshall cabs. The sound is simply FANTASTIC. So Hi gain, dirty, heavy, and aggressive sound. Just like Nevermore, Pantera, Machine Head guitar sound. I used a Jmp-1 for this, but when i found a Piranha to buy, i didn't think about twice. I use a Behringer FCB1010 to control both racks, no problem to do that.

i have known this preamp since 2001, when i got onde from the studio to try the sound and record my album. Great, i just fell in love! really good. I used to use the JMP-1 and last week i got a Piranha(i was searching on the guitarshops, but didn't find to buy). I didn't use all of the sounds of it, but i think that it's better for heavy sounds. Metal bands for example. Its drive is powerfull! But i think that you can get some more sounds. I liked the clean sound, and the crunch(classic) i don't use to use a lot, so, i don't know comment about. but i think that it's the best Midi preamp that you can buy.

I use this with a custom built guitar with Lace Drop&Gain pickups (excellent pickups!!), a behringer 2024P Virtualiser pro effects, Marshall 8008 power amp, Behringer BG412S stereo cab and a vintage Guyatone reverb pedal...

For the review I'll leave the effects out of it, after all it's the pirahna that matter isnt it? I've had this thing for about 6 months or so now, and although it sounded shit loads better than my previous amp (Hughes & Kettner Vortex - great amp but distortion is a little weak and flat) I never thought it was anything special. I fiddled with the settings for ages but whenever I turned it up loud it just seemed to get muddy! Then I replaced the valves and OH MY GOD!!!! IT'S ALIVE!!!!! this thing is getting on a bit now - probably over 10 years old and the valves had never been replaced as far as I could tell! I got a pair of drive tested 7025 high grade valves (7025 = 12AX7 with more gain, more volume and less noise) from www.watfordvalves.com and the difference is incredible. I can't emphasize enough how much better and clearer it sounds! I used to be a solid state nutter - hated valves cos they seem so fragile compared to a microchip - but in the end I surrendered to the sound.

The built in hush feature is superb - i have a boss NS2 noise supressor and it's just as good if not better. you can use it to just clean up a bit or turn it up and it's practically a compressor!

As has been said on other reviews of this item, the distortion can be brutal, but can also be tamed. It takes about 4 seconds to find that horrible marshall mid-high sound ala Queen (a superb band and a sound that fitted the music perfectly don't get me wrong, but not my type of sound) and another 4 seconds to find scooped-mid moshness of MuDvAyNe, Tool etc.

Contrary to the majority of people's opinions I quite like the clean channel. It doesn't have a lot of headroom but it suits me perfectly, cos I like the early break-up sounds like Stevie Ray Vaughan and hendrix. Add some reverb (courtesy of Guyatone) and it's just beautiful...

For the money this thing can't be beaten! This can do all the sounds of other popular preamps like JMP-1 and everything else that it can't! The variety of sounds is great, partly due to the EXTREME variances of the controls (a little goes a long long way, so tinker with caution)

The sound through the direct outputs is also incredible for recording...

See reviews below for features...

Built like a brick shithouse, I've dropped it a number of times and it's fine. Like I said earlier it sounded average until I replaced the valves so don't neglect it!

Never spoken to customer support, havent needed to. I even managed to replace the valves myself! (smug grin)

Been playing for over 7 years and played loads of equipment and if it was lost I'd probably buy another one, unless i could afford a Brunetti head or something! In my opinion the best rack preamp you can get for heavy distortion.

Very easy to use - and its got real knobs instead of Windows-like menues and +/- buttons. Manual is rather concise but informative. MIDI switching works perfectly - no delays between patches, although it is such an old unit. I mean it is amazing that there are still products and manufacturers who can't sort that out. Another great feature is the really versatile EQ and the global editing function. Two thumbs up for that.

Sound is great, especially for the price - beautiful tight bottom end, brilliant highs and really flexible mids. LOADs of gain - the gain goes to 70, the EQ controls range from -15 to +15, enough said. About a year or so ago I decided to make my setup more compact and got rid of everything except the Piranha. Now I have a five space rack and a 2*12 Celestion-equipped cabinet. I have two Ibanez RG 550s with DiMarzios and a Fenix Mona Lisa (great guitar, get one if you can). I plug into a Boss Gt-6 which is looped to the Piranha. Outputs go into a BBE Maximizer (which I really don't need much), the whole thing gets amplified by an Engl 2*20 Poweramp, the left speaker output passes through a Palmer PDI 04 (to provide a compensated output to the PA) and meets the right channel at the cabinet's input. This setup let's you get ANY tone you can imagine and maybe some that you can't. The reason I went with a GT-6 and not say a G-Major is that the GT-6 is the only unit that allows me to have an EQ before the Piranha AND after it. Other wise the GT is nothing to write home about, but it is a real sturdy MIDI controller for the Piranha and also functions as a backup unit in case a tube blows in my power amp or the Piranha, which has never happened. I can't stress the benefits of an EQ before the preamp - try it for yourself. It is so useful that one can even get a convincing blues sound out of the Piranha, which is otherwise quite hard if you insist on having two 12AX7s. Another thing to mention is that the Piranha (at least my one) is very quiet, I hardly use the Hush on any setting, but that might be due to the proper shielding of all my guitars plus quality pickups.

It is built like a tank, solid metal knobs and internal power supply, just remember to change tubes from time to time, and don't use NOS, military or No Name Crap.

Never dealt with them, and I don't plan to do so either.

I have been playing for 13 years now and have been through a lot of equipment until I finally realised that tubes are tubes and MIDI is MIDI. My personal opinion is that although it is nice to have tubes in the preamp because of their dynamic response, it is not crucial to having a good tone. What is important is how the preamp is voiced. The JMP has tubes and sounds crappy, the SansAmp PSA doesnt have tubes and sounds very good. The Piranha does both have tubes and sound brilliant. What is very important to having a good tone is a good tube power amp. So please stop buying the Valvestate garbage. If you can't do away without FETs - find a used Roland Bolt combo or an old Musicman - they have it the right way: solid state preamp, tube power amp. And no matter how flexible an amp/preamp is, without MIDI one can never use it to its full potential in a band situation, unless you play polka. If you are into rock/metal, but feel like playing some funk, ska , watever on one of those days, the Piranha is one of the few affordable solutions. Maybe the TriAxis is better and even more flexible, but the bang for the buck factor speaks deffinitely for the Piranha. It is really a shame that it is no longer in production. Unfortunately Rack gear is getting kinda hard to get in the age of "tube modellin technology, dude" and plastic gismos that will make you sound like "insert favourite artist here" for 50 bucks and can also function as a toaster. Don't get me wrong, modelling has really come a long way, and maybe one day tubes will become obsolete, but they were also supposed to vanish when solid state came up, which however didn't happen. Another thing that beats me is that there are so few noted pros that use this preamp, but (fortunately) marketing doesn't seem to be Rocktron's thing. What I would like to see is a Piranha version 2 with one more channel and a larger display.

I use my Piranha in combination with a Marshall 9100 (tuned), a rack-
mount e.q., a T.C. electronics G-force, two 4 by 12's and a Ibanez RG 7620 with Tone Zone picks (these are awesome!!) Use a little compression and a little gate, open the low-end (like around 80-200 hertz, give a midrange a tweak (1,2 kH) down it around 6-8 kH, tune the guitar down
by a half and strike a chord... Like you got hit by a great, mean, angry truck!! It's beyond brutal

I think everyone knows the features by now...
Kickass sound (not clean but who cares..) easy to use and a good fx
loop. Check the Hush, it's perfect!!

Never had a problem with it, and I use it for six years now...

I never want another amp... played a Mesa and this just sounds better

This couldn't be simpler - just turn the knobs like you would on any standard combo amp. There is a very shallow learning curve to get used to the 'save preset' procedure but that takes all of 30 seconds. The fact that you can tweak sounds on stage to suit immediate requirements without affecting the preset is fantastically useful - any gigging guitarists out there know how often you need to tweak on stage, pay attention Mesa Boogie the triaxis cannot compete with this. This could be a little easier to use if it had the option to enter text titles for the presets, but this is a minor concern

I use this with a range of single coil, humbucker and piezo guitars, it is flexible enough to cope with all of them. Like other reviewers, I have set up my clean sounds first and then the OD/Dist sounds so had no problems with level, although levels on the heavily driven sounds are down at 6 to 9 which doesn't leave much room for fine tuning. I run this into a Rivera TBR-3 (absolutely the best rack valve power amp ever made - limited only by size at 4 rack units and weight about 50 pounds), via a Rocktron Intellipitch and Xpression. This plays through stereo Celestion classic lead 80 speakers in custom cabs. I can dial in quite a lot of what I want with this setup, but would like to have access to pre EQ (I originally used a Voodu Valve). The preamp does produce a little background noise but this is tamed by the Hush system. Overall I can't really fault the range of sounds, it is the best preamp I have owned (and I have owned a few), it doesn't produce everything I want - really high gain sounds for instance - but I play in a covers band and it produces all the sounds I need for a set list spanning 5 decades (how many other products can do that well?)

This is built like a tank, It has already seen 10 to 15 years service and will probably see me out!! I have owned many Rocktron products and am slightly concerned that unless they lower their standards they will kill themselves off - the kit never dies (unlike other manufacturers I could name). Based on my experience with Rocktron equipment I don't anticipate that I will need to buy a backup, but if it was stolen/destroyed I would buy another one at the drop of a hat!

I have made use of customer support for questions, never for a breakdown, and they have responded within 24 hours with helpful, friendly answers - absolutely top marks!

I play just about anything that goes (so long as it isn't too hard!) and this is simply a great piece of kit. This has a place in my 'dream setup'; I used to flip through magazines and catalogues looking for the ultimate setup and this is one bit of kit that meets all my expectations. If I redesigned this today I would only make three changes - give me a text display to put preset titles on, give me a bit more gain (I think you always want more than you have) and make the fascia purple!

Here is where this pre really excels ! It is extremely good at extreme distortion maintaining clarity, focus (mid) and low end at the same time (Miles better than Peavey Rockmaster.) The Hush-noise red. works great when gain reaches insane levels. For really bad-ass sounds you will have to use a godd pealboard (i.e Boss GT-6 or similar) in front. Then you are set !!! Difficult to get really good cleans at high levels without having to increase level a lot on power amps. OK, the distortion is very BRUTAL !

Rocktron Piranha Pre from the mid `90-s. Plays 70`s HardRock and 90`s Metal mostly. Easy to get a great sound fast after power on, mainly thanks to great EQ section. Utilizes two 12AX7 tubes which is good for the harmonic structure of tones, making the treble spectrum less brittle when extremely distorted. Miss one or two more effect loops. Could be better on the cleans. Would probably help to insert a 12AT7 or 12AU7, but then again, the killer distortion would be lost. Stereo and wet/dry mix is great.

Great. Solid metal housing. Real Printboard inside. Electronics looks top notch. Solid knobs.

To kill this unit you must probably hire someone to help and spend some money on the tools necessary!

Not been in touch with them

Been playing 13 years. Use it along with Mesa SimulClass 395 and/or Mesa SimulClass 295. This combination totally fullfill my metal needs. It can easy push a total of 16 (sixteen) 4x12 cabs. With an OK pedalbord in front + graphic EQ you can accidentaly cripple people seriously with this setup. For studio cleans: THD Bivalve and Lex LXP15 mkII.