Rocktron Rampage

I use this now with a Boss SD-1 and a Rocktron Silver Dragon. If I set this up right, I can a more controllable and meaner sound of what the Slayer channel of the Silver Dragon does. I can also use this alone, with an overdrive, or whatever I choose. Great pedal for the price for a versatile and quiet pedal. Worth a look, and definitely worth the price.

Pretty easy to use, EQ, level and gain (sustain) knobs. Nothing special (except the funky names)

It's powerful and tight. Artificial harmonies go out real easy, and power chords sound very nice to. It has enough gain althou I use booster in front of it. My setup is Jackson DK27 (DiMarzio pickups) -> Boss BD-2 -> Rcktron Rampage -> Hi-Fi :) Sounds real nice + I can record direct. It's the quietest distortion I have ever used. I've been through Marshall JH-1, Boss MT-2, Ibanez deathmetal and it's the quietest of them all.

It's a little fragile. I'd be glad if the thing was entirely metal...

Not good

I play mostly metal - Judas Priest, Maiden, Halford, Dickinson, Dio etc. I've been playing for four years now and if it were stolen or lost I would try another distoriton although I'm happy with this one.

I think it's pretty easy to use. The e.q. is very active. The tonal variations are pretty wide. Lot's of different sounds can be achieved. This is the silver one. I don't know of any differences between the blue one and the silver one.

Sounds great in my humble opinion. But distortion is very subjective. One man's treasure is another's garbage. I play a gretsh or gibson into a Laney VC30. It's not noisy at all and believe me I own a Colorsound overdriver so I know what noisy is. I play a dirty punk flavored kind of rock and roll ala Lee Harvey Oswald Band, Hellacopters, Gaza Strippers or Daisy Chainsaw. It's perfect for that. There is more than enough gain for my tastes.

Been reliable so far

I've been playing guitar for 17 years. Been in a bunch of bands. I've owned a Lovetone big cheese, SIB varidrive, the silver tuna can distortion box, some Colorsound stuff and a couple of other high priced distortion boxes, and I like this pedal the best out of all of them. And it's cheap too. It's not a fuzz either. I can play a b9 and hear every note.

I think it's pretty easy to use. The e.q. is very active. The tonal variations are pretty wide. Lot's of different sounds can be achieved. This is the silver one. I don't know of any differences between the blue one and the silver one.

Sounds great in my humble opinion. But distortion is very subjective. One man's treasure is another's garbage. I play a gretsh or gibson into a Laney VC30. It's not noisy at all and believe me I own a Colorsound overdriver so I know what noisy is. I play a dirty punk flavored kind of rock and roll ala Lee Harvey Oswald Band, Hellacopters, Gaza Strippers or Daisy Chainsaw. It's perfect for that. There is more than enough gain for my tastes.

Been reliable so far

I've been playing guitar for 17 years. Been in a bunch of bands. I've owned a Lovetone big cheese, SIB varidrive, the silver tuna can distortion box, some Colorsound stuff and a couple of other high priced distortion boxes, and I like this pedal the best out of all of them. And it's cheap too. It's not a fuzz either. I can play a b9 and hear every note.

It's a sompbox dude! If its to confusing you need quit guitar!

It is the best sounding pedal I have ever heard! The only problem is that it dosen't have enough gain! I use this pedal in the external effects loop in my boss gt3. It sounds "real" compared to the digital crap out there today. The scope knob makes it easy to get the mid tones right. I always have to use a graphic eq pedal to get the tone I won't but this thing get's it with out it. I use a Behringer ultra metal as a boster to give it a kick. The tone is just great, even using digital equipment with it. If you play new metal and you suck and want a distortion that covers up your flaws don't get this. If you want tone that dosen't sound like a fuzz box went plam muting and don't mind to use a booster for solos this is the pedal for you.

Seems to be tought as nails, Some plastic but mosty metal, if you break it you need to learn how to take care of your gear!

never had to deal with them.

Think of metal as beign Old Slayer,Exodus,Metallica and you will hear this pedal. I love and hate this pedal at the same time! It sounds so real and raw and I love it! At the same time It lets me know what I need to work on and it sucks! I use at my main sound with a booster and use it to practice to hear what I need work on. If it were stolen I would try something new just becuase of who I am. This pedal has made so "digital modeling aware" that I will never use digital modeling distortion again in my life! Althought this pedal sounda great and sound great with a booster you can't do this in reverse. The pedal is not a good choice to use as a booster for another pedal or amp.

Easy. KNobs do what they say.

I have the silver version...

I gave this an 8 for ease of use because it is pretty simple but the eq takes some fiddling.

I play this into a (cough) digitech rp50 into a (cough cough) 500 Watt home stereo system and then into my homemade 4x10 guitar cabinet.

On the RP50 I leave MODELLING TURNED OFF!! - Just for effects! So I get as much Genuine Distortion cutting through with the least amount of DiGiTaL-ness

I also play this into my age old Airline 1x12 Tube amp but only on occasion.

I also mic these into our 2600 Watt PA System....very sweet sound.


The sound this gives is great! I used to own a Rocktron gainiac and this sounds VERY similar to it. The gainiac was hybrid solid state/tube and the Rampage sounds a little more, gritty, or something. Probably slightly better for sound metal songs.

I use a boss sd-1 super overdrive to boost this and that works great.

The thing about this is, I can only get good lead tones with the scoop way down, and good riff tones with the scoop way up...so there's a little conflict for different parts of my songs.

Fortunatly I have more pedals to compensate this in a live situation. (overdrives, boosters, or post-distortion tube simulators)

All around it is a GREAT pedal, but in my opinion, it should not be your only distortion because, it doesn't do "basic" distortion very well. I can get exceptional Grunge, Speed Metal, Shred, and some great classic rock leads out of this but I have a hard time just getting like...i dunno...a Creed "higher" distortion. It's hard to explain but if you hear it you'll know what I mean.

This rocks..although I think this pedal might sound better with 12" speakers as opposed to my 4x10" cab, still rocks though.

Anyone want some sound clips??? email me : kjt777@excite.com

This seems Pretty reliable, but I've owned it for like 3 days so..
I always play without a backup.....
Backups are for people with money

Never had to deal with them, I've owned rocktron stuff before and never had too..

I have been playing since the summer of 2000.

I play all kinds of Rock. Think Stryper, Van Halen, Metalica, Megadeth and thats the style I usually play when I'm making songs by myself in the studio. I do play lots of other stuff, but that goes beyond the scope of a review for this pedal so who cares.

5 knobs..... the scoop is special, turning clockwise it reduce the mid.

ROCK!!!! the mid-scoop sound it produces is prefect for metal guitar tone!! It is the weapon to kill the weak!!

Made in USA. Rock solid. Never have problem with it.

Mine is the USA version (purple). My friend have a new grey one which is much cheaper than it was. The sound is not the same, but I didn't open the case to check if there are any electronic part change in the new version.

I would said this pedal is a must if you think your amp doesn't have enough gain!

With my setup, it's extremely easy to get a good sound out of this, and not just one, but many great sounds. It is a little nasally sounding, but compared to the thick bassy sound of the metal planet, this pedal is the opposite end of the spectrum. By the way, using these two pedals together adds more tonal abilities (using one or the other, or both together.) The manual for it is weak though... just says what the knobs and the inputs/outputs do.

Hamer Flametop Vector -> ROCKTRON RAMPAGE (-> Rocktron Metal Planet) -> Peavey Rockmaster 120w tube head, H&K Warp7 100w ss head, or a crap 30 w Drive amp. The heads then go into a Laney 2x12 recto cab with celestions in it. Being as ultra-highgain as it is, it is a little noisy, but its more a better representation of what you play noisy, than stop playing and instant feedback noisy. The distortion always sounds nice and chainsaw like, so with an EL84 head, it sounds wonderful. But even on the two SS amps, its great as well. With the metal planet, it has tons of tonal abilities, but even alone its still versitile in the high gain section as far as the scoop goes. I can get, very easily, a Children of Bodom sound, mainly I get a very marshall and peavey (5150 especially) sound in terms of it having a high mids emphasis. I can also get a System of a Down sound quite easily, and CFH Pantera as well. Metallica and Megadeth sounds are quite easy as well, none of the above ideas of the tone this has are hard to get, just takes some fiddling.

I would depend on rocktron. I would use it on a gig with the metal planet as a backup.

I emailed them prior to getting the metal planet about an adapter... quite helpful but they wouldve saved time saying get a Boss-acceptable adapter.

I play metal music exclusively. This is a really good match, since I think it was made for metal. I've been playing three years and I think a newbie could find a good sound out of this, unless they have the brain of a fly. I compared it to the Ibanez SM-7 Tone Lok Smash Box, and this is a complete improvement on that horrible pedal as the Metal Planet is to the Metal Zone (Metal Planet owns the Zone.)

Well... I've got an overall a very positive experience with this unit. It's pretty easy to achieve a good sound. It's a solid state, but in my opinion one of the best solid state preamps out there!

I'll give it 9, because you should actually play with it for a while to get used to it, as it is by every other effect pedal.

I plug my MARTINEZ DAYTONA guitar a full tube 50 WATT CRATE amp with the cheapest BEHRINGER 4x12 box.
The pedal does get pretty noisy like every other heavy metal distortion. It's not nice, but probably the only general solution is an extra noise gate.

This little heavy metal monster has a great sound! If you just play the chords or something easy, it's rather neutral, but when you start with a solo, you will hear every note, every nuance, every motion!
You don't hear any digital-bums-krams, but just what you play! Excellent!

It's a tank. You can use it without a backup.

Never dealt with them.

I play heavy metal in a band. It fits the sound pretty well, it does its job. I have no complaints so far. If it were stolen I'd probably by a ROCKTRON SILVER DRAGON to get more possibilities or two sounds and not one, but it does not mean that I have any dislikes about this pedal. It's nice, cheap and you can really turn the world upside down with it.

I've owned a lot of other stuff as DIGITECH Metal Master or Boss HM-2. They are very good and nice pedals, too, but this one costs 1/2 from the price of a Boss and I can't really explain, why! It does its job not a bit worse as the expensive folks :)

This thing is easy. Come on, it's a distortion pedal, no miracles in here. That the mid is actually a notch filter is something you need to have in mind, so: higher scoop, less mid freqs. I have the silver version.

I'm using it with a Hamer Sunburst, Seymour Duncan JB and '59 Humbuckers as well as with a Gibson LP Junior with P90s. My amp is an Engl Screamer with a 4x12 Vintage 30 Cabinet. The Engl has a very sweet, thick distortion with lots of smacking mids, not so good for metal chords, but great for playing lead parts. I wanted something completely different than the Engl to increase my sound bandwidth, and I got the perfect companion with the Rampage. It's rather edgy and thin, with lots of bottom, and does this very good. I achieved what I wanted, to get something that is so different from the Engl - it's like to have a second Amp. Perfect. I would rate the noise level as really low !

No problems. This seems to be a really resistant piece of gear.

N/A

This is the perfect match if you need a pedal for metal chords and edgy distortion.