Rocktron Silver Dragon

Pretty cool unit, easy to use. Has two drives. The tube section and the transistor section that pushes the tube even harder. The tube section has drive, trebble and bass. The transistor side has gain, mix and symentry which makes one side of the wave get larger giving a grittier sound. Two foot switches, ac adaptor in and out.

This baby kicks it up LOUD. Left the settings nearly at zero and my marshall cranks. My son concert lead and 66 fender bassman sound great too. I put a 9k ohm resistor in the circuit like another guy suggested so I can run the pots a littel higher than 1. I need to be able to switch from clean {off} to a nice crunchy rythum to sustaining lead. Hope this will do the trick. Havent tried it in my chain yet, It was sounding so good by itself. No doubt someones gonna know whos playing when you kick this baby on. The unit has heavey duty bass and trebel gain so like I said I run them near to one or two so there isnt too drastic a change when I go from Clean to Drive. Was able to get my guitar to whistle like an Ebow with no problem at all. This baby might be a littel too hot for what Im playing in the band right now which is mostly 60s but for metal forget about it. Your there man.

Super solid aluminum construction And the PC board is wedged in there like a drawer. Nothings going anyplace if you kick it around. The only possible weakness I can fortell if your ins and outs get loose or kicked they could break the plugs which are plastic. They probibly had to make it that way for a floating ground maybe but I dont kick my stuff around anyway and my guitar wont plug into it directly. Overall great design

NA

Im gonna give this a 9 because the range on the gain goes from Zero to 90 with an 8th of a turn of the knob. I like to be able to get a low growel for rythums and such and still kick it up there when the band is cranking. Like I said Metal players will be going to town on this puppy. I have about 10 or 15 other drive units and have owned just about all the comon ones at one time or another. Even my marshall has 2 extra chanels for overdrive but I was looking for a real tube drive sound and found it, Gotta get my other guitar player to get one of these. When you play alot of dual leads the sound has to match pretty close to be effective.

fairly easy after having read the manual. im a man...men dont read manuals!! but its ok...its cool.

at first i noticed that the sound was unresponsive and lacking a lot of feeling. after changing the tube to an EH 12ax7, tweeking with the knobs (the highs sound stupid past 2 oclock. and the lows are LOW past 8 oclock.)the sound is awesome. i run it through the effects loop of my noise supressor as well as a few other pedals into a few heads (my randall RG80ES the most). the sound now is very heavy. loads of gain and i usually use the "solid state" side of the spectrum more than the tube side. i love the tube sounds, but not for my metal. i only use the tube sound when im doing more "yngwie" type stuff. i use an mxr distortion + (level maxed and distortion at 9 oclock) as a "booster" that way the sound is a bit more "loose" and so theres more harmonics. its very loud too, unlike a metal zone or anything of the sort. get a seperate eq for this monster, for more versatile sounds. i can go from satch to mustaine with the flip of a switch. its truely an amazing pedal. but im sure there is something else out there. its noisey as all hell! a noise supressor is wise, but RUN IT THROUGH THE EFFECTS LOOP! YOULL NOT BE DISAPOINTED!

totally!

amazing!

its a truely awesome pedal. loud, but still powerful enough to destroy a small village. its amazing indeed. check it out fore you buy it if youre not buying it on ebay. maybe it might not be for you. built for a metal player anyways.

Quite easy. Still - I don't like treble named shriek and bass named roar. Manual is OK. My version is 3.01. You can't mess up your sound with that easily. And I don't like eq on it. I have my guitar tone knob and 3-band eq on my amp - why do i need another eq in my path? Unnecessary.

With default tube inside it (chinese one) it sucks. Very noisy and whistling.

But after replacing it with Mesa/Boogie 12ax7 it sounded WAY better. I modified my Silver dragon also, replaced one resistor (just under gain pot, from 670R to 10K) to make it softer and less distorted. It is quite simple overdrive, and it works very well. I would give it a 9. It all depends on the tube you use.

I don't like transistor overdrive. I had prefferred just a tube overdrive. It just takes space and makes pedal bigger and heavier.

Overall I have to give 7, cause I don't like this Slayer mode.

Dependable hard metal case. It has dropped once. Buttons are not so good, some kind of cheap plastic. But the inside construction ise very smart and keeps the electronics together. Just have a look!

Never spoken to

I mostly play from jazz to hard rock (no metal) and its suits me if I want some heavier overdrive. I have played guitar for 4 years. I own semi-acoustic Ibanez Artcore AS83 guitar and Behringer 2x12 combo amp (transistor). Since I cannot get tube sound with my amp, silver dragon helps me out.

I love the real tube sound what I can get from this pedal. But I hate that the glow you see from the ventilation holes is actually generated by additional light-bulb. It is silly and misleading. But anyway, I left it in, maybe it is easier to sell it when I need to. But I certainly don't plan to do it unless I get real tube amplifier. Maybe I keep it afterwards also. I don't know.

I hate the Slayer mode. It is really unnecessary. I don't use it.

Compared to H&K tube factor and others it is CHEAPER, but circuitry must be (i think) quite the same. So - it doesn't matter. Just the tube matters.

In conclusion I must say: Don't let the bad sound of it mislead you in the shop when you try it. Just buy a good tube (I used Mesa Boogie) and try it then. It's way different and much better.

I easily dialed a good tone with this pedal and I HATE tweaking knobs. I was very happy to see how easy it was to get a good sound out of this pedal. The names of the knobs are a little confusing at first (which is why I'm giving at a 9) but once you look it up in the manual it's no problem.

I'm using this with a Jackson Dinky and a Peavey trantube. The first mode with just the tube is ok. You get a nice crunch sound with it and I use it to warm up. This pedal really comes alive when you add the solid state distortion in with the tube. It is so HEAVY. You get a great metal sound and harmonics are produced with ease. This pedal sounds so good I'm putting my Boss Metal Zone up for sale on ebay next time I want a new guitar and I swore I would NEVER get rid of that pedal. The Silver Dragon sounds THAT good. I also spent about $400 on a Mesa Boogie V-Twin pedal and this pedal is a hundred times better and it was only $99. This pedal sounds like I wanted the V-Twin to sound. I highly recomend this pedal to any metal guitarist.

No problems so far but I've only had it 3 weeks. I must say, this thing looks like it's built tough.

Never had to deal with them.

Overall, this a great buy, especially for the money. A pedal of this quality could easily go for twice the amount of what they are charging. Metal players who cannot afford an all tube amp will especially benefit from this pedal.

The Silver Dragon is relatively EZ to use, the manual is clear enough, just analog tweaking of the chicken knobs will git you your sound, no user unfriendliness at all! But, with any add-on EFX, expect to spend some burn-in time to git familiar with all the functions.

I am using a Fernandez Strat knockoff with a Yamaha G100 head over a custom built[my specs.]2x12 Eminence Delta 12 cabinet, also, I play a Cort Yorktown and an Ibanez SZ520QM thru this rig, I am a working,solo act[been doin' this a while]! I avoid digital EFX as much as possible and believe that most digital distortions and amp modeling should be consigned to studio only applications! The sounds that the Dragon produces are BIG & full spectrum, from classic, tube-crunch overdrive[think SRV] to heavy sustain metal[think EVH]The bottom end in this pedal is massive! This pedal will go where most other pedals have never gone before! After years of disappointment with the so called "classic" pedals that dominate the marketplace, the Dragon finally brought me home! It just does most things right time after time, I won't even consider trying another pedal, I am having too much fun playing this one! When any instrument or EFX inspires you to play on and stretch yourself, don't put it down! The Silver Dragon should meet the distortion needs of most any player out there, I know that is a big statement, BUT, you gotta hear and "feel" this thing for yourself!

So far, not a glitch of any kind, rehearse with it every day for a couple hours, been about 2 months now! I believe the ALL metal construction and the switches[true by-pass] are of the highest grade, road players have no fear! I would never recommend any player to gig without backups, but you probably would never need one for the Dragon. But having another Dragon for a backup makes good sense,and why not? They are soooo reasonably priced! I am givin' a 9 cause my time with it has been limited.

Rocktron is a service oriented company, you git to talk to real and friendly people who are willing to help, never needed help for the Dragon, but I have made many other inquiries and beeen satisfied with their professionalism! No company is perfect, so I give 'em a 9.

My musical styles range from old-time rock, to new country, also, blues and reggae[island]make it into my act. The Dragon does the variety of sounds that I need from one pedal, it is actually 2 pedals in one and the tones are so fully EQable that there is never a problem with my mix! Been playing since 65, wow, that is gittin' olde, owned a bunch of classic gear way back then, wisht I'da known it was gonna go vintage! The rest of my gear ain't nothin' too special septin' for a Tokai HD28 acoustic dreadnaught that makes Martin players listen up with interest! Have a Crate GX-30M for general purposes, really a handy little amp, play a Fender acoustic/ electric every week, put a Fishman soundhole pickup in it, it has a full and natural tone that piezo pickups just can't equal, that is about it, other goofy gear hangin' around, watch Ebay! I am impressed with the Dragon and would replace it in an instant, as I said, compared it with Many other distortion pedals,the IBZ TS-9, the Marshall Gov'nr, the Route 66, the Zoom Powerdrive to name a few, and it was the pick of the litter. The real "tube tone" is what makes the Dragon the Best Buy winner in my opinion, solid state buzz has its place I guess, but not in my rig, you are gonna spend a lotta loot for a boutique amp or pedal, but before you do, spend a little for a Dragon and save a lot! You won't be disappointed.

Pretty easy to use, once you figure out what the knobs do. The manual (yeah...i said it...)is a big help.

RE-DIC-U-LOUS This thing sounds amazing. I play an American strat with a Blues Jr and I cant believe it. The first channel (awaken) is almost like a great overdrive, while the second channel(slayer) is the best harmonic distortion I've ever heard from a pedal.

Dont really know, only had it a couple of days...looks pretty tough though

Never dealt with them

If distortion is what you want, look no further. This pedal actually replaced my Ibanez Tube screamer!!! Need I say more. I can save the board space because channel one is an awesome overdrive. Definately worth every penny. I play Zeppelin type stuff as well as hair rock from the 80's, and the distortion side of this box can nail every sound I need!!!!

I give it a 10 for for perhaps a little backwards reasoning. Yes, you could make the thing easier to use, just get rid of the second channel, and the solid state controls -- but that isn't the reason I bought the pedal. I wanted a flexible pedal, with a lot of control over my tone, and that is exactly what I got. Any pedal worth it's salt will take some fidgeting to get the sound you want. I am an experienced player, and like to experiment with my sound, and this offered the most control, with the least fuss. My last, (I said last, not LEAST,) favorite distortion effect was the Digitech Twin Tube, and I swear that had wonderful control and possibilities, I hated having to interface with the thing via programs and scrolling and what not. The Silver Dragon allows for all that expression but with a very organic interface. Six knobs and two buttons -- elegant and effective.

I play two guitars, and Alvarez 3-pickup Tele' and a ES-335 copy, my amp is a Fender Princeton Reverb, a Tube Works Real Tube Overdrive and a VOX wah complete my setup. I have no problem with the above setup to get a good clean, warm sound for Jazz and Country. In fact, I thought that was all I would ever need. But, The Silver Dragon allows me all the flexibility I could ever use for Rock and Metal. My taste in Rock spans from Zappa and Neil Young for noise and experimental, to Bowie -- all eras -- and 70's glam and Metal -- T.Rex, Uriah Heep, Yes -- and some modern Rock/Metal. I agree that the pedal might be a little noisy for single coils, but that is only an issue for sounds requiring a lot of dynamics and breath. Which, admittedly, is a rarity in most genres. If I wanted something quiet and tasteful, I'd turn my equipment down and only use the Tube Driver, but for real hot, powerful overdrive, that is where the Silver Dragon shines. I am a 'Tube Snob' admittedly, but the solid state boost on the other channel (Slayer) opens up new worlds. Feedback and pick harmonics are so much easier to achieve and have a much better quality than the tube channel alone can deliver.

Good compact design, rugged metal case. Seems tough. I just don't like the AC adapter. I would much prefer a hard-wired plug. I am hesitant and worry a bit that the plug will fall out on stage sometime.

For a hundred bucks it can't be beat. Only one wish for the pedal, I think it would benefit from a more gradual onset of overdrive. Even the lowest setting seems a little too distorted. If it warmed up to that level in about a third twist of the knob, (and then went the rest of the way it goes) it would totally replace my Tube Driver. But then again, that may take too much away from the pedal as it is. For Rock/Metal, wow, incredible value, flexibility and tonal possibilities.

Getting a good sound was relatively easy but putting up with feedback posed somewhat of a irritating problem at first. A good noise gate should be within tweeking distance.
The manual was fairly helpfull for getting a good launching point for sound. As with anything though it really doesn't mean a damn thing until you fire it up and start twirling knobs. The effects of all the knobs except intensity and breath were obvious and easily observed. The intensity and breathe are subtle tweeking knobs that you can turn back and forth to get that perfect distortion.

The almighty setup includes a Randall RG75 amp, a esp viper 301 with EMG 81 and 85 pickups, and a mexican strat with a dimarzio fast track 2 in the bridge. Probably the first and only turn off was the amount of feedback the pedal generated when I used it with my strat. Of course it's probably not the most sane thing to do, using a guitar that likes to feedback with a high gain anything but none the less it made me reach for my noise suppressor. Even with the noise suppressor cranked to high heaven, I still heard a slight metallic moan whenever I tried any fast stopping while playing. None of these problems were observed while playing with the viper as the pedal along with a guitar that was made for harder stuff truly kicked ass. The perfect sound to conjure up the devil with. Easily matched my desire to copy lamb of god guitar parts with the slayer made activated. With just awaken playing I was able to do a good impersonation of Tom Morello (minus all the whammy pedal acrobatics of course) and Adam Jones.

Well, I've only depended on it for about a month now so only time will tell. Everything is a gamble but I'd say the Dragon is a worthy one. I do not gig so I would definitely say that I would play it in my jam room while leaving my back up pedal in the closet:)

Rocktron has fast and prompt customer service. Not the most wordy bunch of gear dorks but efficient none the less. I e-mailed them curious to know what to do if the tube ever blew out. Could I start opening up stuff and tinkering with complex electrical components that I knew nothing about without voiding my warranty? Within in a day I was e-mailed and told not to touch anything. Just leave it to the professionals and those with a extra $100 to afford a new one. (Should anything go terribly wrong.)

With the harder stuff I like to play, this pedal is it. I traded in my digitech metal master in order to afford it. I wanted something with more of a quality sound. I don't know, the metal master sounded just too processed and digital for my taste. And it was noisy as all hell with my EMGs. I wanted something that had a little bit more oomph to it and more of a focused mutilating sound. I only wish that it had a built in noise gate so that I could maybe put in another pedal in the place of my NS-2. I've been playing now for about four years and so far this is the best sounding set up I've ever had. My other gear includes a digitech digidelay, a digitech turbo flange, a danelectro cool cat chorus,a dunlop dime bag custom wah and a boss NS-2 noise suppressor. The Silver dragon works well with these pedals and even manages to give my a amp a welcome volume boost. If this pedal was stolen, I'd round up my posse find out where the thief lived and set fire to his or her residence. I would then take up tap dancing lessons and panhandle until I had enough money to afford a new one.

I give it an 8 because the knobs aren't standardly named so I had to do the unmanly thing and read the manual, and fiddle a little to get my sound, but don't let that scare you because you can get almost any marshall tone from jtm 45 to plexi to jcm 800 to mode 4 out of this thing!

A definite 10 although a bit noisy at high gain, but no worse than most high gain setups. Definite real tube tone. I bought this to try out through my practice amp (fender blues jr.) and was so blown away by the tone I might sell my halfstack. With just the tube distortion on I get a hot rodded plexi tone. step on the "slayer" mode and you can sound just like the band slayer! I tweaked it to sound like Megadeth's countdown sound and I also run a wylde overdrive in front of it (with the gain at 0) to sound just like Zakk Wylde! I also run a Kerry King eq at the end for a little extra chunk. I love my metal but listen to alot of genres and also play the blues once in a while so I know tone. Bye Bye line 6 amp modeler

It seems tough with quality switches and a metal case, but time will tell. Never gig without plan b! it will bite you someday!

Are you kidding? a little over a hundred bucks for tone this good? My line 6 sounded pretty good, as close as digital or solid state ever will but it still aint in the ballpark to real glowing tubes! If it were ever stolen I'd rip the guys arms off and beat him to death with them and then go after his family!

Pretty simple to use, after you get to know what all the knobs do. Basically, distrortion level, bass, treble, and on channel 2 a knob for mixing tube/solid state distortion levels, and a knob that changes the feel.

This is where I'm blown away- I found this pedal just browsing online, I'd never heard of it before, but I saw it had a tube so I thought I'd try it. Well, I've been messing with it some different ways. First, I recorded with it using a behringer GI100 direct box, and let me tell you it sounded nice. How nice? I play a mesa single rect in my band, and this thing sounds just as good. I don't know why, the tone is similar, but sweeter than the mesa.
So I hooked it up to a 60 watt pignose tube amp on clean setting, and used the pedal for distortion, hooked it through my 2x12 vin30 cab and it sounded incredibly warm and tubey.
My goal was to find a tube pedal to use with my pignise clean amp to try and match the mesa- I think I came close with this one-still not perfect but very sweet sounding.
I've tried mesa vtwin, tubeking, all of them almost- this thing rocks hard. And I couldn't believe the price was only 109, I got it on ebay, but I think that's what they sell for in stores. Of course, I've never even seen one of these in a store before. Anyway, this is some good shit if you like warm tube sounding hardcore sounds.
It came with a chinese 12ax7 which suprisingly sounded fine, as good as a mesa 12ax7- pretty much the same- it was a bitch trying to open the thing to change the tube.

Yeah, I would gig with it. It's heavy metal casing can take a beating, just dont smash it and you should be fine

Don't know-never called those guys

Overall, this pedal is great for any rock style, mostly harder though, think mesa, hard marshall type sounds. Use it with a clean tube power section and it will sound great. I'm not sure how it sounds through a solid state amp-haven't tried it.
Recording was awesome, everyone thought I used some expensive amp, my single rect was sitting at home- lol.
Anyway, not many people know about this pedal- I didn't even know it existed until I saw it on ebay- but it is a great pedal to have fun with. I will definitely keep this one.
If you record, get a behringer GI100 direct box and you will shit your pants when the sound comes through the monitor. They could easily charge $199 for this pedal.