Rocktron VooDu Valve On-Line

Ease of use..hmm.
Well..... I have had a Digitech GSP-2101..which was basically a computer. This does have a bit of a learning curve, but is fairly intuitive. The manual is not super long, relatively easy to figure out... not totally logical in the way things are laid out and not really the clearest cut explanation...for instance if you want to copy a preset to another location.. like if you have created a rhythm and lead patch next to each other so you can set up banks on your pedalboard you have to go to "storing a changed preset". It is still easy...you just have to actually read it. I would have preferred a listing like "Copy a preset". Durrrrrrrrr

Not exactly a pedal with 3 knobs..but nothing a little effort can't overcome. Version 1.30. Have no idea how new that is..lol. Got it used. Love it.

Using this preamp with a Mesa Simul 2:90, Alternatively with Marshall 1960 cabs, Peavey 5150 4x12 cab...also even run it thru a Weber 1x12 VST cab...Mostly strats with HS-3's n the bridge or EMG SA setups. LOVE those with this setup in particular. I am getting great high octane "Perfect Strangers" era Ritchie Blackmore to Gary Moore and early Van Halen tones...It can handle metal just fine as well. Not noisy at all. Hush kills all the squeal.
Stock presets are a bit crummy, but usually are with digital rack preamps. The difference with this unit is that it really does get some great, real tube tone when you dial it in the way you want. Great, great cleans and truly convincing high gain tones. Can get SRV grit to Twin cleans..any kind of bluesy spank to fat smokey jazz lines. EQ controls are refreshingly effective. The pre and post controls and variac effect really add flexibility, and this has loads of distortion.
I used to have a Voodoo Lab pre. Great unit..but I used to run a DOD-250 and TS-808 in front of it to get the gain I wanted. Hell, I run a TS808 in front of my 5150. I can still do that on this unit if I want different flavors, but not from any deficit in the amount of gain on tap.
Not thin or sterile (unless dialed in that way!) EQ options allow you to add warmth, flub, sharpness, brightness...whatever you want!

Effects are actually very convincing and natural. Love the reverbs. Pretty subtle and realistic..great phasing..clean delays..chorus is nice..nothing crazy. Have not really experimented much with the flanging....but really digging this unit.

I never fill this part out. Anything can fail. Never gig without a backup. No problems so far...and I bought this used....so...it's not brand new...and I guess it still works.. :P

Have had one brief encounter with Jim Chowning via email. I was missing a configure button when I got it. He answered my email immediately and put a couple in the mail for me. He rules in my book!! :)
No questions asked and backed up his product... even with just little things and not even purchased new. Customer service and product commitment makes a big difference... he convinced me.

I play shred, jazz, blues, flamenco, metal, rock, fusion...whatever! This covers a vast amount of styles. Been playing 25 years....have loads of gear. Have had Marshall, Mesa, Peavey, Digitech, Voodoo Lab, Rivera, Carvin...buttloads of stuff. The more gear I own or have gone thru has only convinced me that tone is in your playing. Obviously, if you play garbage equipment..you can still make it sound *ok* but you need adequate gear to sound truly polished. Yes, I'm running this into a great poweramp and cabs. It sounds totally pro. This sort of flexibility is what made me regret selling my Digitech GSP2101 and moving to more pedals/amps based rigs....since it had sooooo many sounds. The biggest drawback that had was it was sterile and digital sounding...no matter which tubes I ran in it or the poweramp or speakers I had it running into. Don't get me wrong..I tweaked and tweaked...but it was always missing something. The digital artifacts it produced could not be dialed out. THis has a much more natural sound..or maybe it is just the pre and post eq options..since the factory presets on this sucked just as badly as the Digitech. LOL!

The flexibility of this unit helps me make music. No doubt. No tap dancing on pedals either! :) Nothing I hate..per se. I understand this is a single space preamp with digital effects.I understand its limitations..I've been this route before, but love the tone from this unit. I had been interested in this unit for a long time...had a ridiculously low price offer on it and decided to make the jump. Would definitely buy it again if stolen! "Lost"..well that would be an interesting scenario.... :P

I have had the Voodu valve for about a month and a half now, and so far I am very impressed with it. Very open sounding unit, meaning the effects don't seems to squash the sound or have artifacts as the sound fades. I think this unit is definitely best for those who are not afraid to tweak. It has a very powerful EQ section (both Pre and Post) but along with that power comes some responsibility on the part of the user. You get out what you put in. If you like three knobs and are satisfied with that, you probably won't like this unit. For those of us that like flexibility and control, however, this unit is great. Tremendous clean tones... lots of spank and twang. Mammoth distortion tones. I did have to tame the highs a bit, but that's going to vary with guitar, pickup and power amp combinations. If you are going to play with the settings a lot, and I recommend that you do, invest in a midi to USB cable and get the sysex editor available for free from Rocktron. Real time control of the unit through your PC. Super easy to deep-edit patches this way. Front panel is fine for small tweaks, but the sysex editor is really the way to go to find your tones.

I am primarily using a Jackson superstrat... 24 fret, flame maple cap over swampash body, Floyd & Duncans ('59 in the neck, Quarterpound in the middle and a Screamin'Demon in the bridge - wired through a StewMac Megaswitch)and a Fender /Ibanez Heartfield with Dimarzios (HS3 in neck, HS2 middle, PAF clone in bridge).

Runs straight to a Peavey Classic 50/50 with EL84s and out to two ADA 2x12 cabs loaded with Vintage 30s. One cab has a vintage setting which is engaged.

The sound quality of this unit is very good. The HUSH works extremely well, better in fact than the HUSH on the Intellifex that I had been using with my previous preamp. Much quiter, and less compressed voice overall.

The cleans are quite good for an amp that runs this much gain... it's a little weird that you can get that much twang out of an amp that produces as much distortion as this one does.

On my rig, the highs were a little aggressive, but I've been able to tweak a bit, and now it cuts without being so over the top.

Very good reverb, echo and chorus. I don't miss the Intellifex at all, which I was a bit surprising. Having a built in solid-state distortion and fuzz, along with tube distortion without having to go to pedals is wonderful. The variac function is also pretty nifty. Nice for saturating the signal earlier.

The distortion can range from a Randall-style "bees in a bucket" chainsaw tone to very subtle warm tones. Very resonsive to the volume and tone controls. It's never so compressed that turning the volume down has no effect.

Very reliable... I think Rocktron has a well-earned reputation for building their stuff to be able to take a direct hit by a warhead. this is no exception. Obviously I don't recommend that you pitch your rack ove the side of a building to see, but in a decent rack, i think it'll be just fine.

Rocktron is great... I've emailed them a few times in the past and always receive prompt, helpfule emails back. Great folks. speaking to the last point as well, I've never had occasion to call about a warranty issue, so there you go. If I did, I am sure it'd be handled with the same professionalism that my other requests were.

Classical/ neoclassical/ metal

I've been playing for about 15 years.

I've own or have owned an Intellifex, and ADA MP2, Peavey Clasic 50/50, Peavey Triumph, Epiphone Valve Jr. I play with a friend that uses a Mesa Triaxis/ Mesa 20/20 rig, and often use that as a point of comparison.

I would definitely seek to replace this if stolen. I snagged mine cheap on eBay, and would go straight back to looking.

I love the versatility... anyone who says they can't get a decent tone out of this simply isn't capable of tweaking it, or hasn't tried. The tones are in there.

I compared this to the Utopia pedals, a Triaxis, and a Prophesy. Pound for pound, and dollar for dollar, this thing kicks butt.

I wish it had a tuner... that seems to be the one obviously missing feature.

the variety of sounds inspires me. It's great to just noodle around with. It's great to just pull up a preset and just see what you can get going with it. It has something like 128 of them, so you can cover a lot of ground.

Tremendous versatility and quality for the money.

Well, as I'm a long time user of Rocktron products (a "original" Chameleon user since 90' - I also own a ProGap -variety, the spice of life), the interface is as easy as any of their products. The only difference between a Chameleon's interface, and the Voodu Valve is which order they place their "editing blocks" (in a Chameleon the "preEQ" is before the "Preamp" block - in the Voodu, it's after). As far as getting a good sound - impossible to get a bad one, unless you have zero sense of tone. I've tried several poweramp/ speaker combinations with my Chameleon - and finally resorted to building my own speaker cab (over-sized with 1/2 closed and 1/2 open section) and powering it with a TubeWorks Mosvalve 2x90 ...Dead clean, no noise...great flexibility...
BUT YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND EQ TO MAKE THIS THING SING - OTHERWISE YOU SOUND LIKE EVERY OTHER IDIOT WITH A LINE 6 PRACTICE AMP!

My set up: G&L Legacy tribute - wired "Lifeson Style" s/s/h Duncan p/u's - hardtail w/ locking tuners : PRS SE h/h floating trem (blocked)locking tuners Duncan p/u's : Jackson Soloist w/ Chandler Floyd Rose - h/s/h Duncan p/u : 80's mim built 60's repro Stratocaster (refinished / bare wood / walnut stain) wired "Lifeson Style" h/s/h Duncan p/u locking tuners : Saga Strat s/s/s Torres SRV set - standard strat trem unblocked >>>> Morley Bad Horsey II >>>> Boss Volume Pedal >>>> Sabine 1601 Tuner>>>>Rocktron (Chameleon/ Voodu Valve/ Progap) >>>>TubeWorks MosValve 90x2/ Tech21 powercube 60 (head only - rackmounted) >>>> Custom Built oversize 2x12 vert cab. >>>> Behringer 1010 controller/ Roland Momentary for Tap Delay.

I played in cover bands for 18 years before embarking on a solo career - www.soundclick.com/digitalchemistry - so the flexibility inherent in the Chameleon was a huge plus - so many sounds, so little noise...

But as I started in on my quest for "real" tone, a few drawbacks became apparent... the original Chameleon, as good as it is, is digital... it has great converters (48 bit), but the digital "aliasing" was extremely noticeable in the mid range of drive levels, and the HUSH was eating up my tone on any notes that tailed off.
So in the quest for tone, I started looking for tube amps that wouldn't break the bank... NOT POSSIBLE...anything under 900 US is trash, and the good stuff...Engle, Egnater, Boogie, DR Z, THD, Budda...you get the point...are terribly expensive + I'd have to buy a G-Major (or similar) to get transparent efx... ahhhhh EVENTIDE....
Sooooo...back to the Drawing Board....
While pawnshopping (never know what you'll find), I spotted this unit - paid 300 us, and it's in brand new shape, not even rackmounted - I wonder where it came from ;-) no pwr supply with it.... Had to buy, Rocktron is a hell of a great company: My Chameleon died once, they turned it around in 1 day, fully repaired, and upgraded (but this was before GHS :( ...and I'm 3k miles away).
Well, got it home, and bread-boarded it in...worked fine...started looking at the presets (I'd tried a few presets before - the Chameleon will accept Voodu presets), found a clean sound I liked, and started editing...after turning the Hush almost all the way off, tweaking the preamp settings, I think I found nirvana!!!!
No "real" noise (tube amps hiss/ hum also), good dynamics throughout the guitars' range of volume, no noticeable digital "glitching"/ aliasing, a good firm bottom, transparent highs...excellent...now of course, a great tube amp will do that kind of tone without trying, but... the Voodu will do comparable tones 256 times... + effects that are as good as Motorola processors will give you...they're not as good as my VST plugins, but my DAW kicks butt on everything but a H5000...and how much is that? No takers?
Presets...Artist presets are usually overwrought with fluff, too much effects mix, usually too much gain, etc...But, transforming these "templates" into usable sounds is so easy, "even a caveman can do it"...as it's been said, somebody finally gave Rocktron it's props on the fact that their effects are dual voice (essentially like having 2 of everything-- into separate amps), and as clean as guitar effects go without breaking the bank + FULL MIDI IMPLEMENTATION thru' 16 channels of midi - morphing, switching, anything...

I did 17 years of covers (figure 30 weekends a year - 5 hours a night + practice and rehearsals) with the Chameleon as my only preamp - no backup --- rock solid - do that with a Marshall!

I have no experience with them since GHS ...but before, when they were hand built here...unbelievable.

I am as diverse in my music as the Voodu Valve is...but modern bluesy rock tones are my forte' - Scott Henderson's wail, Eric Johnson's clean, Larry Carlton's smoothness, Satch's scream, and Vai... it's all there.
If stolen...I'd get another...I upload the presets to my pc as backup.
The only thing I wish it had was spillover...

in closing ..BUY ONE...quit whining and bite the bullet, beats the crap out of a transistor Marshall, or overpriced Mesa.

I personally spent an entire saturday night enjoying the presets.
Only went as high as 91 out of 254 or so....
Connected directly to a mixer using two XLR's for stereo.
Very powerfull effects,gain,distortion,EQ!!!
Mind boggling tweak ability and only three rotory knobs to learn.
Online Manual is great and covers everything in detail.

Factory presets are enough to impress me before any tweaking.
Of course you will need to edit your own sounds!!
Some of the patches nail "Van Halen" (because of the included **PHASER** my favorite effect) and "Metallica" tones.
Clean tones are awesome!! Sparkle,sizzle,warmth,bounce,pluck are all in there.
The word "RAW" tone comes to mind, at least with the presets.
Very powerfull frequency range possible.
Effects are transperent (they do not interfere with the sustain and tone) and very professional sound quality.
The hush is UNBELIEVABLE. Short gated metal rythm stops are completely silent yet if a note or chord is held it follows the sustain very slowly and smoothly down until silent, no abrubt cutoffs!!!
It gets a 9 because it doesn't sound like a $15,000 rig LOL

Bought it used, its at least 4-5 years old.
No problems at all

They have a 1-800 number and it works in Canada!!!
I spoke to Jim Chowning at Rocktron regarding some usage questions.
He answered the phone in seconds and was more than happy to give me some advice as well as converse with me.
Very experienced and cool guy!!!

I play rock,blues,jazz,soul,reggae,metal,classical,etc
26 years experience
I own a 1977 marshall combo, Hughes & Kettner Switchblade 50 combo
Peavey Rockmaster tube pre-amp,Korg A3 effects rack.
I have played many amps over the years Marshall,Hi-watt,Peavey,
Mesa Boogie,Crate,Fender,Roland Jazz Chorus 120
This Voodu rack and a tube amp is all you need.....
BUY ONE!!!

Many of the presets sound incredible!!!
Within about 5 minutes I was hearing awesome tones just using the factory presets!!!
If it sounds that good with the factory settings imagine the sound after tweaking.....holy s#$t

I spent an entire saturday night (about 6 hours) auditioning it.
Connected using two XLR's into a mixer straight to monitors.
It has a "raw untamed" tone on the distorion patches, very similar to a miked "tube amp". The effects are transparent and excellent!!!
It has every effect I have ever used including the elusive "Phaser"
which most multieffects\amp sims do NOT include....(my favorite effect ever)BTW, each effect has many controls to tweak its sound.
YES, alot of the factory presets have too much effect level mixed in.
BUT, its not so terrible that you can't hear the quality of this rack.
Me and my guitarist were both awestruck by many of the presets and only made it to patch 90 out of 250+ or something (some patches were too good to move on to the next one and took an hour to test....lol)
There was NO DELAY in changing patches, the sound change was instant!
Because there are only so many hours in a night we did not tweak any settings, we literally just played some of the presets all night, they were that good.
Contrary to "tech spec gripe guy" down below, the grapple grommet DID mesh with the filbert flange!!!! lmfao
There was plenty of high end presence and treble, too much in fact!!!
We heard no digital noise from the converters and the unit is extremely quiet. Also the hush system works very well and metal muting and rythm stops were silent.
In fact the hush followed the sustain perfectly as it very slowly decayed into silence and quick stops were gated immediately. The whole hush system is quite immpresive!!!
Both clean and distorted sounds were stellar with so many different RAW and powerfull tones available, its very inspiring to hear.
Pinched and natural harmonics were SCREAMING out of this rack including the "Zack Wylde" low E signature pinched harmonic.
I can't wait to check this out on my 77 marshall MKII lead combo...
OR my Hughes and Kettner switchblade all tube programmable amp combo.
IF I can pry myself away from it to report back, I will....
Finally, the effects worked excellently with the distortion patches without compromising the tone and sustain.

No issues yet
Bought it used off a guy who had it for years....

I called the 1-800 number and talked to someone immediately with some questions.
He answered all my questions and was very friendly and knowledgeable.
I am suprised the toll free number worked in Canada :)

I like to play rock,metal,jazz,blues,classical,progressive,etc
I have been playing for 25+ years
I auditioned this rack using my LTD MH250 w/EMG LH300 passive pickups
Compared this with behringer Vamp2,Line 6 POD,many all tube amps... **NO CONTEST**
Very inspiring to play, didn't want to stop....
Nails many pro tones vintage and new!!!
Nothing gets a 10 here (it didnt make me breakfast the next day,lol)

It takes sometime to get it to sound the way you want. Just read the book and you'll figure it out. Its just like any other unit. Learn before you burn!

I was really blown away! This unit sounds great! I've sold my Roadking & my Prophecy. This unit sounds way better than anything I've pluged into. The factory presets are over saturated with effects, but you can turn them down or off. The distortion and sustain are GREAT! Very warm sounding. Some people say it sounds little thin. I use BBE 482 sonic max and run through a Carvin 100w all tube power amp into Legacy 4x12 cab. and it will rip your head off. Plenty of punch even with my Fender strat. I love my new tone and I'm pretty happy after 20 years of playing through lots of gear! This unit is much better sounding than the Prophecy especially for metal or rock. Go out and pick one up.....DONT forget the BBE 482!

NO PROBLEMS......yet

I've called Rocktron couple of times regarding other issues with my Prophecy and they have always been good.

I play rock and metal and this thing does it VERY well. I also play more softer stuff to. The clean patches work very well and very quit.

In lieu of all the features the Voodu Valve is pretty easy to use. However, it offers more tonal features than most people are accustomed to, like semi-parametric pre & post EQ, variac, tube class, etc. So there may be a learning curve involved, depending on your technical experience.

I consider this a good practice device, as it can get decent approximations to good tube sounds. Don't let the fancy effects & gazillion parameters fool you. There are a few serious shortcomings that prevent the VV from being a true "pro" preamp...

1. Digital convertor noise & distortion is very dominant in the tone. Rocktron uses cheap phillips 18-bit analog to digital & digital to analog convertors (16-bit on the original VV). These low cost convertors add undesireable distortion & noise to the signal. It's not so obvious on very clean settings, but add a bit of gain & you'll hear it. (Gain amplifies the convertor noise & nasty distortion.) Sure you can turn on the hush effect so you don't hear this noise when you stop playing, but you can certainly hear it as your signal level decays. Try turning off the hush on your favorite medium to high gain preset. You'll hear the nastiness that is mixed into your tone. It's true that high gain amps/preamps are inherently noisy, and a nice even hiss is normal. But the VV has a very high level of nasty digital noise. Sure you can turn the hush back on to mask it when your not playing, but the VV's hush adds its own zipper noise artifacts as the signal level crosses the hush threshold. SO WHY DOESN'T ROCKTRON USE GOOD 24-BIT PRO AUDIO CONVERTORS IN THE VOODU VALVE? Perhaps it cuts into PROFIT! It's too bad because good 24-bit convertors will provide 10dB to 20dB reduction in noise & THD, and that's HUGE! Rocktron, if you're listening, check out AKM's AK5392 & AK4396, which are excellent sounding, moderate cost convertors.

2. Real presence is lacking in the VV. There is a very steep roll-off of high frequencies in the VV, even when the speaker simulator is turned off. The result is a dullness in the high end. Compare the VV to any decent tube or solid state amp & you'll hear what I'm talking about. You can turn up the high EQ to try to fake some presence out of it, but you'll end up getting a peaky upper mid sound. The abrupt roll-off is most-likely an attempt to reduce digital noise, or to cover up some nasty dither technique. Again, better quality convertors run at a higher sample-rate (like 48kHz) would help, by eliminating the need to roll-off the audible highs.

3. The tube is run in starvation mode causing an abrupt overdrive transition. The 12AX7 is under-biased for the given plate voltage. This causes a relatively harsh overdrive characteristic, which is one of the reasons why it is difficult to get a good in-between sound out of the VV. So, the tone retains an aggressive edge regardless of gain setting. There are two ways Rocktron can address this: run the tube at a hotter plate voltage, or set the bias current correctly at the current plate voltage (ie: change plate & cathode resistor values).

The VV seems to be quite reliable, though I have seen data retention problems on the earlier version (with the witch doctor icon).

Fast, excellent response to questions & schematic requests.

The VV is a great idea, but it's in serious need of an update. As it is, it's okay to use when guitar is in the background of the mix. There are plenty of nice effects that may help mask its shortcomings.

Dear Rocktron:
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE update the Voodu Valve...
- Use good 24-bit convertors run at 48kHz
- Bias the tube properly
- Don't roll-off the upper harmonics
- Ditch the u-chassis design, it's terrible for service & tube changes!!!

Also, please try to add a tuner. You can mute the output during tuner mode to conserve DSP resources. The tuner display may be as follows:
"TUNER: C# 0" (C# in tune)
"TUNER: G +1" (G a little sharp)
"TUNER: D -3" (D quite flat)

I thought I'd take a (long) break from work and fill out some info about my recent purchase, an original Rocktron VooDu Valve...

btw I like to ramble, so you have been warned...

The Rocktron Voodu valve is pretty "easy" once you learn how to operate it. Fortunately I have a knack for making things work without reading directions, and in addition I have owned a Rocktron Replifex for like 8 years or something, so the format is exactly the same and was it easy for me to learn...but i already digress...there is a manual online in case you don't get one and while Rocktron's manuals are kinda bland, it is well detailed.

It's got Modulation, Delays, Tremolo, two EQs, noisegate, different types of distortion, and all the presets can be over-ridden for over a hundred settings. It might even be considered an overload of possibilties.

I just recently downloaded the program where you can make adjustments via PC (not for Mac apparently). This looks easy and theres a function to make changes in real-time which will be cool for the EQ section especially since I don't know how band width will change having a few octaves or a lot. This is handy altho the layout looks like it was made with Microsoft basic. If they could make it look like the plug-ins used in Protools this would be the coolest...

I give this an 8 because if you can function higher than turning pedal knobs you should be able to understand how to use this within an afternoon. I dock it 2 points, because a beginner guitarist (less than one year playing) would have no idea how to use this without a lot of learning of what things do (ie. Phaser vs. Chorus vs. Flanger, and the 2 sets of EQs), plus turning knobs and hitting the recall button after every preset change (without a midi pedal which isn't included) is a pain.

But...their presets are all over the maps with rockabilly, metal, blues, clean, etc. so even if you don't know how to get a good sound, there are a few familiar ones built in. Lastly, the power unit is a bit funky and bulky with the transfromer in the center of the cable, but for my purposes it won't be going anywhere. I could see it being an issue for people that gig with it with a 2-4 space rack--good thing there's duct tape to hold it in place...

This unit knocks all other "modellers" out of the water. Don't bother with Line6 or Boss unless you don't care about tone. The tube in this preamp makes a BIG difference. Read all the other reviews -- they agree.

I have the older version so I don't have the cool Metallica or Megadeth settings as the new Online version does, but the Accept setting is hilariously close to it, and the SRV tone is cool, but I beefed it up a little more for my tastes. I am currently using the Heavy Blues with more gain for my main tone until I can dial in a perfect sound. They have a Smiths clean-tremolo setting for "How Soon Is Now" and a Van Halen "Eruption" flange/delay tone that sound just like it. The acoustic setting doesn't sound bad -- very piezo sounding instead of "acoustic", but pretty true once I fiddled with it.

They have two gain settings too, low gain with Class A/B, Hard/Soft clipping choices and the high gain which I have to dial back because it's too buzzsaw for me. I always wondered what they meant as being a Class-A amp. Now I have a better idea.

My current set up is for late night home-use in a condo(ie thru headphones). I run it direct into a Berhinger 2-channel mixer and if needbe at low volumes out into my computer speakers (which sounds like poop, but it serves it's purpose). I use the headphones on the mixer which gives me a better idea of the tone thru a board instead of direct from the unit. I also bought a Tech 21 power Engine for hearing it as a regular rig. See the other reviews about tube power as the Tech 21 is solid state amp and almost takes away some of the tone. I can see where it would shine with a tube power amp. I also have an extra Behringer midi pedal that I use with it.

The effects are similar to my Replifex, but I agree with a few others--the configuration limitations are um, limiting and the speaker simulator doesn't sound like it does anything useful, but without the speaker sim the tone rocks. It is nice to have a wah to use and control with a midi controller. On my other rig I have two wah pedals (a Bad Horsie-1 for quick on/off and a CFH Dunlop for tone) and a volume pedal. I am happy I don't need all that and can use the Behringer's pedals. If you learn how to use the controller assignments you could even set up one pedal to control EQ movement (ie midrange) and wah on the same pedal. You can even recreate (Audioslave/Rage Against the Machine) Tom Morello's wah-pitch shifter this way. On that note I have a digitech Whammy reissue and the pitch shifter and whammy sound the same. Nothing spectacular but it does the job. If you want true tone for a whammy, get a double locking tremolo, otherwise live with the fact that pitch shifting is going to sound digital.

um...that was an essay...lets reiterate with "it's damn good" and move on.

Can I depend on it? Lets just say I've used the same Rocktron rig for years and have seen my bass player and my other guitarist burn through their effects and preamps. I believe I can truely say "I can depend on Rocktron".

I don't know if I would necessarily gig with it, because I prefer amps over rack preamps, but I would definitely use it for recording (the other reason why I got it) or to jam with buddies. My plan is to replicate my amp tone for home use, so if I needed to, I would bring it as a back up to my rig and run it parallel to my rig thru a DI.

Theres a guy named Jim Chowning who has always respond to my emails over the years. He has offered to help me out with questions/issues over the phone if needed and took the time to respond to emails within a day or so. I think this is great because it means he's there as customer support M-F answering emails and phone calls. He also told me there is no difference between the "online" version and the older version of the Voodu Valve. They both can receive midi from the online program. This eased my mind when accidently I bid on the older version instead of a newer one.

I also pushed the idea of endorsement, and he had no qualms of forwarding my info to the right guy (crossing fingers!). So props to Jim and Rocktron!

I consider myself a "musician" over a "guitarist". Sounds stupid, but to elaborate...I play tones for the song/genre/etc. I won't crank a Dimebag tone while playing ACDC or SRV just because that's my "tone". I know guys that crank the gain to 10, scoop the mids, use a guitar made of basswood loaded with EMGs that claim they know tone. And at the same time I know guys who don't deviate from a blues tone and a strat. Eh...to each his own... I played a 63 Strat on my last recording and have had my gain set on my Mesa at 4 for recordings. I may not own it, or like the settings, but I have a good idea of what good clear tone sounds like.

I have a Strat, a PRS McCarty Rosewood, a Les Paul Studio, and have owned Ibanez & Jackson guitars. I have been playing since I was 13 (now 30) and have done the whole heavy metal (Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, Pantera, Fear Factory, etc.) thing in high school, the alternative-rock (Korn Deftones) and the snobby "vintage guitars/tone only" attitude in college, and the hard rock meets reggae stuff as well as acoustic singer-songwriting in my new endeavor.

My influences are U2, Metallica, Bob Marley, folk music (Cat Stevens, John Denver, Peter Paul & Mary, etc.), rockabilly stuff like Stray Cats & Chris Isaak, singer-songwriter music (Sade, Sarah McLachlan, Prince), and acoustic bands (Ben Harper, Dave Mathews). Bands like Slipknot, Sevendust, Dredg, Radiohead, Tool, and Audioslave get a lot of spins in my cd player, and other times I rock old Lionel Ritchie, some classical guitar, or 80's new wave music.

Why bother you telling all this about me? Well my rig similarly has always had to be multifaceted--able to give me a good crunch that cuts thru bass and cymbal frequencies yet have another tone to play bluesy or low gain stuff. I don't just buy a distortion pedal because one day I want death metal chugg...no sirreee...I need the ability to pull off some country twang/grit AND rock out some Slayer out of the same unit...For those of you with similar guitar attention deficit disorder (G-ADD as I call it) you may want to listen to my opinion of this unit.

For my band Divided by Zero I've use my main beater git, a Les Paul Studio--customized with Duncan JB/Jazz pickups, thru a Mesa Dual recto 3channel thru a Rocktron Replifex, controlled by a Rocktron Patchmate and All Access. I run my distortion on 6 or 7 on the modern-red channel and 4-5 on the vintage-orange channel for my "indie" and bluesy tones. I volume down on my guitar for less gain sometimes and rely on the power of the amp thru the speakers to add that extra distortion.

With that in mind having a Voodu-Valve is like having my main rig plus a few Fender amps and a bunch of pedals at my disposal. I haven't found my perfect tone yet but I am confident it's in there once I figure out the PC program and the EQ settings. I do wish that they built in a tuner to the unit. That would have been very very useful. Good thing I have my Boss TU12...

I would feel horrible if it was stolen and would definately replace it with another. I need to sell my Tech21 and get a tube poweramp. Then I will be 100% happy with my home tone. Until then I'll be happy playing thru headphones.

If you doubt my claims of what I consider "good tone", have a listen to my band: http://www.dividedbyzero.tv or http://www.myspace.com/dividedbyzero

and then go buy yourself a Voodu-Valve, knowing that it has that tone, and a lot of functionality. Studios/producers, forget the Line 6 modelers--why cut scratch tracks with turd-tone when you can use this unit and get the same tone as a mic'd amp?

Anyway, this is forever long and I haven't done my work and it's almost time to go home. C-ya.
James

I was already used to rack mounted programmable effects, so using the voodu was no problem. If you have never had a unit like this it might take some time to get a hang of. It is harder than just twisting a couple knobs on an amp, but there are many more possibilities in the voodu.

I play a Ibanez Jem with Semyour Ducan JB pickups into the Voodu, into Rocktron's solid state Velocity 100 stereo power amp, which is connected to a Marshall 1960 4x12 speaker cabinet. Sounds great with the Voodu's speaker emulator off.

I am using the Voodu into a power amp, so nothing else is coloring the tone. And the tone is great and very natural sounding. The voodu doesn't emulate amps. It has a tube in it, and the more gain you use the more it distorts, just like the preamp stage on a normal amp. This unit can kick out some metallica/megadeth/pantera type sound no problem.

Most of the presets have the effect levels way to high, so you need to do some tweaking. As for the effects, there are more than you can shake a stick at. Most of which are of no use to me. The delay, reverb, and chorus sound pretty good, though I have seen other units where there are more parameters for each of these effects. But then again more effect parameters can just be a pain too. The Hush noise gate is excellent. Some guys here complain about the pitch shifter because it sounds retarded (which it does indeed), but regardless of the manufacture every pitch shifter I have heard sounds like crap

What makes the Voodu great is that it has excellent distorted tone and effects, which can be saved to one of 250 program numbers. To me this is very convient for doing gigs. The other guitar player in my band has a tube amp and an huge pedal board full of effects (which cost a bundle) to lug around and hook up for every show. I just plug in and I am ready to go.

The dual EQ sections are also excellent. One for the input and one for post distortion. The EQ's are also parametric, which means you can change the bandwith and frequency that you are boosting or cutting. Parametric eq's in generally are cool and is also alot of how Dime Bag got his tone from Randall amps back in the day.

One more thing the natural harmonic and artifical harmonic sqweels sound great on the Voodu.

I have not had a problem with the voodu yet. And I do indeed gig with it without a back up

I live near Battle Creek, which is were GHS/Rocktron is located. I went to the factory and delt directly with the compay to by the Voodu and the Velocity power amp. They were really helpful and cut me a great deal.

I have played hardrock/metal for about 10 years, from iron madien to testament to pantera to fear factory, van halen etc. I think the Voodu was made for hard rock and metal. I have owned a Digitech Valve Fx pre amp and peavy 100 amp in the past, the Voodu is way more natual. If this was stole I would replace it or look for the Rocktron Piranha, which I am told sounds similar but without the effects. The ability to program and save multipe different configrations is execellent. When I bought the Voodu I tried out different amps and set ups, but the
Voodu gave the best tone for its price range. Bogner amp heads sound better, but cost like 3000-4000 dollars, which is way out of my budget.

easy, but you need to understand signal processing and audio. If you don't understand the technical aspects of audio or DSP you'll never get a good sound out of it. I have to relate that I have alot of experience with sound design and acoustics, and my friend is a sound engineer who taught me alot. So I might find this easy but a newbie might find it intimidating.

I wrote a review before, wanted to make an update.

You really have to get in and seriously edit it. You can turn off the digital distortion and it will act like nearly any tube preamp I have ever heard. The tube is actually real, you have to get in and turn it on properly. You can get great dynamics too, like SRV playing, but you gotta trick out the eq's, tube settings and such, and I turn off the hush.

This thing likes tube power amps. But I play direct with headphones through an analog mixer. Makes a great direct box. Turn off the digital clipping and it will sound like a marshall or a fender.

The speaker sim kind of sucks though.

The effects are ok I guess, not bad for digital. The chorus and phaser are good. The tremolo is decent. Pitch shift sort of lags a bit at times from the note. Delay is decent. Reverb isn't too hot but useable.

You'll need a midi pedal for it if you want to control it. You can also bypass all the effects too.

It has two gain modes low and high. Low mode has digital clipping. I turn it off. High gain is metalhed tube distortion.

Hush hahaha. Well, I didn't buy it for the hush.

You can get alot of different sounds out of this. If you need one preamp that can do a wide range of sounds, and are willing to spend alot of time editing it it is worth the money. If you do not understand how to setup gear you will find this thing is not very good. This is a great box for people who understand how to tweak it out correctly.

I rate this even higher now, it is a good bang for the buck. It's cheap, so if it got stolen I could replace it. This thing can do a wide range of sounds with alot of tweaking. The factory presets mostly suck.

I play everything from blues and jazz, bossa nova, metal, hard rock. I like to play everything I can learn. I think that makes you a more versatile musician instead of being a one trick pony. I practice every day, scales and all. It's the only way if you want to seriously play and not be a tab tard all your life.