Vox Cooltron Bull Dog Distortion

Easy to use two channel distortion with simple controls and "tubeamp-like" Eq section

Head which I use isn't tube but transistor/hybrid head ( valve - 12AX7 in preamp only for the drive channel) but the clean channel is perfect for my setup .Needed smooth "tube-ish" sound with enough gain ,clarity and sustain for the driven sound ,and bulldog was the weapon of choice.
Did one mod to it - a switch which cuts treble and also some gain for use with 2 channel .
There is no true bypass in Bulldog as stated by VOX , but from my side of view ( know some things about DIY electronics and DIY pedals made some, modded some) great buffer in a pedal (example T-rex , Visual Sound a lot butique pedals and some boss or ibanez )is so much better to have with more effect pedals in a loop .Without buffer in such loops ,and only with so popular "true bypass" signal becomes weak and lifeless.Also ,lets be real every tube amp has "that legendary tube sound " if guitar is connected directly to it .If something is connected between it will degrade the signal and that's it.The main question is if you notice it and if it bothers you .
Lots of people use 2-nd channel for all kinds of metal and other extreme music but i have no need for it and my style is old doom metal - post metal - sludge combination - call it what you will..
Learned that seymour custom on the bridge of my downtuned guitar and digi badmonkey with minimum gain before Vox in a chain give enough signal boost for 1 channel of Vox to give great dynamic distortion with enough gain ,sustain and clarity .Have to mention that vox bulldog definitely drops the volume when on ,but nothing that cannot be repaired with knob volume setting
Many people mention lack of bass and high treble.It all depends off gear you are using , on 4x12 You will have enough bass believe me , but if you are
using solid state amp which is bright ,or some amps which are " brit sounding amps" there will be a lot of treble .
And yeah , this pedal isn't noisy at all.

Overall this pedal fits perfectly in my setup and with some filtering I was able to get the sound I was after.

My setup

Peavey hp exp signature with Seymour Duncan sh-5 Custom in the bridge ads sh-2 Jazz in the neck tuned in 1.5 steps down

>->Digitech bad monkey (use as a filter for more bass and just a little dirt for the clean and more dynamic response for my kind of
playing, always on with minimum gain -just love this pedal )
>-> Vox bulldog (Use first channel in combination with bad monkey - gain almost set to the end , rarely use the 2-nd channel for some extra gain on solo parts (prefer EHX eq as a boost )
>-> Ehx Attack Eq (for correcting Bass after VOX - example for solid state amplifiers or treble-ish amps , and with my amp and setup as a
filter/booster for solo or melodies to stand out from the mix
>-> Artec delay (Use for selfoscillation and Echo sounds , transparent delay ,it has life of its own some background noise ,think its slightly broken:) awesome original sounding pedal )
>-> Homemade DIY Chorus (CE 2 clone with slight modifications for some extreme detuned settings - overall full bright sounding chorus
set to have a little boost for the signal when on also ,use in several occasions for clean guitar to stand out)
>->DIY Homemade Tremulus Lune Tremolo (for me one of the best sounding tremolo project )
>->Digitech DigiDelay (Use setting Tape delay for solos , sometimes 4 sec looper "special" option in combination with DL8 looper)
>->Digitech Hardwire series DL8 Delay/Looper( Use Nice Chorus/delay combination for clean parts , also Lo fi or Analog settings are
great, and of course 20 sec looper option which is great for practice and live experimentation)

Into clean channel of Laney LV300H head with supporting 4x12 cab.

I had to repair it after 6 months of playing and few gigs , this thing has reputation to break and it's not just mine pedal that acted like that.My second guitarist broke the switch on his bulldog.Then again after repairing the thing it's still working and I have it for 3-4 years

Don't know about the support ,in a country where I live there is no official VOX dealer and support , didn't even try to take it in
the shop where I bought it ,repaired it myself.

For the sound pure 10 but it broke once hope it won't break again :) ,and if it does will repair it .One thing about my setup and gear, I am playing guitar for about 17-18 years and play all sorts of music but mainly extreme music, and learned that if pedal sounds great to you and your style of playing take it , experiment , sometimes the "bad" things about pedals can sound as advantages .Be original
and listen to yourself , reviews are in my opinion there to inform you not to make you buy gear without listening to it and playing it .Just because someone thinks this or that is great or pure garbage , doesn't mean it is ,and just because something costs big money doesn't mean it is great sounding piece of gear.Example - look at my gear from the guitar to the pedals to the amp , many would say digitech pedal suck bla... , artec is a cheap
sounding pedal.. amp is lousy ,but it does sound great and with some experimenting and modding all gear can sound even greater .I know mine does
PS - Sorry for my bad english or grammar errors

-One input Jack, one output jack and one for the power supply (9 volts).

-Two channels
First channel: Gain, Volume, Bass, Treble controls
Second channel: Gain, Volume, Bass, Treble and "Voice" control which
shifts the midrangescoop from low- to hi mids.

Two footswitches: the left one activates the unit, the right one switches between channels.

More knobs than your casual overdrive pedal but pretty easy to use as all knobs do what you expect them to do ! :-)

But beware: Bass and treble and especially the voice control seem to be of passive nature and interactive.
That means: if you turn up the treble, you lose bass and vice versa. If you turn up the voice control on the second channel, you' cut the mids tremendously which reduces "loudness". If you now turn up the volume, you'll actually boost bass and treble.
This can be tricky for someone who is used to tone-circuits built into most "off the shelf" solid state pedals.

The EQ section of this pedal feels more like an eq-section of a tube amp than your standard distortion pedal, which feels really good !

The manual: Read it once. Very informative about the implemented technology, but not really needed to use the pedal. :-)

I use this at two occasions:
-In front of my Marshall 2266 (dialed to clean on low dynamic range)
-In front of my Pod XT with ampmodelling to "off" and loudspeakersimulation to Brit T75.

First of all what astonished me the most:
Although this pedal runs just on 9 volts, which is definitely way lower than what tubes usually run at, this piece of hardware sounds amazingly tubelike and crunchy ! Way more tubelike than my more expensive and at 250 volts running DamageControl Demonizer which sounds as cold as antarctica compared to the really warm Bulldog Distortion !

The first channel gives you classic british crunch with rather scratchy but harmonic overtones similar to a Marshall Plexi but with more gain. This is a little more Marshall than you'd expect from a pedal carrying the VOX label. Although you can dial in some AC30-like sounds, it still sounds rough.

The second channel is almost exactly your
"80s-Metal-Marshall-JCM 800" !
I've never heard a pedal before, that was so good and so close!
Better than Marshall's own Guv'nor or Jackhammer pedals!
And definitely better than the JCM 800 Simulation in the POD XT... ;-)

The voice control let's you dial in the amount of "chainsaw" you want.
The more you turn it up, the more you get your 80s Metal.

Both channels are really good at what they deliver.
Don't be fooled by what some people say:
This is not a modern sounding unit. Not at all !
And it isn't really trebly or bass-lacking for what it is. It just delivers exactly what you'd expect from your 70s-80s Britamps.
No more, no less!

If you're into NU-Metal with downtuned guitars and ridiculous amounts of low end: look somewhere else!
If you're searching for that classic british medium to high gain tone that dominated the 80s, this is definitely the piece to buy !!!

The unit is true bypass (i didn't notice any change in tone when pedal connected) but the footswitches do make click noises when pressed. Both of them. Not really loud but noticable.

I use this unit with the original 9 Volts/600mAmps Korg powersupply which is not included.
Haven't tried batterys yet so i don't know if that changes the tone.
But batteries are included... ;-)

Got it for less than a week, so no real comment on that.

It is completely built of metal (folded steel for the chassis and aluminium for the sidebars) and looks pretty solid.

But one thing bothers me:
The open tube compartment !
If the tube runs cool (which it really does), why is the chassis open directly above the tube ?
If fluid drips into there, the pedal is toast !
Even dust goes in there... :-(

Why no plexiglass like on the Damagecontrol pedals ?

Never had to deal with them, so no comment.

I'm an "80s metalshredder" playing guitar for more than 25 years now, using mainly Ibanez and Jackson Guitars with Dimarzio Tonezone or Duncan Distortion bridgepickups.
If the Bulldog was stolen, i would buy another one.
It does deliver the old Marshall-Metal tone which nothing else does except for the original JCM2203. :-)

A 10 as the final rating for what it is. Don't expect anything else.

It's very easy to use. The're are 2 channels, gain and volume controls for each of them, some kind of an equalizer (treble and bass knobs for both channels together) and one special knob - Gain 2 voice, which helps to get more control of the second channel.

It uses a 12AU7 preamp-type tube.

I'm using a lot of guitars (including Gibson Les Paul Supreme, Ibanez S470 dxqm, ESP LTD Ec-200, etc., but mostly I play with a self made ESP LTD EX And FX series type guitar with EMG's). The amps are A lot of different Marshall's, Crate 120w and a Peavey Bandit 112.

What can I say about this pedal is that it's not very noisy. Actually, it gives out less hum than other distortions.

About The sound:
As I play some Hard'n heavy, Symphonic, Gothic and some kind of a folk Metal, I needed a pedal, which could produce really HEAVY distortion. And that was the main problem why I needed to buy something that is famous with it's sound, but when I got it, I noticed that it really lacks bass. Although the bass knob is on it's maximum, it can't produce a bone crushing distortion. But the tone itself is very good. The tube inside gives full and very tasty sound, but it definitely won't be the bes decision if you want to play something extra heavy. Or you'll have to save some money for an equalizer, which could add some frequencies and make the sound tastier.

Well, I bought it used and it has never let anybody who played on it down, so I think it's reliable.

Never used.

I play Heavy music (a lot of metal, etc), also worship music in my church and some other projects.
I 've been playing for around 2 years.

This pedal suits very well for soloing, but for the rythm parts I choose EHX Metal Muff (model with top boost), which gives a far heavier sound. I have tried a lot of distortions from Danelectro, boss, marshall, Dunlop (mxr) and I can say that this is the best pedal for solo parts, because the sound is very bright. I would place it right after the EHX Metal Muff as the second, just because the equalizer is not so tasteful. If Vox could make it with more bass and one more extra tube in it, it would be a perfect thing, because right now I'm playing with all knobs at maximum and it doesn't make the sound just as I want. because of the lack of bass, it is not so heavy as it should be.

If it were stolen or lost, I'd probably try to get it used again, because it costs a lot if you want it from shop.

To sum up, I'm not unhappy with this thing, because it is very good in some ways, where my favorite EXH Metal muff is not, for example the solo parts. The tube inside it really helps to get out the tone for solos just as I want. And because it is not so heavy, I can use it while playing in the church with very litle gain - it sounds very good. So, averything I want for a perfect sound is an equalizer (that should be a really good equalizer) and a Metal Muff in chain with this.

The Bulldog seems rather fiddly at first, but it's really surprising how incredibly easy it is to tweak, as there are enough controls to really hit the spot (in a tonal sense, of course), but not too many controls that the sound becomes intensly painfully unbearable. I especially like the voice control on channel 2, not because I play scooped metal sounds (because I certainly don't), but because the control is just there, if needed.
The only beef I have to say, is that I don't like the idea of shared tone controls, as a compromise has to be made when choosing good settings: what may hit the spot on one channel, may sound dodgy on another. Otherwise, it's rather user friendly.

For what I paid for it, the value in sound is rather impressive. Put it in front of a decent valve or solid state amp, and it will really give the tone a boot up the arse! The first channel is just perfect for early rock and blues, as the 12AU7 valve produces a warm, rather welcoming crunch; slightly reminiscent of an old Marshall JCM800. Turn the gain up, and get some mad drive. For metallers, or fans of the high gain, the seccond channel really delivers the goods and very rarely fails to impress. Through a valve amp, it produces anything from a modern marshall tone to Soldano and Mesa Boogie territory.
For my sound, in the studio, I play early rock and progressive rock, so I have the seccond channel selected, with the treble and bass to 12 o clock and the voice/scoop control to about 10 o clock. Fronting a seccond hand JCM 2000 DSL50 on the clean channel, this setting roars to life with enough power to kill an old person, but with just enough clarity with the gain set low.
However, higher treble settings can sound very harsh, as do higher gains, and some clarity and bass is lost in the seccond channel, bun these things are forgiveable.

It's been gigging for 3 years and has faced abuse while recording. Where other units have died and gone to Heaven, this thing just keeps going and going and going...
Half the time, I cant be bothered to take my billions of pedals to a gig, so I just end up taking a couple of guitars, my marshall, my crybaby wah and the bulldog. That's how reliable it is.

I've never had to take it back or have it repaired, so no dealings with the company itself

For someone like me, who plays zeppelin and rush and so on, it does what I want it to. I just plug it in and it works. It makes me happy to play guitar. Compared to some of my other transistor based pedals (marshall guvnor, boss ds1, ibanez tubescreamer to name a few), it feels more "alive"; it has more realistic bass, and drives quite smoothly. I love the fact that it can make a small amplifier sound big, and a big amplifier sound absolutely massive.
However, it's real home is the studio: being used live almost defeats the purpose of having a Marshall that can be driven. I only wish this kind of technology could be used porperly, instead of people buying pod xts, which have no valves in them. It is also quite bulky and takes up uneccesary room. Nitpicking aside, it is really clever, and only a fool would consider another distortion pedal over this, despite some of the problems it has.

I mainly use Vox Bull Dog for harmonica. It effortlessly produces "the sound" that so harmonica players like through virtually any amp or PA system. Usually, I leave my amp at home and just play through the Bull Dog into a PA system. It's so easy to get feedback-free vintage sounding distortion with this machine. I play a mix of blues, country and folk so it is easy to switch from clean to dirty sounds with the touch of your foot - especially handy when playing rack harmonica.

Great tube distortion for harmonica due to the 12AU7 tube inside. I use both channels but the "modern" sounding channel is my favourite producing a more molten liquid harp sound with plenty of bite (the Vintage channel is no dog however). I have mainly been using a MicroVox mic with it which gives an even response over all the notes with no awful sounding spots. Nice and gutsy at the low end and smooth and rounded at the high end. I also use a Strnd pick-up for rack harmonica and it is great with that too.

So far so good. I have had it for about 8 months.

NA

It is one of the best pieces of musical equipment I have ever bought for harmonica. Had it been available a few years ago I don't think I would have spent all the thousands of dollars I have spent on vintage tube amps.

With only 7 knobs, and two switches, it is, needless to say, very easy to use. There is no real need for a manual, as it is pretty self-explanatory, especially with the scribblings on the box, which desribes in layman's terms what everything does.

I am a teenager, and this means two things: 1. I don't have a particularly advanced knowledge of sounds of pedals, etc, and 2. I have a cheap and basic setup. I play an ESP viper-50 with basic ESP pickups (which is possibly a regrettable choice as my musical tastes have changed a lot, but i dont have the funding for a new guitar), through a Boss ME-50 and into a Marshall 50 watt AVT combo. Therefore, my sound is that of a money-deprived teenager. Until i can upgrade the pickups on my ESP to something coil-tappable, I use the Humbucker-to-single tone modification on my ME-50. I plugged in the Bulldog, and managed to get good sounds out of it almost instantly. Apart from the obvious option on setting volume to zero, there isn't really a setting on it that is completely unusable. I keep the Gain 2 voice setting pretty much at halfway, although it does have a pretty cool scooped setting with that set full. The genre i generally stick to the softer end of grunge, like Pearl Jam, but i play pop,soul,metal etc as well. Because of this, generally gain for me never goes too high, but on gain 2, turning the gain up full is the cleanest full gain I have heard. Yet again, I need to stress that I haven't heard that many pedals, and I am mainly comparing it to the overdrive on my AVT50, which, at full gain, gets very muddy. My generally used one is gain 1, but with Gain 2 being so powerful, yet so clear, I occasionally cannot resist having a shred. The unit is virtually noiseless. Essentially, the point I need to make is that with reasonably low end equipment, you can get a very nice sound out of it.

Not had it long enogh to know, but, aside from the valve, I bet I couldnt break it if i tried.

Never used.

This pedal is brilliant in my opinion, although I might be abit biased because I bought it for 50 quid. You can't go wrong for 50 quid. But I'd highly recommend it to almost anyone. Also, it's really shiny , the valve glows blue, and it has a scary-looking bulldog on the front. What's not to love about that?

It's certainly not idiotproof. There's a lot of control (which I think is a good thing) but you have to sit down for a few minutes to dial in the tones you want. Everything makes sense, though.

Also, it's shiny. Shiny is nice.

I wanted this pedal to be the holy grail in my quest for good distortion. It wasn't. I play a VOX AC30CC2 and it sucked all the tone out of my amp. That's the only way I can put it. This pedal has no low end whatsoever. Even with the "bass" knob cranked, I absolutely could not get this thing to punch me in the chest. Both stages of overdrive sounded tinny and brash, not rich and creamy. I'd bypass it and all the rich lows from my amp came right back.

One thing VOX did right with this pedal is in the levels of saturation. Channel one allows you to dial up some minor breakup to get you going, and channel two is very heavily saturated, which I was looking for.

Again, I wanted this thing to be the answer. I just couldn't get any good sound out of it.

The only other thing I've heard about the Cooltron series is from a buddy of mine who owns the Big Ben Overdrive and he had some problems with it. It does, however, seem sturdy enough on the outside.

I haven't had to deal with them.

I mainly play in a worship band and I like three stages of distortion. I run my AC30 clean and add two stages of distortion, one with minor crunchy breakup, the other with heavy saturation. On paper, this pedal was perfect for my needs. In reality, it was not.

Here's the first thing. If you're interested in this pedal because you think it's going to sound better because it has a "tube" in it, you're mistaken. You simply cannot power a vacuum tube on nine volts. Nine volts is only enough to power the filament of the tube. If you try this pedal and think it sounds awesome, buy it. But just know that you're buying a solid state pedal with a (cool looking) light bulb in it.

For me, this pedal is going back tomorrow and I'm going to try a Seymour Duncan SFX-03.

For a two-channel distortion box, it couldn't be much simpler.

This is amazing. A two-channel dist box, which actually sounds good on both channels. And for my style the second channel suits more than well. Bulldog is at its best when you play a good gtr and amp and turn that volume pot high enough. The sound is very powerful and because it's almost noiseless it's very easy to play palm mutes etc. I'm not looking for anyone's sound except myself's. And I must say I've finally found it. Yes, there is much treble, but you can dial it out, if that's what you like. Certainly doesn't bother me.

Just received it.

No experiences.

I've been playing for more than twenty years. I have had many many distortions and overdrives, cheap and expensive, good and not so good. For exaple Hughes & Kettner Tubeman (not very good imo), Carl Martin Plexitone (even worse, too much bass you can't cut off) and Emma ReezaFratZiz (again too much bass). I've sold all of these. What I still have are the Sansamps (Tri AC, GT-2 and Original), which are all very good, but noisy when used live. I use the Sansamps at home for recording and playing. I also use Danelectro Blue Paisley for od sounds. It's a great pedal (perhaps the only good Danelectro pedal ever). Then, I have had cheaper pedals: Digitech Hot Head and Bad Monkey (good, but not as good as Bulldog, so I sold them), Metal Muff (every guitar sounds the same), Warp Factor (very good, but only for metal) Marshall Drivemaster (very good actually, but sold it too), Marshall Shredmaster (total crap)Marshall Gov'nor II and BB-2 (both crap), Boss Metal Zone (even more crap, totally useless), Digitech Grunge (same as Metal Zone). There must be some kind of a noise gate inside the Bulldog, because it's almost noiseless. That's not the nature of a dist/od pedal. But I don't mind, it works. There's no screaming feedback either. I love the GT-2, but it's so noisy and it feeds back, I can't use it at high volumes. I use mainly the second channel, but the first channel is very important to me, because I can change the amount of gain in channel 1: if I need a slightly overdriven tone, I've got it and if I want a classic rock sound, I've got it too. Just have to turn that gain knob a little. But the most important thing is that this pedal rocks and really kicks ass.

This pedal is easy to use, two channels with gain volume eq and voice for channel two.

I think the sound is good but you must know how to set the pedal. At firs I was disappointed because it's too much trieble oriented. But if you turn trieble down the sound comes out ok. Channel1 is hottest, more classic hard rock oriented. Channel two is mid-scoped, more compressed and dark. Good for new kinds of metal.
I use this pedal with a fender blues jr and it' s ok, I like it very much. I also use this as a booster with a rack composed by brunetti mille and mesa 20 20, so with different settings. I'm happy with thw bulldog. It has a particular tone, british ok, but particular... like all vox's products... hear it before buy!!

I don't know, I never had problems

It' s a good distortion pedal, cool with the blue light and solid.
It has a particular tone end I apricate this. I think too much expensive. 7 for the price....

The manual is a joke.The pedal knob tunings are self explainatory.A chimpanzee could figure this thing out.

Warm tube preamp saturation.Although the signal does get a bit weak on power cells.Its best to use a wall wart power supply instead.The treble is absoulutly terrible.Completly overpowering if set to more than a sliver of a turn of the knob.But, thats probably on some amps and not all.You might try the midrange mod if your willing to solder a bit.Try to use a valve amp on the cleanest channel possible.Solid state amps DO NOT do this pedal justice.Oh yeah and this pedal is whisper quiet on idle even when all knobs are tuned to max settings!

Valves arent very reliable now are they?Especially the cheap ones made in russia or china.I suggest replacing the stock E.H. valves with better ones.Mine are 12au7 E.I. elites.Otherwise, your valve is likely to go microphonic much too quickly.Another thing i dont like is its much to easy for a rowdy fan to spill beer inside the valve cage and have the pedal renderd totally useless.It should be almost water tight to keep things like beer and the ocasional spit out.If you must gig with a backup, use the marshall jackhammer distortion pedal.

Iv never dealt with vOx, Roland or whomever manufactures this pedal and hopefully never have to.

Overall this pedal is on par with a Marshall Jackhammer Distortion pedal only slightly better.If you add in the price differnce this one leaves something to be desired.But i still cannot stress enough how much a good valve amp is neccesary in this amp/pedal combo equation.Overall though id say its a good step in the right direction.The next step being, a real overdriven preamp and poweramp stage working toghether in a quality amp.