Vox Satchurator

Easy to use with three knobs and a more switch.

The sound varies alot depending in what channel you are or which channel you are using. I have a Stratocaster into a Peavey Valveking 112. First I was disappointed with the harshness of the sound after tone knob is pushed over 9 when I used clean channel like Joe apparently does. Then I tried it in overdrive channel with practically clean sound and it sounded like the demos in youtube.

Its quite silent even with full gain, but it humms louder in the clean channel.

I play blues and rock and its great for that.

Still working

I play blues and rock which this pedal is made for I think.

The Chicken Head knobs glide, and if I need to change a setting, I can easily do it with my foot. It sounds good right out of the box.

I use this through my Charvel Custom and my Fleshtone amp. This pedal has a lot of grit to it and is very good for rhythm parts. The "More" switch gives it a nice gain boost which is very good for lead parts. What I also like about this is the "Pad" switch which lowers the effect a slight bit so that it can be used with other Pedals(Such as a Wah).

I play primarily Classic Rock such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Van Halen and alot of Yngwie and Vai. This pedal has the versatility and tone quality that I need. The only thing I discourage is the size. I bought this primarily to get rid of my Little Muff Pi and Its is a bit bigger in width. As a result I had to cut out a bit of foam from my Pedalboard to make it fit. But in any case, this pedal is a great addition to any pedalboard.

The 3 knobs are self explaning - the first channel is controllable, the 'More' channel is the full undiluted channel. The cut switch does not work - is this an 'in' joke perhaps?

it sounds awful with my Marshall DSL 100w (clean channel) - it has a mid-range ball od mud which throttels chords - it does sound slightly better with a Marshall 1987 amp.

It will not boost clean sounds but some clean does come thru if you back off the volume (but they all do that right?).

It is not good enough to be a intregal part of my sound - the rhythem is muddy and the distortion is compressed - it does not understand British crunch like most pedals. However I do like it for soloing.
Facit - nice toy for soloing but a real distortion unit would have been better (Hughes&Kettner/Fulltone etc...). eg, could not record with it

Is solid

Only for widdling along to songs in my cellar - not for professional use unless you only play widdling music.

Simple to use, not simple to get a good tone. It truly saturates your tone with satchrificness, but if you are not Satch, well....that's it. I think they could have done better on this one. It did not make me want to surf with the alien, that's for sure.

It's probably best suited for beginners who want to have a very thick sound to cover up the garble. Great for that, and it's a nice fizzy sound for that mucky muck. Otherwise, meh.

Didn't have it long enough to judge reliability. Feels like a solid tank, but my buddy had one and the "true bypass" crapped on him in the first day of playing. Not cool.

No opinion.

Meh.

Very easy to use, the manual covers the basics of the control knobs, but there being only 3 knobs means its not rocket science to figure it out. Gain, tone and volume. Easy. Though the pedal also responds to your guitar knob settings extremely well, so you have a bit of fiddling to do at times.

This pedal sounds great with my amp, a Vox ADVT, played with my Spear Gladius guitar. The best thing about this pedal is that it responds to your volume control on your guitar, as well as the settings you dial into the pedal. I found that just by lowering the volume it lowers the levels of gain, and vice versa, which i thought was a great feature giving you a really versatile pedal. The 'more' button on the Satchurator is another cool feature. It's most noticeable when you have your gain knob lower, hitting the more switch provides a big gain boost. Not so noticeable when you have gain maxed, or almost maxed, but even then it allows your sound to cut through even more.

However I did find that at times I didnt lower my guitars volume, the distortion can become very gritty and fuzzy, so I suppose not everyones cup of tea.

Looks sturdy, feels sturdy. Vox always make quality products and I dont see this thing breaking any time soon

You get a 9 month warranty with the pedal, but i've never had to contact vox in the past. Well build pedal, vox.

really easy to get a great sound out of this pedal.... manual just shows basics... note special to be honest.

i use this pedal with several guitars such as strats, les pauls, red special guitars... and amp side of things i use a vox ac30. this pedal makes my amp sound like a full distorted boogie lol... one word ''awesome!''

this pedal is made from a sturdy metal case. seems solid! My verdict on this pedal is i think i could depend on it without backup during when i tour.

vox are very helpful and kind everytime ive phoned them with a problem! top company.

This is a correction and addition for my previous post on 01/09/09 regarding modding the Satchurator. It has been brought to my attention that I transposed the part numbers for the diodes used. The silicon (stock) diodes in the Satchurator are 1N4148 and the germanium diodes that I used are 1N34A, not the other way around as in my last post. My apologies for any confusion.

I've also heard from a couple people that germanium diodes are difficult to find, so I experimented with different diode configurations using diodes/LEDs that are easily found at a local Radio Shack. The best sounding combo IMO that I came up with was to use one of the stock diodes in series with a 3mm red LED for one side (as in the previous post) and another single 3mm red LED to replace the other stock diode. This gives the pedal a very dynamic amp-like distortion that cleans up extremely well with the volume knob of the guitar, even better than the stock pedal. Overall output is increased significantly. Unity gain between the bypassed and active signal is achieved with the volume knob at about 11 o'clock when the gain is set to about noon. Turning up the volume to max slams the front of the amp with a huge amount of output! There is also a greater difference in volume boost and gain when the "More" switch is engaged, particularly when the gain knob is set below 12 o'clock.

Also, after some live performance testing, I have decided to remove the tone cap mod described in my previous post. Although the cap helped cut some of the excess highs, it also tended to dull the tone when the volume knob was rolled back on certain guitars. Removing the cap retained the highs on all the guitars I tested. It seems Joe knew what he was doing on this one. ;-)

If anyone has questions about any of these mods, please feel free to email me.

I was soo looking forward to etting this pedal but was horribly disapointed. I sold my Blackstar HT Dual to get this. I wish I'd listened to it first before parting with my lovely HT Dual.
It's easy enough to use but the pad switch doesn't seem to do much.
So 9 for an eas of use. No complaints there.

I used a Custom shop strat with Kinman pickups & a Les Paul Custom.
The pedal was not noisy.
I struggled to get the distortion sound I expected from it. I think it probably makes a huge difference which amp you plug into.
I used a Laney Lionheart 5 watt amp.
My Blackstar HT Dual sounded fantastic through this amp (I bought a replacement)
I found the sound to be fizzy and bodyless. Lacking girth.

Used the pedal for less than one hour and sold it on ebay.

Make sure you hear this pedal in the flesh before buying. If possible, play through same amp as you own and similar guitar.

Very rugged looking.
The pedal looks great.

never used them.

The sound was not as expected.
I suppose us guitarists are always looking for new sounds and improvements to our rigs. Maybe we should learn to be more content.
Maybe this pedal sounds great through some rigs, but not mine.
I wish I'd liked it. But I didn't.
Oh well.

3 knobs a pad switch and 2 buttons. Very easy to get a good sound if you leave your amp alone. Would be nice if Joe Satriani actually gave you some settings he likes and would use if it was just his guitar this then an amp, like how most of us will be using it.

I have lots of distortion/overdrive pedals on my board and this is one that I use for the modern sound. Dare I say that this thing has too much distortion, mind you I play pub rock which suits this pedal well. The more switch does what it needs to as the drummer always sucks the gain out of the sound as he gets louder. YES it the drummers fault again. I have also been able to get every harmonic out of my guitar with the more switch engaged.

I too have to keep the tone at about 10 or 11 o'clock for a nice even sounding tone ala marshall. If I had 2 I would had the tone at 10 for chords and 12+ for solo time.

The pad switch was a puzzler to me until I played live with out it activated. My bad horsie 2 sounded lost. I then activated the pad for the next song and bang, or should I say WAH, I had it back again. So use the pad if you have any pedals before this one.

The volume knob is annoying though. Depending on acoustics (bloody acoustics), I get different volume levels when comparing this with line volume. I just tweak according to the venue now, just as you should always do with everything as everyroom sounds different.

All in all sound is in the ear of the beer holder. Plus its better than the jemini and cheaper and better than the DS1, there I said it.

Boss like.

Not had the need yet.

I play pub rock, so I need a wide range of sounds. This pedal gives you the modern distortion, nice and clean notes with good sustain. It fits in with my blues driver (slight overdrive), keeley blues driver (hendrix fuzz) and Blackstar Distx (classic distortion). I use the Blackstar and this pedal a lot during my sets and both sound excellent and produce tones that the other doesnt which fits with me.

Would buy another if stolen.

I compared this with every pedal in the shop and it sounded clearer, tonaly superior and more solid than the jemini, DS1 and other distortion units.

If this had a lead boost that increased the output volume that started at 0 being the original output and went from there to 6db as well, it would be perfect.

I have been playing since 1990 so have grown up with multi effects which just sound rubbish when compared with stomp boxs. So lets face it, until they bring out a progammable dedicated distortion pedal (not the boss cmos type) that remembers all your favourite settings we will never be truly happy.

It's easy to tweak (Gain, Tone, Level knobs). Stomp and go...

There's a little stompbox manual that comes in the box - nothing special.

Tried this out with several tube amps, and several guitars (Les Paul, Strat, Tele, Danelectros). The pedal is quiet.

The effect is basically like a Tube Screamer, but with a little more meat - sounding thicker - and slightly more gain. It also really seemed to favor single coil pickups (The Telecaster sounded fantastic) as opposed to the Les Paul's humbucker.

I A/B'ed the Satchurator with a Keeley modded Boss BD-2, an old Ibanez TS-9, as well as a few other distortion pedals...It compares favorably.

The Satchurator looks and feels rock solid. It could function as a stand-alone overdrive on a gig. I'll go out on a limb and say it's a 10 - so far! It's still relatively new item here, so time will tell...

N/A

I play jazz/funk/fusion/rock/country - or basically, whatever works in a pinch. And I've been doing it for decades. I also have a lot of gear, for various applications, recording or gigging live.

I wanted to get the Satchurator because I liked the idea of a dual function distortion pedal, with the "more" switch being an option for bumping up the gain for soloing. The simplicity of the controls and the sturdy-as-a-tank construction are very positive qualities. The pedal more than meets expectations there.

But, if you're looking for nastier, edgier distortion, this product doesn't quite get there. Best to add a nastier fuzz in the signal path for those times that call call for "Velcro from Hell."

Bottom line: If you need a "thickening" agent for chunkier rhythm parts or to make singing lead jump out, this pedal delivers.

The only drawback with the Satchurator for me was (and is) that it doesn't give you a lot of volume boost. I just wish it had a little more gain...