Got mine yesterday. I’m a bit dissapointed, it’s decent but not great. The hi-gain circuits are OK for bedroom-level players but they are WAYYYY to noisy and compressed to be played at stage levels: instant feedback guaranteed (nasty pick-up feedback, I mean). Unusable with single coils or floating PU’s IMO. And the “regular mid-gain” distortions are a bit too “mid-gain”, no way to really drive them. My vintage RAT beats them all in that respect, except perhaps the TS clone which has its own caracter.
Maybe when I will have some time to experiment with the specific features like midi control I’d change my mind because of added creative possibilities (using the Octatrack’s sequencer and midi lfo’s to modulate the settings), but for know my RAT will stay onboard, my custom booster too, and I might reconsider my old vintage Big Muff for some added madness.
I paid 160€ so I don’t feel bad about my purchase but if had paid the introductory price of over 350€ I would probably have returned it. BTW, is there a way to know which firmware I’m on?
EDIT: Ok, I take some of my words back. I messed around a bit with my cab sims and preamp, and it happens that when I push my clean channel (tube preamp) just over the edge of overdrive, just a bit, and with a good cab sim and adequate mic, the AD comes to life. It still needs a noise gate, but that’s not a huge issue. It really needs that tiny bit of tube shimmer, otherwise it’s sound is too flat. So well, with a good set-up it’s actually pretty cool.