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(More customer reviews)Styles I play: progressive rock, blues-rock, hard rock.
I have never been a fan of distortion pedals. Still not, but this is totally usable. This does NOT sound like a buzz-saw or a can-of-bees. It has a fairly warm tube distortion type of sound: it's tone is much better than the worst tube distortion but not as good as the best tube distortion. At the control settings I use it has a tight low-end and just the right amount of crunch without being crunchy like a bag of chips. Seems to have about the right selection of harmonics (that which is distortion). However you can adjust the controls to get a lot of crunch and a little softer of a low-end. It has a fairly wide range of EQ tone adjustment AND distortion range, but always retains the unique signature distortion tone that is specific to the Riot pedal. I don't see getting rid of this, though I can see looking for something with a different distortion signature.
It has a good range of responsiveness that I love from tube-amps: play soft or turn guitar volume control down for light to no distortion and play hard or turn guitar volume up
for full distortion. That said, it does not have that soft compression distortion: still sounds like the guitar signal hits a wall when the distortion starts. It has an OK range from clean to moderately distorted, but there really isn't a distortion range from moderately distorted to really distorted (it's just more of the same).
I am using this into a Mesaboogie Express 5:25. That amp has the worst tube distortion I've ever heard -- very mushy lows and just the wrong series of harmonics for most any style. It has a great clean sound and lots of other features I like -- the Riot pedal totally makes up my dirty sound.
For those looking for true-bypass, I believe this qualifies in a round-a-bout way. I appears to uses a relay or something similar. Pull the power and it stays in the mode it was in: on or off (on without power means no sound passes through the pedal). The bonus is that it can be switched from a remote source through it's FxLink jack. It can also be set to power up in the on or off state.
Check the Suhr website and search you-tube for Suhr Riot videos to hear what it sounds like on different rigs.
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