Hello everyone,
I'll be reviewing next my brand new all valve overdrive/distortyion pedal, custom made for me by DHA (Dave Hall Amplification), in the UK.
Before I begin, let me say two main things:
1. Tone, overall and detailed, is an extremely personal and subjective matter, being dependent on mood, feeling, style and sense, personally, and on all the equipment being used to achieve it, cables and picks included, on a practical level;
2. I will try to be as thorough as possible when describing my use of this pedal, which means that I'll be describing my current rig in detail, so I apologize for those of you who hate reading...
Nevertheless, from my own background and experience, I have always benefited from the most elaborate reviews, so I'll try to return the favors here and be as accurate as possible. Please bear with me, I can tell you that, although it may not be your cup of teak, something here should benefit you on the road to achieving your own personal tone.
Ok, Let me give you a bit of background on this: I've been playing guitar for over 30 years and have owned and/or played some of the best gear available during this time span.
Recently - over the past almost 3 years - I invested in a THD BiValve Amp, which I played through a Marshall 1922 2x12 cab with Celestion Greenbacks. My two main guitars are a Dean Cadillac Select stock (fantastic guitar, regardless of price tag or where it's made) and a custom Tom Anderson Drop Top T with a mahogany body (instead of the usual basswood) and all the available options.
The THD experience helped me to find my personal tone: a Class A Amplifier with EL84's in the Power Section, and ECC83S's in the preamp section, all from JJ - Over the years with the BV I probably spent twice as much on valves as I did on the amp and cab alone...and they weren't cheap...
I usually play and record at home. After I was done with the BV, I chose a Laney LC30 MKII 1x12 Combo amp, which is a Class A amp with 4x EL84’s and 4x ECC83’s. To make it short, it’s a great amp, especially for its price tag. The stock valves were not bad, but I exchanged them for an entire set of JJ’s and the amp sounds 10 times better than before, at least to my ears.
To complete the base of my tone, I use a Scholz Power Soak form the 80’s and use very high quality speaker cables to connect it to the Laney. There’s no tone loss this way.
Having said all this, let’s go on to the DHA VT-Twin Purist +:
Features:
- 2 ECC83 valves (can be switched for other types of preamp valves and in any combination)
- 3 Channels Red, Blue and Red+Blue
- Independent Gain and Level controls for Channels Red and Blue
- Independent Colour Controls for Channels Red and Blue – Colour adds negative feedback and compression and can increase the amount of distortion of the channels. The Colour controls can be bypassed.
- Master Bass, Mid and Treble controls, however, passive and bypassable – in my opinion they really don’t do anything at all to the tone and only lower the overall level of the pedal.
- Switchable valve plate voltage between 12V and 24V
- True Bypass
- 12V AC Adapter – sold separately
I first tested the DHA with its stock GT valves and with the Laney without the power soak. After much tweaking, I opted to bypass the tone and colour controls for both channels.
At lower gains (about 5 to 7 on either channel), it yielded very smooth overdrive. At high gain settings (gain and level full at 10), either channel and their combination sounded harsh to me.
I only used it on the Laney’s clean channel and the volume at around 2. On the Drive channel, it didn’t really add more than a little boost and mud.
I then plugged the Power Soak on the Laney and used the clean channel with the volume at 6-1/2, so the power tubes were cooking.
This made a huge difference. The DHA instantly sounded smoother and creamier, especially at the high gain settings. Simply magical!
I continued to bypass the tone and colour controls, as it sounds better to me this way, and set the Red channel with gain and volume at 6 and the Blue Channel with Gain on 10 and Level on 7.
The Red channel gave me the best overdrive sound I’ve ever heard. Thnik SRV with an edge.
On the Blue channel I got some of the best hard blues and classic rock tones as well. Think Triumph in the Just a Game album or Rush’s Limelight tone. Simply great.
I then changed the GT’s for a JJ ECC83S and a JJ ECC803S valves and the DHA sounded 10 times better to me. Much smoother and responsive, the notes practically jumping out while retaining individual string clarity and the guitars’ individual characters.
Throughout all this, I mostly used the plate voltage at 12V (low). There’s lot’s of Brown Sound available here at higher gain settings. At 24V there’s a very noticeable increase in volume and attack that also sounds great. 12V is just my main preference.
Overall, this was a great purchase and I haven’t used the TS9 since these last settings. It just sounds much better all the way.
There’s also the added plus of being able to control the drive with your guitar’s volume knob.
This pedal was custom made for me as a special request and Dave Hall is a guitarist’s guitarist, so not only he knows his pedals and tone, but he’s the nicest guy and extremely available. We’ve exchanged many e-mails from the start, when I asked him to build me this pedal based on his TV1 Purist as a base and asked for the added features. Dave not only delivered a great product, but gave me tons of advice during and especially after I got the pedal.
My next pedal will also be a DHA. Dave will add the 12v-24v switch on a VT1 Purist Pro for me.
If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me. I’ll be happy to (try to) answer your questions.
Have fun,
