Blackstar HTOD1 Pure Valve Overdrive

The first unit I received had already been opened and returned to inventory. I wondered what I was in for when I saw that the item had been tried out and put back in the box. The give away was the loose power cord with the twist tie just tossed back in. That's Amazon's screw up.But why it was returned is on Blackstar: the gain was stuck on full. The gain knob had no effect. Other than that it sounded great. But I don't play heavy metal. So I returned the unit that apparently at least one other person had already returned. Hopefully it didn't get put back into inventory again. But I wouldn't bet on it.The gain knob on the second unit worked just fine. So did both the other knobs. But this second unit had no low end. It sounded like it was coming through a little speaker. All mids and highs. The first unit definitely did not have that problem. Just the gain issue.So two strikes and I gave up. I didn't have it in me to try a third one.

This is a small foot print, very portable and useful guitar preamp. I’ve owned the Dual pedal from Blackstar too, and I have played gigs with them, typically going into an existing amp to build more gain.The tone is very useful, and you can play blues, metal with it. It is a basic pedal, and it’s neither a Fender Twin or a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier and doesn’t have those tones. It’s a basic pedal that produces fully useable sounds, for recording, playing live, rehearsing with a group.The direct, emulated signal is OK, but for high gain, I would go without the emulation, and either into a power amp and cabinet, or some other cabinet modeller (there are tons).

No he tenido tiempo de usarlo mucho, pero en primera impresión se me hace que el sonido se escucha muy opaco por así decirlo. Pero ya moviendole la ecualización a mi pedal de distorsión ya se logra un sonido mejor.

Did not know what to expect but wanted a bit more grunt. I have a BS HTClub40 with decent enough gain but wanted 11 on the dial. It took a bit to balance the levels on the pedal but getting there, sounds great and I got the grunt.

good