Read the review: http://bit.ly/CarvinVLD1
The nifty foam-green VLD1 Legacy Drive tube preamp pedal was created at Steve Vai’s request so the shred supremo could pack his familiar Carvin Legacy amp tone into a carry-on bag and plug into any available power amp or DI situation.
As such, this really is a triple-threat pedal. It achieves Legacy-style overdrive by connecting to the front end of any traditional guitar amp via the standard output. It can be plugged straight into any available sound system via the cab-voiced DI out (which doubles as a headphone out for solo practice). And it connects straight into your recording interface for tracking.
The extensive printed circuit board (PCB) within the hefty steel housing also features two genuine 12AX7 preamp tubes seated in sockets mounted directly to the board. Carvin tells us these are run at the same proper high voltages that power preamp tubes in the front ends of Legacy amps, and the VLD1 ships with a dedicated 12VDC/1,000 mA power unit to supply the necessary juice.
The 2-channel preamp offers drive and clean channels—each of which has its own independent three-knob tone stack. The drive channel has drive and volume controls, while the clean channel has a volume control exclusively. Both channels share the master and presence control. A third footswitch adds extra gain to the drive channel, and there’s an additional presence button on the clean channel that effectively functions as a bright switch—adding harmonic sparkle in the 8 to 10 kHz range. Also, Carvin thoughtfully includes connections to control footswitch functions remotely if you want to mount it in a rack.
Continue reading: http://bit.ly/CarvinVLD1