Toasted reviews: DHA VT1 STD BASS

[Toasted]

This is from Dave’s new standard range.

[url="http://www.davehallamps.co.uk/Products,%20VT1-StandardBass.html"]http://www.davehallamps.co.uk/Products,%20...andardBass.html[/url]

This DHA pedal runs on 9-12v. That’s great for normal pedal board applications because now you can run it from your daisy chain. Dave’s put this pedal in a really high quality enclosure (the same brand as Toneczar use). All the parts are of very high quality. Good switches, jacks and pots etc. there’s also a nice touch in 4 drilled holes through which you can see the valve. A blue LED lights up the valve through the holes when the pedal is engaged. Opening the pedal reveals a very classy PCB populated with high grade components. Looking inside the box, I have no idea why Dave is selling this for £58. Legitimately, he could charge double that in my opinion.

As with Dave’s other pedals, the “unusual” aesthetic is preserved. If I was in the driving seat in his company I would do the aesthetics differently. I also respect that this isn’t a big deal to most people and that these are Dave’s pedals and they should look how he wants. Of course, pedals are not designed to look nice they’re designed to effect your sound:

I’ve used this pedal extensively over the few days I have had it. I’ve used it in my personal woodshedding. I’ve used it with a guitarist buddy and I’ve also used it in a full (\m/ metal) bad situation. I feel that I know it very well.

This is a low gain overdrive. It goes from a very subtle warming of your tone to doing a fantastic job of nailing that “raging SVT” or the “Jack Bruce” sound very well. That’s not to say that this pedal is limited to making your solid state amps sound like an SVT; it also sounds great pushing a valve amp. This pedal has lots of volume on tap. The boost and bright switches are excellent. I think that a less intelligent pedal design would have the boost channel footswitched. This would not been a good design. The boost channel has a lot more volume than the standard channel. This is not a two channel pedal. The bright switch really brought the unit to life on guitar, although if you’re buying one of these pedals and you’re a guitarist I’m sure that Dave would recommend buying a guitar version.

It can be quite a subtle task to get the gain/ippad/level controls to the settings where your sound and volume are as you want them. This is a good pedal for tweaking. I generally kept the boost switch on, the bright switch off, gain between 3 and 5, the I/P pad fully off and set the level to suit volume.

In summary, this is a good sounding light overdrive pedal. It offers [b]fantastic[/b] value for money. It really should cost more than it does.

I hope this review has been helpful. If you have any questions I’ll be happy to answer them. If you think that there is anywhere I could have been clearer please say.

Thanks, Joe.

[Higgie]

Very nice review Joe...It actually sounds really tempting to get one of these for my new board.

[steve]

[quote name='Higgie' post='35873' date='Jul 23 2007, 12:37 PM']Very nice review Joe...It actually sounds really tempting to get one of these for my new board.[/quote]

+1 from me too, very comprehensive

You didn't by chance do any soundclips did you?

A sound I really fancy being able to approximate is that of Adam Clayton on 'vertigo' during the breakdown when Bono is singing 'All of this will be yours....' I know it's dependant on more amp choice, bass choice, etc etc blah blah blah, but I was wondering if this might get me part of the way?

[DHA]

[quote name='steve' post='36553' date='Jul 24 2007, 08:14 PM']+1 from me too, very comprehensive

You didn't by chance do any soundclips did you?

A sound I really fancy being able to approximate is that of Adam Clayton on 'vertigo' during the breakdown when Bono is singing 'All of this will be yours....' I know it's dependant on more amp choice, bass choice, etc etc blah blah blah, but I was wondering if this might get me part of the way?[/quote]

Hi,

There are sound clips on the website of a VT2-Dual-Custom-bass and the channel 1 only clips are really just a VT1 as it's the same thing.

But, I am hoping that there will also be some VT1-Std-Bass clips on the website soon.

Dave

[steve]

[quote name='DHA' post='36580' date='Jul 24 2007, 09:32 PM']Hi,

There are sound clips on the website of a VT2-Dual-Custom-bass and the channel 1 only clips are really just a VT1 as it's the same thing.

But, I am hoping that there will also be some VT1-Std-Bass clips on the website soon.

Dave[/quote]

Thanks Dave, I did take a look but wasn't sure which to listen to, I remember you saying on another post that the VT1-std was half of another one of your pedals, I couldn't remember which one. I'll go back and have another go.