BuckarooBanzai
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2008
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A few weeks ago I got a bug up my ass and began looking at old digital Rocktron preamps on Reverb/eBay. I have a soft spot in my heart for the obscenely-chuggy digital noises I used to get out of the multi-effects pedals that my friends and I had in high school and hoped that scoring a Prophesy or something would be a cheap way to relive being 15 years old again while still presenting the possibility of usable tones. I discovered the Rocktron Chameleon, which I remembered being sold on Musician's Friend forever ago, and found a Chameleon Online on Reverb. This particular model has a faceplate the same color as an SGI Indy, a RISC Unix workstation from the 90s that I think looks super-cool:
With nostalgia goggles in full effect I pounced on it and got it in the mail a week and a half later. I have to say... I'm thoroughly surprised that a digital preamp that came out 25 years ago sounds this good. In addition to nailing the noises that most digital preamps are good at (over-chorused scooped cleans, chuggy high-gain) it pulls of a great low/mid-gain crunch and dry clean sound. Before plugging it into my 4x12 I ran it through my studio monitors with the built-in cabinet simulation and it sounded wonderful, even with the stock presets. After tweaking for a few hours I can say confidently that if my AX8 was stolen I could take this thing to a cover gig, plug straight into the board and play a solid three sets with nobody complaining.
I'm sort of rambling at this point but I suppose the reason I made this thread was to express my amazement at how advanced digital preamps already were in the 90s and how this one flew hard under the radar. The only issue i have with it is that it doesn't clean up especially nicely when you turn the volume knob down, but otherwise this thing has way more than I'd ever expect out of a used $100 rack unit. Is there anybody else out there messing with old, "obsolete" digital gear?
With nostalgia goggles in full effect I pounced on it and got it in the mail a week and a half later. I have to say... I'm thoroughly surprised that a digital preamp that came out 25 years ago sounds this good. In addition to nailing the noises that most digital preamps are good at (over-chorused scooped cleans, chuggy high-gain) it pulls of a great low/mid-gain crunch and dry clean sound. Before plugging it into my 4x12 I ran it through my studio monitors with the built-in cabinet simulation and it sounded wonderful, even with the stock presets. After tweaking for a few hours I can say confidently that if my AX8 was stolen I could take this thing to a cover gig, plug straight into the board and play a solid three sets with nobody complaining.
I'm sort of rambling at this point but I suppose the reason I made this thread was to express my amazement at how advanced digital preamps already were in the 90s and how this one flew hard under the radar. The only issue i have with it is that it doesn't clean up especially nicely when you turn the volume knob down, but otherwise this thing has way more than I'd ever expect out of a used $100 rack unit. Is there anybody else out there messing with old, "obsolete" digital gear?