One of the most famous names with regards to professional effects for musicians and recording engineers would be Rocktron. I want to introduce the Utopia G300, something I think is amazing, although when programming your own presets can be difficult for those of us who are technically challenged. Seems like there are presets for the presets and a million options, which can be overwhelming but also translates into many awesome tones.
The Utopia G300 has 64 factory presets and 64 use presets which means there are 128 presets, 4 totally usable channels, 4 band EQ and full bandwidth effects. There are great sounds (clean, British, Texas, etc), pre-effects including wah, phaser and compressor, post-effects including chorus, flanger, delay, reverb, pitch shift and more. There is a speaker simulator, Variac and, of course, Hush noise reduction. I have used the Utopia running it through the clean channel of a tube amp, ran it direct through a PA and have used it for recording and think the sounds are perfect and there are so many possibilities.
The problem I had was that the buttons are small (no, my feet are not huge) and when you are on a stage in a dark club it is easy to step on the wrong button. Would prefer that they were bigger. The other issue is that the factory presets are amazing but it is not that easy to program your own presets., Like I said, there are parameters to the parameters and that was a little difficult for me. If you are not technically challenged, you will have no problem.
I do recommend this for any professional guitarist, I think Rocktron products are high quality and not outrageously priced.
All models in the Utopia G Series include:
• Motorola® 24 Bit DSP Engine with AKM Converters
• Full bandwidth effects
• Stereo outputs
• Heavy Duty Headphone Output (1/8 stereo phone)
• Auxiliary (MP3/CD/iPOD) Input (1/8 stereo phone)
• Rugged professional grade chassis and expression pedal made from metal
• Power supply
The G300 includes 128 total user programmable presets. The G300 provides USB audio recording and playback connectivity, built in tuner, glow in the dark pedalboard markings, illuminated footswitches, MIDI in and MIDI out/thru, assignable effect on/off, tap delay note quantization (1/16, 1/8, triplet, 1/4, 1/2and whole), programmable pre-processing analog effects loop, and extra External Expression controller pedal port.
The G300 also provides Up/Down preset Bank by 10 with instant recall buttons and a 2nd mode with 10 instant access controller switches.
Katrina Johansson
www.katrinaguitar.com