Reviews

DHA Hand built guitar, bass and keyboard amplifiers

and effects from Devon in the UK

Dave Hall Amplifiers www.davehallamps.co.uk

Reviews

Bryon Rossi

VT1-EQ-Bass-Drive "This thing is killer! I use the DHA VT1 EQ Bass to warm up my solid state heads, compliment and enhance my tube heads, and stomp in one of the best sounding overdriven bass tone I’ve ever experienced from a pedal. It’s incredibly versatile and easy to use with all my basses, passive and active. It’s warm, it’s clean, it’s fat, it’s subtle, it’s aggressive, it’s got growl, it’s got hair, it’s got balls…it’s got all the essentials I need. The DHA crew here in the states provided exceptional customer service. Dave has just built me my new favourite pedal. What a fantastic tool! I can’t imagine ever parting ways with this thing.

Bryon Rossi is the lead singer/bass player for an independent pop/rock act Schaeffer, winners of the first ever "Breaking the Band" international band competition held by U.K. A&R company We Are Listening. Visit Schaeffer's MySpace page HERE

Brent Davis

VT1-MK3-Bass "My DHA VT1-MK3 has become the most frequently used pedal I’ve ever owned. Calling it an overdrive pedal would be a bit of a misnomer. Yes, it will certainly give you a nice overdrive like when you push a tube amp, but not an over the top drive like you might expect from a stomp box. It’s more like a valve pre-amp in stomp box form. You can’t always crank your tube amp to get that creamy, thick tone we all love, but put a MK3 in front of it and it’ll sound like it, plus give a little more “oomph.” With a solid state practice amp, the MK3 helps take out some of the sterility of solid state tone, and it can give you a smooth, musical overdrive. The controls provide for a wide variety of tones. I like the “color” (or “colour,” DHA is English!) set to 1 with the color knob about half way up, and about two thirds up on the gain. The higher you turn the color knob; you do start to lose some low end. Thankfully, DHA builds in an adjustable “boost” feature to blend in some clean signal to beef up the low end. This pedal can enhance my sound in so many ways. DHA has a winner here, and the service to match (Dave threw in a free “bright” switch on my unit and later DHA-USA sent me a new, smaller power supply for free- I didn’t even have to ask- they emailed me after seeing a thread on Talk Bass. WOW!)"

Brent Davis is a 30 year old veteran of the Baltimore music scene, having played various parts of the East Coast and the UK with bands such as Von Stella and The Ripovs. Recently, he joined indie rock transplants from Blacksburg, VA - Labianca.

Bass Guitar Magazine review
DHA VT1-MK3 Bass Overdrive/ Distortion (Issue 34)

Review Of: DHA VT1 Acoustic

Review By: Paul Curtis

Band:Music for TV and Films

Link: http://www.paulcurtismusic.com

Just a quick note to say thanks for the pedals – got the modified Acoustic pedal yesterday… it’s GREAT!

A couple of minutes twiddling knobs and I had a lovely tone straight in to my studio desk – I thought I had a good acoustic sound already but when your pedal kicked in it blew me away.

The Foot switch and Boost controls work really well.

I also plugged it in infront of my Digitech amp modeller, set a tube amp model that I’ve customised and used regularly on recordings, and found the Acoustic pedal gave a great warmth and gentle overdrive on clean electric guitar parts – just like playing a tube amp that responds to playing attack when you don’t actually want an overdrive pedal in the chain! It gives the Amp modeller a beautiful sound that will save me lugging my old amps around so much!!

I’ve been using the Purist since I got that the other week and love it too!

Both pedals now sit pride of place in my pedal board. I’ll be looking for next one shortly.

Review Of: VT2-Dual Bass Rackmount

Review By: Ryan Monteith

Band: CB6

Link : http://www.myspace.com/cb6

Hey just writing to say how great the rackmount is, i achieved the sound i was looking for, took a while to get used to what all the switches do but got there in the end had rehearsals yesterday gain one works well on all the time cuts through the double guitar mix easily don’t know what i would do without it now, the yellow and black are perfect i have attached a picture if your
interested but it does actually look better in the flesh with the other gear, funny thing is all the blue leds are exactly the same as the markbass blue leds and the tuner so everything matches perfectly, its strange.

Review Of: DHA VT1 Blender ("Bob The Blender")

Review By: Jim Bartlett

Band: Oxide - Kent based Original and Modern/Classic Rock covers

Link: http://www.oxide-music.com

I am a Bassist and I like using different effects pedals but a lot lose the bottom end of my Bass. The solution of course is to blend your original signal with that of the effect(s) you are using and retain the bottom end. The VT1 Blender does this exceptionally well too. It also has the benefit of being valve driven which automatically adds a warm valve tone to the signal as well. There is an optional Boost switch to boost the volume of any "vintage" pedals you may wish to use and also an Input Pad control which lets you roll the hot signal off of any active Bass pickups you may be using (brilliant Dave!). I have now owned my VT1 Blender for about a year, gigging every week and it has never let me down, EVER. The build quality of this pedal is amazing, everything is soldered neatly, all components are high quality and it's built like a tank. I think it is indestructible! Dave is a great bloke to deal with and will answer any questions you have about his products. He will also talk you through any technical queries about the products in a way that a even a dummy like me can understand! I looked at a few Blenders before this, some costing a lot more too. I am so pleased I invested my money in the DHA Blender, I cannot recommend the DHA products enough. Thank you Dave!