Hooch

Agreed, demos are questionable. Someone on TB spotted a somehow extra compression layer effect on Ian Allisson's demo iirc, which might not rely on the DCX itself - though one could argue saturation does compress signal. To be honest, these release vids, and the nature of the mid-gain drive, which is not 100% what i'm looking for, made me stay away from this pedal for a while. But reviews of forum users and a sweeter priced 2nd-hand DCX in my neighbourhood helped me taking the plunge. Glad i did.

Nice ! Dig how it's sounding after an optical comp as well (Broughton Monocomp). Makes tone even fatter ha ! Use a tube pedal between them (Broughton Quicksilver) set at the edge of breakup. Dig what i'm hearing !

I'd perfectly see the DCX replacing both your Jive and Sadowsky pre. Got tons of deep lows on tap, might not reach Sadowsky sizzling highs but any change is noticeable on this side as well, and yeah, Drive knob at noon or so will provide nice hints of saturation as well, depending on the signal sent to the DCX. Tested and tried it with passive basses only, but the DCX sees a buffered signal in my signal-chain. So my guess is it'd be equally at home with an active bass. It's a superb tone enhancer imo, reason why i'm using it after pedals already imparting some 'colour' and texture. Kinda sums up and improves the whole thing. Oh, and it likes to be pushed with a gently compressed and boosted signal as well, result being a nice and quite easy to set smooth saturation in EQ mode. Not sure if it'd provide all its goodness in an effect loop, just before the EBS might be a sweeter spot, but worth test & trying for sure.

Must reckon i'm not much into the DCX's mid-gain drive tone. There are better options in the market imo for bass overdriven tones. Now push its EQ section with any (bass) overdrive pedal and it's much better sounding than without. Any knobs setting change is more noticeable, breakup is more detailed, and you got some super effective bass-taillored voicing and EQ as a bonus. Getting hefty and full lows from an od, even one with a blend, is not always easy, the DCX provides tons of them while retaining the breakup. And when the overdrive pedal is off, you get a great 'clean' tone enhancer, with tasty hints of saturation if it's your thing as an second bonus. Awesome pedal ! * Halcyon->DCX Bass might a winner

If you aim at using a separate power-amp, mains preamps are the way to go imo. A preamp pedal won't be juicy enough in most case, whatever power-amp it sees. Totally relies on power-amp input sensitivity of course, but even with what i *think* are good ones in this field (Acoustic Image Focus SA), had thinner and much noisier results than with mains preamps - with the noticeable exception of the Grace Alix, whose output is on par with preamp pedals.

Just sold a ME Super 300 to Markus, super nice guy to deal with. Thank you Markus !

Couldn't be happier with my purchase. Quick comms and fast shipping, the pedal is exactly as described and works flawlessly. Thank you Darren !

There's not a bunch of them in the wild, Micah builds them on order, and for a few months now. They're custom specc'd, went for a 66 B-15 octal pre, Arkham's featured - hi/lo resonance, fixed mid bump and hpf switches, and this awesome range knob which sets the baxandall EQ center frequency, line out, power amp in... This one is a split rail version, with a (super tasty) touch-sensitive breakup, as opposed to Ultra Linear alla Sunn version). A pair of KT90 feeds a huge output transformer up to 75W clean power of tonal nirvana. It's a mind-blowing amp, covers such a lot of ground. The nice part of it is it makes any of my basses singing, even the 'counter-intuitive' ones considering its 60s roots. My Warwick SS2 never sounded that good ! Micah's pre & cratmanship is awesome.

It's my dream amp, and it's at home !

As for colour, aging and sourcing fine repro parts, John is still the best, by a mile ! Stunning bass.

Absolutely, releases are most often pretty late / early for those living in West Coast, batches being sold out from one minute or so to 10-15 min. Archetypes went pretty fast, like the Sunray a few years ago. Tried to snag one, pulled the trigger during the 10 first second they were available, made a typo on my PP password, 2nd attempt was ok, as payment authorization, they were sold out in the meantime.

Broughton pedals and mains pre's never disappoint. Had 20+ of them during the last 4 years, including the P-15, SSDI and incoming Archetype. Pretty psyched about this one, think it will help drastically simplifying my pedal-board's 'dirt tone' part. Can't wait ! SV-Pre is a great take on SVT's tone. It got heft, massive lows, and although reproducing the weird scooped and bumped nature of SVTs mids, it doesn't disappear in a band setting. Think you'll dig it, congrats !