Two Notes ReVolt All-analog Guitar Amp Simulator Pedal Reviews

I have to say when I first tried to listen to the headphone out on this I was thinking it was not very good, but when I rigged it up as I had planned as my basic preamp and amp sim foundation into my power amp it became rather extraordinary.
Just some great tones and completely marvelous unit. I use other boosts and whatnot into it and it works exactly as I had hoped. My Dept.10 into it gives me all the ranges of uber gains one could wwant or use. The unit itself has all three good channels and you can adjust them to have a great foundation platform to build on. Seems most I saw in the demos did not really understand the boost and how it is not a flat or colorless boost but imparts a clarity and mid peak around 2k to the tone so I found it best to have it on but one doesn't need but 9-11 o'clock, they were max'ing it out and really that is not the best tone. Unit works extraordinarily well as a foundation for other drives and gains. I am extremly pleased with it. It is exactly what I had wanted and planned on. By the way the genius demos guys who were showing the unit made me laugh when they did not even know how to shutoff and bypass the unit (you press both channel 1 and 2 switches together) although I can see why they did that as typically you are not going to want to shut it off. It is like killing your basic preamp tone and fidelity. So easy to get great amp tones and any level of usable gain. Everything I tossed at it worked great and sounded better. Two Notes is an amazing company.

I purchased the Revolt Guitar to use on my living room "upright" pedalboard. I am running it with a few pedals into headphones for silent practice and also for dialing in patches on my Eventide H9 to save for later use in my home recording studio. The feel, touch dynamics and response to compression are truly the best I've felt in any such pedal board amp, and I have tried the Quilter Superblock 45, Simplifier, UA Dream 65, Strymon Iridium, as well as several reactive loads on my tube amp. Love the Revolt. Interesting name - in French it means uprising, revolution, overthrow of tyranny. In English, it means to disgust, lol. Being of French descent, I enjoy it even more, because I get it, and it gets me. I actually purchased this on Amazon through Sweetwater's subsidiary Gear Nuts. Quick delivery, hassle-free interest free financing, and free returns within 30 days. Unbeatable convenience and service. Kudos to all involved.

This thing is insane with what it can do. I'm running it on a board with the Two Notes Cab M+, an SD solid state amp, and a TC Plethora X5 and that one rig can do almost everything I'll ever need. Two Notes never fails to deliver and Sweetwater makes sure I get it fast.

My purpose behind buying the Revolt was to have a plug and play setup in my man cave that sounded good with a set of powered monitors. I wanted a simple setup and got way more than I bargained for. The Revolt is a powerful, powerful tool to achieve professional sound.

I got a couple Presonus 5 inch powered monitors, awesome by the way, plugged my guitar into the Revolt and hit a chord on the clean channel. I was rewarded by crystal clear, sweet tones that sounded great with all my guitars, including my ultra budget Harley Benton Les Paul. Added a little reverb and delay and spent the next hour playing every blues lick I know. Beautiful.

Moved on to the British Crunch channel and immediately reached for my Les Paul. I swear on everything Holy that when I dialed that thing to my liking it is a straight up near perfect Plexi sound. Normally I'm a big pedal guy, but honestly it sounded so good that I didn't even start adding any overdrive until the next day. Once I started incorporating my pedals I can get virtually any dirty tone you can think of from rock, metal, dirty blues, etc.

The modern lead tone is completely awesome. I originally thought to dial it in to a high gain rhythm tone but I liked it so much for lead that I only use it strictly for leads and leave rhythm to the British Crunch channel.

Though originally intended for just a simple setup, I plugged into the power amp section of both my Boss Katana mk2 head and my Blackstar tube amps to run through my cabs. Using it as a true three channel preamp section yielded incredible results. The clean channel becomes a perfect pedal platform while the other two just sound fabulous.

I was so beyond impressed with this unit I took it to show my guitar teacher. He runs his own audio/visual business and has forgotten more about dialing in tone than I'll ever know. When I ran through all three channels into his rig he was highly impressed. When I added the Two Notes Torpedo C.A.B. M+, I haven't even played through my cabs. I've been running direct into either my monitors and my Headrush powered speaker. The tones are just that good. Running through an amp and cabs is just the icing on the cake.

If you're on the fence about the Revolt, jump off, get one, and be happy. Believe me when I say you will be happy with this beast. I recommend getting the Torpedo CAB to go along with it. Put them on your pedalboard and you're absolutely ready to plug into house speakers or PA system. You'll have everything you need.

I traded the stock Chinese PSVANE ECC83 out for a spare JJ ECC83S Gold Pin I had laying around and the result is a smooth and silky tone... I have used this tube in other gear before and didn't notice that much difference, however here it actually really makes a difference... It warms up everything (especially the Lead Channel) and totally gets rid of the fizzy edge while gaining clarity... I know you are probably thinking "placebo effect", but I do not think this is the case... I have it on my pedalboard replacing both a Bogner Uberschall and a Bogner LaGrange... I have a PRS "Mary Cries" optical compressor at the input and have it set to max compression with the level half way which is a slight boost... It is possible that I could have used one of my normal JJ ECC83S spare tubes and garnered the same result, but I am not experimenting with this unit further as I am in tone nirvana as it currently is... Anyway I totally recommend this unit - and recommend a quality tube swap to boot...

This is the best sounding amp sim I've ever used, without question. It's pure analog, sound, with an actual tube providing some beautiful vintage British crunch as well as a more modern super saturated sound, great for lead parts. The clean sound is also to die for, it's perfect. I like also that each channel has a boost option, for that little extra bit you sometimes need. No built in FX, but has an effects loop, so you can easily include this on your board. I am using this with the CAB M+ cabinet sim/IR loader, it's the perfect combo for both studio recording and playing live, without the need for lugging around heavy amps and cabinet, dealing with setting up microphones, etc. I know other option like Axe FX, Kemper, Line 6 Helix, etc can do this also, but sometimes those things have too much stuff and setting them up can be overwhelming... and this is a much more affordable option and fits right on my existing pedalboard.

A simply amazing piece of gear. I've owned the original Cab, and have a couple of Torpedo Lives and a CAB M+ and Two Notes blows me away every time I get my hands on their gear. If you really dig into the menu system and midi implementation you'll find it's pretty versatile.

This is quite a good preamp for the money.

Packaging: the box and packaging is very nice. While the packaging doesn't speak at all to the tone, it does indicate a focus on overall quality, which is always a good sign.

Feature set: the form factor is comfortable and fits in my pedal board with ease. Having an effects loop is handy, and the direct out is a plus. The built-in cab sim is actually quite natural and sounds good to my ears. While this will be subjective, I think you'll find it will work for a lot of applications. OF course, you can always just run your own sims via software or pedal.

Clean channel: this is why I had to knock a half star. The clean channel needs a lot of tweaking to get what I would call an acceptable tone. I've found the baked in EQ curve is too aggressive and the EQ point is a lot more manageable with the EQ at about 9 o'clock each. BUT you can overdrive it with both just the internal boost and external boost. I also was pleased to hear that distortions pushing the front actually sound good and not choked like I've experienced with other amps.

British channel: comparing to another "plexi" pedal (named after local law enforcement), this sounds very, VERY close in tone. It's a little brighter in the right places and not harsh, and the gain and EQ both are responsive. Boosted, it sounds very hot rodded. It sounds great in the mix, and in comparison, requires slightly less EQ to sit in a mix the way I prefer for guitars.

Lead channel: I was happy to hear that the lead and british channels don't sound as similar as they did in the demos online. The lead has me conflicted for now, I did not like the way it sounded at first by itself, because it is a little fizzy in tone. BUT for the right style of music it can sound pretty cool. I don't know if it would be my lead tone for most things, but for an effect it could be great. I did think this one sounded great for more grindy rhythm playing as it makes mutes snap. I took a half star off for this.

Minor gripes - I do wish there was a dedicated on/off button, as using this in 4CM as additional channels makes switching back to the amp a little difficult. Even the ability to add an external switch to perform this function would have been nice. I'm not the type that uses headphones or aux ins for these things, but both work just fine. The headphone amp output is loud and clear for me. I'd trade both of those ports for a master on/off.

Overall: I will admit, I am picky about preamps, and 4/5 stars might be look critical on the surface, but I actually think this is a good pedal, and the primary thing is how it sounds in the context of a recording. All 3 channels are great for their respective uses, and for the current price, it would be an excellent tool. While the clean channel takes some work to get sounding right, and the lead channel is a little fizzy, both channels are in fact useful and can sound good. The plexi is great in my opinion (not for "how close to a real plexi it sounds" but more for the "this sounds good in the mix" sound).

I'll break this down into four use cases for this pedal:

1 - Direct to Audio Interface with IR: 5 stars. Using the balanced out into my audio interface at +4 dB, then applying an IR in my DAW, this thing sounds phenomenal. This is my preferred use case.

2 - Direct out to power amp and speaker cab: 3 stars. Running into a Fryette Power Station and a Mesa Mini Rec cab, I spent a lot of time fiddling around with EQ on both the ReVolt and the Power Station. I never could get a tone I was satisfied with. This may have a LOT to do with the speaker cab. Using a different cab might have made it easier to dial in a tone.

3 - Headphone out: 2 stars. It does not sound at all like an IR is applied; rather it sounds like an emulation and is too "direct" sounding (yes, the cab sim was switched on). Disappointing.

4 - Four-cable method: not tested. This would add channels to an existing amp. I imagine the power amp and speaker cab selection will have a huge impact on the sound so I would expect the experience to vary depending on which amp and speaker can it is paired with.

Overall - 3.5 stars. For my preferred use (Direct w/IR), this is a keeper. To use it live, find a good power amp and speaker cab combination. Don't bother with the headphone out.

Being a big fan of the Captor X and Wall of Sound Suite, I had high expectations for this product. The unit itself is extremely sturdy, and the clean and crunch channels are simply phenomenal with every guitar I tried them with. However, the third channel is extremely hit or miss. Depending on what type of guitar you use, this channel either sounds like you'd expect a high gain amplifier to sound, or a Fuzz Face. Some other small drawbacks to note is the balance output signal is extremely loud, and the headphone out is really quiet. Overall, I think it's a solid first attempt, with a lot of room for improvement.

I was hoping to use this with an EHX MIG-50, but the noise level is crazy. It might not work with your clean amp.