Darkglass Alpha·Omega Photon

After almost a year of weekly use...

Very expensive, very good distortion pedal. Search Youtube for how it sounds. For the most part you will land into a modern kind of digital sounding prog-type metal distortion. Distortion sounds more like you would get from a PC DAW rather than analog black heavy dirt growling. Takes very little time to find a tone you like, since most of them are good.

A bit of a headache to use as a PC audio interface, disconnects sometimes, but did not spent too much time working on it. Would not buy this thinking it will be my only audio interface for PC, to be used 12 hours a day. But it technically can.

For the tuner: the first 3 EQ bands together create the letter of the note, from dots: A, B, C and so on. If this does not make sense to you, imagine you connect all the dots in the EQ and look at the pedal from far away. Could not figure this out without contacting Darkglass support, which by the way responded fast and accurate.

It does have an option to import tones created by the community via PC. They are not that many and not that great, but such option exists. But this is a feature you can do without, no problem.

Easy to use, hardy, easy to understand what it does. Only 3 slots to save your tones unfortunately. Has a slot to be connected to whatever other piece of equipment you can think of, except a potato.

Oh, and yes, it does cut through the mix (in metal). Get any bass and new bright strings. Drop the action so that the strings hit the fretboard when you pluck. Use the pedal with not even that much distortion. Success. If you must insist to be heard, increase low and upper mids from pedal EQ, and maybe treble a bit.

The Darkglass Alpha Omega Photon is an incredible piece of kit. It's easily worth the money for me as it replaces around 3 pedals on my board and adds a lot of functionality besides.

Handling
This is probably the worst bit about the pedal. I've run into minor Bluetooth connection issues and the Darkglass app is a bit opaque when you first open it, but when you get the hang of it there's a lot of functionality there, such as the noise gate which is only accessible in the app.

The touchscreens for the EQ section are usually responsive but I ran into an issue, maybe connected to calluses on my fingers, where the responsiveness dropped a bit.

Features
The feature suite is extensive and everything is very good.

In the app you can set a noise gate and switch between guitar and bass mode. I think this is to calibrate between input resistances.

EQ controls with two separate preset curves give a lot of control and can help blend your sound with difficult rooms and work with a variety of instrumentation.

The compressor is way better than my old Boss Compressor/sustainer, but I don't have a lot of comparisons there and can't offer much in the way of a review, just sounds good.

The distortion channels are very distinct and the ability to blend between them gives a lot of control over your tone, although I usually keep the signal undistorted.

The pedal allows for a distorted channel to add 'growl', add 'bite', add both and also to split the signal so you get the frequencies below 200hz undistorted as to not lose the bottom end when you distort the signal. I would like to be able to split the signal without doing the boosts, but it sounds good regardless.

The tuner is a bit jittery and I have run into issues tuning a low B on mine. Not sure if the issue is with my unit in particular or if it is general.

In addition the impulse response settings are great and can emulate mic'd cabinets of various configurations with various mics.

Aside from the sound features, the pedal also has a DI out with ground lift when needed as well as two separate mono channels which can be configured separately to bypass the pedal if you want an untouched pass-thru signal

If all this wasn't enough, you can also play tracks through the unit via Bluetooth and there's a headphone output for home practice.

Sound

Sounds incredible. No hiss or hum that I've encountered and is just great. No notes.

Quality

The unit is robust and the fit and finish are great. Bluetooth connectivity is sometimes spotty, but there could be other reasons for that, and I havehad no problems when practicing with the headphone output.

All in all a great product, well worth the money and could potentially replace tuner, eq, distortion, compression and DI on your board.

Me lo compré para olvidarme de llevar tantos pedales, y sobretodo por el sonido Darkglass increíble que consigue sacar. Tienes compresor, puerta de ruido, previos modernos y más valvulares, ecualización y emulación de pantallas de calidad. Por si fuera poco, puedes linkearlo via bluetooth, usarlo como interface de varias entradas y salidas con tu DAW preferido y la salida de auriculares suena de muerte. La salida XLR tiene muchas posibilidades para ir directo a una mesa, y para terminar, el afinador es MUY sensible y adecuado para bajos de escala extendida y afinaciones graves. Lo tiene todo, y se actualiza con nuevas características poco a poco.

Una pequeña nave espacial, al alcance de unos pocos (si vendes 4 o 5 pedales la tienes ;) )