Valeton Coral Amp Modeling Preamp Digital Amplifier Modeler Guitar Effects Pedal

This pedal models 16 different guitar amp sounds, with an on/off cabinet simulator button allowing simulation of the cabinet type for the amp modeled. With 16 amp models and cab simulator feature, the Pedal is complex, but the design is user-friendly: The raised, top, middle, high, and volume, 8-position amp type, and gain controls are all backlighted; when alight, the unit is on. A flush-mounted button in the center turns the cabinet simulator on and off; when the cab simulator is on, the lighted button steadily flashes, when off, alight, no flashing. The DPDT switch turns the unit on and with a quick tap, allows the player to select between the first 8 amp selections on the “A” side of the list, and the second 8 amp selections on the “B” side of the list. When the “A” side is selected, the center push-button lights up green, with side “B” selected the button lights up red. The center button also activates the cabinet simulator. When on, the center button blinks. When off, the button is solid red or green, in easily distinguishableshades. Pressing and holding the DPDT unit turns the effect off; when the unit is off, the control and center button lights both shut off. The pedal comes with three business-card-sized business cards, printed on both sides, that list the pedal features, specifications, explain the control layout, and a grid list of “A” and “B” side amp selections and cabinet simulators for each amp setting. And, if you can’t find the List, no problem; there’s a graphic on the left side of the pedal listing all of the A/B settings. 😊 I played through each selection using both a Gibson Les Paul, and a Fender USVRI `62 Stratocaster. I played through a solid-state, Rickenbacker TR25 amp, with the controls set to clean and with as neutral a tone as possible, and trying each setting using the cab simulator both on, and off. “A” Amp Simulators: J 120: Faithful rendition of the clean, transparent sparkle of the amp, with either guitar. Bellman: 4X10 tweed Bassman-type, tube amp warmth crossing over into old tube amp breakup growl; at the 12 O’clock, the sound stays clean with the Strat, with some breakup with the LP, Turn up the gain for dirt with the Strat, or more dirt with the LP Tweedy: modeled after the Tweed Deluxe; less bottom than the Bellman setting, a bit more mid-range and snappy top, but not brittle. Overdrives at the 12 o’clock setting on the Strat, more with the LP, sounds like a low-wattage amp. Nice, dirty growl with the LP on the bride pickup, sweeter, bluesy tone on the middle pickup Black: Wow! I close my eyes, and I think I’m playing out of a Twin Reverb with the reverb off. Add reverb and whoa! Turn the gain up to about the 2-oclock position to get some dirt in the signal with a Strat. With the LP, there’s a touch of dirt at the 12 o’clock position, back the gain off to 10’oclock for clean. Foxy: Cool! I am an AC30 fan. sounds like an AC30; chime, growl, breakup-has that “Class A” sound. Natural breakup. Future 100: Where did the Mesa Boogie come from?! Meant to emulate the F-100, the setting offers a lot of tonal clarity, lots of bottom, and some dirt over the top of it all-Like a Fender on steroids. Build: Rugged, solid metal casing, DPDT switch, backlighted control knobs-nice feature, flush-mountede center button that serves an the A/B and Cab simulation indicator-easy to use, easy to read, easy to distinguish red/green shades, even for even for a player with some red/green colorblindness. Match: Described as based on the 2x12 Matchless Chieftain, this setting has the Class A sound it really has the Class-A sound with overdrive, chime, clarity. To my ear, sounds like a gutsier AC30, with a little more bottom end. Pretty sweet! Really dirties up with clarity with the LP, nice clean-to-dirty choppiness with the Strat. Kind of makes me want to sell my AC30 and get a Matchless UK 45: described as based on the Marshall JTM 45. Wow! Major classic crunch! Use the 4x12 Cabinet simulator for to get that tight, directed, bottom and signal output.. “B” Amp Simulators: Flagman: “Boutique UK Hi Gain Amp”; serious, hi-gain, and serious crunch! Great growl and crunch on rhythm, nice sustain, clear single notes. I can’t believe I’m playing out of a small, 1x12 solid-state amp. Rocker: “Orange Rockerverb 100”; a popular amp at our local rehearsal studio; I like this setting; smoother, creamier breakup than the Flagman, highly usable. UK900: “Marshall JCM 900”; Yes-I think they captured it! 😊 Boogie: “Mesa Boogie Mrk II C”: This is a brighter-sounding setting; Fender-y with crunchy distortion on top of it, lots of snarling guitar tone. Very tight, crunchy distortion. I had to back the high and mid off to about 2o’oclock or 3 o’clock to get the tone I wanted. I’m thinking it might be really good with guitars that are tuned down. Still sounds good at normal pitch, just optimal with high and mid backed off. Solo: “Soldano SLO 100”; lots of bottom, lots of gain, lots of crunch-it’s like buzz saw and a revving motorcycle engine. Gets the heavy rock/metal sound; I want to play fast on this setting. Eagle: “ENGL Savage 120”; brighter sounding than the Solo, similar, tight, crunch, heavy distortion, metal sound. Not really my sound. EV51: “Peavey 5150”; super tight crunch. Lots of gain, much better tonal range then the Eagle to my ear, but probably way too heavy for me to use-at least with current projects. Likely useful to those who play hard rock and metal. Dizz: “Diezel VH4”; I am not familiar with this amp. This setting has crunch! Tight, focused, bottom end. A lot of crunch and clarity. To maximize the simulation, I recommend using the cabinet simulator setting for whichever amp simulator setting you’re using, unless you are already playing through that type of cabinet. There is a distinct difference at each setting with the cab simulator on vs. the cab simulator off. Overall, with the knobs set in the same place, each simulator setting is pretty impressive to this player’s ear. Each amp simulation is distinct and definitely usable! The Amp simulator is also pedal-friendly, if you like to add reverb, delay, or pitch modulation of some sort, and also works with a clean boost, or compressor; Except for the JC120 setting, I didn’t employ any dirt pedals, since adjusting the gain control on the pedal will give the player “dirt.” I’m keeping this pedal in my pedal board-I may even remove one or two of my gain pedals.

Love the amp simulations. They recorded fairly well using the cab sim. I haven’t tried it with my amp but don’t plan to... I’m using this strictly for recording. Design wise it’s very SMALL. And visually it’s really difficult to ascertain when you are switching between the amps. I had to do it using my hearing, and start either at the beginning or ending of the selection dial and listen for the amp switch. It is helpful for them to have the amps printed on the side of the unit. The amps are all pretty great. They do lean on the side of high gain. Or at least they do when I use it. That’s my wheelhouse, so I’m very happy. This is a wonder of engineering. A long way from the ROCKMAN that I used to have in 1985! Great price! Great sounds. Recommended.

The emulation in this pedal is unbelievable. I knew it would be good, just judging from the reviews... but it's SO much better than expected. The cab emulation is phenomenal! I bought it the use in a desk jam rig, so I don't have to have amps and such at my desk, and can just jam whenever I want without having to worry about latency from digital emulators. Running it straight through my interface, and it sounds fantastic! So glad I went this route instead of a multi-fx unit. You really can't beat this thing for the price... sounds better than units four times as expensive. Guitar pick in photo for size reference.

This unit caught my eye and my interest, it's not the best against top performers but this little guy (and I mean 'little') holds it's own! I was impressed with the capabilities that I did not bother to look at the dimensions and I was thrown for a loop when I got the unit! It's very small footprint and since I'm in the older generation, very hard to read the small print! However, I was pleased with it's capability, ok for home use and recording and small gatherings at home. Although I have a feeling that with a little bit of tender loving, this little guy can deliver. It's not always about the brand and high end costly gear, it's always about the musician and what he can do with his own style and and expression! I would give it a try!

Starting off, this pedal soundwise is really very good on most of the amp sims. Having all of the functionality this pedal provides in a mini pedal size is really pretty amazing. The strange decision to have the amp selector knob not have a stop/notch for each amp is puzzling. This requires you to actually look and make sure the knob is in the correct position for each amp. At the pedal's small size this means you have to get up close to set it where you want. This pedal does not work with the typical 100mA pedal power supply. It will turn on, but will not provide amp simulation. I made this mistake originally and was about to send it back until I read the fine print that the amp needs 200mA to operate (probably should be in bigger type to ensure users do not miss it). My pedal power supply had a higher current output port and that worked perfectly. Due to its size, you can not use a battery, which is probably a good thing due to the higher current drain (which would eat batteries pretty quick). I also have the Behringer V-amp 3 which is a lot bigger (approx 8x the size, not a pedal) but I like the Valeton Amp Modeler size and tone a lot better. Just to be forthcoming, I mainly use the amp sims on the clean side (there are 8 clean and 8 high gain amp sims). so a lot of my tone review is based on the 8 clean amp tones. I have played this with both single coil and humbuckers and it sounds good with both.

I was hoping for a more versatile amp sim then my excellent mooer preamp pedal (as this has multiple models). This pedal is comparatively noisy, cuts lows the backlit knobs make settings difficult to see. Also the output is low and the gain setting tends to useless extremes. The design seems clever and simple but it doesn't sound particularly good. Also, The footswitch is pretty much useless as it switches between low and high gain models (not channel switching) which seems random.

This thing stopped working about a month after I got it....then it started working again. Never dropped it or gigged with it. Used it about a dozen times and now it’s the only pedal in my various pedal board set ups that has failed me. It looks like a mint condition pedal but unfortunately it’s freaking crap. AND THIS TIME I was really depending on it to work and now I’m in another city with no distortion or sound!!! Can I get my money back since it hasn’t even lasted a year?

I mainly use it as a front-end interface for ITB with or without other pedals I can dial-in settings that makes ITB modelers sound better. It adds a thicker / warmer sound to most DAW guitar plug-in modeler/effects, and it does similar for OD / DIST type pedals placed before the Coral pedal. I have larger pedals with more options and cost much more, yet Coral in its small pedal box is more useful as a front-end interface into a DAW. I have not tried it with a live amp set-up, so I cannot say how good it would sound with a live amp/cab. Pairing it with other select pedals for ITB and plug-in effects seems to bring out Coral's best - especially when dial-in different distortion to push it over the edge and pull it back to your taste. When the light RED or GREEN is blinking - it is in CAB sim mode. I tend to like using the mode without the CAB sim on. It saves the last setting (volume/etc) for the RED and GREEN modes, so when you switch between the two you can have different volume settings. I knocked off one star - for if I leave the power plugged in over night or long time (no cables plugged into) the Coral pedal body gets very warm close to feeling kind of hot. It does not get that warm when I am using it, and I have used it for two hours straight at times. So I am not sure what's happening to it when it is just sitting there not being used and it gets very warm/hot. So I make sure to unplug the power from the Coral pedal each time I'm done using it.