I get leary when a product has fantastic marketing. Typically the product doesn’t live up to the hype. This is not the case with the Wampler Dracarys Distortion. The Wampler Dracarys Distortion is a fire-breathing beast of a stompbox. Let me walk you through the features of this high gain beast.
Wampler Dracarys Distortion is a standard form factor distortion pedal built in the USA. This high gain distortion has a 3-band EQ, a volume, and a gain knob. The pedal also has an “Open” and “Tight” switch. We will get back to this later.
My first observation was how much gain this pedal has. I found myself getting to around 11 o’clock and having more than enough gain to satisfy myself. Being a metalhead, typically, to get to this level of gain with other pedals, I would need to push the pedal to 3 or 4 o’clock. There is a lot of flexibility with the gain. Rolling it back to 9 o’clock, I was able to pull some great 80’s tones out of this very musical distortion.
Some of you may be wondering what I am talking about when I say “very musical distortion.” The Wampler Dracarys Distortion delivers fantastic overtones giving you a harmonically rich tone. These overtones produce a very thick distortion.
The EQ in this pedal is very convenient. I found myself setting my amp very neutral and controlling my overall tone on the Wampler Dracarys Distortion. At some points, I cranked the bass a bit more and got grunty, throaty distortion. It made me wonder do dragons bark? Then I started playing with the mids. I dropped the mids and gain, and as I said, the Wampler Dracarys Distortion delivered some very cool 80’s metal tones. Then craking the mids, I found some 70’s arena rock tones were in my reach.
The “Open” and “Tight” switch does exactly as described; tight adds some compression, open removes it. I am not a big compression person, so I found most of the tones I dialed in were in the open position. Let me say the compressed tones were fantastic, not what I would dial in for myself.
All and all, the Wampler Dracarys Distortion is a high gain player’s dream. Keeping in mind that high gain players are not always playing in a high gain manner. This pedal responds well to more subtle setting is can easily be the only pedal on your board. If you are a high-gain player, you do yourself a disservice if you do not give this pedal a try. You hard rock players also need to give this distortion pedal a try. Just because a Lambogini is designed to go 160 mph doesn’t mean you can’t drive it on a 40 mph road.
