Rivera Rock Crusher

[mjtripper]

I've been on the wait list for a Faustine Phantom DX2 attenuator for 9 months now and was just told they are running late again, which is the 3rd time they have told me this, and it will be 2 more months. This kind of wait really gets under my skin when it starts being 2-3 times what was originally stated so I canceled my order and got a full refund. With that refund I purchased a Rivera Rock Crusher and it arrived today.

I'm a huge Rivera fan btw with my two amps being a K-Tre combo and a Venus 3 combo and between those two I can get any tone I've ever dreamed of. The Rivera stuff is built like a tank so it wasn't that far of a stretch for me to order it plus I've wanted an attenuator for a long time just to quiet things down a little. This thing is absolutely amazing with no loss in tone all the way down and has a VERY solid feel to it. The switches actually go 'chunk' when you switch to the next setting. I may still be in the honeymoon phase since I've only had it about, umm, two hours but OMFG is it cool!!

I threw together a very quick (and sloppy) clip to demonstrate most of the attenuation levels. The only difference between #2 and #8 is I added 30db of gain via the mic pre which worked out well since my pre has a +30 button. I put that one right after #1 so you could get a quick a/b of the unit in bypass and with a heavy (-30) attenuation. Anyway, hope you find it useful.

1 = bypass
2 = max (smallest attenuated level) of studio setting (-30) with +30 gain on mic pre
3 = -3
4 = -8
5 = -12
6 = -16
7 = -20
8 = max level of studio setting (-30)

http://homepage.mac.com/mjtrepanier/music/rockcrusher.mp3

[Larz]

The tone does sound very unaffected with each switch, sounds like a good unit.

What did you have the volume/master volume on when you started?

[mjtripper]

The gain was at 5 without the boost and the master was about 4.5

[Twitch]

-3 and -8 sound the best to me, but I bet that still is un-goddly loud to be in front of, has a nice pushed sound though that the previous 2 and latter examples really dont seem to have. Does seem like a nice piece of equipment to have though. One thing you have to take into consideration if you were to use it in the studio is the natural compression youll get from the mic with all the sound pressure holding the diaphragm down, you wont have that if you attenuate and record at a lower volume. Sure, youll have a more pushed tone from the amp, but that compression will be gone.

[roodyrocker]

Hey mjtripper, bummer about the DX2 I have The Faustine Phantom DX and its a great attenuator. I got mine by buying someone's spot who didn't want to wait any longer on that run of attenuators. They had several delays then too. Its an awesome attenuator though. I would have liked to hear your experience with the DX2 but congrats on the new Rivera
I ended up buying 4 attenuators looking for a great one. I ended up with a THD Hot Plate, Ho Attenuator, Alex's Attenuator, and the Faustine Phantom DX. Don't really need them all and now thinking about getting rid of the Ho Attenuator since it sits in the box for the most part. Just curious, what amp were you planning on using the DX2 with?

[mjtripper]

-3 and -8 sound the best to me, but I bet that still is un-goddly loud to be in front of, has a nice pushed sound though that the previous 2 and latter examples really dont seem to have. Does seem like a nice piece of equipment to have though. One thing you have to take into consideration if you were to use it in the studio is the natural compression youll get from the mic with all the sound pressure holding the diaphragm down, you wont have that if you attenuate and record at a lower volume. Sure, youll have a more pushed tone from the amp, but that compression will be gone.

True about the recording - I might just have to pick up a silent sister for that But for recording I would probably just knock it down a little so it isn't quite so loud and use the ultra-knock-down settings for practicing and all other wankage. In the small room it's in without the attenuator it's pretty painful until you get down to -16 and -20. There is a line out on it as well and it will function as a silent running load box so when I get more time I plan to play around with recording the line out from it and use some IRs with it for the speaker component just to see how well that works.

[mjtripper]

Hey mjtripper, bummer about the DX2 I have The Faustine Phantom DX and its a great attenuator. I got mine by buying someone's spot who didn't want to wait any longer on that run of attenuators. They had several delays then too. Its an awesome attenuator though. I would have liked to hear your experience with the DX2 but congrats on the new Rivera
I ended up buying 4 attenuators looking for a great one. I ended up with a THD Hot Plate, Ho Attenuator, Alex's Attenuator, and the Faustine Phantom DX. Don't really need them all and now thinking about getting rid of the Ho Attenuator since it sits in the box for the most part. Just curious, what amp were you planning on using the DX2 with?

I was really looking forward to the DX2 and I have yet to hear anything negative about the unit. I was going to use it mainly with the k-tre. The speaker sim out sounds like it would be very very cool plus it's a lot smaller then the Rivera. I've never had a chance to play any of the Faustine units but I have played the thd, marshall, and weber units quite a bit with the marshall being the worst of the three and the weber being the best to me but the I think the Rivera is quite a bit better then all three. It's so transparent I can't believe there would be a huge difference between the tone of it and the Faustine but the Faustine does have more features and would be more versatile. Hopefully somebody near me gets one so we can A/B them. I would have liked to wait for it but for half down and a 4 month wait that turned into 6, then 8, then 9, and now 11 I just have no faith in their ability to deliver and I'm tired of waiting. When they become more readily available I most likely will pick one up for comparison, keep the one I like best, and sell the other. I think it will be a while before it's an in stock item anywhere though.

Since you have 4 units there handy how to do think they all compare? I have yet to try an Ho or Alex but have heard good things about those as well. I've used the thd units quite a bit but at least for my rig anything past the first couple attenuation levels started to kill the tone pretty bad but I know a couple other guys in the area that just love them. Does the DX really smoke them all? What amp are you using it with?

[Larz]

The Dr. Z air brake and brake-lite get a lot of good reviews too. I had him install the brake-lite on my Z 18 watter but I've never heard them used in real high gain settings.

[roodyrocker]

I was really looking forward to the DX2 and I have yet to hear anything negative about the unit. I was going to use it mainly with the k-tre. The speaker sim out sounds like it would be very very cool plus it's a lot smaller then the Rivera. I've never had a chance to play any of the Faustine units but I have played the thd, marshall, and weber units quite a bit with the marshall being the worst of the three and the weber being the best to me but the I think the Rivera is quite a bit better then all three. It's so transparent I can't believe there would be a huge difference between the tone of it and the Faustine but the Faustine does have more features and would be more versatile. Hopefully somebody near me gets one so we can A/B them. I would have liked to wait for it but for half down and a 4 month wait that turned into 6, then 8, then 9, and now 11 I just have no faith in their ability to deliver and I'm tired of waiting. When they become more readily available I most likely will pick one up for comparison, keep the one I like best, and sell the other. I think it will be a while before it's an in stock item anywhere though.

Since you have 4 units there handy how to do think they all compare? I have yet to try an Ho or Alex but have heard good things about those as well. I've used the thd units quite a bit but at least for my rig anything past the first couple attenuation levels started to kill the tone pretty bad but I know a couple other guys in the area that just love them. Does the DX really smoke them all? What amp are you using it with?

What I'm finding out with these attenuators is that some work better on some amps than others. At the time I bought the Ho Attenuator it was considered the top dog and my unit has a few nice options on it. These include a 100v tap which is closer to the voltage old Pelxis were running on as opposed to todays wall voltage which can be quite a bit higher. It also has the Plexi switch and Bedroom switch. the Plexi switch gives a bit different tone as you attenuate more while the bedroom switch lets you play at super low volumes. Its also the 200w model which is recommended for up to 100w amps, the 100w model is good for up to 50w amps. The main amps I need to attenuate are my Marshall Randy Rhoads and my Metro Amp. Both are non-master volume amps which can get super loud! The Ho Attenuator worked good on the bedroom setting which is really about talking level! At other levels of attenuation my Rhoads amp sounded like someone threw a blanket over the the cab. The THD Hot Plate depends on how much attenuation you use. At higher levels it does change the tone of the amp while at modest levels it works o.k. On my Metro Amp the THD Hot Plate worked better. The two that I would say are the best for my Marshall Rhoads amp are the Alex and the Faustine. Both sound fantastic and those are the ones I use live with it. The Alex is much cheaper in price but like the Hot Plate you need one for each ohm rating. Mine is the 16 ohm version. The Faustine is very expensive and has quite a waiting list as you found out. But it does work with various ohm ratings so you only need one. I have also had the chance to A/B my Alex with someone's Aracom and they both sounded pretty much identical on my Marshall Rhoads amp. If I had to pick only one it would have to be the Faustine Phantom but the Alex is pretty close and much cheaper. Never thought I'd have attenuator GAS

[mjtripper]

Wow, I would definitely say you do have attenuator GAS, have you ever tried a Weber unit? I haven't tried the Rivera with any other amps yet because right now I only have the two and the Venus sounds great at low volumes already. I'll probably play around with it on that one though just to see how it works. One of my jamming buddies has a bunch of amps so we are going to take it over there and really put it through it's paces on a wider variety of amps. That should be a better test then my one amp in my one room

[mjtripper]

The Dr. Z air brake and brake-lite get a lot of good reviews too. I had him install the brake-lite on my Z 18 watter but I've never heard them used in real high gain settings.

I have heard really good things about that one but I think I crossed it off my list due to the lack of a load setting which I wanted for silent running. It seems to be about half the units have a load setting and half don't so that did narrow down my choices somewhat.

[roodyrocker]

Wow, I would definitely say you do have attenuator GAS, have you ever tried a Weber unit? I haven't tried the Rivera with any other amps yet because right now I only have the two and the Venus sounds great at low volumes already. I'll probably play around with it on that one though just to see how it works. One of my jamming buddies has a bunch of amps so we are going to take it over there and really put it through it's paces on a wider variety of amps. That should be a better test then my one amp in my one room

No, I haven't tried the Weber unit. My attenuator gas isn't really there anymore, it got cured with the Alex and the Faustine Phantom

[straycat]

It does the job no doubt.

[mjtripper]

I've heard about this youtube thing that has demos or some such thing and one of my friends has been telling me to put some up for a while so I thought this unit would be a good first try at putting one together. The wife and kid were gone last night so I threw one together about the rock crusher. If you want to check it out here is a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6pXV2k5XIU

[roodyrocker]

I've heard about this youtube thing that has demos or some such thing and one of my friends has been telling me to put some up for a while so I thought this unit would be a good first try at putting one together. The wife and kid were gone last night so I threw one together about the rock crusher. If you want to check it out here is a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6pXV2k5XIU

I did check it out, it sounds pretty good. Or perhaps as good as possible through my tiny laptop speakers . Have you had a chance to try it out live in a band situation yet? It looks like a nice unit.