ReVolt from Two notes engineering is an all analog three channel tube based preamp. If your Amp has an effect loop, you can use ReVolt to add three tube driven channels to your existing amp. ReVolt is MIDI assignable and switchable so you can have complex MIDI controlled setups with your current rig. You can also run ReVolt as a pedal amp on your pedal board and run all your effects through ReVolt’s send and return ports.
On the front of ReVolt, you have your input and output then a send and return port functioning as an effects loop or as a connection point for connecting to your amp via a four cable method. Next, you have MIDI in and out, a ground lift switch and a balanced XLR out. On the other side of the preamp you have a headphone output, an aux in, a switch to turn the on board cabinet simulation on and off and a switch to run ReVolt in four cable mode or in series or parallel with your favorite tube amp.
On the left top side of ReVolt, you have a clean channel which is called American Clean. It is inspired by a Fender Bassman amp. The tone stack includes bass, treble, gain and volume controls. Moving to the right is a crunch channel which is called British Crunch inspired by Marshall Plexi style amps and has gain, volume, bass, middle and treble controls. The third channel is a modern lead channel which is inspired by a Soldano SLO amp and also has a gain and volume control, sharing the EQ with the British Crunch channel. On the right of the pedal is a foot switch to turn on and off selected channels. When you press the foot switch again, it will activate or deactivate the boost circuit. The Boost works for all three channels. The amount of boost is user configurable and is assignable to any of the three channels. There is also an aux in port if you want to plug in your phone or other playback source which makes ReVolt a great practice tool.
After some experimentation, ReVolt worked best for me as a three channel preamp connected into my tube amp’s power amp input via a four cable setup. I also ran it straight into my DAW and while that arrangement sounded good, it needed to be routed to some kind of Speaker Sim plug in. Note that REVolt ships with GENOME and a collection of DynIRs for studio use.
Two notes previously marketed three different preamp’s Le Clean, Le Crunch and Le Lead, of which all three shared the same feature set but with different amounts of gain. Each of the three preamps came with a license to Two notes Wall of Sound Torpedo Remote which gave you a complete signal path, i.e., preamp, power amp, effects, and cab simulation.
To me, ReVolt is a clean preamp much like the companies previously marketed LeClean preamp, it is the same basic idea but with switchable and more user configurable gain options (I previously owned Two notes Le Clean and a Cab M +). While ReVolt does a great job as a preamp, it does not offer a connection point to Two notes torpedo remote so to get that functionality and to get access to Two notes Dyn IR Cab sim technology you will need to use it in conjunction with the companies CAB M + (now discontinued) or OPUS the implication being you really need to use the two products together to get the most out of ReVolt. You can of course also use ReVolt in conjunction with other third party Cab Sim. That said, ReVolt does have a basic cab sim on board which you can switch on and off. When it is switched on, the cab sim applies to the XLR and headphone outputs only.
I understand that for ReVolt to be capable of loading Two notes dynamic IRs (Dyn IR’s) ReVolt would have been a more expensive product, but it also would have added the most important capability Two notes as a company in known for. The implied messaging here is buy ReVolt and then to get the most out the preamp, buy a Cab M+ which has been discontinued or buy the more current Two notes OPUS. In addition to having to buy a second product, that also means having a second 12-volt power supply and more cables on your desktop or pedal board, which will not make sense to a lot of people.
Personally, I think it would have made more sense to embed Two notes technology into ReVolt, especially as that technology is currently embedded in other third party products. Victory, Revv, Laney, Audient and other companies are now implementing Two notes embedded technologies into their pedal and amplifiers. That said that adding this to the device would have doubled the price of ReVolt.
Sum it up, ReVolt’s is all analog circuitry sounds great, and the tone stack’s sweepable EQ is highly flexible albeit there are compromises inherent with all three channels sharing the EQ section. The option to use ReVolt in a four cable setup adds flexibility and sets ReVolt apart from most of the other similar sized preamp-in-a box-products currently on the market. ReVolt because of its compact size is pedal board friendly and should also for a lot of people work as an on stage preamp running straight to front of house.
Two notes engineering ReVolt Amp Sim is available now for MAP $349. Find out more at two-notes.com/en/
