vitocorleone123
Senior Member
There’s little comparison to my ears. More of a difference in person than on YT by a noticeable amount. I haven’t made any before/after comparison recordings.
I took a chance getting it since there's a software version. I watched every YT video I could find first before purchasing, and I don't think I'd have paid the US list price for it as that's $400 more than I paid.
I love the different modes: dual mono, stereo, and mid-side. The controls are very interactive with one another, and a lot of how it sounds depends on the source and level. In other words, it's very much an analog tool. It complements my Acidbox 3, as the Karacter is "tight and controlled" and the Acidbox is "loose and wild" when it comes to saturation and distortion. About half the time using both, Karacter into Acidbox, sounds better than just one of them.
It can be very subtle. If pushing into distortion, it loves electronic drums best from what I can tell. Karacter + 909 is a match made in heaven. The Karacter can be used on everything, but not to the point of distortion, as that isn't always the right fit.
The more you push the hardware, the further from the software it sounds. You also don't have to balance the software left/right channels in dual mono mode - they are slightly off from one another on mine because they're two separate 500 analog units under the hood, so to speak. But you can also add more separation than the software, and definitely add bigness even to a mix with the mid-side mode.
