KSR Ceres Preamp Pedal

[grrr_me_scary]

Good read all the way, not surprised it’s a great pedal. I have an Artemis II and it has been my desert island amp, it’s my benchmark tone and has made many a good amps go. I feel like it has all the KSR tones that there could possibly be in it and makes it really hard to try a pedal that I feel I already have covered in the flagship amp. Am I off base?

I just sold my Artemis II with plans to have Kyle make a custom "stereo" version of it but then he said his focus was going to be on the Ceres pedals for the near future which made me think that it would be a LONG time before I could talk him into making me one.

I started to really regret selling the Artemis (the reason I decided to give the Ceres a chance was to make up these lost amp tones).

Actually, the Ceres covered those lost amp tones, saved me a LOT of money, and it takes up less space, plus it has the ARES crunch so NO REGRETS

Of course, you need to find the amp or power amp that works best for "you" and your guitar as well as the right cabs since these all play a part of the sound you will get with the Ceres.

I would suggest the amp or power amp have tubes and I believe it would be best to get a "stereo" power amp since you can use two different types of speakers (I combine V30's with EVM12L's in Mesa cabs).

My Marshall EL34 50/50 power amp has been modded to take different power tubes on each side so this allows me to really customize my amp tone, however, I did run the Ceres through many different setups and the Ceres sounded GREAT in all of them

Also, I tried the Ceres through the Mooer Radar and the Two Notes Studio and it sounded great through this setup, so people could do a FRFR thing.

I had thought about getting a 2nd Ceres so I could leave one at my drummer's place but I am still working on finalizing the actual setup of my live and recording sound right now and I believe the Ceres will be something that will be added to it for the long term

 

[stratjacket]

Good read all the way, not surprised it’s a great pedal. I have an Artemis II and it has been my desert island amp, it’s my benchmark tone and has made many a good amps go. I feel like it has all the KSR tones that there could possibly be in it and makes it really hard to try a pedal that I feel I already have covered in the flagship amp. Am I off base?

I just sold my Artemis II with plans to have Kyle make a custom "stereo" version of it but then he said his focus was going to be on the Ceres pedals for the near future which made me think that it would be a LONG time before I could talk him into making me one.

I started to really regret selling the Artemis (the reason I decided to give the Ceres a chance was to make up these lost amp tones).

Actually, the Ceres covered those lost amp tones, saved me a LOT of money, and it takes up less space, plus it has the ARES crunch so NO REGRETS

Of course, you need to find the amp or power amp that works best for "you" and your guitar as well as the right cabs since these all play a part of the sound you will get with the Ceres.

I would suggest the amp or power amp have tubes and I believe it would be best to get a "stereo" power amp since you can use two different types of speakers (I combine V30's with EVM12L's in Mesa cabs).

My Marshall EL34 50/50 power amp has been modded to take different power tubes on each side so this allows me to really customize my amp tone, however, I did run the Ceres through many different setups and the Ceres sounded GREAT in all of them

Also, I tried the Ceres through the Mooer Radar and the Two Notes Studio and it sounded great through this setup, so people could do a FRFR thing.

I had thought about getting a 2nd Ceres so I could leave one at my drummer's place but I am still working on finalizing the actual setup of my live and recording sound right now and I believe the Ceres will be something that will be added to it for the long term

Thanks for the info. I am sure I'll need to give this a go eventually, bet it would work with with my Axe-Fx III.

 

[johnnydeformed]

I received SN #58 over the weekend. The pedal looks great. The laser etching is fantastic. At first I was only able to try it late at night using the cab filter out of my BigSky and headphones. That said, it sounded awesome. The clean channel could use more volume but it’s a really nice rounded clean sound. It will definitely suit my needs. The drive channels have so many different gain sounds in them just about the only thing you can’t get is fuzz.

I spent a good amount of time yesterday with the Ceres into the Powerstage 170 into a Genz Benz G-Flex 2x12. I know it's still very early in the honeymoon phase but the Ceres is amazing.

The clean sounds nice and full so there's no ice pick tones or anything like that. It does get a little woolly and dark on the neck pickup if you have the tone down low but it's still a cool sound. I kept the volume cranked and the tone at about 1 o'clock. It seemed to sound best there for my setup and balanced best with the gain channels this way.

I really love both gain channels. These are the sounds I've been searching for. Each channel can take on many shades of OD/Distortion and not once did it sound or feel like I was not playing a tube amp (even though there are no tubes in my chain). It's just so dynamic and organic sounding. I don't know what kind of FET magic Kyle has going on inside of the Ceres but it's unreal. My favorite setting for the Rhythm channel is gain 1/2 way, bright off, bass at 1 o'clock, mid at 11 o'clock, treble at 1 o'clock, Feel up, Mode in Colossus Lead. It's a really nice full crunchy sound. Turn the gain up and it destroys! My favorite setting for the Lead channel is gain at 2 o'clock, bright on, bass at 1 o'clock, mid at 1 o'clock, treble at 11 o'clock, Feel mid, Mode in Artemis Red. It's a thick heavy distortion but with enough mid character to punch through and also have some pretty liquid leads.

An additional note on the gain channels and pedal in general. It is extremely quiet (at least in my setup). Even with the gains cranked and me standing in front of and facing the speaker cabinet there's no hiss or squeals. It's all controllable feedback when you want it.

The clean channel of the Ceres takes fuzz pedals really well and much to my surprise the gain channels stack amazingly well with fuzz even with gains cranked up.

One negative...Even though my board is powered with a Strymon Zuma on certain Timeline engines (Digital, Ice, Trem, etc...) I get a high pitched whine unless I turn the Timeline's Grit knob all of the way up or all of the way down. I know this problem tends to occur with non-isolated power supplies and Klons in front of the Timeline but it is present with the Ceres there too. I'm not sure if there is a charge pump in the Ceres or not but it's present no matter how I wire up the power cables on the Zuma. Note that the issue does goes away went the Ceres is set to True Bypass. Maybe the Zuma isn't as isolated as it should be? I don't know but it's easily fixed by changing the grit knob position and is no way a show stopper. The Ceres is far too good for this to stand in the way.

All-in-all the Ceres is an amazing pedal and it really feels like it's the preamp I've been searching for. It's by far, the best preamp pedal I've played (which includes the Diezel VH4-2 and Herbert, Origin Effects Revivaldrive and Kartakou Beastbox).

 

[jago_ff]

Could this pedal get a sound like Adam Jones of Tool? I'm looking for alternatives to Diezel, experiences? Thanks!