Hey man,
Well, I think the jury is still out. I was a big proponant of adding distortion to the H9 (not that I had any say in it). I am relatively pleased with the two dirt algorithms, but I have not integrated them much into my playing, to be honest. To the extent I understand Eventide and the concept of the H9, they / it (whatever) are focused on making unique sounds and providing users unique capabilities. I think if you want a standard dirt pedal, the 500 H9 is not for you. If you want a rig that can do it all (but not do everything great), you get one of those all in one electronic pedalboards (like a TC Nova System).
Now, that being said, it is a cool concept, but for most of us (or at least me), I often want to get a sound like a particular song I like. So I do not need anything crazy – or perhaps extraordinary is a better word. With my H9s (and the rest of my board), I do feel like I can achieve almost any sound you can thing of, which is really cool. But when I want distortion, these days at least, I am just hitting one of my dirt pedals.
RE Crushstation – I really like the Sag feature. I feel like I can get some really splatty and gnarly tones that work well for a couple of songs we do. The octave seemed cool (like a blue box), but I find it underwhelming.
RE Sculpt – I have only just begun to explore this algorithm, so who knows. I do find it more usable than crushstation. While I play a variety of sounds, I think that I can get some really nice low distortion sounds out of it. Especially when I want some cleaner highs with some muddier lows.
For both, I think volume is an issue. Once I play with all the settings, it is hard to tell how well it will blend with the mix.
With all that said, it would be cool to dial in some tones and save then, and then be able to switch around to presets without having to change the knobs on your dirt pedals. But for that, perhaps a run of the mill electronic pedaloard would be better (but really, none of them do dirt well).
So, as I said, in my humble opinion, the jury is still out on whether these are good additions.
