The VMT simulates a tube kind of distortion. The small versions are really nice for fattening your tone.
The ultra is a lot more versatile, but these days I rather go with a smaller DG pedal. The small ones are super easy to dial in and sound always pleasing imo. The ultras are a bit more work in my experience. YMMV
I would keep them both. They are both so different and you got 2 really popular pedals, so reselling won’t be that much of an issue.
I am wondering if I could sell my M87 compressor and just use the one on the X Ultra. Then I could justify keeping both DG pedals 
Mmm I’m probably one of the few people who actually like those MXR compressors. The one on the X only handles the lows.
I would personally keep the MXR and sell a kidney instead 
Actually the X Ultra can do full-band compression on the clean channel (blue LED mode).
Oh really? Well then it’s a no brainer. DG compressors are awesome. Farewell MXR 
You were correct!
I had a quick listen to some early reviews yesterday night, sounds awesome. https://youtu.be/q5WWd5YboA4
However it does feel a bit like Darkglass is now just milking the cow by mixing and matching different distortions in the same housing.
Nevertheless, this would be such a no brainer upgrade from my Element as a one stop shop. It has everything I’d probably ever need for practicing: tuner, compressor, distortion(s), EQ, cab sims, bluetooth streaming, headphone out.
…I have no need to upgrade, I have no need to upgrade, I have no need to upgrade…
It’s also 600 bucks (at least here in Europe), so that helps to keep GAS at bay.
p.s.: would love to work at Darkglass marketing department, their release videos are…something
I think it’s an OCD issue with the product gallery on the website lol (I removed the ones that do not fit well in the matrix)
ahaha yeah totally
The preferred bass distortions of Marie Kondo
I have a problem with this design. No effects loop. If you want to add any other pedals, they have to go first or you’re giving up some of the functionality you paid such big bucks to get. This is such a weird design decision given that this thing was built to be the center piece of your rig.
A FX loop would be nice yeah. I think this device is more meant as a standalone/multi-fx unit that you can put in your gigbag. I have seen the ADAM often on mini pedalboards with extra midi controls.
In this case you just have to put delay, reverb, chorus after and the rest in front. The downside with this is that your compressor has to be turned off. But let’s be honest, people that can afford this device prob have a decent board to start with
The smaller versions are more suited for larger pedalboards imo.
i mean, it just sounds killer. DG really trying hard to convey that whole “we can do other sounds besides the darkglass sound” thing. and this is my fave thing they do, that wonderful warm tubey VMT sound. so i kind of instinctively want this. but having owned every version of the VMT except this i have found that the one i personally like the best is the plain old basic one.
Oh yeah. It definitely sounds great.
It’s Darkglass, after all. It might have a bad sound in it, but you’re gonna have to try hard to find it. It’s going to sound great.
A little update on my Element experience.
Inspired by this post by @eric.kiser, last weekend I did some major testing with a friend that plays guitar. We were looking for a way to jam together silently through headphones.
This setup worked as a charm:
Using the aux in makes sure that his signal doesn’t go through my cab sim.
Bonus point #1: after a while we plugged his beat buddy into the aux in of his preamp, worked great!
Bonus point #2: we could stream backing tracks on the Element via Bluetooth while using the aux input. Was really cool together with the beatbuddy!
I had an XLR → 3.5mm cable as well but we didn’t get to test it because well…everything worked the way we wanted with the setup above. Plus I’m 99.9% sure that the beatbuddy signal wouldn’t go through the XLR out of his preamp pedal.
All in all it was a very straightforward thing once you figure it out. And I felt I was literally getting everything I could out of the Element, which made me think these were good money spent.
The only thing that leaves me confused is whyyyyy Darkglass doesn’t make this more obvious on the manual or on the website. I mean, I’m sure I’m not the only one trying to do such a thing and I know that an aux in is an aux in, but honestly without the info that I could gather here I’m not sure I would have been able to come up with this setup.
I can’t even think that they overlooked it because hey, they have put two headphones out on that thing! Just make the “why?” obvious for the masses. I guess a lot of people wouldn’t be stratching their heads on the 2 headphones out with a clear use case scenario.
I’m with you. All the connectivity options are really cool.
I’ll never understand why they didn’t put more into explaining what all the Element can do.
The Element is like a swiss army magic box.
I’d love to see a sequel to it with real buttons 
This made me think about phones.
There is literally zero instructions about how an iPhone works or what you can do with it. but, the UI is so intuitive.
Why is it that a few buttons/knobs on a pedal and we can’t make heads or tails of it.
Hmmmmmm, and the things that make you go that.
Well this nice comparison vid from Erik Arkö cured my GAS for the Infinity. The Photon drive beats all imo. Adam is nice in a full mix but the lack of a clean channel is a dealbreaker. The only thing that didn’t cure is my GAS for a Dingwall 5 string. Sweet Jesus!
