Universal Audio Lion - Unboxing / full review - HIGH GAIN (No Tele's allowed) 

Yeah the OX stomp I used in this video worked perfectly with bluetooth UNTIL I updated the firmware and then it wouldn't connect at all. the replacement I got, I left it with the factory firmware and again, zero connection problems. It works every time. I'm not touching the firmware LOL. And yeah I've run the Nitro and Jubilee so far into my THD Hotplate then to the OX stomp and they both sound fantastic. Much better than running them to the Captor X and while I think that the Waza TAE sounds excellent as well, it's a GOOD sound but not as "right" feeling/sounding as the OX stomp. I think that the TAE is a more flexible device that is a better choice for a gigging musician if you don't mind the extra space it takes on stage (plus it can do the whole reactive load thing) but in terms of just purely sounding and feeling like a great cabinet and delivering a perfect DI sound, the OX stomp is better.

Yeah I'm curious what all they are simulating in the preamp section on the brown mode. I've gathered as much that they are simulating a power sag in the power section running at a lower voltage but wondering what else is different in the preamp vs the superbass/lead. I've also discovered that my Jackson Audio golden boy and Prism work really well with the Lion boosting the front end. The JHS Klon is pretty good but can get a little too woofy in the lower mids (which I also noticed with my real superlead).

Camera is a Sony ZV-E10 with the Sony 15mm f/1.4 lens, though if I had to do it again, I'd have gotten the 11mm f/1.8 as it's primarily used for filming our band gigs. Right now, the only footage I have of the lion going into the OX stomp is the jam track at the beginning of the video but I'm going to do a follow up showing that more in-depth as well as an external boost pedal or two. The Jackson audio prism pairs up pretty nicely with it. I may simply dial up some presets before filming and show some cabs in the OX stomp with a "after 20 minutes of tweaking stuff" shorter format. I played our gig saturday night with the jackson audio golden boy boost going to the lion then to the OX stomp and then one output going to the house and another going to an FRFR behind me on stage and it was REALLY nice sounding. For being basically 100% cab-less and just a small pedal board with 2 cables coming out, it took no time at all to setup but had a better and more authentic marshall tone that I ever got out of my Kemper or Fractal units. I think that the digital units simulating moving a mic around is always going to side step the nuances you get from phasing or one mic being further from the cone than another because it can introduce sonic anomalies that the average player doesn't want to try and cope with and/or I doubt those companies want to try and engineer extra tools to manipulate the phasing and wave form alignment. Fractal are the only company (that I know of) who actually DO let you mess with the phasing and distance and stuff but only if you're using two or more IR's.

@@FastRedPonyCar Thanks, lots of great info there! 🙏

Yeah the Lion is by far the most convincing "amp in a box" I've ever tried and sounds great in my IEM's. The OX Stomp really helps too. I wouldn't say the OX stomp is required but it really helps add a ton more control over the sound and flexibility with the cab type/mics/etc.

Ah good to know. Yeah I enjoyed watching the video with James Santiago talking with the guy from sweetwater and the other video with him, Pete Thorn, Blues Saracenco and the sweetwater guy was a cool conversation and shows just how passionate James was about getting everything right and I think the one thing that stuck out from his talk with Pete was that it would have been easy for him to make it only have the pristine perfect sounds but it was important for him to make it so that it can sound ugly too just like a real superlead can as that's what makes a superlead a superlead. I think that's what makes the modelers not sound quite right.

@@FastRedPonyCar I do not have one of these yet ... but just watching and listening at that point when the volume increased, it reminded me of compression. Do you think they were modeling in more and less compression as Volume 1 was up or down? It looked to me like turning down a compressor knob the volume increases - add more compression and the volume decreases but you make it up with output gain. Very interesting pedal!

@jeffersononetwo it basically sounds like a Super with microphones on the cabinet.. thats how it's supposed to sound as it has cabinet emulation.. I love mine.. I haven't played my vintage Super Leads in two months now. The difference is in the way the Lion feels under the fingers.. not just about the sound... its the first Emulated Marshall Super Lead that really sounds and feels like a real 4 input Marshall.

@@mikebeaulieu3620 Awesome - thanks man!

The Lion has a more authentic sounding and feeling Plexi sound than the FM3. I think that if you're already using the FM3, the two can easily co-exist on stage. You would run the guitar into the Lion (disable cab sim on the lion) and then out of the lion into the FM3, use any effects and either a good cab IR or Dyna-Cab block and then send that to the house or split one output from the FM3 to bypass the cab sim and go into something like a Duncan Power stage and small cabinet on stage. The FM3 is a real swiss army knife on stage but as I discovered this past Saturday night at a show, the OX Stomp is no slouch either. It provided reverb, switchable delay and I've got 2 presets configured in it that are identical besides one having slightly higher volume. This lets me use the preset footswitch to toggle between those 2 presets for a volume boost for solos. The OX Stomp can also be configured in the app to totally bypass the cab/mic simulation so that you pan that signal hard to one side and pan the second mic hard to the other side. What this does is give you one output on the pedal that is a DI signal you can run to a power amp or something on stage and the other output has the cab sim on there you'd run to the house. What's nice with that is you still get reverb/delay/eq/etc on both outputs and you can still do an A/B preset footswitch toggle to do solo boost.

Yeah I’ve got another vid of the lion and ox stomp and I also picked up the Delverb. The trio sound really good but I honestly kinda like my NUX Atlantic better. A bit more usable sounds for a pure rock cover guitar player.

Yeah for the jam track part of the video it was just guitar into the lion into the ox stomp and then into my scarlet 18i8 interface.

Mine was a clone. I think the reality is that the sound in the room with all that moving air and it hurting your head is impossible to capture with a microphone and that's the sound everyone wants to have from a recording and at bedroom volume levels but it's just not a reality. The lion seems to nail the voice of that sound and captures how my amp felt and reacted when I played it but a big missing piece that nothing but the real deal will satisfy is the amp physically hurting your head in the room. Now, that said, I've run the lion into the FX loop return of my Splawn and it sounds incredible but that's more of a "because why not" experiment rather than a practical way to use the pedal. That setup with the nitro going into the Captor X load box and then into my OX stomp (compared to simply running the lion to the OX Stomp) didn't produce any appreciable increase in tone quality.

It does ok with the volume knob. It still wants to be rowdy. If you setup the pedal to footswitch toggle between a saved preset and the "live aka- where the knobs are set" you can get a 2 channel switching setup but if you want something more akin to a true 2 channel setup, I would recommend checking out my video on the Friedman IR-D. Great pedal with a slightly more modern voice and 2 separate channels. If you went that route, you could use the pod go for effects in the IR-D effects loop and even integrate midi switching. If you haven't played around with any custom cab IR's yet though, I feel like that's the real key to getting the L6 stuff to sound their best. I had the Helix LT for about a year and have owned the stomp HX for several years and they both need custom IR's to really sound great. I think the Ownhamer IR's are pretty good and ML Soundlabs has great ones too. If you really want the most authentic sounding vintage plexi in a box though, nothing can beat this but the IR's they put into this unit are not nearly as good as the Friedman pedal and if you haven't seen it yet, check out my video pairing this with the UA OX Stomp. It really elevates this pedal to the next level.

Thanks bro 💪 I will for sure go for the Friedman ❤

@@wolfheartguitar Great choice. Either one is awesome. If you want to help support my channel, there’s a Zzounds.com affiliate link for the Friedman in that video I did.

A hot single coil in a Tele bridge is an awesome rock sound.

The IRX is a great pedal. It has a bit more gain, tighter gain structure (more like an 800 than a plexi) and having two separate channels/EQ/gain/boost gives you a lot more flexibility. That said, the reason I didn't keep mine is because I didn't think that it sounded all that great once you removed the IR from the signal. Something about the cab sim in the IRX is what pulls it all together and even running it into the OX stomp, something just sounded off to my ears vs just running it striaight out with the cab IR enabled. Despite being much more limited with the controls, the Lion doesn't seem to lose the mojo when you turn off the cab sim. I also think that having and FX loop gives the IRX another leg up on the Lion in that you can run your pedals in that and just go straight out of the IRX into a PA and/or FRFR but if you want to run just the preamp signal out into a power amp on stage, it won't sound right and honestly, that was the sticking point for me. I know not everyone will care about that so I still think that the IRX is an amazing pedal, I was just after a very specific set of capabilities and for the sound the IRX produced, I can easily get that from my Fractal FM3.

Yeah the touch responsiveness of the lion is excellent. You obviously lose the crazy volume and skill rattling power of a real plexi but the tone and voice is 100% there. As for headphones, you have 2 output jacks. One can go wherever and second can go to headphones.

@@FastRedPonyCar Oh wow. Thanks so much. I appreciate the info so much. Does it have an effect loop or do you just put delays and such after it on a pedal board ? I'm trying to come up with a silent stage gigging solution, but I want the touch response and the tone and this is the closest I've heard besides a fractal. This is of course a lot cheaper because it doesn't have all the other amps and effects which is fine. I only use a clean, crunch and lead time and they are all Plexi Marshall like so this pedal should work for me I think. I may have to order one . Again, thanks so much for the info. . I really appreciate it. Tim

@@hoosierdaddy2308 Yeah you would run effects after the unit. Honestly after trying the Friedman IR-D, I think that if you are wanting more flexibility and a built in effects loop and midi and the ability to use your own IR's, it's a better product and more flexible. It has a more modern twist on the old plexi sound (sort of like a modded plexi like the Jose mod for more gain) and you have 2 separate channels with their own EQ and a boost to work with as well. I did a demo of that on my channel. It sounds really good.

@@FastRedPonyCar Thanks. I will look for the video. Really appreciate it. Very good idea. ,♥️👍♥️👍

I have this pedal for myself and I've noticed that almost myself. Yes he recreated what Eddie actually did but that Lead just is where it's at.

He used one live that's for sure. At least at some point early in their career. 10 band MXR I think?

@@GuyNarnarian He first had a MXR 6-band eq that probably only was used with the Univox echo as a buffer since it had a very low impedance input. Later he used Boss 10-band eq’s live to compensate for signal loss using long cables. His guitar tech Rudy Leires has said the MXR 6-band was only used in the early days with guitars that didn’t sound so good or rental gear.

Yeah they’re made by a company called tonevice. They have several really cool products. Their new tremstopper device looks really interesting and is definitely something I’m going to be trying out. I love these quick release locking blocks though. Makes tuning on stage really quick and easy.

Yeah the lion sounds ten times meaner through an FRFR vs my Adam monitors. I was honestly shocked at how MUCH better it sounded the first night I took it on stage. I think the issue with not just this but every piece of gear is that once I first start playing it, my brain instantly like... zeros in on a sound that I want it to produce and I drive myself crazy tweaking it trying to get that sound and can get frustrated when it doesn't quite deliver. It's why I sold my Bogner XTC Classic and Mark V. There was just too much to tweak and on the flip side, my silver jubilee and nitro have been with me forever because there's nothing to tweak and the tone knobs don't do much either so you either like it or you don't.

You would need a good tube power amp like a Fryette or Mesa to be honest. All that punch and power comes from good tube power amps. I did test the lion into the fx loop return of my Splawn and my Splawn 4x12 and it sounded amazing.

@@FastRedPonyCar yes, and you have great tube amps, your Ceriatone sounds great.

It sounded great. The Amp1 power section is clean and punchy. With the Lion's 4 cable method selected in the phone app, you can use both the lion as well as the amp1's overdrive/clean channels/boost/etc. It's pretty slick.

@@FastRedPonyCar cool I'll try that out

I've had one since 2015. I like it but it's useless for DI recording/front of house, etc.

⁠correct, useless there but the best attenuator on the market for your real amps and for the Lion to power through your cabs at reasonable volumes… fire

HAHA I did about half way through. I wanted to see what each one could do. I definitely like the superlead the best but with the OX Stomp, the brown setting (in my opinion) sounds a lot better than with the 6 cabs the unit comes with but still not as good as the superlead setting sounds.

@@FastRedPonyCar I was debating to get the ox stomp box . For now I’m using the Canvas Mono

I got an incredible tone live with it. I was running it to the OX stomp and then to an FRFR behind me and also to the house.