Electro Harmonix Battalion

very decent DI especially for price. Includes a very basic compressor and distortion, I very much prefer to use separate pedals for those though. Noisegate is a pretty useful inclusion, especially when you play with distortion. Box is pretty sturdy, stomps easy to access, and knobs easy to navigate. I especially appreciate that it has a 4-band EQ with bass, lo-mid, hi-mid, and treble, as this is pretty important to me. Giving 4 stars only because I'm not a fan of the distortion and compressor, and while it has nice EQ functions it doesn't really add much personality. Still, for that price, it's very serviceable and would definitely recommend if you either don't use distortion / comp or are using separate pedals. I use it with a Deluxe Bass Big Muff for distortion and a Tone Corset for compression, both also from Electro Harmonix.

I got myself the EHX Battalion as a relatively cheap alternative to many of the expensive preamp/DI pedals out there and was blown away by the versatility if it.


Pros
First impression, it feels solidly built and slightly smaller than I was expecting.

The 4 band EQ is nice and simple to dial in your tone of choice, and very transparent when set to all 12 o clock.

The drive is also easy to dial in, and the 3-way switch for applying drive at different points (pre-eq, post-eq and dry eq) gives you the ability to go from very mild grit to roaring thunder.

I've played around with running fuzz into it for some ridiculously oversaturated tones and it got very aggressive very fast, but didn't lose too much bottom end like you often find with bass dirt.

When running clean, it's noiseless.

Pad switch is nice for when you've got a hot signal too


Cons

The noise gate is way too harsh, turning it past 8/9 o clock will cut any sustain very abruptly, but keeping it very low does help cut the hum from the drive.

Some more control for the compressor would have been nice but I get keeping things simple. This is also a bit heavy handed for my tastes at times, but some people love heavy compression.



Overall

This is an amazing pedal for the price point, and I'd recommend it to anybody who was after the main drive/preamp/di functions.