The Vox Saturator was a Joe Satriani endorsed distortion pedal, made between 2008 and the early 2010s.
This Near-Vintage pedal is a good buy if you find it in the Used Pedal case at your local music store.
Features a super solid metal case, cream colored chicken head knobs, a More switch which can kick your leads into higher gear (I use it basically as a Boost switch). It also has a Pad switch which kind of limits the clipping. It can even it out with other high gain pedals.
What does the Saturator pedal sound like?
At the time that this came out, some people argued on gear boards that it was basically a modded Boss DS-1 distortion. But I disagree.
I have used a DS-1, which I always thought had a lot of hiss. The Saturator has some hiss if you turn the Tone chicken head knob past 1:00-2:00, but the distortion is a different character than the DS-1.
Satriani used this into a relatively Clean channel of a tube amp (he had a JSX signature model Peavey in 2010). This drove the tubes and gave something more than the distortion from the pedal. Not sure why he would have a signature amp and then play it mostly clean.
In the early 2010s I used the Saturator with a Mesa Boogie F-50 amp with 6L6 tubes. This was the amp that had the Mark I/Mark II sound, but NOT the rectifier tone. I used the Saturator to drive the tubes and it got closer to a EVH Brown Sound, which I liked a a lot.
A lot of the demos on Youtube make it sound very buzzy. I think this is mainly because they are using them with (what I consider to be) buzzy amps like Orange, and some Marshalls.
The Saturator is a good buy from the Used Pedal bin
I found this pedal used in a Used Pedal case at the local music store and bought it. It can also be found on Reverb and eBay.
If you see it in the used pedal case, buy it! You can’t go wrong with this pedal so give it a try and experience the near-vintage experience.