I love my Quick Rod but I know where lots of people are coming from.
Some players want gain, more gain and then hopefully a boost to get some more gain so they can get some saturation and then more saturation and then double the saturation. They like to be able to plug their guitar into their amp, set the guitar on a stand, walk back 10 steps and then look at the fingerboard and the note they are looking at plays and doesn't stop sustaining until there is a brown out in their building or lightning hits their house and knocks the power out. If they even think about doing a particular lick or run and hit 17% of the notes cleanly, it's ok, the amp will fill in the blanks.
The Quick Rod is not like that. The Quick Rod is not your friend. The Quick Rod is not charitable or giving. The Quick Rod is willing to do it's work, but not willing to do your work. It's not going to cover for you like some googly eyed co-worker with a crush when you didn't get your work done. JUST LIKE EVERY REAL MARSHALL EVER MADE. The Quick Rod is like the bully down the street. Stand up to him. Show him you are ready to scrap and you guys will become fast friends. Or, if you're a wuss like me, plug your guitar into a boost pedal and then into the Quick Rod, but don't let the Quick Rod see it or the heckling will be unmerciful.
Seriously though, the Quick Rod does have a lot of detractors and I do know where they are coming from. We are in an age of killer modded Marshalls (that don't sound like Marshalls to me) and high gain monster amps, but for me, most of those amps miss the mark. They are a freaking BLAST to play and my right hand can take a vacation from picking but I don't like the way I play on amps like that. And I don't like the way they record. They get lost in mixes or don't have the articulation or percussive quality when you palm mute. But that's for me and my ears and my playing style.
When someone gets a Quick Rod from me, most of the time they love it, but more than a few have been like WHAT IS THIS? I understand them because it's a higher percentage that I'd like it to be but it's no where near what it was like when I was a Mojave dealer when about 95% of the people were like "WHERE'S THE EVH IN HERE? I CAN'T FIND THE EVH! I WANT THE EVH!".
