Black Lion Audio Auteur MKIII

Bought this one because I needed to augment my RME Babyface Pro clean preamps with something that has a bit more colour. Mission accomplished.

I used it to record bass guitar, electric guitar (both direct and through a cab ->microphone), and rock vocals. It imparts a nice vibe to a rock voice, the effect is note overdone. Of course you can drive it to the limit, but it has a wide range of usability. It can sound clean, with little gain, but driven harder starts to saturate in a nice way.

The unit itself is surprisingly heavy, but after looking at the picture of the insides, I realised it's jam-packed with discreet components and the output transformers. I like the rotation of the gain knobs, it's smooth and feels quality made.