In this case you truly get what you pay for. I always held off on darkglass as the price was to steep, then Christmas gift vouchers rolled around and all I can say is .. Wow
TONE.
One of my first thoughts about the pedal with the bite and growl engaged was 'this is a killer slap tone', it's not just a brutal OD it also is a fantastic tone sculptor.
I leaned towards the alpha side as I liked the tight punchy sound from it. However the omega side has this crispy open raw sound. I can explain it like the difference between using a neck and bridge pickup. Some people prefer the neck alone, others prefer the bridge and someone might prefer both. The exact same applies to this pedal when it comes to blending the two circuits.
USE.
If you want the pedal for a strong distorted sound be prepared to roll of the gain from your amp, or to do a lot of tweaking with the pedal's level as it clipped my amp when I didn't use a compressor, as the pedal can deliver a high gain sound. Combined with a compressor and a noise suppressor it created this beautiful modern punchy tone. Which ended the tone quest for me. I was told by friends that I caught the dragon.