This battle is not over yet. There still seem to be equal pros and cons.
Mainly the cons:
If you bypass the loop with a reverb on, the reverb tail dissappears. Making the loop to address that seriously complicates implementation of the loop circuitry on the rear panel, while requiring more control lines to the front panel to control these functions as a preset. That’s a lot of extra complexity for a feature less than 10% of users will actually use on the regular. For those more complex effects paths, an external loop switcher/signal flow manager is a much more usefull solution. For those who worry about long term reliability, that’s another hashmark on the NO side.
For just a basic loop bypass function, a rear panel switch can be added, but that defeats the purpose of accessibility in a rack mounted unit.
Thanks for the info about the current state. All my clean effects are in front of the amp anyway but because we need silent stage my goal was to have a gate for the hardnheavy sounds in the effects loop which is only active in the orange channel but not on green and red (for solo)…
If it is more than a hassle or could have big missunderstanding in the markets yes… it would not be a deal breaker for me too.
Hi David - The suggested loop bypass button could live on the back (as it does on most other amps which offer it), I don’t think there is a need to have it on the front panel at all, especially if it’s programmable.
Also - most of the amps I have encountered which have a bypass for the loop also offer a series/parallel loop switch.
I don’t believe any of the amps I’ve used account for reverb tails when you switch out the loop. Obviously the way to preserve this would be to only bypass the loop send.
If this feature does materialize, I would suggest that you offer a selectable series/parallel loop with bypass and then only bypass the loop send when the loop is in parallel. Series would be a hard mute. All of this being programmable.
I’m sure this is not trivial to do but it would be badass.
One question to all who are interested in the UL2: What kind of MIDI controller are you considering to use. I have no clue to what i should be looking for…
Thanks
I’d imagine anything will work. If you don’t have a midi controller already there’s a million options out there. I like the voodoo lab ground control pro a lot. My buddy really likes his Rocktron Midi Mate.
Me personally I’ve got an older RJM mastermind that I planned to use with another rig but I think it will be perfect for the ultra lead. It’s a bit of a bear to program though.
Looking at the photo of the rear panel, it’s very unusual that the UL-II uses a 5-pin jack for MIDI IN and a 7-pin for MIDI THRU. Normally the jacks would be reversed so that the UL-II can provide a MIDI controller with phantom power via pins 6 and 7 of the MIDI IN jack. I have also discussed this with RJM Music Technology technician Mario Marino.
Could anyone clarify the technical reasoning behind this design choice?
Thanks in advance.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I’ve been using Steve Fryette’s products since my (old) but amazing VHT Pittbull UL from the mid-90s up to the present day, so you can probably guess how loyal I am to the brand.
I’m not interested in starting any kind of controversy and I fully intend to place my pre-order for the new version regardless of all the speculation around it or the usual concerns about mixing analog and digital.
That said, here’s the point: in the 2026 NAMM interview that Peach Guitars did with Steve, from minute 24:42 to 25:05, something clearly different from the standard configuration you mentioned is shown. It’s not a printed image or anything generated by AI. You can clearly see that the 5-pin and 7-pin MIDI connectors are reversed compared to what you described.
Perhaps that unit was just a prototype shown for demonstration purposes, which would be a perfectly valid reason for it not to have been tested LIVE yet but it would be great if you could confirm this, since we’re all seeing the same thing in the video.