Call me perverse, but I have the pedal version hooked up at my home studio as the main DI for guitars/basses/electric piano/etc. At modest settings it sets an instrument signal up beautifully for interfacing with amp sim plugins etc (a raw guitar signal never cuts it, for me). As a straight DI (circuit switched out), it doesn't thrill, but that's not what you'd buy one for anyhow.
Lately I've found myself making a lot of 70s-punk-meets-idm-in-a-disco-with-morrissey-on-the-mic music, and playing way too much guitar (I'm a bass player mainly). I couldn't find a thing out there in plugin land to give me the sound I was looking for. One night I plugged into the BDDI, maxed out the Drive and tweaked up the presence and suddenly, I'd joined Gang Of Four!
It nails the scritchy, nasty, dance-rocky guitar tone so well it *hurts!*
So, naturally it's first call on that task now, and of course gets a lot of use for bass tones from dub thump to distorted picking. The "classic" sansamp gets more use on things like vocals, drum overheads, the rhodes, etc, when I really want distortion. But sometimes there is just too much Tech 21 on a track and I bust out the secret guitar recording weapon..
..my brutally damaged vintage Deluxe Memory Man pedal. It overloads if you so much as breathe on it- a bad bbd chip sits cooking within it. I set it to minimum delay, all the way wet, gain maxed, and...
Wow. The coolest, most singular distortion tone I've ever heard while DI-ing comes churning out of it. If you've got a Memory Man in bad repair, try it. The reissues and old specimens in top shape can't do it, too bad (maybe a line/mic amp placed before it would help, and also help to destroy that bbd chip!
The funny thing is, there is a bit of "latency", as even at minimum delay, you're looking at 80ms or so of slap. Luckily I've done much time with an Mbox so I know how to deal with that!
Anyway, I've hijacked the thread a bit, just wanted to share that, it's priceless.
I have a PSA, too, and it does a fine job on keys/drums/bass/guitar/etc. It's still a better "amp sim" than any plugin or digital sim I've tried. I saw a bit of footage with the RZA from Wu-Tang- the interviewer is talking to him in his hotel room with his then-new production rig.
The interviewer says, "Hey Riz, where's the SP1200? What's the deal?" and he says, "Aw dang, I sold that s***, I've just got my K2500 and a SansAmp PSA-1. I get the same sound. *presses play on keyboard*".. ..and out comes a very junked, very RZA beat. I look over at my PSA-1 and smile wide.