It is hard on batteries. I got about a gig's worth out of mine on a single set. I almost got arrested in the Walmart near my house when I was buying batteries on the way to gig and wearing my Nashville Pussy t-shirt. The classy folks at Walmart didn't mind if people stole from them, but don't ever go wearing a shirt with the word "pussy" on it at 10pm on a Saturday night.
I bought my first Trace pedal when they were still being produced and have the box and manual (somewhere). The manual is backwards to my understanding of how it works. The EQ balance will REALLY completely change your tone. I only used mine set at about 10 o'clock and it added a TON of low end. My fingerstyle rock sound with a Jazz was input gain to yellow LED active, EQ balance at 10. High compression, when I needed more snarl, was at 1 o'clock but it was a matter of the room and about 50/50 for being used at all and the low end compression was just barely engaged- BUT when the low end compressor engaged, it activated the output buffer amp of the pedal and boosted my instrument level signal with enough current to drive my tube power amp to full output without them being a distorted mess. I used the output gain on the SMX as my master volume.
My Trace setup saw hundreds of shows. I used the SMX pedal into the VR400 power amp. It saw as much action, probably more, than my SVT. I switched to the SVT after we fired the rhythm guitar player who had VERY thin scooped tone (100 watt JCM800 and a Les Paul copy w EMG's) and the singer/guitarist switched from Tele's to a Gibson Challenger (bolt-on LP Junior) that I put a SD Pearly Gates in through a JTM45 reissue or a Fender Prosonic through a Marshall Valvestate 4x12 (they're smaller and sound better than the JCM 4x12's IMO). With the Trace, he was using a Peavey Classic 60 combo and a Peavey 100 watt combo but neither was cranked. In the early days, I used a Gibson GB440 4x10 with either a PA 18" sub cabinet or another GB 4x10 until I got my SVT coffin cab. The GB's sound exactly like early SWR Goliaths (both were Steve Rabe designs)- punchy, but not a lot of bottom.
Either setup, I never played a single show with any other band where the bass player didn't offer to buy my rig.