Valve guitar pedal?

**niftyprose** · 05-11-2014, 10:56 AM

Thanks, guys.

Insufferable: he said the Squire, because it has independent bass and treble controls

Mr. Zucker: noted on the Fender tone. 'Bright' doesn't describe what I'm after, but I'd certainly appreciate details of your preamp. It's for my files...

Best, W.

**niftyprose** · 05-11-2014, 10:57 AM

Sorry, pkirk, confused in complex thread. But he said the Squire, because it has independent bass and treble controls. W.

**feet** · 05-12-2014, 06:18 AM

various damage control pedals (now strymon) were of the giant 12ax7 variety. they served as preamps, direct out boxes or distortion pedals, depending on how you set them up and which tubes you went with. i use an old liquid blues primarily as a preamp, to keep my solid state amp from sounding like a robot. awesome overdrive, but its size is an issue. i forget the exact voltage they run at, but they require their own adapter as its much higher than the norm.

i believe it was the womanizer and demonizer that had the direct out feature, if you're into that. they are supposed to be quite good, despite the names.

mind you, i wouldn't expect any of these to sound like a fender, but its something. and the ability to play with tubes gives you a lot of control.

**jzucker** · 05-12-2014, 06:48 AM

whey I say bright clean, I'm talking early benson, early martino, deluxe reverb era wes. To me, most SS amps are dead and sterile. Adding a fender preamp to them gives them life. I've played through SS amps for almost 10 years without a tube preamp and prior to that used exclusively vacuum tubes so I've got a lot of experience in both areas.

The preamp I use, like a fender has close to 300v on the rails.

**medblues** · 05-12-2014, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by jzucker

whey I say bright clean, I'm talking early benson, early martino, deluxe reverb era wes. To me, most SS amps are dead and sterile. Adding a fender preamp to them gives them life. I've played through SS amps for almost 10 years without a tube preamp and prior to that used exclusively vacuum tubes so I've got a lot of experience in both areas.

The preamp I use, like a fender has close to 300v on the rails.

Jack, how do you set up the SS amp when you do this ? I have asked in another thread the advantages and disadvantages of going directly into the power amp section of the amp as opposed to using a PA (or any other FRFR device) amp. And what is the preferred way to go into a power amp (Aux in vs effects loop) ?

I have a Damage Control pedal which you thought were gritty sounding but I did not get a chance to ask what you meant by that ? (clipping vs noise floor and pot scratchiness vs buzz).

**jzucker** · 05-12-2014, 09:08 AM

Depends on the amp but typically i have been going in the front and not through the loop just so I have access to the built-in reverb. I try to set the amp for a transparent sound before plugging the tube amp in. On the mambo, this is with the treble/mid/bass at about 12 O'Clock. On the AI Corus, the treble and brite are at 3 O'Clock and the bass and mid are at 9 O'Clock. The particular tube preamp I use doesn't have a lot of output so I lose some volume if I plug into the effect return. Also, the loop is parallel on the AI. Typically, effect return is the best way to go into a SS amplifier but I get great results going into the front.

And on the damage control, I was referring to gritty as in some overdrive even in the clean mode. This seems to be a common problem with low voltage tube preamps (not sure if damage control is LV or not though)

If you want the true fender preamp sound, it's imperative to run the tubes at 250v-300v in order to get the tubes into their optimal, linear range. Otherwise, right off the bat they don't have the big, transparent headroom.

Originally Posted by medblues

Jack, how do you set up the SS amp when you do this ? I have asked in another thread the advantages and disadvantages of going directly into the power amp section of the amp as opposed to using a PA (or any other FRFR device) amp. And what is the preferred way to go into a power amp (Aux in vs effects loop) ?

I have a Damage Control pedal which you thought were gritty sounding but I did not get a chance to ask what you meant by that ? (clipping vs noise floor and pot scratchiness vs buzz).

**medblues** · 05-12-2014, 12:32 PM

Thanks a lot for the detailed info.

Damage control pedals run at 250 V. They are discontinued though.

Do you (or other readers) hear any grit in this (just for my ear education) ?:

**feet** · 05-12-2014, 07:24 PM

sounded clean to me. a little plain/dry, perhaps, but clean. you can always swap out the tubes to keep it cleaner or make it prettier. putting a 5751 or 12au7 (what i ended up with) really makes a difference. with a 12au7 in the first position and the gain all the way down, it won't start distorting until past noon on the knob, depending.

they do turn on on forums and ebay from time to time, though pricing isn't always friendly. people try to exploit the strymon connection.

**jzucker** · 05-12-2014, 07:41 PM

sounds a tad gritty but more importantly the it doesn't have the BF fender tonal sound. It sounds a bit more like a bassman which is middy and not big, open and transparent

I've never liked tube pedals for overdrive either. Tried the kingsley, tube king, tube driver , and the clips of the blackbird don't sound very good. The overdrive on the wilson lotus and the ethos sounds much better IMO.

The BF fender preamp that I have and that several other folks make sounds great. I often thing folks are lazy. They just want a solution where they can go into guitar center or buy direct from musicians friend.

To get great tone you have to take a journey. Several folks here made fun of me during my journey back from not playing for 2 years and having sold most of my equipment through finding a great guitar and a great amp. The point is though that I ended up with a great guitar and great amp.

Take the journey, it's worth it.

**medblues** · 05-13-2014, 06:23 AM

Originally Posted by feet

sounded clean to me. a little plain/dry, perhaps, but clean. you can always swap out the tubes to keep it cleaner or make it prettier. putting a 5751 or 12au7 (what i ended up with) really makes a difference. with a 12au7 in the first position and the gain all the way down, it won't start distorting until past noon on the knob, depending.

they do turn on on forums and ebay from time to time, though pricing isn't always friendly. people try to exploit the strymon connection.

Mine sounds warmer. Since it has a pre EQ with a dual knob parametric EQ (freq, boost/cut) that I believe could give me a black face fenderish sound if I want it. It also has a post EQ with only bass and treble.

**jzucker** · 05-13-2014, 06:28 AM

post a clip demoing a clean jazzy fender tone because mine didn't do that well at all.

**medblues** · 05-13-2014, 07:05 AM

Originally Posted by jzucker

post a clip demoing a clean jazzy fender tone because mine didn't do that well at all.

I have a full set of recording gear waiting for the last six months to be assembled and used , maybe your suggestion will do the trick :-) My ears are not good enough to distinguish what is a good fender tone and not so good fender however. Neither do I have a BF amp (I have a Blues Jr with a Billm-added twin stack would that count ?) My other choices are trying to emulate the BF sound in my Line 6 pod or use a good recording of a song. What would be the prototypical BF jazz guitar recording to imitate ?

**jzucker** · 05-13-2014, 10:04 AM

This was recorded with a gries 35 which is a BF deluxe preamp married to a 6L6 power section.

**medblues** · 05-13-2014, 01:46 PM

This video will definitely help, any other recordings out there preferably on a CD ? I have a bunch of Russell Malone albums, did he use Twins ?

**jzucker** · 05-13-2014, 02:08 PM

Some notable examples of fender tube amps playing jazz:

**Franz 1997** · 06-08-2014, 12:45 PM

Not worth starting a new thread, but I have been trying a new valve/tube preamp for Jazz, which might be of interest to members who fancy trying one of these at some point. The motivation, as usual, is simply to have some tube warmth ( insert your fave adjective here..) but in a small box, and used in conjunction with an existing SS amp, in my case a mambo 12.

This particular model is in a box 5" x 4.5", no bells, whistles or chrome plated grab handles, Gain, Vol, T & B controls. Use 2 valves, and a little-known fender tone stack which is a lot fatter than the popular AB763 stack most pedals use, plus two cathode followers to add lots of harmonics, handmade, high voltage etc. OK, skip the last bit if not technically afflicted.

I have been very pleased with it; it does add a lot of that valve "3-D" aural illusion to the SS amp, and it's useful having the extra EQ which effectively broadens the amp's tonal range. Also, it can add that ''just before breakup" kind of crunchy sound that you get from a wound up Princeton or DR.

Made by Coopersonics, who apparently are famous for boutique OD pedals. Not on their website yet; this is a proto.
Not cheap @£250 ( yeah I know you can buy an amp for half that..) but then not as expensive as many out there, and it does the job pretty well, and fits neatly in the gig bag. The Jazz Valve Preamp.

One really nice feature is that the box has a graphic of a 175 sunburst, as opposed to flames or nudes...

No affiliation BTW.

**niftyprose** · 06-08-2014, 05:04 PM

Thanks, Franz, that's really interesting. I've been worrying away at this for some weeks but the Coopersonics is new one on me. Best, NP

**niftyprose** · 06-13-2014, 06:05 PM

Hi guys,

This isn't supposed to be a 'last word', because someone else is always going to turn up new and relevant info or release a new product. However, I've been researching the 'valve pedals' topic since I first posted on the subject, have exchanged e-mails with a couple of developers, and feel that I now know enough to offer a summary to anyone reading the thread.

Firstly, let's define the scope. As the owner of a loud but literal-minded Crate PowerBlock, I want a device which can impart valve/tube characteristics to anything I play through it. I won't go into detail here about my tonal preferences, but I will state clearly that I *don't* want rock-type overdrive or distortion. (Apologies to those jazzers who happen not to share my predilections, but I guess you know what I mean.)

There are broadly four approaches for builders of such devices:

* Valve preamp in a rack or freestanding unit, high-voltage/temperature
* Valve preamp in a pedal, high-voltage/temperature
* Valve preamp in a pedal, low-voltage/'starved cathode' approach
* Transistor pre-amp in a pedal.

The first is believed by many users to give the best results, but is impractical for me and perhaps others.

The third is widely reckoned not to be capable of developing the full valve/tube character, although various circuits come highly recommended by their developers.

The fourth is outside the scope of this post, although I would like to give a special mention to the PTD/Trombetta Kush (Home Page), a transistor pedal that delivers some of the nicer characteristics of a valve/tube amp without sounding like a pale imitation.

The second is the one that works for me, since it offers the possibility of a sonically complex but very portable rig.

I looked for pedals which combined preamp/boost capability with a tone stack. I tried not to give space to those which are capable of heavy distortion, partly because I don't want to hit the wrong footswitch and find myself pumping out 'Smoke on the Water' but mostly because extra channels and knobs push the price up without giving me any functionality that I actually want. Here's my list:

Coopersonics Jazz Preamp pedal
Coopersonic ? Home
-Presently in development, so final control complement not certain. Meanwhile, the post above from Franz gives best details.
EHX TubeEQ
EHX.com | Tube EQ - Analog Parametric/Shelving Equalizer | Electro-Harmonix
-EQ box with tubes and some parametric aspects, attractively priced but not sure if it would provide enough gain for my application.
Kingsley Squire
Kingsley Amplifiers
-Highly-regarded preamp in a near-standard format. Volume/Treble/Bass plus a Brite switch.
SIB Fat Drive
-Highly-regarded preamp with volume and gain plus B/M/T tone stack, back in production this summer? Big and brick-like, may be too 'distort-y' for some.
Siegmund Missing Link
Siegmund Missing Link | Guitar Tube Effects Pedal Preamp
-Small non-standard-format pedal working off long-lived late-model military-spec tubes. Volume and tone only.

Honourable mentions also for two (oddly similar) Scandinavian bass pedals:
EBS Valve Drive EBS Sweden AB - Professional Bass Equipment
Carl Martin
bass_drive

Both were designed to provide clean and slightly overdriven bass sounds and both offer something like EQ rather than a tone stack, although the Carl Martin seems the more versatile. CM were optimistic about the pedal's applicability to guitar, but no-one seems to have hands-on.

Worth mentioning that most if not all these pedals require a dedicated power supply, that is, won't work off a 9v battery or a pedalboard juicer. While we're on the subject, I would like to mention the Fryette/VHT Valvulator (Fryette Amplification - Valvulator - Overview), which is a somewhat loose fit for this thread but might be just the thing if you want both to 'tube up' your sound and power some pedals.

I'm going to keep monitoring this thread and will update, so please keep sending in news of other likely pedals which may cross your path...

Best, W.

**Cunamara** · 06-14-2014, 08:13 PM

Originally Posted by pingu

also has anyone tried the art tube mp v3 12ax7 based pre-amps

I have had an AI Clarus 2r and a Raezer's Edge 1x12 cab and a Redstone 1 x 8 cab for several years. It's a bit too clean and accurate, not flattering to guitars IMHO and with my main guitar seemed to emphasize some unfortunate frequencies, giving it a rather sour sound. I struggled with that amp and tried an MXR EQ pedal, a Baggs DI, a Magicstomp with various amp models, chorus, a rolled-down distortion pedal, etc. Nothing worked adequately so much of that time I used different amps. I built a Mission Amps 5E3 kit and have been using that for about a year through the RE cab although it's really a bit too bassy for my archtops.

I have a TubeMP Studio that I bought used for $20-25 and it didn't work in front of the amp (too noisy, a bit better if using XLR input instead of 1/4"). I got a reamp box which helped with that a lot, but eventually the transformer in that died or something. Somewhere along the line- a year or two later- some neurons fired themselves up and I thought to try putting the TubeMP into the effects loop of the Clarus. Bingo! It warms the tone up very nicely and even gives a tube amp feel. This is now my standard set up for gigs and it works great with my archtop and my nylon string. I am quite delighted. I think that the Clarus is just too clean and having some gentle tube harmonic distortion and compression is really helpful. At the low voltages used in starved-plate designs the clean headroom is a limited but I don't get a noticeably distorted tone with middling settings on the TubeMP.

**Frank67** · 06-15-2014, 03:08 AM

Has anyone here tried an AMT SS-20? It is a tube pedal claimed to have a nice Fender'ish clean channel and a distortion/lead channel with Marshall vibe.

Also there are Frenzel two channel tube preamps with supposedly similar characeristics (but larger footprint). Reviews range from raving to meh ... Never tried one or seen one.

**unguitar** · 07-26-2014, 06:28 PM

I have one of the first tube overdrives made by Coopersonic and, beside being very "handmade", it offers a very nice tone and character.
I contacted them asking about the preamp you talk about and they confirmed me they are going to be available soon for the price you wrote.
I would really like to give a listen to it and think the best way would be to connect it direct to the soundcard.
It will probably not sound very nice but at least the signal chain will be the most neutral as possible having no interaction with amp and mic.

Do you think you can do something like this ?
Of course it would be good to have some sounds with the pedal switched off first.

thank you,
Luca

Originally Posted by Franz 1997

Not worth starting a new thread, but I have been trying a new valve/tube preamp for Jazz, which might be of interest to members who fancy trying one of these at some point. The motivation, as usual, is simply to have some tube warmth ( insert your fave adjective here..) but in a small box, and used in conjunction with an existing SS amp, in my case a mambo 12.

This particular model is in a box 5" x 4.5", no bells, whistles or chrome plated grab handles, Gain, Vol, T & B controls. Use 2 valves, and a little-known fender tone stack which is a lot fatter than the popular AB763 stack most pedals use, plus two cathode followers to add lots of harmonics, handmade, high voltage etc. OK, skip the last bit if not technically afflicted.

I have been very pleased with it; it does add a lot of that valve "3-D" aural illusion to the SS amp, and it's useful having the extra EQ which effectively broadens the amp's tonal range. Also, it can add that ''just before breakup" kind of crunchy sound that you get from a wound up Princeton or DR.

Made by Coopersonics, who apparently are famous for boutique OD pedals. Not on their website yet; this is a proto.
Not cheap @£250 ( yeah I know you can buy an amp for half that..) but then not as expensive as many out there, and it does the job pretty well, and fits neatly in the gig bag. The Jazz Valve Preamp.

One really nice feature is that the box has a graphic of a 175 sunburst, as opposed to flames or nudes...

No affiliation BTW.

**lapideusvir** · 08-20-2014, 05:27 AM

@Franz1997How do you power the Jazz Preamp (coopersonic)? I assume, that a valve-driven pedal needs AC and lots of mA?

Thanks.

**Franz 1997** · 08-20-2014, 05:45 AM

The Coopersonic pedal is powered by a 12v DC 500ma adapter, and by some very clever technology converts this 12v DC into around 200v DC for the valves.

The adapter is pretty small, but it's not your standard pedal wart; the pedal comes with its own adapter.

Unguitar, I don't know how to do a recording the way you suggest!

**lapideusvir** · 08-20-2014, 05:57 AM

Cool! I have a litte pedalboard and a power supply that could handle that, (DC power). Or is the conversion happening inside the adapter, so that it only runs with this special adapter?

**Franz 1997** · 08-20-2014, 09:24 AM

No, the conversion happens inside the preamp, so any adapter that supplied 12v and >500 ma should work.

Worth pointing out that the adapter is included in the price of the preamp.

I heard from Martin Coopersonic today that he is sending a new version of the jazz preamp for me to try; I'll give a report on it. This is a version with an extra middle control, based on the fender AB763 tonestack.