Re: Tubes! They do a ____ good!

[Catilyne <catilyne@icicle.net>]

At 11:31 AM 3/8/2003 -0800, Mark Sottilaro wrote:

>There are also a bunch of tube distortion pedals I've been looking at as 
>well.  I'd love to hear about the experiences of other loopers on this 
>topic.

Even though I've been a big advocate of tube technology for a long time, I 
haven't actually bought a piece of tube gear in years.  However, since 
we're on the subject let me share a little tip I picked up.

Back in the 80's, I was using a little solid-state Galien-Krueger portable 
as the amp head for my bass rig.  The setup gave me great results (still 
does, BTW) but the one sound I consistently missed was that crunchy tone 
you get out of an overdriven tube amp like a vintage Ampeg.  This was 
about 
the time that tube distortion boxes were starting to come onto the market, 
so I picked up a Chandler Tube Driver hoping to add some nice, deep grunge 
to my palette.

Unfortunately, after putting the Tube Driver into my effects loop, I found 
that it was far better suited to fuzztone than subtle warmth & crunch.  If 
I turned the overdrive knob past '1' I just ended up with bumblebees.  I 
was on the verge of returning the little bugger when I tripped over a 
trick 
that helped a great deal.  Most tube distortion pedals are built around 
the 
12AX7A tube.  This tube saturates quickly so it works well for overdrive, 
but it was overkill for my purposes.  Instead, I opened up the box and 
swapped out the 12AX7A for a 12AU7A, which I was able to find for a few 
bucks down at my local TV repair.  The AU doesn't overdrive as easily as 
the AX, so it was far better suited for adding warmth, rather than 
bumblebees.  Once I'd done that, I found that I had much greater control 
of 
the coloration: I could now set the 'overdrive' knob across its entire 
range and still get usable tones.

So, if you're having trouble with your tube preamp adding more distortion 
than you need, consider changing the tube for a different (compatible) 
model.

(Okay, obligatory rundown of the tube gear I've owned, with one-liners: 
Chandler Tube Driver -- in the end, too noisy for studio work.  ADA MP-1 
-- 
always got the impression that there were good sounds in there someplace, 
but tried for a year and could never pull anything out that really 
impressed me.  Korg A3 -- multi-effects w/ tube distortion that sounds 
great on guitar, bass, or synths; it's currently dedicated to my Oberheim 
Matrix 1000 and together they're just massive.)

         -c-

_____
"i want to reach my hand into the dark and *feel* what reaches back"
                                                 -recoil