Adding a tube

Larry Behm · Post by **Larry Behm** » 12 Apr 2011 9:29 am

With my second unit (steel-amp etc) I have been wanting to add a BB. Did not want to spend the money at this time.

I own a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube unit. The wheels began to turn. Plugged it into the system, turned the input up and the output down (rhythm channel) to cut down on the on the distortion and low and behold everything became "Alive".

I like my N112 with the new Fox chips and the 1503-4 BW speaker BUT we are yet another step closer to the sound I really want to hear from this set up. (Carter D10 with Tonealigners at 17.5)

Call anytime, let's talk
Larry Behm
503-722-7562

John Billings · Post by **John Billings** » 12 Apr 2011 9:32 am

"I have been wanting to add a BB."

You'll shoot your eye out!

Ray McCarthy · Post by **Ray McCarthy** » 12 Apr 2011 12:50 pm

I got the Fox chips in my 112, then I got a BB and I can't imagine a much better sound

Sweet, baby, sweet

Derby SD-10, TruTone, Black Box, DD3, Holy Grail, 112 w/Fox chips

Tim Marcus · Post by **Tim Marcus** » 12 Apr 2011 2:48 pm

I am glad that helped - but I'm gonna be the bad guy here and play devil's advocate

Its hard for me to believe that this hot mess:

did anything to "improve" tone.

These types of pedal kind of scare me - there is too much tuna in the can! Ceramic caps, metal oxide resistors, circuit board... its a solid state design with a tube soldered in. I think it is a testament to the sound of a peavey input section - it needs a lot of external coloration to come to life.

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 12 Apr 2011 2:49 pm

I have a studio-owning friend who swears by the $30 ART Tube MP - input, output, input gain and output gain, with a 12AX7 in the middle. He'll often use an electric guitar into that into a Roland JC-120 or Cube, instead of an acoustic on a rhythm track. And this is a guy who insists on tape instead of Pro Tools...

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 12 Apr 2011 6:35 pm

With due respect, Tim, let me play devil's advocate the other way. Is that SDTTC yours and have you tried this, or are you going by specs and images? I love mine - best overdrive pedal I've ever had, far and away, and I've had dozens of them. In general, I hate 'em, always have preferred a nice old tube amp. With the right one at the right gig, you don't need a thing. But that 'thing' is highly nonlinear, and sometimes the one that gives me the pristine clean I usually want for pedal steel may need a little help at times - that's where this pedal comes in, to me anyway.

I am going to argue that this is not a cold-running solid-state preamp design with tubes shoved in. Those old 6021 subminiature tubes are pushing close to 300 VDC on the plates, and the clean(er) channel really sounds nice. To my tastes, it is ideal pushing, let's say, a nice clean Fender amp (take your pick of any of the nice uber-clean ones), but I can even make a NV 112 or NV 400 sound not so far away from a tube amp with one of these things. Of course, for clean classic pedal steel sounds, I like the natural sound of the Peavey steel amps anyway, but this adds a little, let's just say, je ne sais quoi.

As always, YMMV - we're not all looking for the same thing. But IMO, the only way to really know what something can do is to try it.

BTW - a Black Box sounds great too - it's a different beast but very cool. Of course, it's pretty much a unity-gain amp, but the character is very nice. I'm afraid I'm a gizmo guy, so I have one of those too.

Tim Marcus · Post by **Tim Marcus** » 12 Apr 2011 8:06 pm

fair enough!

I have a fear of things held together with hot glue is all.

I guess I am just a little heartbroken that we all need gizmos to breathe life into those Peavey designs. Now if they just made a gizmo that could take the amp out of the trunk of the car!

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 12 Apr 2011 9:20 pm

I took a peek months ago at the schematic to this Twin Tube pedal, and I gotta say it's a cool, real tube circuit, 100% tube path. Those op-amp looking things may have something to do with the power supply or switching or something, but it's a real, high-voltage, all-tube path device. Nice circuit, well thought, and with good results. Impressive and affordable pedal. I think I needs me one.

Sure it would be nice to see some better quality resistors in there and some foil cap's to make it truly a "boutique" quality piece, but for the money, it's really packing quite a lot. And regardless of the money, the tones I've heard from them are hard to argue with.

Brad

Larry Behm · Post by **Larry Behm** » 13 Apr 2011 7:51 am

Wow lots of input here. The bottom line for me is what "I" hear, not what I see. The mids are cleaner with my gear and yes I feel the amp it more alive.

To me all of this is climbing a ladder, just one rung at a time. As new products and ideas come along one may pop to the top and give us a whole new way of thinking.

I was going to sell the SDTT but got to thinking, I have a tube unit right here, plug it in, think clean not distortion, will it work, yes it did, so glad I did it, NEXT.

Paul said at the seminar in Dallas, "try it". Keep thinking outside the box, who knows what you might come up with.

Larry Behm

Rich Hlaves · Post by **Rich Hlaves** » 13 Apr 2011 5:38 pm

I gotta say I agree with Dave Mason. The cheap Art Tube MP can add a lot of warmth to a cold tube amp and can add some clean boost as well. I own two and they get used a lot in and out of the studio.

Ray McCarthy · Post by **Ray McCarthy** » 14 Apr 2011 2:23 am

If the Art Tube is like the Behringer Mic 200 (they would seem to be about the same thing), It dosn't do for steel what the Black Box does. I have both. The Mic 200 does add some degree of warmth and presence, (and some harshness on higher notes), but there's a definate sweetness that the BB produces throught the spectrum that I couldn't dial in on the Mic 200. Big difference.

Ken Fox · Post by **Ken Fox** » 14 Apr 2011 8:44 am

Larry, check out this link. This is my tube reverb unit which preamps the signal a bit (if needed). Tommy did this with it and a direct box to convert to low-Z for the input the computer.

http://foxvintageamps.com/linked/zzz%20 ... reverb.mp3

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 14 Apr 2011 9:18 am

If you want to "sweeten" up a solid state unit, some years ago, Peavey made a unit called the "Tube Sweetener".

Larry Behm · Post by **Larry Behm** » 17 Apr 2011 6:50 am

Last night was the first night to try out the SDTT live, wow, talk about expanding your sound!!! The SDTT has bass and treble controls to help taylor the sound, the tube helps fatten up the overall sound.

If i picked harder I got a little distortion on a loud rock song but that was not all bad as I was the only one who might know, plus it gave it a little "grit"

More into to follow, one just never knows what might happen if you just "try it".

Larry Behm

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 17 Apr 2011 7:30 pm

You just gotta love that secret grit

Brett Lanier · Post by **Brett Lanier** » 27 May 2011 8:41 am

Hi Larry,

Still liking the TTC in front of your amp? Im doing the same thing, only with a hermida zendrive2 into a Vegas. The zendrive 2 has a 12ax7 in it which can be swapped out for any 9 pin tube you like. The voice and tone controls work very well with my steel too.

Larry Behm · Post by **Larry Behm** » 27 May 2011 11:16 am

Brett I have since purchased a another Black Box so the SDTT in on the shelf at this time. Both work well but differently. I am not done with the SDTT, I still feel it has some worth while attributes.

Just keep trying different combinations.

Larry Behm

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 28 May 2011 7:43 am

Brett Lanier wrote:Hi Larry,

Still liking the TTC in front of your amp? Im doing the same thing, only with a hermida zendrive2 into a Vegas. The zendrive 2 has a 12ax7 in it which can be swapped out for any 9 pin tube you like. The voice and tone controls work very well with my steel too.

Brett, one thing to consider about the Zendrive 2 pedal is that the tube is only used as a device for distortion/clipping in place of the typical diode pair, but it's not IN the audio path. The Zen 2 is still simply an opamp device with no actual tube warming in the path. Not that the Zen 2 doesn't sound good as an overdrive, it's just that it's not really putting any tubes in the actual signal path.

The Duncan Twin Tube, on the other hand, is an actual, real tube signal path.

B

Terry Huval · Post by **Terry Huval** » 29 May 2011 8:14 pm

Just wondering, how does Sarno's Black Box compare to the Demeter tube direct boxes?