Steel Guitar Black Box

James Quackenbush · Post by **James Quackenbush** » 10 Dec 2003 3:59 pm

Brad,
Thanks for the info and the explanation..
I'd be interested in this !!....Count me in !
Sincerely, Jim

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 12 Dec 2003 9:48 am

Just an update. The chassis fabricator now has the project on their desk. Steel chassis, black powdercoat, looks like a black box. Hopefully within 3 weeks.

Brad Sarno

pdl20 · Post by **pdl20** » 12 Dec 2003 11:01 am

Brad Im interested.look forward to the web site and will let you know after that. Rudy

Val Gethers · Post by **Val Gethers** » 3 Feb 2004 2:15 pm

Brad: I just found this thread, so I hope your still answering replies. Will info on your SGBB be posted on your (Blue Jade) website. Thanks in advance.

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 3 Feb 2004 3:01 pm

Thanks for it interest. The chassis fabricator has taken longer than planned, but we've got 3 ready to go this week. They look great and sound even better. Hopefully 22 more will be ready in the next 3 weeks. I'll post here and on the website with details as they become available. I've got 12 pre-orders so after those are all met, then we'll hopefully keep them in stock for all the next orders.

Brad Sarno
Blue Jade Audio Mastering
Spitshine Electronics

T. C. Furlong · Post by **T. C. Furlong** » 7 Feb 2004 5:50 am

Brad,

This product of yours is an excellent idea. I have been thinking about something like this for years. As a player who has spent the last 30 years searching for "tone nirvana" I am very excited about checking your unit out. (by the way I have gotten very close to tone nirvana a couple of times, but never totally there)

Can you comment on how much you think proper pick up loading will reduce the importance of the remaining "tone influencers" in someone's set up. In other words, by using a SGBB, will the choice of pedal, and amp become less important because the initial signal is better or more important because you will then have a better signal so the next weakest link in the chain will be exposed. I certainly have an inkling about what is likely to be the case but I am usually wrong!

In my business (pro audio), we have a saying about "always going for the last dB". It seems apparent that you share the same philosophy.

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 7 Feb 2004 10:03 am

T.C., Any time you buffer the signal early in the path, you make the pickup immune to any tone-sucking capacitive loads or impedance mismatches further down the chain. This goes for an active volume pedal, matchboxes, black-box, etc. What seems to happen is that once the signal is buffered it matters a lot less what you hit after that. For example. If you plug into a passive volume pedal (no buffer) and drive a long cable into a Lexicon or Peavey effects unit, there is significant tone damage because the active electronics at the input of these devices aren't really that beautiful sounding when driven by a pickup. But, if the signal is buffered coming into these fx units, then the tonal change is marginal.

So with that in mind, what the Black Box is doing is not just buffering (conditioning) the pickup's signal, but it's also helping bring out all the sweetness, livliness, and harmonic richness of the pickup in a way that ONLY a tube can do. Even the sweetest of FETs wont react to a pickup in the way a tube will. So with the Black Box what you end up with is a very sweet, clear, tube driven tone that you can send to almost any device. Since the tone is pre-sweetened and buffered by the Black Box, the signal will be far less prone to being degraded by what follows. The central issue at work here is the pickup's load, what active electronic device is the very first one that the pickup "sees". If it's a volume pot into a cable into a IC chip at the input of an FX unit or reverb pedal, then don't expect the tone to be magic. If the pickup "sees" a tube first, then the pickup will only and always see the tube. The tube then is much better suited to actively drive the signal from that point on. The intention is for people to keep their current rig as-is, just add the Black Box first in the chain.

To get to the meat of your question, I think really the weak links that may exist in a signal chain become less of a problem when using the SGBB. I know what you mean about how sometimes when you clean up one part, it reveals problems in another. In this case it seems to be the opposite since we're dealing with pre-buffering the signal. By doing so, what were once "weak links" are now made pretty neutral.

Also, strangely enough, I just got THE call while typing this reply. The first 25 chassis are in so I'll try and post photos later today.

Brad Sarno
Blue Jade Audio Mastering
Spitshine Electronics

Auset Sarno · Post by **Auset Sarno** » 7 Feb 2004 10:18 am

WOW! Finally....a tube matchbox. Count me in.

Auset

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 7 Feb 2004 10:28 am

Black Box is ... bring out all the sweetness, livliness, and harmonic richness

What would the box do with my sourness, deadness, and harmonic poverty? And how do it know?

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 7 Feb 2004 10:30 am

Leave it to the black box. It knows.

Hey Brad--looking forward to pics.

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 7 Feb 2004 10:43 am

Can the guts of this thing be mounted into "The Magic 8 Ball"?
That'd be cool!

Hey Brad, so what's the deal with, say... the Goodrich 120 vs Hilton Pedal, when used with your SGBB?
Would you use the SGBB with a Hilton Digital Sustain?...(either the stand alone or built into the Hilton Pedal).

Just wondering if the SGBB will eliminate the need for other PreAmp-ee type stuff.

Reason I ask is, I'm thinking of going back to my original Emmons pot pedal for my Emmons, and Goodrich pot pedals for my Sierra and Sho-Bud.

Kevin Chriss · Post by **Kevin Chriss** » 8 Feb 2004 7:08 am

2 Questions:
How would I use the Black Box with a Boss DD3 that likes a signal level input?
Could you do the same thing with a Presonus Blue Tube Preamp or something similar? Thanks

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 8 Feb 2004 11:28 am

Photos now on Black Box site:
http://home.earthlink.net/~bradsarno/blackbox.html

Brad Sarno

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 8 Feb 2004 1:26 pm

Ernest said:

"What would the box do with my sourness, deadness, and harmonic poverty? And how do it know?"

More than you can imagine. And to explain how it knows would take us way deep into a metaphysical discussion that may be too lengthy for this forum.

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Pete, I made sure that it would interface with a variety of gear. Once the signal is buffered by the SGBB, there is not really any need for other "preamp" devices in the chain. The Hilton volume pedal does great after the SGBB but instead of the Hilton being the pickup's buffer, the SGBB is. The Hilton still gets to perform as the smoothest volume pedal in the world and it's electronics will pass the signal on thru as clean as always. As far as the Hilton Digital Sustain unit, it would be sort of redundant as the SGBB serves that purpose of buffering and impedance matching. Most of my testing was with a Goodrich 120 or an old Sho-Bud pedal as well as the Hilton.

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Kevin, the SGBB is a unity gain device and the output impedance is perfectly matched for guitar effects. The Boss pedal would be happy to follow the SGBB. I dont know enough about that Presonus box except that it's not a true tube unit. I believe that it's a IC based input with a tube drive stage somewhere in the circuit. Also the tube doesn't run at full voltage. The Presonus has a lot of stuff going on inside it unlike the bare-bones simple guts of the SGBB.

Thanks for the interest guys.

Brad

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 26 Feb 2004 5:36 am

Black Boxes are now shipping.
http://home.earthlink.net/~bradsarno/blackbox.html

Brad Sarno

Rhino · Post by **Rhino** » 26 Feb 2004 10:25 am

Hi Brad, and congrats for designing a tube preamp for our guitars. I have been using a transistor type buffer mainly because it allowed me to turn down the pickup signal amplitude. I have and effect unit that distorts because the out put of my guitar is soooo hot – way over 10db. Although I have a volume pedal before the effect unit, during my playing I may press that pedal down to the floor and there goes the red clip light. I know there are effect loops in amps and three chord pedal hookups, but as you mentioned in an above post, the more plugged into the signal chain the more the timber of the instrument changes. Because of the ability to be able to crank down the pickup amplitude I have been successful in using my effect unit. My only question about your new SGBB unit is that it does not allow for a potentiometer or a switched in-out fixed resistor to be used in selecting the signal amplitude. Is this something that may be considered in the future…?

I am another potential customer for the SGBB….

Rob

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 26 Feb 2004 2:50 pm

Wow Rob, I've never been asked that. It's a two stage circuit and the output is unity gain. I bet I could figure an easy way to trim it down between stages to create negative gain. Send me an email and let's discuss it in more detail.

Thanks,
Brad

Keith Hilton · Post by **Keith Hilton** » 26 Feb 2004 6:23 pm

Brad, take a 50K adjustment pot. On the output of your pre-amp go into the adjustment pot. Take the middle terminal to output signal out. Take the remaining terminal to ground. The value of the adjustment pot may change the tone slightly, so you may need to try different pot values with your circuit to keep what frequency range you have. This is what I use on my pedal--the control marked Volume on the bottom of my pedal. Actually it is signal strength control. The problem out there in the real world is not so much really hot pickups, but guys with a bunch of pre-amps in the signal chain creating gain. By the way Brad, these pre amps creat gain not by addition but by multiplication. Meaning 8+8 is 16 but 8X8 is 64. 16 is a long way from 64. I can't understand how any magnetic guitar pickup can create 10db of gain unless it is a powered pickup. The current is in uA and the volts in mV with normal magnetic pickups. If a guitar pickup is powered you can get that kind of gain. I am not not disputing the 10db gain it is probably possible. Good luck.

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 27 Feb 2004 12:00 pm

You know, the simplest fix for your situation Rob is the Hilton pedal. It will provide the very best in solid state active buffering stages and volume control with no tone loss. It will also fix your situation because the Hilton pedal has that output trim control so you can sent out any level you desire. The Black Box will offer the sonic benefits of a tube and a buffer, but the more I think about it, to tweak the SGBB to reduce the output level may not be the most practical solution. The Hilton would offer total flexibility.

Brad Sarno

Don Walters · Post by **Don Walters** » 27 Feb 2004 1:49 pm

Brad, will you be at the TSGA?

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 27 Feb 2004 7:09 pm

Yup, I'll be there, with black boxes.

Brad

Bob Lawrence · Post by **Bob Lawrence** » 28 Feb 2004 6:32 am

Brad,

Congratulations on your very interesting project. I had some of the same ideas and I experimented with a Micro Tube Doubledrive (dual/triple gain stage) a few years ago but I had problems getting the unit working correctly and finally the power transformer quit. I sent it back for repair but it still did not work the way it should have. Unfortunately it is fine tuned for guitar and because of the warranty I couldn't modify it at that time. I'll have to try one of your units the next time I'm in St. Louis. All the best of luck with everything.

Bob

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Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 28 Feb 2004 7:31 am

Hey Bob, nice to hear from you. I'll see you in St. Louis this summer.

Brad

Skip Mertz · Post by **Skip Mertz** » 28 Feb 2004 9:55 am

Hi Brad, I tried to get ordering info on the SGBB. please e-mail me at skipmertz@yahoo.com
thanks

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 28 Feb 2004 4:05 pm

Brad, if I am already playing through a great sounding tube amp (Dual Showman Reverb with Hilton pedal), would the SGBB help any? Seems like adding more tube sound to an existing tube pre and power amp would be superfluous.[This message was edited by David Doggett on 28 February 2004 at 04:08 PM.]