New Steel Guitar Tube Preamp

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 25 Aug 2005 5:16 am

Coming soon! Check it out at next week's ISGC in St. Louis. It's the ultimate steel preamp; The Revelation Tube Preamp.
www.steelguitarblackbox.com

Brad Sarno

Jay Fagerlie · Post by **Jay Fagerlie** » 25 Aug 2005 5:20 am

Brad,
Let me be the fist to say, I want one!
That is just what I've been looking for. (And waiting for someone to build)
Cool

Jay

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 25 Aug 2005 5:21 am

Jay, are you coming to St. Louis next week?

Brad

Bob Lawrence · Post by **Bob Lawrence** » 25 Aug 2005 5:29 am

Wow! Great features. Can't wait to try one.

Tip: Webpages look different on various PC's and at different resolutions. Webmasters have to check their designs at various configerations to ensure that it is viewable to the average user. The preamp webpage is unreadable on my PC(1280 X 1024) unless I hi-lite everything. I will make a PDF and send it to you so you can see how it looks on my PC.

Jay Fagerlie · Post by **Jay Fagerlie** » 25 Aug 2005 5:44 am

Brad,
I will not be in St. Louis....I wish I could!

Jay

Auset Sarno · Post by **Auset Sarno** » 25 Aug 2005 6:04 am

Hey Bob -

Thanks for the web page comments. Unfortunately, I lack the skills of a webmaster - I'm more like a web maid and end up cleaning up my own messes.

I will continue to work on it today and appreciate the feedback.

Auset Sarno
www.steelguitarblackbox.com

Bill Holly · Post by **Bill Holly** » 25 Aug 2005 7:26 am

Brad,

I've got the proverbial "stupid" question, but I think it might be on the minds of a few others also so I'll ask.

My wife plays the steel, a Zum SD10, E9th, into your Black Box, to a Hilton Pedal, to a Nash 112. She'll never play professionally, but hopefully one day, when she's comfortable with it, will be playing out locally at a restaurant, nursing homes, church, etc.

What would your new "pre amp" do for her setup, soundwise, tone, whatever.

The technical data doesn't tell us anything.

Thanks!

Bill

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 25 Aug 2005 7:34 am

Brad
How would you describe the way the sound changes when you vary the input impedance?
How does this compare to "automatic" impedance matching on some pre-amps?

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 25 Aug 2005 9:27 am

Bill, the tube pre may be overkill if she's not gigging or recording, but it will give a very sweet and rich tube sound with tons of tonal control. I know the new webpage is kind of basic, but we will continue to add more and more useful info as time unfolds.

Earnest, the variable impedance (Vari-Z) has a powerful tonal effect on a pickup. It's not like any typical tone control. It actually reacts directly with the pickup and can make it very smooth and mellow or very bright and sparkly and all the range in between. I don't have much experience with this stuff called "automatic impedance matching". It seems that the really good stuff like studio mic preamps have a manual, not automatic impedance selector.

Brad

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 25 Aug 2005 11:28 am

Bill Lawrence made a box that put an inductance (variable with a resistor in series I think) across the pickup, and it did some remarkable things, some good, to the toone of some pickups.

Randy Beavers · Post by **Randy Beavers** » 25 Aug 2005 1:27 pm

I had a prototype of this unit at my house for a month or so. It was great! Everyone who came over and tried it out preferred it to my Alembic F-2B, or Mesa Boogie Studio Pre. That's saying something big for this unit. And it's not just for steel guitar. The guitar players should love it also.

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Randy
http://hometown.aol.com/pulltightb/home.html

Chris Bauer · Post by **Chris Bauer** » 25 Aug 2005 4:30 pm

I'm drooling already!

I won't be able to make it to St. Louis this year but I'll sure to be able to find a way to hear one sometime soon.[This message was edited by Chris Bauer on 25 August 2005 at 05:31 PM.]

Tom Gorr · Post by **Tom Gorr** » 25 Aug 2005 7:34 pm

Exc ! Reminds me of a high end mic pre, for about 1/3 the price.

Brad - whip up a FET power amp, say 200 W + customer choice of speaker, all housed in a lacquer maple cabinet (with a 2U extra rack space, please!) - all for under $1300 - and you will corner the steel guitar amp industry, guaranteed !

Kerry Johnson · Post by **Kerry Johnson** » 25 Aug 2005 10:23 pm

Hi Brad... does your new preamp include the 'Black Box circuitry'?

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 26 Aug 2005 2:02 am

PLEASE consider a 240 volt version for us over here !!

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Steel players do it without fretting

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 26 Aug 2005 6:52 am

Yea Randy has been my favorite guinea pig. He's got ears that rival those of my dogs. He's also got a sense of tone and an ear for the most subtle of things, not to mention an amazing talent on the steel to really put things to the test. I owe many thanks to Randy for all his support and critical/constructive feedback on the prototype as it was developing. Absolutely invaluable. Thanks Randy ! ! !

I really did take a close look at the other cool tube preamps out there and made a goal for myself to improve upon them any way I could, especially focusing on specific features to satisfy the needs and wishes of a steel player.

Tom, my approach was very much like what I've seen and liked in high end studio mic-pre's, EQ's, and compressors. Real good foil caps, high quality switches and pots and jacks, lots of hand wiring, thick traces on the circuit board, good filtering, transformer coupling, etc. With regards to your suggestions about a FET power amp and nice cabinet with rack spaces, well, you must by psychic. Those thoughts have definitely crossed my mind. But one step at a time I tell myself.

Kerry, the input stage of the preamp is very much like a Black Box with the addition of a variable impedance. So, yes, essentially the black box is integrated into the preamp.

Basil, the power supply transformers I have are ready for international voltage options, just like with the Black Box. I will have to work out some safety test data before I can sell overseas. The EU is VERY strict about electronics importation, and next July (2006) they apparently are implementing some severe environmental restrictions that may prohibit me from shipping any more Black Boxes (or preamps) to Europe. People may just have to buy them in the states and bring them back with their luggage. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it may.

Thanks,
Brad
www.steelguitarblackbox.com [This message was edited by Brad Sarno on 26 August 2005 at 08:04 AM.]

Roger Crawford · Post by **Roger Crawford** » 26 Aug 2005 8:45 am

If I'm not mistaken, I think Larry Sasser used the prototype on one of his recent sessions! He liked it a LOT.

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 26 Aug 2005 11:05 am

Yea, Larry used it on a couple of sessions recently. He did say he liked it a lot.

In St. Louis next week at Scotty's convention I'll have at least two working models for demo purposes. Please come visit the Black Box table by the main stage to check it out. I plan to have one racked up with an FX unit and tuner that I can move around from place to place to check out with different rigs.

Brad

www.steelguitarblackbox.com

Tom Gorr · Post by **Tom Gorr** » 26 Aug 2005 11:55 am

Brad - just so you know, I AM psychic...or is it psychotic?...can't recall...

As many on the forum - I spend more time buying & trying & fixing & fiddling with my electronics gear than I do actually practising & playing. High voltage is waayyy too addicting. A good buzz ?

I like rack gear and I love high-end wooden furniture. My pet peeve about rack gear is that it is quite visually unpleasant in my (quite lovely !) living room bandstand.

Best of luck, and I look forward to a future purchase !

Larry Sasser · Post by **Larry Sasser** » 26 Aug 2005 2:06 pm

Hi Brad, I did use your pre-amp on a few things and I LOVED IT. I can't wait to check it out again in St. Lo. See you there.
Larry

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 27 Aug 2005 5:55 am

Follow the link to the new Revelation Tube Preamp page and click on the photo for new and improved close-ups.

New pic's added:

www.steelguitarblackbox.com

Brad

[This message was edited by Brad Sarno on 28 August 2005 at 09:45 AM.]

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 28 Aug 2005 8:47 am

bump - new pic's.

Brad

Chris Bauer · Post by **Chris Bauer** » 28 Aug 2005 11:00 am

Brad,

Can the outs on the front and back be used simultaneously?

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 28 Aug 2005 1:27 pm

Chris, that front "Stereo Out" jack will completely mute the outputs on the back when plugged into it. It actually, well, kind of sort of works as a stereo headphone jack, but it's not really that loud. It's there mainly for the convenience in the studio to have a quick front panel access to the L/R outputs. In the future I may add a true headphone amplifier to that jack so that it would serve as rear-muting headphone out. With a slight mod, it could also possibly serve as a "Stereo In" jack for people to plug in their CD player or iPod for jamming along with music.

Brad

Kiyoshi Osawa · Post by **Kiyoshi Osawa** » 28 Aug 2005 4:30 pm

See, I knew there was something to all those frequency response curves and tests you've been posting here about!

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Williams Keyless U12