Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

[Jeffblue]

Went online @ the local Guitar Center for used equipment and I saw a Behringer VT999 Vintage Tube Monster for $29.99 so I went and bought it. Before that I had heard youtube videos and thought that there is potential. I plugged it in and played through it and it is good. I swapped out the 12AX7 for an NOS 5814A (military grade 12AU7) and it sounds better and better the more I let it burn in. There is also a mod called the BitMo Monstrosity mod that I may consider doing that improves the tone and adds more versatility. I like it.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

Good score, especially for the price.

Nothing does tube tone like real tubes. They have great touch response and they interact better with a guitar's volume knob than nearly all the solid state stuff.

I have a Butler tube driver that's pretty good (a starved-tube design) and I've been using a Hughes & Kettner Cream Machine since the early 90s (a full-on twin tube box which can actually drive a speaker cab) that totally rocks.

Some of the modern drive pedals are derived from actual vintage preamp circuits and they can feel pretty amplike.

But even today, there's nothing quite like real tubes.

 

[Jeffblue]

Re: Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

I agree tubes are the best. I enjoy collecting tube overdrive pedals and I have the following pedals:

BK Butler Blue Tube (modified so that I can use an octal tube)
BK Butler Real Tube pedal
Radial Tonebone Classic
Rocktron Silver Dragon
Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Blue (attempting to mod to use a 12AX7 tube)

 

[Jacew]

Re: Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

Possibility of simply adding tube overdrive like these + pedalboard amp (like Powerstage or EHX Magnum) for a grab'n'go rig seems really promising these days.

Do people here have much experience using tube drives for a setup like that? How it would compare to budget-friendly tube amp setup?

 

[Gtrjunior]

Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

Possibility of simply adding tube overdrive like these + pedalboard amp (like Powerstage or EHX Magnum) for a grab'n'go rig seems really promising these days.

Do people here have much experience using tube drives for a setup like that? How it would compare to budget-friendly tube amp setup?

I have a Blackstar HT-dual pedal that I use in my recording rig. It’s got an Emulated Out jack that goes straight into my interface with no power amp involved. It sounds good too. I have no idea how this would translate in a live situation.
I know a guy that had a Small Blackstar combo amp and he would run a line from the emulated out to the mixer instead of micing the amp.
Tone wise it sounded good but he once invited me up to play a song and there was a VERY noticeable lag in response. You would hit a chord and half a second later you would hear it.
Terrible.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

I have a Blackstar HT-dual pedal that I use in my recording rig. It’s got an Emulated Out jack that goes straight into my interface with no power amp involved. It sounds good too. I have no idea how this would translate in a live situation.
I know a guy that had a Small Blackstar combo amp and he would run a line from the emulated out to the mixer instead of micing the amp.
Tone wise it sounded good but he once invited me up to play a song and there was a VERY noticeable lag in response. You would hit a chord and half a second later you would hear it.
Terrible.

Yea. Speaker emulations haven't been very good in my experience either. What I was thinking was a pedalboard that would plug straight to cab.

 

[Gtrjunior]

Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

Yea. Speaker emulations haven't been very good in my experience either. What I was thinking was a pedalboard that would plug straight to cab.

The pedal I use in my recording rig sounds/feels killer. The guy with the emulated out on his amp was awful.
Go figure. Lol

Now that I think about it, I seem to recall seeing a power amp in a pedal sized box somewhere...that would work for a pedalboard live rig, I would think.

 

[Jeffblue]

Re: Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

I would like to see a pedalboard amp that is tube or NuTube based.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

I would like to see a pedalboard amp that is tube or NuTube based.

Make a pedalboard with 1U rack under it and stick in rack power amp perhaps.

I too wonder why there isn't amp like that. Or if there is, why it's not more popular.

 

[Jeffblue]

Re: Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

Did some more tube rolling and tried a 6021 (12AT7) and it sounded and behaved horribly. I then installed an NOS 7025 (12AX7) and the tone is absolutely beautiful.

 

[Gtrjunior]

Re: Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

Did some more tube rolling and tried a 6021 (12AT7) and it sounded and behaved horribly. I then installed an NOS 7025 (12AX7) and the tone is absolutely beautiful.

Iirc the 7025 is like a low noise 12ax7(?) I’ve got a couple of them in my tube box.

I have the Blackstar HT-Dual pedal which uses a 12ax7. I did the same thing you did...rolled a couple of tubes through it. It really does make a difference. I have 3 of those pedals. One has a Sovtek LPS, one has a JJ (which is think it comes with from the factory) and I put a short plate RCA in the last one. They all sound pretty damn good.

 

[SweetClyde99]

Re: Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

I’ve got both the Behringer VT999 and a Blackstar Dual. The Behringer is great for the money, and it goes really respectable high-gain tones when boosted by a TS-type pedal. I’ll orobably keep it forever because it’s worth more than I could ever sell it for.

The Blackstar HT Dual is probably the best overdrive/distortion pedal I’ve ever owned. Right now, it’s providing all the high-gain tones in my silent practice/recording setup through clean amp sims on my Line 6 HD500 running into my PC. I found the high gain amp sims on the HD500 to really fatigue my ears after 15 minutes or so, but the HT Dual is so smooth and amp-like, that I can happily play for hours and feel like it only sounds better the longer I play it.

I might consider grabbing a second Dual to use with my amp if I see another one come up at the right price. I also had an HT DistX years ago that I really liked and regret selling.

 

[Jeffblue]

Re: Bought A Used Tube Overdrive Pedal For Cheap.....................

I have a new tube pedal on the way. TC Electronics Tube Pilot which is small and is interesting to me. I like TC Electronics and I own a G System, a Nova System and the MojoMojo pedal. We'll see if this is a good sounding tube pedal and I always swap out the tube for NOS.