I'm sort of fascinated with this Pedal

NegativeEase

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I received a Greer Soma 63 Vintage Preamp Pedal a few weeks ago. It's much different than a typical boost/drive pedal -it's a real end to end preamp -just like a 50s/60s brownface circuit. I'm pretty fascinated with how it responds differently to my playing and how it interacts with other pedals and in different orders is just different than other pedals -it has a fuzzy tactile harmonic response that's great -it's like you can hear the transformer change when you saturate it with level. It's won some awards already and was the darling at the NAMM show. I've been slamming it with level and using it to gain stack as well. Anybody tried one?

soma-trans-pre.jpeg


Here's the press release:
A brave new world of tone, the SOMA ‘63 Vintage Preamp is the first pedal in the XFR series of pedals from Greer Amps. The SOMA ’63 is a true vintage preamp, based on the tone and feel of vintage brown era amplifiers from California. This pedal simulates the entire preamp, phase inverter, power section, and even the feel of the vintage 10 inch Utah speakers that were in those famous brown amps. The tone stack is designed to provide a wide and dynamic range of tonal options to the user. The Presence control works with the tone stack, and is designed to be a wide range control, effecting the overall sound of the entire circuit. The SOMA ’63 features a steel core transformer in the audio signal path. The transformer lends to the overall tone shaping of the circuit, and when the gain is pushed hard, especially with higher output pickups, the small steel core transformer will saturate, just like a vintage amplifier. The SOMA ’63 can be used as a tone-shaping preamp, or as an overdrive pedal. There are a wide variety of tones available in the SOMA ’63, so spend some time with your new pedal, and find the tones that rock your world!

The SOMA ‘63 runs off of a standard, negative center pin 9 volt power supply, and can be ran off of up to 18 volts. At 9 volts, the SOMA ‘63 will have more grit and texture. At 18 volts, you can expect higher headroom, a bit stiffer response, and less overall grit. Greer Amps’ lifetime warranty covers manufacturing defects and component failure to the original owner, it does not cover misuse or abuse.

 
Re: I'm sort of fascinated with this Pedal

That’s a bold statement.
 
Re: I'm sort of fascinated with this Pedal

It sounds like an interesting pedal, but someone should have press releases proof-read before publication.
 
Re: I'm sort of fascinated with this Pedal

All Greer products are high-quality.

That said, I don't want a pedal that tries to recreate the sounds of a specific SPEAKER. I bought my amps and cabs for a reason.

Cool for bedroom guys and people with loud clean amps. Hard pass for me.
 
Re: I'm sort of fascinated with this Pedal

All Greer products are high-quality.

That said, I don't want a pedal that tries to recreate the sounds of a specific SPEAKER. I bought my amps and cabs for a reason.

Cool for bedroom guys and people with loud clean amps. Hard pass for me.

Understood, and makes sense, but as mentioned in the post, I'm not using it in that way though -i'm using it as it's own stacked effect and getting pretty wild results -there's a touch sensitivity thing that's pretty wild about it
 
Re: I'm sort of fascinated with this Pedal

All Greer products are high-quality.

That said, I don't want a pedal that tries to recreate the sounds of a specific SPEAKER. I bought my amps and cabs for a reason.

Cool for bedroom guys and people with loud clean amps. Hard pass for me.

as a dirty pedal. adding speaker distortion color to the mix might be cool

No mids - fail.

the brown amps didnt have mid controls. super, bandmaster, concert, pro, vibrolux, vibrasonic all just had treble and bass with a presence control. the smaller ones only had a single tone control
 
Re: I'm sort of fascinated with this Pedal

as a dirty pedal. adding speaker distortion color to the mix might be cool



the brown amps didnt have mid controls. super, bandmaster, concert, pro, vibrolux, vibrasonic all just had treble and bass with a presence control. the smaller ones only had a single tone control

Yep, that's exactly what I'm driving at. view the pedal as it's own thing to make tones from and use the uniqueness of a preamp transformer and its reactiveness into your tone and playing profile -not as a clone of a brownface.
 
Re: I'm sort of fascinated with this Pedal

Holy Smokes, I found the sweet spot. Use the Soma 63 as the pure preamp into the effects in of my JCM 800. Essentially a Brownface style Fender pre amp circuit into the Marshall Power Amp stage.

It's amazing so far.
 
Re: I'm sort of fascinated with this Pedal

as a dirty pedal. adding speaker distortion color to the mix might be cool



the brown amps didnt have mid controls. super, bandmaster, concert, pro, vibrolux, vibrasonic all just had treble and bass with a presence control. the smaller ones only had a single tone control

Yep & I’ve never really missed having one! Although I do almost always run a Wampler Clarksdale (TS-9/808 with a active EQ) in front of it as an always on pedal. The Clarksdale has the ability to actually add or cut bass, mids, & treble so in a way I guess I do have a middle knob?

The mids on the early 60’s Brownface amps are tied to the bass & treble knobs so you can control it to a certain degree but mostly they were just very midrange heavy. Basically you dial in your tone by tailoring the bass & treble to this set midrange, which is a lot of these amplifier’s character....
 
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