what would you like to see in a tube drive pedal?

[guitarrob]

Hey guys, I am considering building a tube drive/distortion pedal to try and get some heavy tube based tones. If it works out, I might have the PCB fab'd and build a few more of them.

Any suggestions or aspects you guys think would make a tube based pedal better?

Note,this is a dual tube pedal and willbe a high voltage design, no starved plate here.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: what would you like to see in a tube drive pedal?

Well, good tone would be the first thing; I've yet to hear a valve drive/distortion pedal with a sound that I like.

Being able to swap valves would also be good.

A separate loop in/out in case someone wants to run it thru their effects loop instead of in front of the amp.

 

[guitarrob]

Re: what would you like to see in a tube drive pedal?

I hear you, I am really fussy on tube distortion also. I will say the tone is good, I have some great designs and I will tweak them further. Not sure what kind of EQ/tone shaping I want to add just yet. I find one of the main issues with tube distro tone pedals is alot of units on the market are starved plate..meaning the run on low voltage. Tubes love power and my pedals will be running on high voltage as they should.

It will likley be a two tube with a switchable second gain stage.
First stage would be great for blues, coutry rock -lower distortion type scenarios.
Second stage would be for rock and metal.

Tube swap would also be possible as I just put the tubes behind tube sheilds.
I like seeing the tube glowing
Never thought of the FX loop but I will throw it in the design mix and see if it is within the realm of budget and possibility.

Keep the suggestions and ideas coming.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: what would you like to see in a tube drive pedal?

It should be white. That way the people with OCD can obsess over keeping it clean and the Metal guys can complain about it not having enough gain because it's not black.

 

[guitarrob]

Re: what would you like to see in a tube drive pedal?

It will probably be the color of Stainless Steel.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: what would you like to see in a tube drive pedal?

Hmmm.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: what would you like to see in a tube drive pedal?

I'd use a concentric pot or two pots on the gain, and see about blending SS gain with tube gain in a way that sounds most musical.

Or, use the tube to create a clean preamp sound, then feed it with SS......sorta like running a Boss OD into a tube mic pre.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Re: what would you like to see in a tube drive pedal?

Maybe get this guy to part with some design secrets.. lol.




^ Sickest tube driven pedal ever.

 

[glassman]

Re: what would you like to see in a tube drive pedal?

I hate the term "starved plate"...mainly because its really not. Low voltage designs got a bad name mainly because they were set up using the wrong principles. The tube doesn't care what voltage is across it. Every low voltage design I've seen has a WAY too stiff a power supply in comparison with the current it draws; this makes them sound sterile, SS-like, defeating the use of a tube. If you loosen up the power supply a lot, they start to breath like a tube circuit should.

High voltage in a pedal has its drawbacks too; you often have a 50+ VAC signal at the end of the circuit which you have to knock down resistively to a more appropriate input level...what you end up with is a tone that sounds like a master volume amp with its master barely cracked.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: what would you like to see in a tube drive pedal?

I'd like to see something very mild in a pedal of that type. Most of the tube driven OD pedals I've used are useful to me in the 0 to 1/3 range, maybe 1/2 at the very most. Beyond that, they just sound overly manipulated, overly compressed, and not very dynamic or tasty. Something that took that 1/2 of the scale, and fanned it out across a 0-10 scale for finer adjustment would be nice.

I've been meaning to try 12DW7's in my Hot Tubes in order to mellow it out, but haven't got around to it yet.