Idea for the tube driver

[Colman]

Post edited



Aharon

[Colman]

What I wanted to ask is about the tube driver, but only the tube part.
I wanted to  isolate the tube part of the tube overdrive build that as a separate effect and then use any overdrive or booster to drive the tube, that way you can add tube overdrive to your favorite  solid state OD.
Just thought I'd run it by you guys to get some opinions.
Aharon

[GibsonGM]

Hi, welcome, can you post what you are thinking of?  To my understanding, the tube driver is 'all set' as is, and you can just add a boost in front if you like...need a schematic...

[Colman]

It was just a thought,I'm building a cascode preamp(the first stage from the firefly)that I can add to any setup regardless.
I guess I like modular units but if it's a silly idea forget it,I don't have a schematic yet, there are people that just like tubes in their signal path.
Aharon

[GibsonGM]

I see nothing at all 'silly' about that! And the firefly would make a great platform to start with.  You can get some great sounds that way!

If you have any specific designs you start working with, please feel free to post them here for comments, suggestions!   

[Colman]

OK i will ,thanks.
Aharon

[Colman]

I whipped up a quick  power supply , used LM340T and got 12v/6V and Ground 1000mF caps and two 10K voltage divider to get the 6V.
Tested it works dead on.
Of course these thing are cut and paste ,I'm not pretending to be  designing anything.
Next is the tube section, probably also point to point using some kind of terminal strip.





Aharon

[GibsonGM]

Half-way there

[duck_arse]

nice heatsink.

[merlinb]

If you snip the tube out of the tube driver you basically get a valvecaster variant

[Colman]

this is another project I was working on ,finished now and works fine but a little strident with my champ, but I really built if for my Traynor YBA A1,I have to bring that to the front of the pile and put it through it's paces.I also have to modify the clean channel don't like it at all sounds thin, the distortion channel is much better but like I said through the champ even tho i run it with a 12" eminence Wizard(which is a trebly speaker to begin with)is too shrill.
Thanks Merlin,GibsonGM and duck_arse
Aharon

PS:the problem with the valve caster is that it does not sound good to me ,Ron Black's distortion sounded better if my memory serves me right when I built it years ago.

[Colman]

Forgot to mention what it was, it's a HotBox preamp.
Aharon

[merlinb]

PS:the problem with the valve caster is that it does not sound good to me ,Ron Black's distortion sounded better if my memory serves me right when I built it years ago.

That's probably because the tube is being driven by an opamp. Tubes at low voltage don't perform well with a high impedance source like straight from guitar pickups, so a valvecaster with an opamp front ened would probably sound a lot better too.