Tube OD?

[karbomusic]

How does it sound?

6505 reamped
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11178619/Mueller/6505%20reamp.MP3

Tube OD - 6505 reamped 
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11178619/Mueller/TubeOD%2B6505_Reamp.MP3
TubeOD settings - Drive 9o'clock/Tone 2o'clock/Level 2o'clock

Hey Jim,

Sounds great! My needs are likely in the tube, tube screamer range. I already have my own design/take on a standard TS idea with a blend circuit and other stuff that I really, like. It is by far my go to pedal:



However, the only thing that bugs me personally about it is riding that fine line where the signal is bouncing above and below the diode clipping threshold. It's not bad at all, I spent a lot of time taming it and am mostly happy with it but there are times where I possibly hyper focus on it when playing a song that requires I stay in that range.

Thusly, I thought I'd play with some tube designs to see where it took me but it's entirely possible I am barking up the wrong tree here. I have no plans on abandoning the current design but something in the same vein with tube(s) sounded appealing.

[J0K3RX]

I am guessing from looking at the pic of your El'Gato Overdrive pedal (which looks fantastic) that you and probably a lot of other people don't use an overdrive pedal in the same way that I do and most metal or heavy rock players do. I use a tube screamer or overdrive solely to tighten up the bottom end, give a tighter more percusive attack to a already heavily distorted high gain amp/preamp. I never use it to distort my guitar signal since I use most if not all of the distortion the amp can dish out then just give it the final assault by kickin it in the nuts with a tube screamer or close variant. Some people use a less distortion from the amp itself and then use the tube screamer to distort their guitar signal with less level puch, sort of a pre-preamp distortion.. You can tell by looking at the settings on the overdirve for example my settings with a standard issue TS808 or TS9 - Gain or Drive is either almost completely off or very low,Tone is set to the mid point or a little over and Level is maxed out or close to it. If I were to switch to the clean channel with the tube screamer on it would sound quite a bit more trebly but not distorted. I other words it's almost the reverse settings of the picture. Not saying that one way is right or wrong but rather it's a matter of preference and probably a lot has to do with what type of music you play. The settings that I use are are not exclusive to just metal players! Another fine example would be Stevie Ray Vaughan (God rest his soul) - The Drive knob would be off or extremely low; the Level would be full on or nearly full, and the Tone between 12:00 and 3:00.

I have often said jokingly that I was gonna make a tube screamer with just 1 knob, that being "Level" and have the Tone and Drive on trim pots hidden inside the pedal. For me that would serve the purpose perfectly as I usually set them just one time and never move them again. The only other thing I have used that gives me the same type of attack and tightens the low end is treble boosters and in some ways they are even better at it, but they have one fatal flaw that I have not been able to overcome and that is they produce so much noise! 

So, I guess it is how you use an overdrive which would determine wether or not a single double-triode or whatever would give you what you want.. or ... hell, I don't know?

[stallik]

But if you think that a simple 1 or 2 stage-cascading tube stompbox will be suitable for pushing a transistor amp into a tubey-like overdrive, you may be disappointed...

I don't use transistor amps on stage. This would go onto my pedalboard feeding my Boogie DC5 and would like a non-diode OD with tube(s) with potentially some breakup from the tubes as well as driving the input of the amp.

Somewhat off topic but I run a DC5 and every valve OD I've tried seems dissapointing to me though I've not had access to that many. Deadastro's Spitfire on the othe hand sounds really valvy with ithe Boogie on the clean Chanel and cleans up remarkably well with guitar volume. Yes, it's a distortion circuit really but it does great OD as well.
I'll be interested to hear what you end up with

[karbomusic]

I am guessing from looking at the pic of your El'Gato Overdrive pedal (which looks fantastic) that you and probably a lot of other people don't use an overdrive pedal in the same way that I do and most metal or heavy rock players do.

That is correct. Anything high gain, I'm perfectly happy with. It's the other 50% of the time where it is somewhere in between that I'm finessing. Notice the pedal above where the blend is at 50%, that means 50% pure clean signal blended in with the exception that I designed so that that clean side is boosted just as much as the dirt side (she can output close to >7V using an 18VDC power supply and 3.5 using a 9V) which pushes the input of the clean channel of the boogie. What the means is, I have some TS OD/DS being blended with boogie breaking up a little on its own. IOW, I'm blending two types of breakup but as I reduce the guitar volume some pure clean starts leaking through. Even without the volume knob reduced, the clean side provides definition that usually wouldn't be available in a TS design.

On a side note... That "push" switch is actually 'disengaging' 3 Ge diodes that are in series (which are also in parallel with the normal TS diodes). This results in a harmonic structure change and a boost in gain which allows me to use that switch to kick things up a notch if needed.  When that switch is off, there is a slight boost in even harmonics and a drop in gain. Since I run my strat with the tone knob reduced to 50% much of the time this particular rig almost has an old school ZZ top type sound, kinda sorta maybe as I've been told.

Anyway, enough about that, the thing I'm working on right now is that lower gain territory where I thought might be diode's challenge, when I kick it in to high gain, it's all good. Also, after all the time and experimentation designing that box, I'm really just nitpicking and refining ideas. I don't have a real problem per se, just looking for excuses.

[karbomusic]

Deadastro's Spitfire on the othe hand sounds really valvy with ithe Boogie on the clean Chanel and cleans up remarkably well with guitar volume. Yes, it's a distortion circuit really but it does great OD as well.

Good to know. I use the boogie's clean channel too then drive everything with my pedal board. I bought that amp brand new back in 1998 or so... love, love it.

[blackieNYC]

JOK3RX - regarding your amp dist. comment, don't you have some circuits of your own that give all the distortion one needs, or are they dependent on the amp being set to distortion?  I like my amp clean for a variety of sounds these days. I'm looking for a metal pedal, and your Blacker Forest is on the top of that list - but i should ask - with that circuit, is distortion required of the amp in order to bring the evil? (When I played solely metal I had older high wattage tube heads, but they offered little preamp distortion)
Hijack. Tube OD will be right back.

[karbomusic]

Hijack. Tube OD will be right back.

No worries, dirt is dirt so we can just have an OD/DS party.