New Pedal day

[WRGKMC]

I have the AC tone which is the same kind of design except it gets Vox amp tones. This one does the Fender 57 Deluxe tones.

This are actually preamp/DI boxes. They work best in your amp loop or for direct recording.

 

I can get some really cool tones out of the AC Tone and I've read reviews by people who have both that this one is even better.

Got it off EBay new for $23 with free shipping. Its like how can you go wrong at that price. I may wind up getting the California and British tone too.

The California does the Mesa recto thing and the British is Marshall of course. Its not like I need those. I have Marshall pedals and I don't like the Boogie tones. Too scooped, but I'm thinking about incorporating these into a cab build. I have a 100W SS Fender red knob amp which I have built into a 4X10 cab. Its drive channel sucks but the cleans are good. I may put all 4 of these pedals on a board and run them through the loop or just use the power amp. I can then select whichever preamp module I choose.

 

I been itching to make a single 15" open backed cab for guitar. I have two Celestion 15's that sound incredible for guitar and I may use one in a combo cab build.

It will be portable so I can get it in my trunk and with these preamps I'll have some decent versatility. Then I can just use my mini pedal board with a couple of front end pedals.

If it doesn't work out I'll still use the cab for jams and small gigs. I love my 4X10 cab with Alnico Jensens but a 15 is a great speaker for rhythm. It puts out tones that work with the bassist.

 

 

 

 

[DeepEnd]

Congratulations. Happy New Pedal Day.

[WRGKMC]

Thanks Deep End.

 

I tried. it last night for about 2 hours through my little Marshall Valve State 15W amp testing its ranges. You can get everything from a clean scooped Fender tone to ZZ Top pinch harmonics and driven tones. Definitely a Jazz/Blues/Classic rock guitar monster.

 

I finally figured out how its design works electronically. Its got a three way EQ and clean gain, then it has two high gain circuits running in parallel. One adds drive to the mid EQ circuit without adding gain to treble and bass. The other adds drive to treble and bass. Between the two drive circuits you can blend the two drive tones together and get a wide range of Fender tones from a small combo tone up to a lush Blackface Bassman sound.

 

I plan on connecting it to may Bassman amp and A/B compare the active and bypassed setting to find the exact settings that match my Bassman head. Then I have my other Fender amp I can do the same then document those settings for recording purposes.

 

This box definitely has a hot, line level output however. When plugged into the front end of an amp, I have to taper the volume down to like #1 to match the signal strength of a pickup with the unit bypassed. Running the volume that low tends to suck the full effect of the unit down.

 

If I run the units volume at 50% the pedal sounds great but I have to crank the amp down. Then when I bypass the pedal, you cant barely hear the dry guitar.

 

I'll try this pedal recording and see if its signal level it overly high. My interface has both instrument and line level inputs. I might wind up adding a switch that adds resistance on the output level so I can bring the line level down to instrument level. This would give the pedal dual purpose functionality. I could run it at instrument level like any regular pedal or at line level as a preamp stage.

 

I also want to try it in an effects loop and see how it pushes a power amp. The toggle switch would only affect the active circuit not the bypassed. I likely need to add a resistor somewhere around 1~10K bit I have to look at the circuit first. I can easily figure it out through just trying different resistors. If it winds up working well I'll post a mod. I've done this on other pedals that have hot outputs and it works well.