Tone Navigator!

[Chankla135]

Does anyone have any information on the Carvin Frank Gambale Tone Navigator? If so, would you compare it to something like the Triaxis in tone or would you recommend anything else? thanks!

_chankla_

[Elric]

I think it is most useful to Jazz/Fusion type guys. The high gain crowd tends to hate it, so it's probably nowhere near a triaxis for heavy stuff, I'd guess.

[jimosity]

You can get metal tones out of it, but not quite as easily as some other preamps. You have to play with the EQs, which are pretty unique, to dial in some metally tones.

I've had two of them - the first one, I got rid of because I didn't think it had enough gain...

Then I ended up getting a second one a year or two later (still have it) in a trade deal, figured what the heck and checked it out again...

Metal tones are there, you just have to dial 'em in and get your EQ just right.

You can't really quite dime the gain on it and expect metal like some expect to do.

[3shiftgtr]

 

You can get metal tones out of it, but not quite as easily as some other preamps. You have to play with the EQs, which are pretty unique, to dial in some metally tones. I've had two of them - the first one, I got rid of because I didn't think it had enough gain... Then I ended up getting a second one a year or two later (still have it) in a trade deal, figured what the heck and checked it out again... Metal tones are there, you just have to dial 'em in and get your EQ just right. You can't really quite dime the gain on it and expect metal like some expect to do.

 

Hey jimosity;

I've had my eye on one too. How are the efx, and does it react well to playing dynamics? I'm kinda anal about my clean tone, and I need my distortions to be dynamic.

[jimosity]

It's got some great clean tones and great jangly distortions - reacts quite well to playing dynamics - it doesn't really have that solid state feel to it that a lot of solid state preamps do. It feels a little more organic.

The effects that it includes are pretty tame and not as tweakable as a stand alone effects unit would offer, but they aren't over-the-top effects either.

If you want some lite effects here and there, they are there, but it's not a good unit to try to use for effects only.

The effects are good - and usable, but not going to take the place of a G-Major or something along those lines.

I don't use many effects at all and the TN100 was able to satisfy my needs.

So - I guess if you're an 80's guy that wants to play thru a ton of reverb and delays with chorusy distortions, this probably isn't the preamp for you...but if you're happy with basic tones anywhere from clean to metal gain, it'll get you there and give you some basic effects to please those that only need the basic effects in moderation. Just know that the metal gains will require you to tweak out the EQs to get what you want.

[jimosity]

I spent a couple hours with my Tone Navigator last night and I think I would like to retract any of my previous posts about the tone.

It does just about any tone fairly easy and sounds awesome when you figure out how to tweak the two extra parametric EQs.

It went from a piece that I thought was pretty good, but still had up for sale for something else --- to off the block and I'm keeping it now.

 

I had been playing mine thru a solid state power amp, but last night ran it thru all three of my tube power amps and it sounds whip ass on all of 'em.