Introduction
Note: this blog entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around April / 2011. Just revisiting it here, for it's possible interest.
If you are already done to tube swapping, you can completely forget this blog entry, which was written as a support for people that is still afraid of changing its first tube.
Some people seems not happy with the actual tone of their amp and, it's considering to try some tubes but, it's afraid about to swap tubes. It's really difficult to swap tubes?.
Really not. Can be a bit more tricky in some amps than other but, all that depends on how tubes were arranged in the amp and how easy is to access them and how much room do you have to move your hands around.
As I've already reasoned in a previous entry, called The Cost of the Cup of Tone, last tone generator is the one that really creates your tone so, consider first a change of speaker, if the overall tone doesn't satisfies you.
If you just need to polish some aspects of your current amp tone, a tube swapping can be of help. Amp is the tone generator before the speaker and, usually new tubes will cost less than a new speaker.
In previous entries (browse Page Amps, on the upper bar), we talked about how tubes work and, what they do in every position, as well as the gain cascade and, even tube types and how they sound.
We also clarified that no change of tube or speaker will dramatically change the core of your amp. In the same way a Les Paul will never sound the same as a Stratocaster or Telecaster, a classic gain amp will never sound as a modern hi gain amp. Tubes will not do that for you. Period. If this is what you are expecting, you need a new amp.
The right set of tubes for our own needs, can help to get exactly what we like more from our amp, at the levels we want to use it and, with our rest of rig.
Handle your tubes with care
Usually around the area were tubes are placed, there is no other component that can shock you. Usually, rest of components are hidden under the tubes and, it's safe to swap tubes.
Anyway, be sure to give sometime to tubes to go cold, after you switch off (and unplug) the amp.
While working, tubes reach really hot temperatures and can burn your fingers but, you can also damage them moving the tube while their internal components are still hot.
Also, be sure you don't accidentally touch any transformer that can be eventually close the tubes, because they go also really hot.
It seems that our finger's fat can damage tubes also, in similar way it happens with halogen bulbs (maybe because it creates areas where the temperature varies respect of the rest of the flash) so, it's a good idea to use some latex gloves, any paper, any drape, anything that avoids direct contact of your hands with the tube while allowing you to work comfortably.
Did I already said it?. Handle tube only when the are cold!. Be patient, mate. Wait until they go cold.
How to remove old ones and how to insert new tubes
Pre-amp 12AX7 tubes and family
Pre-amp tubes usually are, or inserted directly in their socket or, inserted and retained with something that pushes them against the socket (as some springs, brides, etc.).
They can be also inserted in their sockets and covered with a metallic cylinder. This cylinder is there to create a shield that will throw to ground any potential RF or EMI noise. This is often seen just for the very first pre-amp tube (V1) but, there are amp with more or all pre-amp tubes shielded.
If the tube is retained with the help of springs, we should first gently remove pulling up the strings to access the tube.
If what we have is that shielding cylinder, we just need to push the cylinder a bit down and, give it a quarter of turn, to pull it up and then, to discover the tube.
Once we see the tube naked, inserted in its socket, we start gently pulling up the tube while we move it in different directions or circularly. Just be gentle enough to avoid to bend the pins that were inserted in the socket.
Most of pre-amp tubes are of type 12AX7 and family and, all them have a clear gap between the first and last pin. To insert the new tube, you will just need to align that gap with same gap in the socket.
We will insert the tube also gently, moving it circularly or with small movements in several direction, until we see clearly all its pins perfectly inserted and that the bottom of the bottle lays on the socket.
Don't go really rude pushing hard the tube, you can break the socket or the tube flash. You need to use some force, indeed, but not so much.
Once in its socket, we can then to mount again the retaining springs or the metallic cylinder and, we are done.
You will do it with some religious feel the very first time but, after a couple or three tubes, you will do it with complete confidence.
Potencia EL84
EL84 tubes are very similar to 12AX7 pre-amp tubes but, bottles are wider and higher. They also have same number of pins and arranged in same way as 12AX7s. So you need to align that gap between the first and the last pin and proceed as explained for 12AX7 tubes.
Usually, amps that use EL84 don't require to re-bias your tubes. But, be sure your power amp was designed as cathode-biased (don't require re-biasing tubes).
Other Power tubes
Most of other power tubes (and a few of pre-amp tubes) have an octal (8 pins) socket and, they are aligned in a very different way than 12AX7s or EL84s.
But, in the center there is a circular hole, with some small square carving that serves as a guide for the central post in the tube, that also presents a circular shape with an small rectangle in a side, you will see how to easily align the tube post with the socket hole.
Those tubes can have also a different kind of retainer but, you will easily see how to move the retainer to free the tube.
Just be sure to correctly align the post with the hole, otherwise, you are in risk to damage your amp.
Usually amps loading EL34, KT66, KT77, KT88, 5881, 6L6 and 6V6GT tubes need to re-bias your tubes after you mounted new ones.
Always read your amp' specifications and be sure if you need to re-bias your new power tubes.
Important note
In case that your power tubes are in good condition, there is no real need to swap them.
The bigger impact in tone will be produced by swapping pre-amp tubes and, more specifically V1 (first tube) and PI (Phase Inverter or Driver).
Therefore, if you still don't know if your power tubes need to be re-biased, you can still change all your pre-amp tubes and check the changes in tone.
Remember: no pre-amp tube needs to be re-biased, never!. So, this is the easiest way.
Re-tubing example: Koch Studiotone Combo
Well, this one was my very first tube amp and, when I bought it, I had no idea about tubes (neither about amps, to be honest).
As it came stock, it sounded to me a bit cold and sterile, except under high gain settings.
I've early feel in the need of enhance its sound and, I bought several tube types, following some written tips available in TAD's page.
Without understanding the design of such and amp, and without knowing the different tonal characteristics of each specific tube, I was blinded swapping a tube here then there, with not great success. I've was even able to make it to sound worst.
With the time and, while I was saving some money to buy a couple more of tubes, from time to time, I was able to stock a couple or three of same tube types and, I was trying them in all positions until reaching a compromised solution that lasted for a long while.
With more stocked tubes and a better knowledge about how an amp works, which are the tasks of each position and how they affect to the the sound and, how each tube type sounds. I was able to fine tuning my first compromised solution.
As anything, to have success with a certain set of tubes can take a while but, the good thing is that once you've swapped a couple of tubes, you will loose your fear and, you will love to experience tube changes, that will help you to better understand your amp.
Video
Sometimes, an image can say more than 100 words so, I've prepared some video showing you how to swap tubes in this specific amp.
Video starts with a demo about how to substitute the pre-amp tubes in a Koch Studiotone Combo, with the security measures and handling recommendations already described above.
In the second part, I am testing the sound finally achieved, after swapping those tubes.
I am now around the 90% of the tone I was looking for this amp. As soon as I can swap those power tubes with some Genalec or Mullard reissues, I will be at 100%.
Everything about electric guitars world
18 May 2013
17 May 2013
Accessories: How to troubleshoot noise in our rig
Introduction
Noise is a bad beast for a musician. I am not talking about distortion, which we love, I am talking about that noise that seems to ruin our tone from time to time.
I've already know that the key to get rid of noise is a proper ground but, how in the heck can I know if my mains is ok?. How can I check which element is producing that noise, apart from disconnect everything and reconnect everything one at a time?.
I would like to compile here some external articles and videos that will help us to get rid of our noise. To be it was a good thing to discover some easy to use electrical tools to detect such an issues.
I hope this could help you to take control of your own issues.
I am not any kind of expert so, if you find something wrong here, please be kind and let me know it.
Mother Earth
As soon as you start searching information about electrical noise, GROUND (or EARTH) and SHIELDING immediately pop up in your face. Aren't they the same?. Anyway, what they are, at the end?.
Ground or Earth
While in USA this concept is known as Ground, in Europe is usually named Earth but, both concepts are equivalent and mean the same.
What is voltage?.
Voltage is the difference of potential electric energy between two spots in a circuit.
We must understand this: it's a DIFFERENCE and, that means that difference will be the same, whichever the REFERENCE value is.
So, if the expected voltage at spot B is 220V respect of spot A, it means that B - A = 220V and, it doesn't matter if A = 0V or A= 400V, the difference between both spots will be always 220V.
To better understand how it works, let's talk about a better known analogy: Potential Energy.
As soon as you lift any object to any height, that object accumulates potential energy. The higher you lift the object, the more potential energy it accumulates. This "sleeping" energy will be released as kinetic energy as soon as you release the object. The higher the object was lifted, the harder the object will impact the ground.
Voltage is analog to Potential Energy. The higher the difference between two spots in a circuit, the more available potential energy (that the electrical device has available to perform its tasks).
But, in the same way that we refer Height to a reference value (Sea Level, by example), we need a reference spot in electricity. This reference value is Ground (Earth), whichever the real voltage of Earth is.
Ground / Earth
So, how can any kind of device measure that reference value?.
The truth is that Ground or Earth is really that!.
All our (modern) home electrical installations have 3 wires: Live / Neutral and Ground and, all our modern cables / plugs should have same 3 prongs.
The ground wire of our whole home installation should be linked together and, it will end in a metallic rod or post that is inserted in ground so, that wire is in real contact with ground or Earth.
Ground is to electrical safety as Air Bag is to car's safety. Is our Air Bag for most of electrical dangers and, you should take it really seriously. By example, if your amp isn't properly ground and you accidentally touch its metallic frame, you could get a shock.
But ground is more than just an electrical safety trick, ground helps to "throw" to ground electrical noises.
No ground or bad ground equals to noise.
Noise Knight' Shield
What Shielding means?.
Apart of the noises that any device can introduce in the line by itself, this device can catch environmental noises as Radio Frecuency (RF) or Electro-Magnetic Interferences (EMI). We are all surrounded by electrical and magnetic fields everywhere and, some devices or electronics parts are more sensitive to those and can even amplify the loudness of such noises.
Our Noise Knight needs a shield to be protected against such a kind of interferences.
Faraday already discovered that that kind of noises were cought by any conductive surface and, that if you link that surface to ground, noise is being thrown to ground. So, the idea was to enclose any electronics component inside a metallic cage (named Faraday's cage) and, connect such a cage to ground.
You will often see electronics components enclosed in some metallic case that hidden the electronics inside, that case is there to shield the component and, as soon as you connect such a case to a good ground, any potential noise catch by such a case will be thrown to ground, leaving your signal clear.
We shield the guitar's electronic cavity to enclose all our electronics components inside a cage that will get rid of that kind of noises, as soon as we properly ground it. For that we need a true closed cage (walls and tap covered with some conductive surface and linked to ground).
The pot's case is a Faraday's case. The metallic foil inside cables, surrounding the signal conductor is a Faraday's cage. The shielded conductor that outputs our old humbuckers is a Faraday's cage. The Pickup's cover (soldered to the metallic plate that supports pickup components) is a Faraday's cage (and a good reason to use metallic covers in pickups).
All these elements help to control such a noise. Any hole there and, you can potentially start having noise issues (depending on the RF and EMI "contamination" of your environment).
We know that some fluorescent lights, mobiles, etc. introduce noises.
But we aware of this: you can have a perfect Faraday's cage but, if you don't connect it to ground, the noise will be not dampened to ground.
Ground Loops
Even if you have anything properly shielded and correctly grounded, you can still have noise due to Ground Loops.
What a ground loop is?.
A ground loop can happen every time you have a signal's ground connected to two devices that are ground in different plugs. By example, you route your guitar signal thru an ABY box to two amps and, each amp is being plugged to a different wall socket.
The ground in your signal's cable tries to choose between the two grounds provided by both amps, which compete for ground.
I bet (but I don't know it for sure) that noise comes because those two different ground spots haven't exactly the same voltage (reference value).
Ground Quality
Not, man, we are not talking here if ground is good for potatoes or rice.
As everything is being connected to ground and all noises are thrown to ground it is possible that some of the noises that our neighbor is throwing to ground can be induced in our own ground.
I think (but I don't know it for sure) that this could happen because the ground voltage can be different at each spot where you measure it.
Anyway, sometimes some engines connected to the electrical line where you and your neighbor are linked can induce engine noises in your home's main.
This can be named a bad ground and, can ruin all the effort you've put to properly shield and ground your gear.
I think that, even in your own home, this kind of situation can happen, what talks also about the bad quality of your ground network.
Weapons for our Noise Knight
Ok we can more or less understand what we discussed above and make our best to have it all controlled but, in case we did everything we could and we still have noise, how do we know what's wrong?.
And, once we identified what's wrong, how can we fix it?.
Let concentrate now in our guitarist hear, to get the picture.
We have a rod inserted in ground and, linked to a ground wire network that reaches our wall socket, ready to link our devices to such a ground.
We plug our amp in such a socket and, it's being ground (it's own ground network is being physically put in contact with our home ground rod).
We plug our guitar to such an amp and, all our guitar's ground network is connected to amp's ground network that is connected to our home ground.
If we insert pedals, same should happen with all them.
If we use AC/DC transformers to supply our pedals, those should follow same rules.
Ok. Theoretically, we have everything rightly shielded and grounded so... why do we still get noise there?.
Firstly, we should be clear that our rig generates it's own noise so, there is some noise types and levels that can be understood as "regular noise".
By example, pickup's coils are responsible for generating our signal but, they introduce their own floor noise.
Humbuckers were designed to remove such a noise and, they do it at a certain level. To effectively cancel the noise both coils of a humbucker should be exact clones. But, for sure, the floor noise of any humbucker is usually way lower than the floor noise in a true single coil pickup.
Amps are generating their own noise. Each electronic component can add its own noise. It's well known that carbon resistors are really noisy (but, they seem to provide the most musical signal in a tube amp!!!). It's also well known that tubes create their own noise (hisses, pops, cracks, ...). At the end, the amp with nothing plugged there could present some "regular operating noise". It can sound quiet while volume and gain controls are low but, it could be clearly heard when you rise any or both controls.
Since the signal level of our guitar is really weak, we are amplifying its level with the help of several gain stages. After each gain stage, the original signal level was raised and, together with the "good things", the floor noise level that was present before the gain stage is being raised in the same ratio.
Each pedal effect introduces its own noises also and, very specially, modulation or filter effects. Any gain pedal pushes up the existing floor noise.
So, we have to take into consideration all this and be conscious that our rig will have certain "regular operating floor noise", that will depend on the sum of all those noises and how much were they pushed up by our several gain stages.
Checking sockets
If you have not "regular operating floor noise" but higher noise than expected, it's a good thing to firstly check your sockets, where you plug your gear. And, we aren't talking just about wall sockets, we are also talking about the socket of any extension cable or extension sockets.
Sometimes, you buy some sockets extension rule apparently ready for Line / Neutral / Ground but then, they've didn't used a three-wires cables and that ground is just a fake!.
Sometimes, someone forgot to link that ground wire in your wall socket or, someone wired the three wires in a wrong way.
Fortunately, we have some Socket Testers. Relatively cheap devices that, once plugged in the socket we want to check, they inform us about any kind of issue with the help of three led lights.
This will help us to identify if our gear was plugged to a right wall socket, a right extension cable or rule of sockets, etc. Due to the electrical shock risk, it's is highly recommended to have it one ready at any time to check the sockets where you have to plug your rig (home, studio, gigs...).
Remember, a properly ground rig isn't just safe, it makes your sound better.
Check additional info section at the end.
Checking low voltages
There are some tools named Low Voltage Testers that help us to identify the presence of low voltage electricity in our rig. This helps to trace back which spot in our rig is the one that introduces noise in our signal (it can be just a mains cord over a guitar cable, inducing current).
Check additional info section at the end.
Each illness has it's own medicine
We already discussed most of the ways noise can be present in our rig. Some are easier to control by us, some are harder.
Start with source: our guitar
The best shielded you have your guitar, the best possibilities to get rid of environmental noises you will have.
A proper shielded guitar cavity can do very good things for you. Use conductive paint in wall and some metallic conductive-auto-adhesive foils to cover your pickguard or cavity's tap.
Don't forget that this Faraday's cage should be connected to your guitar's ground network.
If you have a pot lying over the shielded pickguard or shielded cavity and, the case of such a pot is linked to your jack's sleeve, don't worry, your Faraday's cage will ground (as soon as your amp is ground).
Remember that covered humbuckers will produce the lower floor noise of all pickup types. Maybe your guitar looks sexier without pickup covers and, maybe the sound is a bit duller with covers but, if noise is what worries you, this is just one more thing to take into account.
Any cable that runs outside your electronics cavity, by example, from pots to 3-way switch in Gibson's Les Paul or, from cavity to jack, should be a shielded conductor (solder signal to jack's tip and shield -that metallic jacket- to jack's sleeve), while inside the cavity, you don't need shielded wires (because they are protected by your Faraday's cage).
Remember that single coils will present a higher level of noise than any humbucker (covered or uncovered).
There are single coils that have a stacked dummy coil just to cancel hum but, as you already know this affects the tone.
Second step: our guitar cords
Many people thinks that cables make no difference and, if they do some, it's just a capacitance issue that can be solved with the help of a buffer.
In my previous entry What is a good guitar cable? I've already discussed about the differences between guitar cables and, what should be considered when choosing one or the other.
It's a fact that not all cables have same shielding ratio and quality and, some go microphonics. A cable is (know what?) a Faraday's cage also so, the better the shield the purest the signal.
Be sure your cables have no issues (sometimes, are broken in some part of their length introducing intermittent noises). Hit the cable with something (a screwdriver or whatever) to check if the sound is clearly audible in your amp, to check if your cable has microphonic issues.
Be sure your patch cords, that you use for your pedals, are also of quality and are free of issues.
Third step: our amp
With a low gain/volume level and no guitar plugged, the amp should present no noise when plugged to the wall socket, if ground is correct. When raising gain/volume controls the operational floor noise of the amp will be heard but, it should be a reasonable operational noise.
If you are using some extension cable to plug your amp, maybe your wall socket is correctly ground but your extension isn't so, check everything.
Forth step: our AC/DC transformers and Power Suppliers
To avoid having to substituting dying batteries in our pedals and, be in the situation where we loose our effect in the middle of a gig, we often use some Power Supply Unit to feed our pedal effects, what's nice.
But, not all those kind of transformers are made in the same way and some can be a source of noise.
By example, those power supply units can have a two-prongs plugs to connect them to electricity, while others will correctly use 3-prongs plugs. We've already discussed about ground issues a lot, right?.
Think that the ground of your guitar, pedals and amp are connected also to that... wait... no ground! of that power supply or transformer.
Also, some Power Suppliers will have a toroidal (or other) transformer inside that will physically de-couple your mains ground from the rest of grounds, what helps to filter some ground induced noises, while preserving a "virtual" (induced) link between both grounds.
Those, usually have isolated outputs, that have that "virtual" link between output sockets but that ensure that the issues in one socket (pedal effect) doesn't affect the rest of outputs.
A good example is this kind of Power Supply Unit is the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus, highly recommended.
Five step: a Noise Gate
If we still find that our floor noise is unacceptable, we have one of the most detested solutions for a guitarist: to use a Noise Gate in our pedal chain.
A Noise Gate works the opposite to a Compressor. You set up the threshold for the acceptable minimum signal level or maximum noise level and, whatever signal below that threshold will be pushed down to practically zero value. This gets rid of the noise, indeed, but often cuts the tail of our sound and, our softer parts are compromised, as well as our dynamics.
In my tests, there is just one single Noise Gate that works practically pefect: the ISP Decimator G-String. Even the regular ISP Decimator cannot work as good as the G-String version.
If you cannot solve your issues in other way, maybe this will help you but, consider that your dynamics and sound can be compromised.
Line issues
Until here, we were taking care of the noises that our rig can introduce but, there are other noises that can be introduced by the mains lines also.
As we saw, first is a good thing to check all sockets, for a proper installation and to be sure that they are grounded.
We can also check the low voltage issues with the help of that Low Voltage Tester with discussed above.
Then, what to do with other induced noises?.
This is the hardest part and the expensive one. In the worst case, we will need Filtering Units to filter the noise in our mains but, we can still test some cheaper options before.
There are cheap Power Conditioner units that help to protect our rig from mains anomalies and that include some filters (RF, EMI and others). A cheap unit is the Phonics 9000E, by example. The better the filters, the less the noise so, the expansive the unit (like the well established Furman's Power Conditioners line).
A Power / Voltage / Tension Regulator can help also here in several ways. Those devices are accepting a broad range of input voltages (by example from 120V to 260V for a 220V nominal line) but, delivering a barely constant voltage level (220 +/- x%).
This is actually one of my main issues, since I'm getting readings that go from 185V to 237V in just the space of a minute!.
A constant voltage will make your rig to sound in the way it was designed for and, will keep your components in the right voltage levels for which they were designed to operate.
Those units often include protection and filtering and, often, a ground-decoupling via some transformed. Everything together helps to "clean" your lines.
An UPS is some kind of Voltage Regulator with the additional help of use a battery in case of a mains failure, that will provide you of energy for a certain amount of time. Same comments as per Voltage Regulators apply here.
For any of those devices, you should check your power needs, calculating the maximum power that you will need for your complete rig: amp + pedals + power suppliers + whatever.
If your amp's mains plug operates at 220V and drains 3A, your amp can potentially consume 220V * 3A = 660W (maybe just to deliver 50W RMS at its output!).
If your pedal power supply operates at 220V and drains a maximum of 450mA it can potentially consume 220V * 0.450A = 99W.
So, sum up everything together to be sure you get the right device for your needs.
In some studios, were the quality of audio is of even higher importance, there are specific filter units that get rid of noises that occur at certain frequency ranges and, that cannot be solved with that "regular" equipment we discussed above. Those are out of any regular pocket, sure.
Additional Info
As I stated in the beginning, I am not expert in such a kind of things so, I wanted to share with you what some more knowledgeable people says about this topics.
All you wanted to know about guitar' shielding and grounding was clearly discussed by uOpt, a member of Seymour Duncan's forum, in this thread:
Catalog of Shields and Grounds in an Electric Guitar
I cannot add anything else!.
All we've already discussed about grounds, ground loops, socket and low voltage testers can be found (it's were I've learnt it from) in Taylor Guitar's Youtube videos.
These are PURE GOLD videos. Watch and hear them, your spent time will be rewarded!.
I highly hope all this information can help you to get rid of your noise, in the way it helped me.
At least, I am way clearer about what to check!.
Noise is a bad beast for a musician. I am not talking about distortion, which we love, I am talking about that noise that seems to ruin our tone from time to time.
I've already know that the key to get rid of noise is a proper ground but, how in the heck can I know if my mains is ok?. How can I check which element is producing that noise, apart from disconnect everything and reconnect everything one at a time?.
I would like to compile here some external articles and videos that will help us to get rid of our noise. To be it was a good thing to discover some easy to use electrical tools to detect such an issues.
I hope this could help you to take control of your own issues.
I am not any kind of expert so, if you find something wrong here, please be kind and let me know it.
Mother Earth
As soon as you start searching information about electrical noise, GROUND (or EARTH) and SHIELDING immediately pop up in your face. Aren't they the same?. Anyway, what they are, at the end?.
Ground or Earth
While in USA this concept is known as Ground, in Europe is usually named Earth but, both concepts are equivalent and mean the same.
What is voltage?.
Voltage is the difference of potential electric energy between two spots in a circuit.
We must understand this: it's a DIFFERENCE and, that means that difference will be the same, whichever the REFERENCE value is.
So, if the expected voltage at spot B is 220V respect of spot A, it means that B - A = 220V and, it doesn't matter if A = 0V or A= 400V, the difference between both spots will be always 220V.
To better understand how it works, let's talk about a better known analogy: Potential Energy.
As soon as you lift any object to any height, that object accumulates potential energy. The higher you lift the object, the more potential energy it accumulates. This "sleeping" energy will be released as kinetic energy as soon as you release the object. The higher the object was lifted, the harder the object will impact the ground.
Voltage is analog to Potential Energy. The higher the difference between two spots in a circuit, the more available potential energy (that the electrical device has available to perform its tasks).
But, in the same way that we refer Height to a reference value (Sea Level, by example), we need a reference spot in electricity. This reference value is Ground (Earth), whichever the real voltage of Earth is.
Ground / Earth
So, how can any kind of device measure that reference value?.
The truth is that Ground or Earth is really that!.
All our (modern) home electrical installations have 3 wires: Live / Neutral and Ground and, all our modern cables / plugs should have same 3 prongs.
The ground wire of our whole home installation should be linked together and, it will end in a metallic rod or post that is inserted in ground so, that wire is in real contact with ground or Earth.
Ground is to electrical safety as Air Bag is to car's safety. Is our Air Bag for most of electrical dangers and, you should take it really seriously. By example, if your amp isn't properly ground and you accidentally touch its metallic frame, you could get a shock.
But ground is more than just an electrical safety trick, ground helps to "throw" to ground electrical noises.
No ground or bad ground equals to noise.
Noise Knight' Shield
What Shielding means?.
Apart of the noises that any device can introduce in the line by itself, this device can catch environmental noises as Radio Frecuency (RF) or Electro-Magnetic Interferences (EMI). We are all surrounded by electrical and magnetic fields everywhere and, some devices or electronics parts are more sensitive to those and can even amplify the loudness of such noises.
Our Noise Knight needs a shield to be protected against such a kind of interferences.
Faraday already discovered that that kind of noises were cought by any conductive surface and, that if you link that surface to ground, noise is being thrown to ground. So, the idea was to enclose any electronics component inside a metallic cage (named Faraday's cage) and, connect such a cage to ground.
You will often see electronics components enclosed in some metallic case that hidden the electronics inside, that case is there to shield the component and, as soon as you connect such a case to a good ground, any potential noise catch by such a case will be thrown to ground, leaving your signal clear.
We shield the guitar's electronic cavity to enclose all our electronics components inside a cage that will get rid of that kind of noises, as soon as we properly ground it. For that we need a true closed cage (walls and tap covered with some conductive surface and linked to ground).
The pot's case is a Faraday's case. The metallic foil inside cables, surrounding the signal conductor is a Faraday's cage. The shielded conductor that outputs our old humbuckers is a Faraday's cage. The Pickup's cover (soldered to the metallic plate that supports pickup components) is a Faraday's cage (and a good reason to use metallic covers in pickups).
All these elements help to control such a noise. Any hole there and, you can potentially start having noise issues (depending on the RF and EMI "contamination" of your environment).
We know that some fluorescent lights, mobiles, etc. introduce noises.
But we aware of this: you can have a perfect Faraday's cage but, if you don't connect it to ground, the noise will be not dampened to ground.
Ground Loops
Even if you have anything properly shielded and correctly grounded, you can still have noise due to Ground Loops.
What a ground loop is?.
A ground loop can happen every time you have a signal's ground connected to two devices that are ground in different plugs. By example, you route your guitar signal thru an ABY box to two amps and, each amp is being plugged to a different wall socket.
The ground in your signal's cable tries to choose between the two grounds provided by both amps, which compete for ground.
I bet (but I don't know it for sure) that noise comes because those two different ground spots haven't exactly the same voltage (reference value).
Ground Quality
Not, man, we are not talking here if ground is good for potatoes or rice.
As everything is being connected to ground and all noises are thrown to ground it is possible that some of the noises that our neighbor is throwing to ground can be induced in our own ground.
I think (but I don't know it for sure) that this could happen because the ground voltage can be different at each spot where you measure it.
Anyway, sometimes some engines connected to the electrical line where you and your neighbor are linked can induce engine noises in your home's main.
This can be named a bad ground and, can ruin all the effort you've put to properly shield and ground your gear.
I think that, even in your own home, this kind of situation can happen, what talks also about the bad quality of your ground network.
Weapons for our Noise Knight
Ok we can more or less understand what we discussed above and make our best to have it all controlled but, in case we did everything we could and we still have noise, how do we know what's wrong?.
And, once we identified what's wrong, how can we fix it?.
Let concentrate now in our guitarist hear, to get the picture.
We have a rod inserted in ground and, linked to a ground wire network that reaches our wall socket, ready to link our devices to such a ground.
We plug our amp in such a socket and, it's being ground (it's own ground network is being physically put in contact with our home ground rod).
We plug our guitar to such an amp and, all our guitar's ground network is connected to amp's ground network that is connected to our home ground.
If we insert pedals, same should happen with all them.
If we use AC/DC transformers to supply our pedals, those should follow same rules.
Ok. Theoretically, we have everything rightly shielded and grounded so... why do we still get noise there?.
Firstly, we should be clear that our rig generates it's own noise so, there is some noise types and levels that can be understood as "regular noise".
By example, pickup's coils are responsible for generating our signal but, they introduce their own floor noise.
Humbuckers were designed to remove such a noise and, they do it at a certain level. To effectively cancel the noise both coils of a humbucker should be exact clones. But, for sure, the floor noise of any humbucker is usually way lower than the floor noise in a true single coil pickup.
Amps are generating their own noise. Each electronic component can add its own noise. It's well known that carbon resistors are really noisy (but, they seem to provide the most musical signal in a tube amp!!!). It's also well known that tubes create their own noise (hisses, pops, cracks, ...). At the end, the amp with nothing plugged there could present some "regular operating noise". It can sound quiet while volume and gain controls are low but, it could be clearly heard when you rise any or both controls.
Since the signal level of our guitar is really weak, we are amplifying its level with the help of several gain stages. After each gain stage, the original signal level was raised and, together with the "good things", the floor noise level that was present before the gain stage is being raised in the same ratio.
Each pedal effect introduces its own noises also and, very specially, modulation or filter effects. Any gain pedal pushes up the existing floor noise.
So, we have to take into consideration all this and be conscious that our rig will have certain "regular operating floor noise", that will depend on the sum of all those noises and how much were they pushed up by our several gain stages.
Checking sockets
If you have not "regular operating floor noise" but higher noise than expected, it's a good thing to firstly check your sockets, where you plug your gear. And, we aren't talking just about wall sockets, we are also talking about the socket of any extension cable or extension sockets.
Sometimes, you buy some sockets extension rule apparently ready for Line / Neutral / Ground but then, they've didn't used a three-wires cables and that ground is just a fake!.
Sometimes, someone forgot to link that ground wire in your wall socket or, someone wired the three wires in a wrong way.
Fortunately, we have some Socket Testers. Relatively cheap devices that, once plugged in the socket we want to check, they inform us about any kind of issue with the help of three led lights.
This will help us to identify if our gear was plugged to a right wall socket, a right extension cable or rule of sockets, etc. Due to the electrical shock risk, it's is highly recommended to have it one ready at any time to check the sockets where you have to plug your rig (home, studio, gigs...).
Remember, a properly ground rig isn't just safe, it makes your sound better.
Check additional info section at the end.
Checking low voltages
There are some tools named Low Voltage Testers that help us to identify the presence of low voltage electricity in our rig. This helps to trace back which spot in our rig is the one that introduces noise in our signal (it can be just a mains cord over a guitar cable, inducing current).
Check additional info section at the end.
Each illness has it's own medicine
We already discussed most of the ways noise can be present in our rig. Some are easier to control by us, some are harder.
Start with source: our guitar
The best shielded you have your guitar, the best possibilities to get rid of environmental noises you will have.
A proper shielded guitar cavity can do very good things for you. Use conductive paint in wall and some metallic conductive-auto-adhesive foils to cover your pickguard or cavity's tap.
Don't forget that this Faraday's cage should be connected to your guitar's ground network.
If you have a pot lying over the shielded pickguard or shielded cavity and, the case of such a pot is linked to your jack's sleeve, don't worry, your Faraday's cage will ground (as soon as your amp is ground).
Remember that covered humbuckers will produce the lower floor noise of all pickup types. Maybe your guitar looks sexier without pickup covers and, maybe the sound is a bit duller with covers but, if noise is what worries you, this is just one more thing to take into account.
Any cable that runs outside your electronics cavity, by example, from pots to 3-way switch in Gibson's Les Paul or, from cavity to jack, should be a shielded conductor (solder signal to jack's tip and shield -that metallic jacket- to jack's sleeve), while inside the cavity, you don't need shielded wires (because they are protected by your Faraday's cage).
Remember that single coils will present a higher level of noise than any humbucker (covered or uncovered).
There are single coils that have a stacked dummy coil just to cancel hum but, as you already know this affects the tone.
Second step: our guitar cords
Many people thinks that cables make no difference and, if they do some, it's just a capacitance issue that can be solved with the help of a buffer.
In my previous entry What is a good guitar cable? I've already discussed about the differences between guitar cables and, what should be considered when choosing one or the other.
It's a fact that not all cables have same shielding ratio and quality and, some go microphonics. A cable is (know what?) a Faraday's cage also so, the better the shield the purest the signal.
Be sure your cables have no issues (sometimes, are broken in some part of their length introducing intermittent noises). Hit the cable with something (a screwdriver or whatever) to check if the sound is clearly audible in your amp, to check if your cable has microphonic issues.
Be sure your patch cords, that you use for your pedals, are also of quality and are free of issues.
Third step: our amp
With a low gain/volume level and no guitar plugged, the amp should present no noise when plugged to the wall socket, if ground is correct. When raising gain/volume controls the operational floor noise of the amp will be heard but, it should be a reasonable operational noise.
If you are using some extension cable to plug your amp, maybe your wall socket is correctly ground but your extension isn't so, check everything.
Forth step: our AC/DC transformers and Power Suppliers
To avoid having to substituting dying batteries in our pedals and, be in the situation where we loose our effect in the middle of a gig, we often use some Power Supply Unit to feed our pedal effects, what's nice.
But, not all those kind of transformers are made in the same way and some can be a source of noise.
By example, those power supply units can have a two-prongs plugs to connect them to electricity, while others will correctly use 3-prongs plugs. We've already discussed about ground issues a lot, right?.
Think that the ground of your guitar, pedals and amp are connected also to that... wait... no ground! of that power supply or transformer.
Also, some Power Suppliers will have a toroidal (or other) transformer inside that will physically de-couple your mains ground from the rest of grounds, what helps to filter some ground induced noises, while preserving a "virtual" (induced) link between both grounds.
Those, usually have isolated outputs, that have that "virtual" link between output sockets but that ensure that the issues in one socket (pedal effect) doesn't affect the rest of outputs.
A good example is this kind of Power Supply Unit is the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus, highly recommended.
Five step: a Noise Gate
If we still find that our floor noise is unacceptable, we have one of the most detested solutions for a guitarist: to use a Noise Gate in our pedal chain.
A Noise Gate works the opposite to a Compressor. You set up the threshold for the acceptable minimum signal level or maximum noise level and, whatever signal below that threshold will be pushed down to practically zero value. This gets rid of the noise, indeed, but often cuts the tail of our sound and, our softer parts are compromised, as well as our dynamics.
In my tests, there is just one single Noise Gate that works practically pefect: the ISP Decimator G-String. Even the regular ISP Decimator cannot work as good as the G-String version.
If you cannot solve your issues in other way, maybe this will help you but, consider that your dynamics and sound can be compromised.
Line issues
Until here, we were taking care of the noises that our rig can introduce but, there are other noises that can be introduced by the mains lines also.
As we saw, first is a good thing to check all sockets, for a proper installation and to be sure that they are grounded.
We can also check the low voltage issues with the help of that Low Voltage Tester with discussed above.
Then, what to do with other induced noises?.
This is the hardest part and the expensive one. In the worst case, we will need Filtering Units to filter the noise in our mains but, we can still test some cheaper options before.
There are cheap Power Conditioner units that help to protect our rig from mains anomalies and that include some filters (RF, EMI and others). A cheap unit is the Phonics 9000E, by example. The better the filters, the less the noise so, the expansive the unit (like the well established Furman's Power Conditioners line).
A Power / Voltage / Tension Regulator can help also here in several ways. Those devices are accepting a broad range of input voltages (by example from 120V to 260V for a 220V nominal line) but, delivering a barely constant voltage level (220 +/- x%).
This is actually one of my main issues, since I'm getting readings that go from 185V to 237V in just the space of a minute!.
A constant voltage will make your rig to sound in the way it was designed for and, will keep your components in the right voltage levels for which they were designed to operate.
Those units often include protection and filtering and, often, a ground-decoupling via some transformed. Everything together helps to "clean" your lines.
An UPS is some kind of Voltage Regulator with the additional help of use a battery in case of a mains failure, that will provide you of energy for a certain amount of time. Same comments as per Voltage Regulators apply here.
For any of those devices, you should check your power needs, calculating the maximum power that you will need for your complete rig: amp + pedals + power suppliers + whatever.
If your amp's mains plug operates at 220V and drains 3A, your amp can potentially consume 220V * 3A = 660W (maybe just to deliver 50W RMS at its output!).
If your pedal power supply operates at 220V and drains a maximum of 450mA it can potentially consume 220V * 0.450A = 99W.
So, sum up everything together to be sure you get the right device for your needs.
In some studios, were the quality of audio is of even higher importance, there are specific filter units that get rid of noises that occur at certain frequency ranges and, that cannot be solved with that "regular" equipment we discussed above. Those are out of any regular pocket, sure.
Additional Info
As I stated in the beginning, I am not expert in such a kind of things so, I wanted to share with you what some more knowledgeable people says about this topics.
All you wanted to know about guitar' shielding and grounding was clearly discussed by uOpt, a member of Seymour Duncan's forum, in this thread:
Catalog of Shields and Grounds in an Electric Guitar
I cannot add anything else!.
All we've already discussed about grounds, ground loops, socket and low voltage testers can be found (it's were I've learnt it from) in Taylor Guitar's Youtube videos.
These are PURE GOLD videos. Watch and hear them, your spent time will be rewarded!.
I highly hope all this information can help you to get rid of your noise, in the way it helped me.
At least, I am way clearer about what to check!.
10 May 2013
Guitars: Charvel Pro-Mod San Dimas Type 1 Japanese
Introduction
Note: this entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around April / 2011. I am just revisiting it here.
I've got a nice friend of mine that, after an urgent GAS attack, bought a Charvel Pro-Mod San Dimas Type 1 and, he was pushing me hard to test the guitar and hang some youtube demo, comparing this Japanese version to my American Charvel SoCal Type 1.
With this blog entry and that video, I hope to accomplish my friend's willing and, maybe this will be helpful to fight against the typical myth: "American guitars are best".
Presentation
Charvel was born building Custom Guitars, at a very high price and, with high consideration among guitarists. Some day (I guess after it was bought by Fender), they decided to release some production series, at "affordable" prices and, such a production was started in USA.
In that moment, I was just looking for an "acceptable" guitar loading an "acceptable" Floyd Rose bridge and, after seeing the offer by Charvel I couldn't do anything else but bought one. It was a real bargain, just 1000 Eur for such a guitar!.
My guitar was part of the Production Batch number 6 and, if memory doesn't fail, last USA produced batch was number 7. It seems that costs were so high (man labour, I guess) in USA that they decided to move such a production to Fujigen factory, in Japan. Fujigen builds awesome guitars, as the Ibanez Prestige, by example.
You know, people started screaming "I don't want a Japanese guitar, I want it American!.
I've tested several Japanese guitars and, they always seemed to me very well finished and with awesome factory settings. Even Shur prefers Gotoh bridges to Original Floyd Rose!.
So, I was very confident that that new Japanese version of the Charvel Production series would have same or best quality than the American one but, things should be tested to be sure.
And, that's all about this blog entry. I've tested the Japanese version, compared it to my American one and, I wanted to share with you my impressions.
Differences?
Are them so different?. Nah!. Just minor differences.
Respect of hardware, both are mounting exacting the same.
Wood type is the same and, apparently both of same density, because they both weight barely the same.
Neck is barely the same, and that's the key piece in a Charvel.
Peghead looks the same and, size and shape of body is exactly the same.
Neck joint is the same.
So... which are the differences?.
First difference is that the model SoCal has a pickguard, while the San Dimas one hasn't it.
Well, I prefer myself pickguards, because it allows you to mod the guitar without having to route the wood.
The SoCal body is being routed to accept an H-S-H pickup layout (humbucker - single - humbucker) so, It could support any potential pickup arrangement, different from the stock one. To change pickup configuration in San Dimas will need to route the wood.
To add any new toggle switch or pot in San Dimas will require new routing also, in SoCal only the pickguard will be affected and, if you change your mind, you can go for a new pickguard, always.
That's why I usually prefer pickguards in guitars.
Second difference is the finishing of the border of the fingerboard.
Those borders are being carved, in a way that resembles me fret' scalloping but, instead of to scallop the whole fret horizontally, just the border was scalloped vertically.
Well, one of the drawbacks I have with my SoCal is that when performing extreme dive bombings, often the first string gets trapped in that border, when releasing the FR tremolo. This never happened when testing the San Dimas, maybe this is the function for those carved borders, at the end.
Appart of that, radius, finishing, feeling, everything looks the same in both guitars.
Last difference are pickups. SoCal comes stock with Dimarzio's (Bridge ToneZone and Neck Evo), while the San Dimas comes with Seymour Duncan's (Neck '59 and Bridge JB).
To be honest, both sets of pickups work awesome in their respective axes. They were very well selected for both models and, you will have no issues using one or the other. But, when I bought the SoCal, I also ordered a set of BareKnuckle's Nailbombs to load the SoCal, because I am not a fan of Dimarzio pickups (even that the Evo is probably my preferred Dimarzio's Neck).
Usually, I prefer Seymour Duncan's or Bareknuckle. Custom SD's are often expensive than boutique Barenuckle's here, in Europe.
'59 and JB are probably the most mounted set of SD pickups of all the times. If you think in a couple of SD humbuckers, those are always the natural election. The '59 is a very rich sounding PAF-alike pickup, very vocal and with some kind of rawness that I love but, It can go blurred and undefined when pushed hard. The JB is a hate/love pickup. While the '59 works practically in every axe, the extreme EQ of the JB (bump in mid-highs) can sound harsh and even piercing in some axes but, the JB works awesome in Strato-alike guitars and, it's a perfect choice for this San Dimas. I was gratefully surprised about how nice both classic SD's deliver in this axe. Sure, a hot driven JB has no competence and, sounds way better than the ToneZone (which is the closer Dimarzio's model to SD JB).
And now, the big surprise. The Japanese axe comes with a hard case!!!!!!!!.
The American hadn't even a soft case!.
The San Dimas case is similar to Ibanez cases (well, it is made in Fujigen).
Playing differences?
Absolutely NONE.
I can play with same comfort as the American version, it sounds awesome and, I didn't had the sensation to be playing an inferior quality axe in any single moment.
I worked hard the Floyd Rose tremolo and, the guitar kept its tune without issues. Bridge is an Original Floyd Rose, since Fender bought the brand some time ago. Both mount exactly the same Original Floyd Rose. If you wonder where it's being made, I bet this is not a German FR but, it's Original FR, don't doubt it. Fender owns FR.
I would say that that carved border in the fingerboard makes even more comfortable that neck. And, first string doesn't gets locked under the border with extreme dive bombs (what happens often with the SoCal).
Conclusions
In my honest opinion, if you are a so picky snob or do you think on a possible greater value when reselling this guitar, go for the American one but, be sure of this: THEY ARE BOTH EXACTLY THE SAME (and this hurts me, since I've payed around additional 300 Eur for the American version, that comes without a case).
You will save a lot of money (around 300 Eur) with the Japanese version, to get exactly same quality and, they will give you a hard case for free, instead of a cardboard box.
If you are buying it second hand, you will probably do a better score. Probably, the Japanese version will be cheaper in the second hand market than the American version. So nice, so good for you. I am sharing with you this secret: they are both the same, get that cheaper Japanese one!.
I know American people will still think that the American version is better, just because it was made in America. Here in Europe, we are not fooled with that patriotic feeling.
Having weighted, examined and played both, there is no doubt: both are the same, Japanese is the cheaper one and includes a hard case. End of discussion.
Just compare which kind of guitars, mounting an Original Floyd Rose tremolo, you can find for such a price. You will see that there is no real competence.
Video
Alright, the review is over but, to completely satisfy my friend's willing, I wanted to record a video explaining the differences and to demo this guitar.
You will see that it can be played with same comfort as the American version and that the OFR works equally well.
If you find something wrong or ugly in this video, that's me, not the guitar.
Note: this entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around April / 2011. I am just revisiting it here.
I've got a nice friend of mine that, after an urgent GAS attack, bought a Charvel Pro-Mod San Dimas Type 1 and, he was pushing me hard to test the guitar and hang some youtube demo, comparing this Japanese version to my American Charvel SoCal Type 1.
With this blog entry and that video, I hope to accomplish my friend's willing and, maybe this will be helpful to fight against the typical myth: "American guitars are best".
Presentation
Charvel was born building Custom Guitars, at a very high price and, with high consideration among guitarists. Some day (I guess after it was bought by Fender), they decided to release some production series, at "affordable" prices and, such a production was started in USA.
In that moment, I was just looking for an "acceptable" guitar loading an "acceptable" Floyd Rose bridge and, after seeing the offer by Charvel I couldn't do anything else but bought one. It was a real bargain, just 1000 Eur for such a guitar!.
My guitar was part of the Production Batch number 6 and, if memory doesn't fail, last USA produced batch was number 7. It seems that costs were so high (man labour, I guess) in USA that they decided to move such a production to Fujigen factory, in Japan. Fujigen builds awesome guitars, as the Ibanez Prestige, by example.
You know, people started screaming "I don't want a Japanese guitar, I want it American!.
I've tested several Japanese guitars and, they always seemed to me very well finished and with awesome factory settings. Even Shur prefers Gotoh bridges to Original Floyd Rose!.
So, I was very confident that that new Japanese version of the Charvel Production series would have same or best quality than the American one but, things should be tested to be sure.
And, that's all about this blog entry. I've tested the Japanese version, compared it to my American one and, I wanted to share with you my impressions.
Differences?
Are them so different?. Nah!. Just minor differences.
Respect of hardware, both are mounting exacting the same.
Wood type is the same and, apparently both of same density, because they both weight barely the same.
Neck is barely the same, and that's the key piece in a Charvel.
Peghead looks the same and, size and shape of body is exactly the same.
Neck joint is the same.
So... which are the differences?.
First difference is that the model SoCal has a pickguard, while the San Dimas one hasn't it.
Well, I prefer myself pickguards, because it allows you to mod the guitar without having to route the wood.
The SoCal body is being routed to accept an H-S-H pickup layout (humbucker - single - humbucker) so, It could support any potential pickup arrangement, different from the stock one. To change pickup configuration in San Dimas will need to route the wood.
To add any new toggle switch or pot in San Dimas will require new routing also, in SoCal only the pickguard will be affected and, if you change your mind, you can go for a new pickguard, always.
That's why I usually prefer pickguards in guitars.
Second difference is the finishing of the border of the fingerboard.
Those borders are being carved, in a way that resembles me fret' scalloping but, instead of to scallop the whole fret horizontally, just the border was scalloped vertically.
Well, one of the drawbacks I have with my SoCal is that when performing extreme dive bombings, often the first string gets trapped in that border, when releasing the FR tremolo. This never happened when testing the San Dimas, maybe this is the function for those carved borders, at the end.
Appart of that, radius, finishing, feeling, everything looks the same in both guitars.
Last difference are pickups. SoCal comes stock with Dimarzio's (Bridge ToneZone and Neck Evo), while the San Dimas comes with Seymour Duncan's (Neck '59 and Bridge JB).
To be honest, both sets of pickups work awesome in their respective axes. They were very well selected for both models and, you will have no issues using one or the other. But, when I bought the SoCal, I also ordered a set of BareKnuckle's Nailbombs to load the SoCal, because I am not a fan of Dimarzio pickups (even that the Evo is probably my preferred Dimarzio's Neck).
Usually, I prefer Seymour Duncan's or Bareknuckle. Custom SD's are often expensive than boutique Barenuckle's here, in Europe.
'59 and JB are probably the most mounted set of SD pickups of all the times. If you think in a couple of SD humbuckers, those are always the natural election. The '59 is a very rich sounding PAF-alike pickup, very vocal and with some kind of rawness that I love but, It can go blurred and undefined when pushed hard. The JB is a hate/love pickup. While the '59 works practically in every axe, the extreme EQ of the JB (bump in mid-highs) can sound harsh and even piercing in some axes but, the JB works awesome in Strato-alike guitars and, it's a perfect choice for this San Dimas. I was gratefully surprised about how nice both classic SD's deliver in this axe. Sure, a hot driven JB has no competence and, sounds way better than the ToneZone (which is the closer Dimarzio's model to SD JB).
And now, the big surprise. The Japanese axe comes with a hard case!!!!!!!!.
The American hadn't even a soft case!.
The San Dimas case is similar to Ibanez cases (well, it is made in Fujigen).
Playing differences?
Absolutely NONE.
I can play with same comfort as the American version, it sounds awesome and, I didn't had the sensation to be playing an inferior quality axe in any single moment.
I worked hard the Floyd Rose tremolo and, the guitar kept its tune without issues. Bridge is an Original Floyd Rose, since Fender bought the brand some time ago. Both mount exactly the same Original Floyd Rose. If you wonder where it's being made, I bet this is not a German FR but, it's Original FR, don't doubt it. Fender owns FR.
I would say that that carved border in the fingerboard makes even more comfortable that neck. And, first string doesn't gets locked under the border with extreme dive bombs (what happens often with the SoCal).
Conclusions
In my honest opinion, if you are a so picky snob or do you think on a possible greater value when reselling this guitar, go for the American one but, be sure of this: THEY ARE BOTH EXACTLY THE SAME (and this hurts me, since I've payed around additional 300 Eur for the American version, that comes without a case).
You will save a lot of money (around 300 Eur) with the Japanese version, to get exactly same quality and, they will give you a hard case for free, instead of a cardboard box.
If you are buying it second hand, you will probably do a better score. Probably, the Japanese version will be cheaper in the second hand market than the American version. So nice, so good for you. I am sharing with you this secret: they are both the same, get that cheaper Japanese one!.
I know American people will still think that the American version is better, just because it was made in America. Here in Europe, we are not fooled with that patriotic feeling.
Having weighted, examined and played both, there is no doubt: both are the same, Japanese is the cheaper one and includes a hard case. End of discussion.
Just compare which kind of guitars, mounting an Original Floyd Rose tremolo, you can find for such a price. You will see that there is no real competence.
Video
Alright, the review is over but, to completely satisfy my friend's willing, I wanted to record a video explaining the differences and to demo this guitar.
You will see that it can be played with same comfort as the American version and that the OFR works equally well.
If you find something wrong or ugly in this video, that's me, not the guitar.
08 May 2013
Amps: understanding our controls - Volume, Gain, Master Volume and others
Introduction
Note: this entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around April / 2011. I am just visiting it here for its possible interest.
When I was trying to learn something about Physics, my mind blew up with the affirmation that said that accelerator, steering wheel and break where all them accelerators. Accelerator is whichever device that creates some force that changes the movement status of a certain object and changes it's acceleration or direction.
Same stupid face I showed when I've realized that the controls of our amps (volume, gain, tones) aren't amplifying nothing but, that they are in fact ATTENUATORS!!!.
In fact, an amplifier is a power attenuator, at the end, because it reduces the total input power (often twice the delivered output power) to amplify that weak guitar signal.
The amp cannot add nothing but, reduce what already exists.
So, if we had a direct signal guitar -> preamp -> power amp -> speaker, we would have the maximum "amplifying" power of the amp (without controls). Every control we add is reducing such a maximum power.
It's true that our guitar signal is being amplified but, this is being achieved be consuming part of the input power to do such a task. So the output power is lower than the input power, even that our output guitar signal is higher than our input guitar signal. Lots of the input energy was wasted for such a task.
To understand where our controls were place and which are their functions, can help us to understand how to better achieve the tone we are after. And, that's all about this blog entry.
Here we go...
Amplifying elements: tubes
The electric signal generated by a guitar is really low. AC voltage goes around 300 mV (mili-volts) and, current level is also low. Guitar' signal by itself is unable to move the coil of a speaker, that is the way we use to translate (transduce) the electric energy into air pressure energy.
That's why we need a guitar amp, to increase guitar signal levels up to an energy level enough to move speakers coils with authority.
The amp gets the signal delivered by the guitar and "sculpts" it (reducing some unwanted frequencies or adding some harmonics or clipping it, by example) and, rises the power of such a signal to those levels needed for speakers.
Therefore, basis function of preamp and power tubes is just to amplify several times the input signal.
To amplify a signal, tube amps need at least a triode. Most of Pre-amp tubes that you will find in a guitar amp have a pair of triodes (family 12AX7 or ECC83 and similar 5751, 7025, etc.). This is the same than to say that each preamp tube has two amplifying stages.
If each triode was able to rise the signal 10 times the input signal, if we link the output of the first triode to the input of the second triode, we will amplify the signal 100 times (10 from input triode 1 to output triode 1 and, will multiply by 10 triode 1 output in triode 2).
In following picture, T1 is the first triode of tube V1 and, T2 is the second triode of same tube.
Each triode has a maximum gain level were the original signal "fits" without distortion. In the same way that you will zoom a picture on your screen up to a limit were part of the picture cannot be shown (crop), tubes clip that exceeding amount of signal (peaks). Probably one of the uglier distortion types that you can find in a tube. Tubes introduce several types of distortion: harmonics of different order, floor noise and other thing that we will not discuss here to don't go lost.
So, every preamp tube is like two independent amplifying stages that can be cascaded (stacked) to multiply the gain level.
Since the guitar' signal level is really weak, to "overflow" the first triode it's really difficult (we can go from 300 mV to 3000 mV = 3 V, by example) but, when crossing the second triode, the signal level can be too much and, therefore it's easier to cross the threshold between clean amplification and distorted amplification.
Volume
To better control the signal flowing between the first and the second triode, a regulation element was designed, to attenuate (yes, to attenuate!) the amount of signal entering in the second triode.
A variable resistor (a potentiometer) was provided for that and it was called Volume.
Just inserting that Volume pot there, even if it's totally open, it creates some resistance that drops a bit the voltage in that part of the circuit (once more, we are attenuating the signal).
So, thinks looked like this:
Nice, that Volume pot was acting as a faucet that prevented that the "water stream" from triode 1 overflowed the "sink" of triode 2.
And, since any change in a spot of the chain propagates to following ones, the Power tube was also controlled in hat way.
Gain
But, two triodes are in the vintage ballpark, right. We wanted hi-gain amps also. So, why don't be cascade a couple of pre-amp tubes to achieve a higher gain sound?. We will have up to 4 amplifying stages in that way and, that means that we can raise the guitar signal level up to 10^4 (10,000) times , just in the pre-amp section!.
So, the cascaded gain increased:
T1 and T2 are the triodes for tube V1 and, T3 and T4 the triodes for V2.
Adding one more tube, here we are again with same "overflowing" issues we addressed before but now, the max amplifying power is around 10,000 times the original signal. That's a lot for small pre-amp tubes, indeed.
As we are overflowing each triode, the peaks of signal are being clipped and, what remains is the center portion of the signal that "fits" each triode. Result is a thick wall of sound, with poor dynamics and, highly compressed.
To have a better control of such an amount of clipping and power increase, one more pot was introduced between T3 and T4 but.... we had a pot already named volume so... which name can we give to that new pot. Well, it was called Gain, instead of Pepe and, things looked like follows:
Master Volume
While amplifiers where all Class A, single-ended, everything was ok. The last triode was acting also as the Driver, feeding the power amp section, with a controlled power given by that Volume control (between T3 and T4).
But Rock needed more energy, we love noise, indeed. Class AB amps were way more efficient, generating more energy, moving bigger speakers and creating more sound pressure. What a nice!.
Class AB, usually in pull-push topology, has two rails of power tubes (each rail with one or more tubes).
Each rail takes care about half of the signal (the positive or negtive) during aprox. the time that half takes (slightly more).
Between the pre-amp and power stages, one more small tube, called Phase Inverter, Driver or PI, will split the signal in negative and positive, sending each side to one of the rails, alternating (as pistons in an engine).
But, being the last tube in the pre-amp chain, this tube can be saturated the first and, power tubes could also being saturated with an excess of power delivered by the PI.
Oh, oh, oh. wait there!. I have an idea... one more pot?.
Yes. Sometimes you can find that pot between the PI and Power section or you could even found it before the PI. We already had names for the other two pots (gain and volume) so, we called "Master Volume" to the new one.
It doesn't seem that any of hi-gain designs went further than using up to 4 gain stages in pre-amp. Amplification level at this point is so high that the signal is highly compressed and clipped. Adding one more triode will mean to have the original signal raised 100,000 times in pre-amp section, overflowing any pre-amp headroom.
This is a way the master volume could be added:
But, it could be even used like this, to avoid to overflow the PI tube:
Multi-channel Amp
There are amps with several channels, one for clean, one more for crunch and, even one more for high-gain (there are amps with even more channels, differently voiced). Those amps can be designed as having completely independent paths for each channel, with their own tubes or, they can be designed with some switches that just bypass or include some triode or triodes. By example:
In this example, signal goes first to V1, then to V2 if the channel is the Gain channel but, if we select the clean channel, we bypass V1 and go directly to V2.
But the designer, could decided that the clean channel was just triode T4 or that started in triode T2.
Or he could decided another kind of path, from T1 to T3, from T3 to T2 and from T2 to T4, by example.
Note: All you see here are just examples and, doesn't correspond to the design of any particular amp and, don't show every detail. The goal is just to understand how several gain stages are being chained and which tricks can be used to take some control over the gain and volume levels. Placement of controls and their name, can change from amp to amp, maker to maker.
Other stuff
Tone Stack
To give to us better possibilities to sculpt our tone, an array of filters was introduced to remove (yes, to remove, we don't add bass, mids or treble, we remove them!) part of the frequencies of the original signal.
This array of filters was called Tone Stack, because of how it looked in schematics and, its solely existence drops also the signal level (because creates resistance, also).
By example, it could be decided to insert the Tone Stack like follows:
In this example, the Tone Stack is being placed after the Volume control and, there is a difference were you place it and, in which order each tone filter is being placed. Each maker usually implements the Tone Stack in a particular way and, that helps to their own signature sound.
Presence
The Presence control helps to recover some of the high frequencies and, it's usually placed between the speaker-amp feedback loop.
Contour
The Contour control is often associated to several filters (resistors and caps) that reduce the contents in some frequency bands (always attenuating!), re-EQ'ing the amp and changing its voice.
The only way to ADD something is to use ACTIVE filters, instead of passive but, most of amps are being designed with passive filters so, they just reduce things.
Designs and names
Don't be fooled. Same functions we were describing above can be found in a certain maker/amp with a different name but they are named just differently.
By example, in the VHT Special 6, we will find an Ultra control that works as the Gain Control defined above, a Depth switch that works as a Contour control (together with Texture switch), a Power Selector that works similarly to a Master Volume (but, it's placed before the Power tube, instead).
We can find bizarre names for same function, as we also can find those in pedal effects.
Conclusion
To achieve the tone we are after, at every moment (sometimes, a crystalline clean, a nice crunch, a wall of compressed sound...) it's a good think that we know how controls were implemented in our amp, to better understand what are we doing when setting up the amp.
To draw some basic block-diagram of the several gain stages of our amp and where controls are being placed will help us.
It isn't the same to push the very first triode (the early we start our distortion, the most distortion will be get) or leave that pre-amp clean and push power tubes, instead.
Each knob will recover (instead of to add) some of the drops that will overflow the final amplified sound, releasing one or more of the different distortion types that occur inside an amp. The goal is to achieve the "musical" distortions, while avoiding the ugly ones.
Note: not all pre-amp tubes are being used to amplify the original signal. Some have other specific functions, as to raise the signal level in the FX loop, to drive a reverb can, etc.
Selecting your tubes
To understand how your amp's gain cascade was designed is important to better select the right tube for each particular position, to achieve the exact behavior you wanted.
By example, if an amp has two channels and each channel follows an independent path, you should study the tubes that each channel needs separately.
But if your amp was designed just to bypass / incorporate some of the triodes, each tube can potentially affect to every channel.
The sooner you begin to distort, the higher the distortion level you will achieve. The more headroom you give, the cleaner will remain your amp.
Early distortion will allow you to reach the sweet spot at lower volume levels while, late distortion will allow you to play clean at higher volume levels.
The more you push that Gain control, the more you distort every tube in the chain.
The less you push that Gain control, the more headroom you have for following tubes in the chain.
Note: this entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around April / 2011. I am just visiting it here for its possible interest.
When I was trying to learn something about Physics, my mind blew up with the affirmation that said that accelerator, steering wheel and break where all them accelerators. Accelerator is whichever device that creates some force that changes the movement status of a certain object and changes it's acceleration or direction.
Same stupid face I showed when I've realized that the controls of our amps (volume, gain, tones) aren't amplifying nothing but, that they are in fact ATTENUATORS!!!.
In fact, an amplifier is a power attenuator, at the end, because it reduces the total input power (often twice the delivered output power) to amplify that weak guitar signal.
The amp cannot add nothing but, reduce what already exists.
So, if we had a direct signal guitar -> preamp -> power amp -> speaker, we would have the maximum "amplifying" power of the amp (without controls). Every control we add is reducing such a maximum power.
It's true that our guitar signal is being amplified but, this is being achieved be consuming part of the input power to do such a task. So the output power is lower than the input power, even that our output guitar signal is higher than our input guitar signal. Lots of the input energy was wasted for such a task.
To understand where our controls were place and which are their functions, can help us to understand how to better achieve the tone we are after. And, that's all about this blog entry.
Here we go...
Amplifying elements: tubes
The electric signal generated by a guitar is really low. AC voltage goes around 300 mV (mili-volts) and, current level is also low. Guitar' signal by itself is unable to move the coil of a speaker, that is the way we use to translate (transduce) the electric energy into air pressure energy.
That's why we need a guitar amp, to increase guitar signal levels up to an energy level enough to move speakers coils with authority.
The amp gets the signal delivered by the guitar and "sculpts" it (reducing some unwanted frequencies or adding some harmonics or clipping it, by example) and, rises the power of such a signal to those levels needed for speakers.
Therefore, basis function of preamp and power tubes is just to amplify several times the input signal.
To amplify a signal, tube amps need at least a triode. Most of Pre-amp tubes that you will find in a guitar amp have a pair of triodes (family 12AX7 or ECC83 and similar 5751, 7025, etc.). This is the same than to say that each preamp tube has two amplifying stages.
If each triode was able to rise the signal 10 times the input signal, if we link the output of the first triode to the input of the second triode, we will amplify the signal 100 times (10 from input triode 1 to output triode 1 and, will multiply by 10 triode 1 output in triode 2).
In following picture, T1 is the first triode of tube V1 and, T2 is the second triode of same tube.
Each triode has a maximum gain level were the original signal "fits" without distortion. In the same way that you will zoom a picture on your screen up to a limit were part of the picture cannot be shown (crop), tubes clip that exceeding amount of signal (peaks). Probably one of the uglier distortion types that you can find in a tube. Tubes introduce several types of distortion: harmonics of different order, floor noise and other thing that we will not discuss here to don't go lost.
So, every preamp tube is like two independent amplifying stages that can be cascaded (stacked) to multiply the gain level.
Since the guitar' signal level is really weak, to "overflow" the first triode it's really difficult (we can go from 300 mV to 3000 mV = 3 V, by example) but, when crossing the second triode, the signal level can be too much and, therefore it's easier to cross the threshold between clean amplification and distorted amplification.
Volume
To better control the signal flowing between the first and the second triode, a regulation element was designed, to attenuate (yes, to attenuate!) the amount of signal entering in the second triode.
A variable resistor (a potentiometer) was provided for that and it was called Volume.
Just inserting that Volume pot there, even if it's totally open, it creates some resistance that drops a bit the voltage in that part of the circuit (once more, we are attenuating the signal).
So, thinks looked like this:
Nice, that Volume pot was acting as a faucet that prevented that the "water stream" from triode 1 overflowed the "sink" of triode 2.
And, since any change in a spot of the chain propagates to following ones, the Power tube was also controlled in hat way.
Gain
But, two triodes are in the vintage ballpark, right. We wanted hi-gain amps also. So, why don't be cascade a couple of pre-amp tubes to achieve a higher gain sound?. We will have up to 4 amplifying stages in that way and, that means that we can raise the guitar signal level up to 10^4 (10,000) times , just in the pre-amp section!.
So, the cascaded gain increased:
T1 and T2 are the triodes for tube V1 and, T3 and T4 the triodes for V2.
Adding one more tube, here we are again with same "overflowing" issues we addressed before but now, the max amplifying power is around 10,000 times the original signal. That's a lot for small pre-amp tubes, indeed.
As we are overflowing each triode, the peaks of signal are being clipped and, what remains is the center portion of the signal that "fits" each triode. Result is a thick wall of sound, with poor dynamics and, highly compressed.
To have a better control of such an amount of clipping and power increase, one more pot was introduced between T3 and T4 but.... we had a pot already named volume so... which name can we give to that new pot. Well, it was called Gain, instead of Pepe and, things looked like follows:
Master Volume
While amplifiers where all Class A, single-ended, everything was ok. The last triode was acting also as the Driver, feeding the power amp section, with a controlled power given by that Volume control (between T3 and T4).
But Rock needed more energy, we love noise, indeed. Class AB amps were way more efficient, generating more energy, moving bigger speakers and creating more sound pressure. What a nice!.
Class AB, usually in pull-push topology, has two rails of power tubes (each rail with one or more tubes).
Each rail takes care about half of the signal (the positive or negtive) during aprox. the time that half takes (slightly more).
Between the pre-amp and power stages, one more small tube, called Phase Inverter, Driver or PI, will split the signal in negative and positive, sending each side to one of the rails, alternating (as pistons in an engine).
But, being the last tube in the pre-amp chain, this tube can be saturated the first and, power tubes could also being saturated with an excess of power delivered by the PI.
Oh, oh, oh. wait there!. I have an idea... one more pot?.
Yes. Sometimes you can find that pot between the PI and Power section or you could even found it before the PI. We already had names for the other two pots (gain and volume) so, we called "Master Volume" to the new one.
It doesn't seem that any of hi-gain designs went further than using up to 4 gain stages in pre-amp. Amplification level at this point is so high that the signal is highly compressed and clipped. Adding one more triode will mean to have the original signal raised 100,000 times in pre-amp section, overflowing any pre-amp headroom.
This is a way the master volume could be added:
But, it could be even used like this, to avoid to overflow the PI tube:
Multi-channel Amp
There are amps with several channels, one for clean, one more for crunch and, even one more for high-gain (there are amps with even more channels, differently voiced). Those amps can be designed as having completely independent paths for each channel, with their own tubes or, they can be designed with some switches that just bypass or include some triode or triodes. By example:
But the designer, could decided that the clean channel was just triode T4 or that started in triode T2.
Or he could decided another kind of path, from T1 to T3, from T3 to T2 and from T2 to T4, by example.
Note: All you see here are just examples and, doesn't correspond to the design of any particular amp and, don't show every detail. The goal is just to understand how several gain stages are being chained and which tricks can be used to take some control over the gain and volume levels. Placement of controls and their name, can change from amp to amp, maker to maker.
Other stuff
Tone Stack
To give to us better possibilities to sculpt our tone, an array of filters was introduced to remove (yes, to remove, we don't add bass, mids or treble, we remove them!) part of the frequencies of the original signal.
This array of filters was called Tone Stack, because of how it looked in schematics and, its solely existence drops also the signal level (because creates resistance, also).
By example, it could be decided to insert the Tone Stack like follows:
Presence
The Presence control helps to recover some of the high frequencies and, it's usually placed between the speaker-amp feedback loop.
Contour
The Contour control is often associated to several filters (resistors and caps) that reduce the contents in some frequency bands (always attenuating!), re-EQ'ing the amp and changing its voice.
The only way to ADD something is to use ACTIVE filters, instead of passive but, most of amps are being designed with passive filters so, they just reduce things.
Designs and names
Don't be fooled. Same functions we were describing above can be found in a certain maker/amp with a different name but they are named just differently.
By example, in the VHT Special 6, we will find an Ultra control that works as the Gain Control defined above, a Depth switch that works as a Contour control (together with Texture switch), a Power Selector that works similarly to a Master Volume (but, it's placed before the Power tube, instead).
We can find bizarre names for same function, as we also can find those in pedal effects.
Conclusion
To achieve the tone we are after, at every moment (sometimes, a crystalline clean, a nice crunch, a wall of compressed sound...) it's a good think that we know how controls were implemented in our amp, to better understand what are we doing when setting up the amp.
To draw some basic block-diagram of the several gain stages of our amp and where controls are being placed will help us.
It isn't the same to push the very first triode (the early we start our distortion, the most distortion will be get) or leave that pre-amp clean and push power tubes, instead.
Each knob will recover (instead of to add) some of the drops that will overflow the final amplified sound, releasing one or more of the different distortion types that occur inside an amp. The goal is to achieve the "musical" distortions, while avoiding the ugly ones.
Note: not all pre-amp tubes are being used to amplify the original signal. Some have other specific functions, as to raise the signal level in the FX loop, to drive a reverb can, etc.
Selecting your tubes
To understand how your amp's gain cascade was designed is important to better select the right tube for each particular position, to achieve the exact behavior you wanted.
By example, if an amp has two channels and each channel follows an independent path, you should study the tubes that each channel needs separately.
But if your amp was designed just to bypass / incorporate some of the triodes, each tube can potentially affect to every channel.
The sooner you begin to distort, the higher the distortion level you will achieve. The more headroom you give, the cleaner will remain your amp.
Early distortion will allow you to reach the sweet spot at lower volume levels while, late distortion will allow you to play clean at higher volume levels.
The more you push that Gain control, the more you distort every tube in the chain.
The less you push that Gain control, the more headroom you have for following tubes in the chain.
06 May 2013
Amps: VHT Special 6 Ultra - in depth
Introduction
Note: this entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around April / 2011. Just revisiting it here. I sold this amp because I need the money to buy other gear but, the new 22W version is in my list.
To be honest, classic or vintage tones had been already covered with my current amps. Maybe, I would need to cover Hi-Gain tones.
So... why that VHT Special 6 Ultra?.
Several reasons here.
Incredible affordable. The cheaper one is the Special 6 combo, that costs just 135 Eur!, and it sounds fantastic. The expensiver one in the line is the Special 6 Ultra head + 1x12 closed cab, doubling the price of the previous one but, this means just 265 Eur!!!. For a tube amp!!!.
What do we get in the whole line Special 6?.
A class A, single-ended amp, point-to-point handwired.
Yes, yes, yes. I am hearing you claiming: "it's Made in China".
Aaaaaaand?. Open your mobile, open your PC, your TV, your MP3, your...
Special 6 series have amps delivery a max of 6W RMS of pure tube sound, thanks to its own 6V6GT power tube. Simple signal path, without IC or transistors.
That's something I was looking forward: a cheap kit that I can use as a base to experiment with different components.
Special 6 series allow you to easily substitute any component with others of higher quality, since everything is visible mounted on an eyelet card. To increase the fun, Special 6 diagram is available in VHT' site and, you can freely download it, if you need to decide to enhance it or just to learn about the amp itself.
More interesting, the own designed point to several mods that you can easily do to change the amp character.
Having a Vox Night Train, from the tonal point of view... do I need a VHT Special 6 Ultra?.
Really not. The NT is somewhat similar, having a simple design but with a different voice (mounts EL84s instead of 6V6GT) and, with double the power of the VHT. NT's transformers are way bigger (responsible for the 80% of the weight of the cab), it's way more portable and takes way less room.
My point is that this amp is really interesting to have some kind of boutique kit (except for quality of components) that you can enhance to your needs, substituting components, step by step.
Any quality kit that you will find in the market, will force you to build everything and, will have a price above any regular production amp. I am seen that VHT as an already mounted kit, which components can be enhanced when needed. But, it sound really nice as it comes.
Differences between Special 6 and Special 6 Ultra
There are some differences between the Special 6 and the Special 6 Ultra:
Both share a basis design, class A single-ended powered with a 6V6G power tube.
Since the design is cathode-biased, you can substitute such a tube with any other octal power tube: 5881, EL34, 6L6, etc.
But, be careful!. The OT is designed for 6V6GT tubes and, the maker recommends to switch off the amp after 1 hour if you load a more powerful tube.
Also, when going to high power tubes, you should substitute the fast-blow fuse with an slow-blow fuse, since the stock fuse will not support the high starting peaks of tubes like the EL34 (note: this is already fixed for currently produced units).
Main goal of the designer was to make an point-to-point handwired amp that could be available at a maximum of 200 USD.
And... they succeed!!!.
But, to achieve this price implies to takes some design decisions to make the price to be the targeted one.
Sure, Chinese labor cost is the first decision but, there are some other compromise solutions inside.
The amp has the typical Tone Stack considered in the circuit but, you will never see their related variable control pot. Instead of those pots, each "tone setting" is being fixed with a substituting resistance with the value that delivers the tone that the designed wanted for this amp.
One of your projects could be to substitute those resistances with 3 pots, to have full control over amp's EQ.
The Boost mode works in a similar was as the mode Thick of the Nigth Train. That is, when you switch on the Boost mode, the signal bypasses the Tone Array and delivers a purest signal, with a clear increase of the output loudness.
Differently from the NT, we have a global tone knob, at the end that allows us to "fine tune" that "pure tube" sound achieved with the boost mode.
This is a smarter approach than the one of the NT.
The General Tone is very efficient and, helps to radically re-EQ the amp, with a broad range that can go from deep a-la-Bassman tones to sparking a-la-vox or a-la-Fender tones, with nuances enough in between.
The amp doesn't seem to need for any booster to raise the guitar' signal. The guitar sounds full bodied.
It seems that humbuckers can saturate in a bad way this amp so, it works better with single coils.
Dynamics are excellent. You can easily control the sweet spot with the strength of your picking and, the sound cleans very well when rolling off guitar's volume. It sounds very organic and dynamic.
Overall, I have the impression that this amp has more floor noise than other amps. Maybe the Chinese tubes that came stock are responsible for that (will check).
About tone, the sound is full, rich and round. It has power enough. Its 6W RMS sound more or less as the NT at 70% or the Marshall 50W at 30% and, therefore, they allow you to krank the amp and get the best of the tubes, at way lower volumes.
But, don't be fulled, even 1W is over the bedroom level (but, for that, we have the Power selector!!!).
The switch High power / Standby / Low power, changes the power amp regimen to Pentode (High) or Triode (Low). Analogically to the Night Train (among other amps), this change of mode means around 50% of drop in loudness but, also, a change in the character of the sound, that goes mellower and warmer.
While the Pentode mode is brigth and powerful, the Triode mode delivers a sound full of smooth nuances, a very silky tone.
Special things in the Ultra
Ultra channel works nice with a reasonable gain level (up to 2:00), beyond that, the excess of gain adds lot of grain to the sound, producing a sonic wall too thick and producing excessive feedback.
This channel makes the sound darker, bassier and compressed.
The achieved loudness with Volume And Ultra controls at max is impressive (what a 6W !).
For settings on noon, it delivers a nice crunch, very rocker.
The broad range of tonal nuances that offer the different combinations of controls Depth, Texture and Tone are huge. From very bassy and dark to trebly and sparkly and even piercing. Those tone-shapers together with Volume and Gain controls offer to you lots of possibilities and, I don't believe that one cannot find a single setting where this amp will be of use.
The Power Selector helps to maintain lower loudness level but, the sound quality drops, since there is no power enough to move the speaker's cone with authority. But, at least, it can be used at dorm levels, with some lack of mojo, but usable.
In my opinion, both channel are good enough to work and, a pedalboard can help to achieve a broader array of sounds. Clean channel is a nice platform for a pedalboard.
Conclusions
For anyone bored of his/her solid state amp that wanted to start his/her adventure with tube amps, without expending a bunch of money, I highly recommend this amp.
As the NT started a new generation of small, highly transportable, affordable and nicely sounding small amps, I consider that this VHT Special 6 models will create a trend of affordable point-to-point handwired amps.
Designer's goals were absolutely achieved.
For those already having some nicely voiced high transportable amp, as the NT, there is no need to purchase this amp.
But, at least, you can krank the volume to max in this amp, something that you cannot do with the NT, before get some ear's pain.
Respect of weight, the head weights way less than the NT head but, the cab weights more, instead. More or less same weight putting all together.
Respect of size, the VHT is way bigger than the NT. The head is more or less double the size of the NT head. The cab of the VHT is bigger than a Koch Studiotone Combo. Huge for just 6W.
For those dreaming on to build his own amp or, those interested in to learn how to modify yor amp, VHT makes it easier for you, with all its components clearly laying over an eyelet card. Even if we finally destroy that amp, we would loose 135 Eur (Special 6 combo).
As it comes stock, I like the sound enough. It can only be enhanced with high quality components.
Well, I will swap the Chinese tubes with higher quality ones.
I am very curious to know which will be the impact in market of this series. Will we have an affordable Hiwatt Class A at this price level?.
Videos
Following videos are a detailed and deep exploration of the possibilities of the VHT Special 6 Ultra.
To compare how the tone changes with different settings, I am using repetitively same riff, what can be boring.
Part 1
In this part, I am introducing the amp, reviewing finishing, controls and connexions. I am giving the reason why did I bought it and, I make a size comparison against other amps.
Part 2
Clean channel, range of volume and boost mode. Power selector.
Part 3
Clean channel. Range of Tone Control, Texture control and combinations between both.
Part 4
Clean Channel, Depth control and, its combinations with Texture control We check the more extreme sounds, the darkest and the brightest, to understand the broad range covered by this amp.
Part 5
Checking Triode mode in clean channel, then we review the Ultra Channel.
Part 6
Checking how it cleans when rolling off guitar's volume and, amp's dynamics. We talk about the excessive floor noise and, end of demo improvising a blues over a backing track.
Note: this entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around April / 2011. Just revisiting it here. I sold this amp because I need the money to buy other gear but, the new 22W version is in my list.
To be honest, classic or vintage tones had been already covered with my current amps. Maybe, I would need to cover Hi-Gain tones.
So... why that VHT Special 6 Ultra?.
Several reasons here.
What do we get in the whole line Special 6?.
A class A, single-ended amp, point-to-point handwired.
Yes, yes, yes. I am hearing you claiming: "it's Made in China".
Aaaaaaand?. Open your mobile, open your PC, your TV, your MP3, your...
Special 6 series have amps delivery a max of 6W RMS of pure tube sound, thanks to its own 6V6GT power tube. Simple signal path, without IC or transistors.
That's something I was looking forward: a cheap kit that I can use as a base to experiment with different components.
Special 6 series allow you to easily substitute any component with others of higher quality, since everything is visible mounted on an eyelet card. To increase the fun, Special 6 diagram is available in VHT' site and, you can freely download it, if you need to decide to enhance it or just to learn about the amp itself.
More interesting, the own designed point to several mods that you can easily do to change the amp character.
Having a Vox Night Train, from the tonal point of view... do I need a VHT Special 6 Ultra?.
Really not. The NT is somewhat similar, having a simple design but with a different voice (mounts EL84s instead of 6V6GT) and, with double the power of the VHT. NT's transformers are way bigger (responsible for the 80% of the weight of the cab), it's way more portable and takes way less room.
My point is that this amp is really interesting to have some kind of boutique kit (except for quality of components) that you can enhance to your needs, substituting components, step by step.
Any quality kit that you will find in the market, will force you to build everything and, will have a price above any regular production amp. I am seen that VHT as an already mounted kit, which components can be enhanced when needed. But, it sound really nice as it comes.
Differences between Special 6 and Special 6 Ultra
There are some differences between the Special 6 and the Special 6 Ultra:
- Ultra Channel. Version Ultra has two input jacks. First one if for clean channel, while the second is for Ultra channel. Ultra channel stacks one more triode in the cascade gain.
- Ultra Channel Gain. Ultra channel has a dedicated gain control.
- Texture Switch. This 3-way switch gives three different foundational voices to the amp. Position I sounds closer to Marshall, position II sounds closer to Bassman and, the center position is the mos even.
- Depth Switch. This switch has 11 different positions, that equalize differently the voice. Overall, in the extreme left hand we got the most natural sound of this amp, with more bite and brightness. While rotating the switch to rigth hand, we are removing high end, darkening the tone and increasing bass content and tube' saturation.
- Power selector. This is not a dummy-load attenuator!. In principle, it reduces the voltage to which the Power Tube works, which decreases the output power of the tube and, therefore the final power delivered to the speaker. You notice a rela drop in power beginning at 12:00.
- Line out. Ultra version has a Line-Out post-preamp output, that allows you to send the preamplified sound to whichever mixing desk or audio card.
- Tube-driven Effects Loop. Ultra version counts with a tube-driven FX Loop. This loop is being fed by the preamp and, has not adjustable volume. The signal level depends on the actual gain level of the preamp section, what can make to clip to those pedals inside the FX Loop.
Both share a basis design, class A single-ended powered with a 6V6G power tube.
Since the design is cathode-biased, you can substitute such a tube with any other octal power tube: 5881, EL34, 6L6, etc.
But, be careful!. The OT is designed for 6V6GT tubes and, the maker recommends to switch off the amp after 1 hour if you load a more powerful tube.
Also, when going to high power tubes, you should substitute the fast-blow fuse with an slow-blow fuse, since the stock fuse will not support the high starting peaks of tubes like the EL34 (note: this is already fixed for currently produced units).
Main goal of the designer was to make an point-to-point handwired amp that could be available at a maximum of 200 USD.
And... they succeed!!!.
But, to achieve this price implies to takes some design decisions to make the price to be the targeted one.
Sure, Chinese labor cost is the first decision but, there are some other compromise solutions inside.
The amp has the typical Tone Stack considered in the circuit but, you will never see their related variable control pot. Instead of those pots, each "tone setting" is being fixed with a substituting resistance with the value that delivers the tone that the designed wanted for this amp.
One of your projects could be to substitute those resistances with 3 pots, to have full control over amp's EQ.
The Boost mode works in a similar was as the mode Thick of the Nigth Train. That is, when you switch on the Boost mode, the signal bypasses the Tone Array and delivers a purest signal, with a clear increase of the output loudness.
Differently from the NT, we have a global tone knob, at the end that allows us to "fine tune" that "pure tube" sound achieved with the boost mode.
This is a smarter approach than the one of the NT.
The General Tone is very efficient and, helps to radically re-EQ the amp, with a broad range that can go from deep a-la-Bassman tones to sparking a-la-vox or a-la-Fender tones, with nuances enough in between.
The amp doesn't seem to need for any booster to raise the guitar' signal. The guitar sounds full bodied.
It seems that humbuckers can saturate in a bad way this amp so, it works better with single coils.
Dynamics are excellent. You can easily control the sweet spot with the strength of your picking and, the sound cleans very well when rolling off guitar's volume. It sounds very organic and dynamic.
Overall, I have the impression that this amp has more floor noise than other amps. Maybe the Chinese tubes that came stock are responsible for that (will check).
About tone, the sound is full, rich and round. It has power enough. Its 6W RMS sound more or less as the NT at 70% or the Marshall 50W at 30% and, therefore, they allow you to krank the amp and get the best of the tubes, at way lower volumes.
But, don't be fulled, even 1W is over the bedroom level (but, for that, we have the Power selector!!!).
The switch High power / Standby / Low power, changes the power amp regimen to Pentode (High) or Triode (Low). Analogically to the Night Train (among other amps), this change of mode means around 50% of drop in loudness but, also, a change in the character of the sound, that goes mellower and warmer.
While the Pentode mode is brigth and powerful, the Triode mode delivers a sound full of smooth nuances, a very silky tone.
Special things in the Ultra
Ultra channel works nice with a reasonable gain level (up to 2:00), beyond that, the excess of gain adds lot of grain to the sound, producing a sonic wall too thick and producing excessive feedback.
This channel makes the sound darker, bassier and compressed.
The achieved loudness with Volume And Ultra controls at max is impressive (what a 6W !).
For settings on noon, it delivers a nice crunch, very rocker.
The broad range of tonal nuances that offer the different combinations of controls Depth, Texture and Tone are huge. From very bassy and dark to trebly and sparkly and even piercing. Those tone-shapers together with Volume and Gain controls offer to you lots of possibilities and, I don't believe that one cannot find a single setting where this amp will be of use.
The Power Selector helps to maintain lower loudness level but, the sound quality drops, since there is no power enough to move the speaker's cone with authority. But, at least, it can be used at dorm levels, with some lack of mojo, but usable.
In my opinion, both channel are good enough to work and, a pedalboard can help to achieve a broader array of sounds. Clean channel is a nice platform for a pedalboard.
Conclusions
For anyone bored of his/her solid state amp that wanted to start his/her adventure with tube amps, without expending a bunch of money, I highly recommend this amp.
As the NT started a new generation of small, highly transportable, affordable and nicely sounding small amps, I consider that this VHT Special 6 models will create a trend of affordable point-to-point handwired amps.
Designer's goals were absolutely achieved.
For those already having some nicely voiced high transportable amp, as the NT, there is no need to purchase this amp.
But, at least, you can krank the volume to max in this amp, something that you cannot do with the NT, before get some ear's pain.
Respect of weight, the head weights way less than the NT head but, the cab weights more, instead. More or less same weight putting all together.
Respect of size, the VHT is way bigger than the NT. The head is more or less double the size of the NT head. The cab of the VHT is bigger than a Koch Studiotone Combo. Huge for just 6W.
For those dreaming on to build his own amp or, those interested in to learn how to modify yor amp, VHT makes it easier for you, with all its components clearly laying over an eyelet card. Even if we finally destroy that amp, we would loose 135 Eur (Special 6 combo).
As it comes stock, I like the sound enough. It can only be enhanced with high quality components.
Well, I will swap the Chinese tubes with higher quality ones.
I am very curious to know which will be the impact in market of this series. Will we have an affordable Hiwatt Class A at this price level?.
Videos
Following videos are a detailed and deep exploration of the possibilities of the VHT Special 6 Ultra.
To compare how the tone changes with different settings, I am using repetitively same riff, what can be boring.
Part 1
In this part, I am introducing the amp, reviewing finishing, controls and connexions. I am giving the reason why did I bought it and, I make a size comparison against other amps.
Part 2
Clean channel, range of volume and boost mode. Power selector.
Part 3
Clean channel. Range of Tone Control, Texture control and combinations between both.
Part 4
Clean Channel, Depth control and, its combinations with Texture control We check the more extreme sounds, the darkest and the brightest, to understand the broad range covered by this amp.
Part 5
Checking Triode mode in clean channel, then we review the Ultra Channel.
Part 6
Checking how it cleans when rolling off guitar's volume and, amp's dynamics. We talk about the excessive floor noise and, end of demo improvising a blues over a backing track.
04 May 2013
Pedals: Phasers - MXR '74 Phase 90 reissue and Electro-Harmonix Small Stone Nano
Introduction
Note: this entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around March/2011.
I wanted two compare two of the most typical Phase pedal effects. Both can be heard in lots of recordings.
Even that, because of my musical style, I don't often need Modulation effects, every effect has its place in some or other song so, it's good to have at least one of each type available for when it will be needed.
In the world of modulation effects, Vibe, Phaser, Chorus and Flangers are all cousins.
All them are duplicating the input signal in two paths, a clean path (or dry signal) and a signal that crosses several modulation stages (wet signal) and, in each of such stages, there is some phase shift applied to the signal, in a cyclical way.
What puts the boundaries for each effect type is number of stages, sweep range, speed range and some other particular characteristics for each type.
The Phaser effect is the simpler (conceptually, not electronically) of such effects. The wet signal changes its phase in a cyclical way, at a frequency (speed) rate selected with it's single control knob.
Such a signal is being mixed with the dry signal to produce the sound that we all can recognize.
During the cycle, both signals (dry and wet) have phase differences and therefore, during the cycle, some frequencies are bien cancelled while others are being reinforced.
This affects also to the perceived loudness. By cancelling bass frequencies, lot of energy is missed in the signal and the sound becomes hollow. When basses are reinforced, the sound fattens and growls.
In their higher speed ranges, Phasers are closer to Vibes, while in their lower speed ranges, they are closer to Flangers.
There were two iconic Phaser pedals in the market: the MXR Phase 90 and the Electro-Harmonix Small Stone and, that's why I've choosed to compare both, because they have created the basis for further Phaser effects.
Even that the Phaser effect is similar in both, their different "hearts" are very different and thus, their voices and behaviors are different and distinctive.
MXR '74 Vintage Phase 90 re-issue
Around 1974, MXR released this pedal and, achieved and immediate success. This particular unit is a reissue. Trying to be as close as possible to the original unit, MXR is using here same chips as the original one, while they don't run out of those NOS sourced chips. Therefore, this is a limited edition.
It's being wired to the old school. It hasn't a jack for the DC Adaptor and, has not a led light. Well, to know if the Phase is active or not is easy, this kind of effects are always noticeable.
During the '80 I had one of original ones (bad luck, I lost it, sell it or thrown it!) and, in fact, was one of the 5 pedals I had but, honestly, was the less used effect always.
Compared it against the Small Stone, the Phase 90 has a richer and warm voice. It's sweep is more linear. Once you set the speed control, it seems to shift the same amount of phase per time.
As per my tests, this pedal gives an useful sound during the whole speed range, with a guttural, warm and very musical tone.
Clearly, this is not exactly the same as a real vintage Phase 90 but it goes very close, while the modern take of the Phase 90 sounds to me bellow the tone of the Small Stone.
Electro-Harmonix Small Stone Nano
The original Small Stone is a bigger unit and, it's a real tone-sucker, dropping the volume of your sound and making it really thin. The Nano version of this effect solves all the issues of its big brother (that I also own) and its pedalboard friendly (it even has the typical boss barrel jack for DC adaptor!).
This is a rare case when an evolution of the original pedal goes better. Curious.
While the MXR unit seems to have a linear sweep, the Small Stone seems to behave in a logarithmic way, going slowly during certain part of the cycle and then, faster in the rest of the cycle and this, independently of the speed setting. This makes its sweep different from the sweep achieved with the MXR.
Maybe because of that, the resulting sound is more nasal, bright and metallic.
I have the impression that also the mix of signals in both pedals is different, maybe 60/40 wet/dry in the MXR and 40/60 wet/dry in the case of the EH. This, with the Color switch off.
I've found this Phaser not useful in the whole range of speeds (contrary to the MXR). As we increase the speed, the sound becomes more metallic and, in its extreme setting it sounds close to a ring-modulator, very thin and piercing. Also, at high speed settings, the sound seems digital (even than the effect is analogic), something that doesn't happens with the MXR.
With the Color switch on, everything changes. That lack of linearity in the sweep is being exaggerated way more and, that switch seems also to change the mix ratio, around 70/30 wet/dry.
The sound goes far away the sound of the MXR in this mode and, sounds more like some kind of auto-wah (buy without envelop-following). This is more notable between the 11:00 to 2:00 of the speed knob.
But this mode allows you also to experiment with sounds that we cannot achieve with any other Phaser effect and, that can be interesting. Playing with high speeds, I've achieved comical sounds or curious underwater sounds.
Conclusion
Very different pedals. For traditional Phaser effects, both can work really well. The MXR will bring more color and warmth to the mix, while the EH gives an smoother and transparenter sound (with Color switch off).
The MXR has a wider useful range of speeds while the Smaill Stone sounds ugly at high speeds.
The Small stone has the Color switch, that brings you some special sounds that you will not achieve with other Phasers.
I would leave the MXR on the pedalboard, since is warmer and predictable but, the interesting Color mode of the EH can be of help for certain songs, where that unique sounds are required.
Los Videos
This time, I am just comparing both pedals, without checking how they interact with other effect pedals. There is just one moment when I switch on the Vibe, just to check that at certain speed ranges, the phaser effects goes close to a Vibe.
Part 1
Talking about the Phaser effect, introduction of the units in the comparison and, tests with speed ranges up to 9:00 setting.
Part 2
Test of both units in the rest of their speed range.
Note: this entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around March/2011.
I wanted two compare two of the most typical Phase pedal effects. Both can be heard in lots of recordings.
Even that, because of my musical style, I don't often need Modulation effects, every effect has its place in some or other song so, it's good to have at least one of each type available for when it will be needed.
In the world of modulation effects, Vibe, Phaser, Chorus and Flangers are all cousins.
All them are duplicating the input signal in two paths, a clean path (or dry signal) and a signal that crosses several modulation stages (wet signal) and, in each of such stages, there is some phase shift applied to the signal, in a cyclical way.
What puts the boundaries for each effect type is number of stages, sweep range, speed range and some other particular characteristics for each type.
The Phaser effect is the simpler (conceptually, not electronically) of such effects. The wet signal changes its phase in a cyclical way, at a frequency (speed) rate selected with it's single control knob.
Such a signal is being mixed with the dry signal to produce the sound that we all can recognize.
During the cycle, both signals (dry and wet) have phase differences and therefore, during the cycle, some frequencies are bien cancelled while others are being reinforced.
This affects also to the perceived loudness. By cancelling bass frequencies, lot of energy is missed in the signal and the sound becomes hollow. When basses are reinforced, the sound fattens and growls.
In their higher speed ranges, Phasers are closer to Vibes, while in their lower speed ranges, they are closer to Flangers.
There were two iconic Phaser pedals in the market: the MXR Phase 90 and the Electro-Harmonix Small Stone and, that's why I've choosed to compare both, because they have created the basis for further Phaser effects.
Even that the Phaser effect is similar in both, their different "hearts" are very different and thus, their voices and behaviors are different and distinctive.
MXR '74 Vintage Phase 90 re-issue
Around 1974, MXR released this pedal and, achieved and immediate success. This particular unit is a reissue. Trying to be as close as possible to the original unit, MXR is using here same chips as the original one, while they don't run out of those NOS sourced chips. Therefore, this is a limited edition.
It's being wired to the old school. It hasn't a jack for the DC Adaptor and, has not a led light. Well, to know if the Phase is active or not is easy, this kind of effects are always noticeable.
During the '80 I had one of original ones (bad luck, I lost it, sell it or thrown it!) and, in fact, was one of the 5 pedals I had but, honestly, was the less used effect always.
Compared it against the Small Stone, the Phase 90 has a richer and warm voice. It's sweep is more linear. Once you set the speed control, it seems to shift the same amount of phase per time.
As per my tests, this pedal gives an useful sound during the whole speed range, with a guttural, warm and very musical tone.
Clearly, this is not exactly the same as a real vintage Phase 90 but it goes very close, while the modern take of the Phase 90 sounds to me bellow the tone of the Small Stone.
Electro-Harmonix Small Stone Nano
The original Small Stone is a bigger unit and, it's a real tone-sucker, dropping the volume of your sound and making it really thin. The Nano version of this effect solves all the issues of its big brother (that I also own) and its pedalboard friendly (it even has the typical boss barrel jack for DC adaptor!).
This is a rare case when an evolution of the original pedal goes better. Curious.
While the MXR unit seems to have a linear sweep, the Small Stone seems to behave in a logarithmic way, going slowly during certain part of the cycle and then, faster in the rest of the cycle and this, independently of the speed setting. This makes its sweep different from the sweep achieved with the MXR.
Maybe because of that, the resulting sound is more nasal, bright and metallic.
I have the impression that also the mix of signals in both pedals is different, maybe 60/40 wet/dry in the MXR and 40/60 wet/dry in the case of the EH. This, with the Color switch off.
I've found this Phaser not useful in the whole range of speeds (contrary to the MXR). As we increase the speed, the sound becomes more metallic and, in its extreme setting it sounds close to a ring-modulator, very thin and piercing. Also, at high speed settings, the sound seems digital (even than the effect is analogic), something that doesn't happens with the MXR.
With the Color switch on, everything changes. That lack of linearity in the sweep is being exaggerated way more and, that switch seems also to change the mix ratio, around 70/30 wet/dry.
The sound goes far away the sound of the MXR in this mode and, sounds more like some kind of auto-wah (buy without envelop-following). This is more notable between the 11:00 to 2:00 of the speed knob.
But this mode allows you also to experiment with sounds that we cannot achieve with any other Phaser effect and, that can be interesting. Playing with high speeds, I've achieved comical sounds or curious underwater sounds.
Conclusion
Very different pedals. For traditional Phaser effects, both can work really well. The MXR will bring more color and warmth to the mix, while the EH gives an smoother and transparenter sound (with Color switch off).
The MXR has a wider useful range of speeds while the Smaill Stone sounds ugly at high speeds.
The Small stone has the Color switch, that brings you some special sounds that you will not achieve with other Phasers.
I would leave the MXR on the pedalboard, since is warmer and predictable but, the interesting Color mode of the EH can be of help for certain songs, where that unique sounds are required.
Los Videos
This time, I am just comparing both pedals, without checking how they interact with other effect pedals. There is just one moment when I switch on the Vibe, just to check that at certain speed ranges, the phaser effects goes close to a Vibe.
Part 1
Talking about the Phaser effect, introduction of the units in the comparison and, tests with speed ranges up to 9:00 setting.
Part 2
Test of both units in the rest of their speed range.
02 May 2013
Pedal Effects: Hardwired, True Bypass, Buffered, Impedances: pedalboard madness
Introduction
Note: this entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around March/2011. I am just revisiting it here for its possible interest.
If your pedalboard loads just Boss or Maxon pedals, you wouldn't probably know about the issues we are going to talk right now. Boss and Maxon effects mostly have quality buffers.
Usually, if your pedalboard loads pedal effects of the same maker, it's very possible that all them are compatible, presenting no issues.
But, lot of boutique pedals that try to reproduce some vintage units can sound nice by themselves and be a real mess when trying to integrate them on your pedalboard.
In pedal effects world, you will often hear or read about Hardwired (HW), True Bypass (TB) or Buffered (BF), even Buffered Bypass (BB).
Let try to understand what is behind those concepts, pros and cons but, to make it short, when you mix those categories in same pedalboard you could have some tone issues.
I will present a practical example, with the fight I had with my current pedalboard (note: not my current pedalboard but, what I had in March/2011), trying to fit some vintage designed units.
We will see also the procedure to recognize our "tone-sucker" pedals and, how to insert them in the chain.
Interested?. Let go ahead...
Hardwired or True Bypass
Both words mean more or less the same and, both refer to a direct connexion from the input to the output jack, bypassing the effect's circuitry.
Well, that's true in part. Reality is that the input and output jack wires go to a pedal switch (DPDT on/on if no led or 3PDT on/on if led) and, that switch put both in contact or send both to the corresponding input and output spots in the pedal's circuitry.
The idea behind TB or HW is to completely bypass the pedal when it is being switched off so, your guitar's cable physically is being prolonged up to the next pedal in the chain (if any).
The pros of TB are that your guitar will never shut up if your pedal's battery dies or if your AC transformer provides no current (broken wire or whatever) and, that since your cable "bypasses" the pedal circuitry, your tone is being "preserved." No electronics component can affect your tone (well, we will discuss about this a bit below).
If the pedal is being switched ON, our tone will be affected by pedal's circuitry. Evidently.
The potential drawback of TB is that, since it's virtually prolonging our guitar's cable, its capacitancy (that increases with length) will be increased and, depending on the length (about 30 feet, 10 meter, it's clearly notable but, can happen even before) of that "virtual cable", the higher content of your guitar's tone will be rolled off. Your sound will loose sparkle, punch, bite and definition, turning to dark, dimmed and lifeless.
So, when you have all your pedals TB, the virtual length of your cable includes: the guitar to pedalboard cable, patch cables between your pedals, wires from jacks to pedal switches and your pedalboard to amp cable (or cables).
By example, if you had 20 cm patch cables, the inner wires jack-to-switch were about 10 cm and, you had a couple of 4.5 meter cables (guitar, amp) and 5 TB pedals, you will have a virtual length of: 4.5 + 4.5 + (4 * 2 * (0.20+0.10)) = 11,4 m
Even that TB is being designed to preserve your guitar's tone, my own experience says that not all TB pedals in bypass mode work the same. I made a comparison with three Buffer/Line Drive pedals, one at once (and the only pedal between guitar and amp) and, I was surprised seen that except for the Wampler's one, the rest were slightly sucking the tone (one clearly more than the other) in bypass mode!.
I've opened the Wampler's unit and the other two to understand what could make the difference. Despite of the makers of each jack and switch, Wampler's pedal had it's pedal switch inserted in a PCB circuit, while the others had jack wires directly soldered to the switch (shouldn't it be "purest path"?).
I dunno what makes the difference, quality of jacks and switch? that PCB? wires?.
I have no clue but, this is a repeatable experiment that gives every time same results and... yes... it's weird, indeed!.
Buffered
A buffer is an unitary amplifying circuit which the goal of re-strenghtening your signal while preserving the original tone and, adjusting the input and output impedances to the needs of pedal's circuitry.
Buffered pedals run both, the input and output jacks thru the circuitry. When the pedal is off, the signal goes just thru buffers (some pedals have input buffer, some have output buffer, some have both).
The pros of a buffered pedal is that it shortens that "virtual guitar cable" and restores full signal strength and frequential content.
Main drawback is that a buffered pedal, since some electronics components form part of the buffer, will die if it receives no current (died battery, wrong AC plug), even if it's being switched off. So your guitar will completely shut up if you don't remove such a pedal from the path or if you don't restore current there (new battery, by example).
That seems a good approach, right?.
Well, if you remember my past entry The Cost of the Cup of Tone, we've already seen that as soon as you introduce some amplifying component in a signal path, your original signal deads and, new signal is being generated in such an amplifier. Therefore, the quality of a buffer design is essential to preserve your guitar's tone. A bad buffer can work as a real tone-sucker and be a worst election than to have it in True Bypass mode.
There are dedicated Buffer pedal effects, designed with high quality buffers that can restore the signal strength and tone to be delivered to the rest of pedals in the chain. But, even between Buffer pedals there are clear differences.
By example, I've found MXR CAE MC401 or even Wampler's Clean Buffer to make the sound thinner and treblier, making the sound to loose some body.
Mad Professor's Ruby Red Booster is a very good one (and the versatiler you can find) but, Wampler's Decibel+ is the one providing the most useful tone, in my honest opinion.
Visual Sound's pedals have quality buffers and, they call them "True Tone Bypass" but, don't be fooled. They are buffered pedals, all the way.
Buffered Bypass
This is just how a lot of pedals work. Even if they are True Bypass when swtiched off, as soon as you switch them on, signal goes thru buffers before or after the circuitry. This helps to the own effect unit to have a good signal and impedance levels to do its job in the best way.
Once again, depending on the quality of buffers and rest of components, the results of the effect unit will differ in sound quality.
Impedance
This beautiful and bombastic name is the responsible for most of the issues we can find in a pedalboard (among many other audio environments)
Impedance is a concept for Alternating Current similar to resistance for Direct Current. It's being mathematically expressed by means of a Complex number, where its Real part is the resistance while its Imaginary part is the Reactance.
Wait... what the heck are you talking about?
While in DC world, things are very easy to measure, because current goes in a single direction, in AC world, current fluctuates in both directions and changes in phase and polarity cyclely. So, in order to use same concepts in AC like in DC, we need to measure "average values" that will behave in a similar way as the same component with such a value in a DC circuit.
While inside pedals current is DC, our pickups generate AC current that must be adapted to the DC current inside the pedal and, readapted at the pedal's output to be converted to AC again (for next pedal or amp's input).
The impedance is an AC "average value" that corresponds to the resistance concept for DC, but isn't exactly the same.
Ideally, every pedal should have an infinite input impedance and a zero output impedance but, this is impossible in real world. The use of buffer stages in pedals allow to interface between the guitar impedance levels and the impedance levels that need the components of the pedal effect.
Quality buffers often achieve an input impedance of about 1 MOhm (or higher) and output impedances around 600 Ohm (or lower).
Most of the early designed pedal effects weren't designed with buffers and, wasn't really concerned about interaction with other pedal effects. During that early times, there were very few pedal effects available and, usually, you wouldn't see more than one or two effects in a rig. The clean sound was more important than any processed sound. Effects were more common in Recording Studios, were a technician or engineer was adjusting everything together for a good recording.
The input and output impedance levels of the several pedals (even of the same maker) are the main source of issues to arrange your pedal chain.
Modern, Vintage and Boutique pedals
Have buffer every modern pedal effect?
Are all vintage pedals tone-suckers?
Are boutique pedals free of issues?
You should already realized that makers, once they have some successful pedal effect in the market, they start to produce new versions or evolutions of such a pedal, from time to time.
Those new versions can occurs because two main causes:
Usually, the main tone-sucker pedals are the very early pioneers of Vintage pedals. Those pedals often weren't True-Bypass. Some even hadn't buffered output/input and, some were even designed for Keyboards instead of Guitars (impedance levels on those instruments is way different!).
Vintage Wahs and Fuzzes hardly compete for the Price to the Most Tone-Sucker Pedal.
Those pedals often sound good just when they see the guitar directly connected and, they often work ugly when some other pedal is between that pedal and the guitar.
Those kind of pedals are always competing for being the first in your pedalboard chain.
Rest of vintage tone-sucker effects can better support other positions in the pedalboard.
Some vintage effects already had buffers but, not all them had quality buffers. Boss and Maxon pedals were designed mostly with quality buffers, by example.
In the Boutique world, we have a bit of everything together.
In one side, most of Boutiquers try to bring back to life a vintage unit, being absolutely faithful to the original design and components. That achieves the sound, indeed but, carries on the original drawbacks, also.
Some others, include small variations, as to add a Led light to know when the effect is on or off and, even a True Bypass switching system. They can even add some buffers to get rid of impedance issues, when the effect is on. This clearly affects the tone but, they go so close as possible, while making the pedal more friendly.
In general, well established pedal makers, with a long tradition in the effects world, were constantly enhancing their designs to solve the issues with vintage units, as soon as they started to be stacked with modern designed units (of the same or other maker).
This brings a more consistent pedalboard but... elves exist in musical gear. Many of such an "enhancements" ruined the original tone and, therefore, there is a lot of people searching the original units, because is there were the tone was.
Those makers, seen how the boutique market spreads, started to reissue their own "custom shop" or "reissue" versions of their own mythical units, at an expensive price (but always below the boutique price).
So, we have again the dog eating its tail. We bring back the "tone" and all the issues to insert that da-bomb pedal in our pedalboard.
Don't loose your head!
Most of pedalboard headaches are coming for the fight for the very first place in the chain of pedals. If that goes wrong, the issue is being propagated to the rest of the chain.
As soon as we have a vintage fuzz or wah (goes worst if we have both), they should go first in the chain.
When we have both, best solution is to have a fuzz-friendly Wah (like Real McCoy wahs), that is, a wah that includes some buffer to fool the fuzz that follows the wah.
Probably the worst pedal to deal with is a fuzz and, very concretely those fuzzes based in vintage germanium transistors. Those pedals are a real headache in every sense. They work with reversed polarity (what forces you to use separate AC transformers or isolated outputs), they are very sensitive to temperature changes and, they are very sensitive to the input impedance level, what can drastically change their voice and, go from organic to synthetic. Also, those fuzzes love worn batteries (and old ones, no modern high performance ones)
Usually, some looper pedal removes this kind of pedals out of the chain, as soon as they are switched off.
Other pedals that can compete in the pedalboard head are a vintage compressor and a tuner, by example.
This is the process I've followed myself trying to determine the pedalboard head:
I had the following candidates:
First, I've directly plugged the guitar in the amp and, adjusted controls to taste.
Then I've tested each pedal, separately to check how they sounded alone and how they affected my tone when switched on and off.
Every pedal, while off, leaved the original signal unaffected, except for the Dyna Comp. It seems that the circuitry of the Dyna Comp produces a drop in level and some lost of lows or increase of highs, while off.
An small touch in the amp's gain got rid off of such an issue.
So, first tone-sucker was identified: the Dyna Comp.
Step 2: Adding pedals step by step and, swap positions
Because of previous tests, I was clear that this fuzz stacked immediately after that wah wasn't an issue. The Real McCoy is fuzz-friendly. Fortunately, this part of the job was already done.
My main doubt was were to place that Dyna Comp, to be in the less harmful place.
I've tested it first after and before the tuner, taking notes.
Compressor -> Tuner = weaker signal, enhanced high end.
Tuner -> Compressor = same results
Therefore, the order between those pedals affects not to results so, I leaved apart the tuner and, checked the position before and after wah-fuzz.
Compressor -> Wah = weaker signal, enhanced high end
Wah -> Compressor = same results
So, it's the same where to place it. It will suck the tone anywhere.
After trying several combinations, I've found the less harmful the following order:
Wah -> Compressor -> Tuner
I've called this chain of pedals Block A.
An small increase in amp's gain was enough to make the guitar to sound better.
Then, I wanted to test the Vibe effect. I usually like vibes before gain pedals. Specially after the fuzz, it sound really ugly.
The Roger Mayer's Voodoo Vibe+ has one of the smarter designs that you will find. It's not offering just a switching system but both, at your will. It has one Hardwired and two Buffered outputs so, you can easily choose the type of output that better works in your chain.
I've tested both outputs with the pedal alone and, the buffered one sounded way better so, I've used such an output and stacked it after Block A.
Block A -> vibe = Block B.
Then, it was time to insert the Phaser. Usually, I like Phaser after Vibe but before any gain pedal.
Phaser was a MXR '74 Phase 90 reissue.
Tried both output types in the vibe and, even that both worked well, the sound was better with the buffered output so, I leaved it.
Block B -> Phaser = Block C
Time to see where to insert the fuzz and, this is where the fun starts.
While off, the fuzz presented no issues, respect to how the Block C was arranged but, as soon as the effect was switched on, what I've achieved is some kind of weird electronics feedback.
Even that the Phase 90 sounded best with the buffered output of the Vibe, I suspected that this was the issue for the fuzz and, therefore, I've used the hardwired output, instead.
Clearly, that fuzz doesn't like a signal coming from a quality buffer. Fortunately, the versatility of the Vibe pedal allowed me to get rid of this issue, this time.
Once, those potentially problematic pedals were arranged, rest of pedalboard is often way easier.
Overdrives and distortions are the following candidates in the chain and, even old designs as the RAT often work without issues.
I've arranged gain pedals from the dirtier to the cleaner:
RAT 2 -> MXR Distortion III -> OCD -> EP Booster
Between Vibe and Phase 90, I've inserted an EH Small Stone Nano, because I have pending a comparison between both Phase effects.
The original Small Stone is a true tone-sucker. It drops a lot the signal level and sharps the highs. This issue wasn't present in the Nano version of such a pedal and, it's even smaller.
Between the Nano and Phase 90 there is some incompatibility, both work better if the Nano is being stacked before the 90.
Another couple of pedals that have issues when stacked together are the Ibanez TS-808 reissue and the Fulltone OCD V3. You have to check one before the other to minimize the issue.
The pedalboard was arranged as follows:
To get the right order in your pedalboard is a matter of patience and, something you should do every time a new pedal cames.
You can foreseen issues when vintage fuzz and wah are in your pedalboard but, also with certain vintage mythical units, as the Dyna Comp or the Small Stone but, also with boutique pedals as the Fulltone OCD.
It's a good practice to read pedal technical specifications to know their input and output impedance levels.
When two pedals are in conflict, your sound will be better (or less damaged) if you stack first the one with higher input levels. Take into consideration that some pedals deliver a very high output level and, this can be a mess if its output level is higher or close to the input level of the following pedal in the chain.
Sometimes, a nice pedal that sounds awesome alone can be the worst we can use, because it ruins the rest of the chain. Use a looper to insert it only when strictly necessary or, remove it from your chain.
Note: this entry was already published in my old Spanish version of this blog, around March/2011. I am just revisiting it here for its possible interest.
If your pedalboard loads just Boss or Maxon pedals, you wouldn't probably know about the issues we are going to talk right now. Boss and Maxon effects mostly have quality buffers.
Usually, if your pedalboard loads pedal effects of the same maker, it's very possible that all them are compatible, presenting no issues.
But, lot of boutique pedals that try to reproduce some vintage units can sound nice by themselves and be a real mess when trying to integrate them on your pedalboard.
In pedal effects world, you will often hear or read about Hardwired (HW), True Bypass (TB) or Buffered (BF), even Buffered Bypass (BB).
Let try to understand what is behind those concepts, pros and cons but, to make it short, when you mix those categories in same pedalboard you could have some tone issues.
I will present a practical example, with the fight I had with my current pedalboard (note: not my current pedalboard but, what I had in March/2011), trying to fit some vintage designed units.
We will see also the procedure to recognize our "tone-sucker" pedals and, how to insert them in the chain.
Interested?. Let go ahead...
Hardwired or True Bypass
Both words mean more or less the same and, both refer to a direct connexion from the input to the output jack, bypassing the effect's circuitry.
Well, that's true in part. Reality is that the input and output jack wires go to a pedal switch (DPDT on/on if no led or 3PDT on/on if led) and, that switch put both in contact or send both to the corresponding input and output spots in the pedal's circuitry.
The idea behind TB or HW is to completely bypass the pedal when it is being switched off so, your guitar's cable physically is being prolonged up to the next pedal in the chain (if any).
The pros of TB are that your guitar will never shut up if your pedal's battery dies or if your AC transformer provides no current (broken wire or whatever) and, that since your cable "bypasses" the pedal circuitry, your tone is being "preserved." No electronics component can affect your tone (well, we will discuss about this a bit below).
If the pedal is being switched ON, our tone will be affected by pedal's circuitry. Evidently.
The potential drawback of TB is that, since it's virtually prolonging our guitar's cable, its capacitancy (that increases with length) will be increased and, depending on the length (about 30 feet, 10 meter, it's clearly notable but, can happen even before) of that "virtual cable", the higher content of your guitar's tone will be rolled off. Your sound will loose sparkle, punch, bite and definition, turning to dark, dimmed and lifeless.
So, when you have all your pedals TB, the virtual length of your cable includes: the guitar to pedalboard cable, patch cables between your pedals, wires from jacks to pedal switches and your pedalboard to amp cable (or cables).
By example, if you had 20 cm patch cables, the inner wires jack-to-switch were about 10 cm and, you had a couple of 4.5 meter cables (guitar, amp) and 5 TB pedals, you will have a virtual length of: 4.5 + 4.5 + (4 * 2 * (0.20+0.10)) = 11,4 m
Even that TB is being designed to preserve your guitar's tone, my own experience says that not all TB pedals in bypass mode work the same. I made a comparison with three Buffer/Line Drive pedals, one at once (and the only pedal between guitar and amp) and, I was surprised seen that except for the Wampler's one, the rest were slightly sucking the tone (one clearly more than the other) in bypass mode!.
I've opened the Wampler's unit and the other two to understand what could make the difference. Despite of the makers of each jack and switch, Wampler's pedal had it's pedal switch inserted in a PCB circuit, while the others had jack wires directly soldered to the switch (shouldn't it be "purest path"?).
I dunno what makes the difference, quality of jacks and switch? that PCB? wires?.
I have no clue but, this is a repeatable experiment that gives every time same results and... yes... it's weird, indeed!.
Buffered
A buffer is an unitary amplifying circuit which the goal of re-strenghtening your signal while preserving the original tone and, adjusting the input and output impedances to the needs of pedal's circuitry.
Buffered pedals run both, the input and output jacks thru the circuitry. When the pedal is off, the signal goes just thru buffers (some pedals have input buffer, some have output buffer, some have both).
The pros of a buffered pedal is that it shortens that "virtual guitar cable" and restores full signal strength and frequential content.
Main drawback is that a buffered pedal, since some electronics components form part of the buffer, will die if it receives no current (died battery, wrong AC plug), even if it's being switched off. So your guitar will completely shut up if you don't remove such a pedal from the path or if you don't restore current there (new battery, by example).
That seems a good approach, right?.
Well, if you remember my past entry The Cost of the Cup of Tone, we've already seen that as soon as you introduce some amplifying component in a signal path, your original signal deads and, new signal is being generated in such an amplifier. Therefore, the quality of a buffer design is essential to preserve your guitar's tone. A bad buffer can work as a real tone-sucker and be a worst election than to have it in True Bypass mode.
There are dedicated Buffer pedal effects, designed with high quality buffers that can restore the signal strength and tone to be delivered to the rest of pedals in the chain. But, even between Buffer pedals there are clear differences.
By example, I've found MXR CAE MC401 or even Wampler's Clean Buffer to make the sound thinner and treblier, making the sound to loose some body.
Mad Professor's Ruby Red Booster is a very good one (and the versatiler you can find) but, Wampler's Decibel+ is the one providing the most useful tone, in my honest opinion.
Visual Sound's pedals have quality buffers and, they call them "True Tone Bypass" but, don't be fooled. They are buffered pedals, all the way.
Buffered Bypass
This is just how a lot of pedals work. Even if they are True Bypass when swtiched off, as soon as you switch them on, signal goes thru buffers before or after the circuitry. This helps to the own effect unit to have a good signal and impedance levels to do its job in the best way.
Once again, depending on the quality of buffers and rest of components, the results of the effect unit will differ in sound quality.
Impedance
This beautiful and bombastic name is the responsible for most of the issues we can find in a pedalboard (among many other audio environments)
Impedance is a concept for Alternating Current similar to resistance for Direct Current. It's being mathematically expressed by means of a Complex number, where its Real part is the resistance while its Imaginary part is the Reactance.
Wait... what the heck are you talking about?
While in DC world, things are very easy to measure, because current goes in a single direction, in AC world, current fluctuates in both directions and changes in phase and polarity cyclely. So, in order to use same concepts in AC like in DC, we need to measure "average values" that will behave in a similar way as the same component with such a value in a DC circuit.
While inside pedals current is DC, our pickups generate AC current that must be adapted to the DC current inside the pedal and, readapted at the pedal's output to be converted to AC again (for next pedal or amp's input).
The impedance is an AC "average value" that corresponds to the resistance concept for DC, but isn't exactly the same.
Ideally, every pedal should have an infinite input impedance and a zero output impedance but, this is impossible in real world. The use of buffer stages in pedals allow to interface between the guitar impedance levels and the impedance levels that need the components of the pedal effect.
Quality buffers often achieve an input impedance of about 1 MOhm (or higher) and output impedances around 600 Ohm (or lower).
Most of the early designed pedal effects weren't designed with buffers and, wasn't really concerned about interaction with other pedal effects. During that early times, there were very few pedal effects available and, usually, you wouldn't see more than one or two effects in a rig. The clean sound was more important than any processed sound. Effects were more common in Recording Studios, were a technician or engineer was adjusting everything together for a good recording.
The input and output impedance levels of the several pedals (even of the same maker) are the main source of issues to arrange your pedal chain.
Modern, Vintage and Boutique pedals
Have buffer every modern pedal effect?
Are all vintage pedals tone-suckers?
Are boutique pedals free of issues?
You should already realized that makers, once they have some successful pedal effect in the market, they start to produce new versions or evolutions of such a pedal, from time to time.
Those new versions can occurs because two main causes:
- Maybe, some key component cannot be sourced anymore (usually, some chip or transistor). This obliges to the maker to produce a new version, with a substitute component and, to re-adjust everything trying to get as close as possible to the sound of the original version.
- Maybe, its pedal is awesome when played alone but, as soon as it's being stacked together with other successful effects in the trend, they suck and then, people starts to remove it from his pedalboard, what affects to their sales. In that case, a re-design can be necessary to make that pedal more pedalboard-friendly.
Usually, the main tone-sucker pedals are the very early pioneers of Vintage pedals. Those pedals often weren't True-Bypass. Some even hadn't buffered output/input and, some were even designed for Keyboards instead of Guitars (impedance levels on those instruments is way different!).
Vintage Wahs and Fuzzes hardly compete for the Price to the Most Tone-Sucker Pedal.
Those pedals often sound good just when they see the guitar directly connected and, they often work ugly when some other pedal is between that pedal and the guitar.
Those kind of pedals are always competing for being the first in your pedalboard chain.
Rest of vintage tone-sucker effects can better support other positions in the pedalboard.
Some vintage effects already had buffers but, not all them had quality buffers. Boss and Maxon pedals were designed mostly with quality buffers, by example.
In the Boutique world, we have a bit of everything together.
In one side, most of Boutiquers try to bring back to life a vintage unit, being absolutely faithful to the original design and components. That achieves the sound, indeed but, carries on the original drawbacks, also.
Some others, include small variations, as to add a Led light to know when the effect is on or off and, even a True Bypass switching system. They can even add some buffers to get rid of impedance issues, when the effect is on. This clearly affects the tone but, they go so close as possible, while making the pedal more friendly.
In general, well established pedal makers, with a long tradition in the effects world, were constantly enhancing their designs to solve the issues with vintage units, as soon as they started to be stacked with modern designed units (of the same or other maker).
This brings a more consistent pedalboard but... elves exist in musical gear. Many of such an "enhancements" ruined the original tone and, therefore, there is a lot of people searching the original units, because is there were the tone was.
Those makers, seen how the boutique market spreads, started to reissue their own "custom shop" or "reissue" versions of their own mythical units, at an expensive price (but always below the boutique price).
So, we have again the dog eating its tail. We bring back the "tone" and all the issues to insert that da-bomb pedal in our pedalboard.
Don't loose your head!
Most of pedalboard headaches are coming for the fight for the very first place in the chain of pedals. If that goes wrong, the issue is being propagated to the rest of the chain.
As soon as we have a vintage fuzz or wah (goes worst if we have both), they should go first in the chain.
When we have both, best solution is to have a fuzz-friendly Wah (like Real McCoy wahs), that is, a wah that includes some buffer to fool the fuzz that follows the wah.
Probably the worst pedal to deal with is a fuzz and, very concretely those fuzzes based in vintage germanium transistors. Those pedals are a real headache in every sense. They work with reversed polarity (what forces you to use separate AC transformers or isolated outputs), they are very sensitive to temperature changes and, they are very sensitive to the input impedance level, what can drastically change their voice and, go from organic to synthetic. Also, those fuzzes love worn batteries (and old ones, no modern high performance ones)
Usually, some looper pedal removes this kind of pedals out of the chain, as soon as they are switched off.
Other pedals that can compete in the pedalboard head are a vintage compressor and a tuner, by example.
This is the process I've followed myself trying to determine the pedalboard head:
I had the following candidates:
- Tuner: Korg Pitchblade
- Wah: Real McCoy RCM4 Picture Wah
- Compressor: MXR '76 Vintage Dyna Comp re-issue
- Fuzz: Hudson Electronics Stroll On (clone of Tone Bender MKII)
First, I've directly plugged the guitar in the amp and, adjusted controls to taste.
Then I've tested each pedal, separately to check how they sounded alone and how they affected my tone when switched on and off.
Every pedal, while off, leaved the original signal unaffected, except for the Dyna Comp. It seems that the circuitry of the Dyna Comp produces a drop in level and some lost of lows or increase of highs, while off.
An small touch in the amp's gain got rid off of such an issue.
So, first tone-sucker was identified: the Dyna Comp.
Step 2: Adding pedals step by step and, swap positions
Because of previous tests, I was clear that this fuzz stacked immediately after that wah wasn't an issue. The Real McCoy is fuzz-friendly. Fortunately, this part of the job was already done.
My main doubt was were to place that Dyna Comp, to be in the less harmful place.
I've tested it first after and before the tuner, taking notes.
Compressor -> Tuner = weaker signal, enhanced high end.
Tuner -> Compressor = same results
Therefore, the order between those pedals affects not to results so, I leaved apart the tuner and, checked the position before and after wah-fuzz.
Compressor -> Wah = weaker signal, enhanced high end
Wah -> Compressor = same results
So, it's the same where to place it. It will suck the tone anywhere.
After trying several combinations, I've found the less harmful the following order:
Wah -> Compressor -> Tuner
I've called this chain of pedals Block A.
An small increase in amp's gain was enough to make the guitar to sound better.
Then, I wanted to test the Vibe effect. I usually like vibes before gain pedals. Specially after the fuzz, it sound really ugly.
The Roger Mayer's Voodoo Vibe+ has one of the smarter designs that you will find. It's not offering just a switching system but both, at your will. It has one Hardwired and two Buffered outputs so, you can easily choose the type of output that better works in your chain.
I've tested both outputs with the pedal alone and, the buffered one sounded way better so, I've used such an output and stacked it after Block A.
Block A -> vibe = Block B.
Then, it was time to insert the Phaser. Usually, I like Phaser after Vibe but before any gain pedal.
Phaser was a MXR '74 Phase 90 reissue.
Tried both output types in the vibe and, even that both worked well, the sound was better with the buffered output so, I leaved it.
Block B -> Phaser = Block C
Time to see where to insert the fuzz and, this is where the fun starts.
While off, the fuzz presented no issues, respect to how the Block C was arranged but, as soon as the effect was switched on, what I've achieved is some kind of weird electronics feedback.
Even that the Phase 90 sounded best with the buffered output of the Vibe, I suspected that this was the issue for the fuzz and, therefore, I've used the hardwired output, instead.
Clearly, that fuzz doesn't like a signal coming from a quality buffer. Fortunately, the versatility of the Vibe pedal allowed me to get rid of this issue, this time.
Once, those potentially problematic pedals were arranged, rest of pedalboard is often way easier.
Overdrives and distortions are the following candidates in the chain and, even old designs as the RAT often work without issues.
I've arranged gain pedals from the dirtier to the cleaner:
RAT 2 -> MXR Distortion III -> OCD -> EP Booster
Between Vibe and Phase 90, I've inserted an EH Small Stone Nano, because I have pending a comparison between both Phase effects.
The original Small Stone is a true tone-sucker. It drops a lot the signal level and sharps the highs. This issue wasn't present in the Nano version of such a pedal and, it's even smaller.
Between the Nano and Phase 90 there is some incompatibility, both work better if the Nano is being stacked before the 90.
Another couple of pedals that have issues when stacked together are the Ibanez TS-808 reissue and the Fulltone OCD V3. You have to check one before the other to minimize the issue.
The pedalboard was arranged as follows:
- Wah: Real McCoy RMC4 Picture Wah
- Compressor: MXR '76 Vintage Dyna Comp re-issue
- Tuner: Korg Pitchblade
- Vibe: Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe+
- Phaser: Electro-Harmonix Small Stone Nano
- Phaser: MXR '74 Vintage Phase 90 re-issue
- Fuzz: Hudson Electronics Stroll On
- Distortion: ProCo RAT 2
- Distortion: MXR Distortion III
- Overdrive: Fulltone OCD V3
- Booster: Xotic EP Booster
To get the right order in your pedalboard is a matter of patience and, something you should do every time a new pedal cames.
You can foreseen issues when vintage fuzz and wah are in your pedalboard but, also with certain vintage mythical units, as the Dyna Comp or the Small Stone but, also with boutique pedals as the Fulltone OCD.
It's a good practice to read pedal technical specifications to know their input and output impedance levels.
When two pedals are in conflict, your sound will be better (or less damaged) if you stack first the one with higher input levels. Take into consideration that some pedals deliver a very high output level and, this can be a mess if its output level is higher or close to the input level of the following pedal in the chain.
Sometimes, a nice pedal that sounds awesome alone can be the worst we can use, because it ruins the rest of the chain. Use a looper to insert it only when strictly necessary or, remove it from your chain.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)