I've been doing a bit of research on these lately, im curious and suspicious as to whether or not one of these products would give me a Valve sound through the Crate Powerblock.
Up to yet i've found the fairly cheap Biyang tube overdrive to the mid-priced Blackstone HT, Aria TD-1, EHX hot tubes and Ibanez tube king up to the expensive Mesa Boogie stuff. It seems they all get mixed reviews like: "you need to swap those chinese tubes for blah blah blah..." or "this pedal rulez with my Ibanez Jem and Line 6 spyder".
So whats the crack?
Im sure i remember Lamp raving about the Blackstone and a few other people. Please tell!
I had one of these and I loved it. I even used it a couple times straight into a PA. Very nice chunky overdrive.
The only thing I did not like about it was that all of the pots were notched. That said, it had killer tone and was a workhorse most of the time I was gigging regularly.
Maybe hard to get ahold of over there though, not sure.
They say great minds think alike....Sometimes we do too...
What pre-amp tube was in it Mickie, can you remember?
I know you get what you pay for but if its generally all down to the tube then upgrading a cheaper model would be the obvious way to go.
Fran wrote:What pre-amp tube was in it Mickie, can you remember?
I know you get what you pay for but if its generally all down to the tube then upgrading a cheaper model would be the obvious way to go.
It used 12A series tubes.
I used to switch them around (especially when recording). Personally I liked it best with JJ at7, but used ax7's and au7's at differnet times. But that pedal with a tele into my old super reverb was amazing tone....
They say great minds think alike....Sometimes we do too...
Thanks, this is quite interesting stuff. I like the idea of a hugely modifiable pedal but im still curious as to the benefits with solid state amplification.
it will make a so/so amp sound great and a great amp sound amazing basicly. I have been wanting to get another tube pedal ever sicne I sold that one. I don't mind non tube OD pedals for some grit or some boost, but they never gace the same PUSH as the SIB did. I swear you could feel the difference. For comparison sake, I played it along side a voodoo labs sparkle drive, MXR Zack Wylde, HBE power screamer, and fulltone OCD on my guitar rig at one time or another. I always had 2-3 OD pedals at a time on my boards when I used the super.
They say great minds think alike....Sometimes we do too...
Yeah, its a bit better. I still think that Ibanez Tube King sounds the best up to yet though. My confidence in EHX is'nt great either, their standard pedals usually break so throwing a few tubes into the equation worries me somewhat.
