Hey stratfish: a treble booster is not a pedal you see people putting their hand up to so often round here. Interesting. Have you seen the new-ish Brian May Treble Boosters built by Greg Fryer? Three to choose from: be curious if you have any thoughts.

Not that a treble booster is a pedal you're ever likely to replace one for another...

Cheers - C

Hi Ben: I have a Blackstar HT-Dual boost/drive/distortion pedal which has a tube in it and which I like a lot. Highly recommended.

However, some would suggest tubes in pedals are not a full answer to getting tube tone from a solid state amplifier because they argue a lot of the sound and feel of a tube amp comes from the power stage tubes rather than the pre-amp ones.

I was recently reading a review of Fender's latest VM Bandmaster and VM Deluxe amps, which are hybrids - but the other way around to what's normally done. In these the tube is in the power amp, not the front section. The reviewer certainly thought it contributed to a more "authentic" feel...

I bet Nikininja has a view on that.

Cheers - C

PodX3 live direct to PA

PodXt in an Atomic Reactor 118 amp. Wonderful tone with the EL84s boiling on "8" and mic'd to perfection.

Fender Princeton RI. At 15 watts it sounds awesome on 10, even better on 7.

Leslie 145. That's right, the real deal. 1968 baby! But I prefer to use the Leslie with an organ.

Line 6 MM4 Modulation pedal. An excellent appliance, I use it often with an expression pedal--tremolo, chorus, flange, ring modulator.

Line 6 Verbzilla. Its like recording in your shower or at the grand canyon.

Fulltone OCD overdrive. Excellent mild overdrive.

Mooger Fooger 105. A difficult machine to tame, but unique. In all seriousness, I don't particularly care for the Moog.

I too read the beliefs of people stating solidstate with a single valve operated pedal will never be as warm as a tube amp. Well does that mean that a tube amp with a analogue pedal in the chain looses warmth (to my mind pedals into amps changes sound even when their not switched on)? Infact what amp specificaly are they talking about? Theres so many (mine included) that are 'all valve' but when you look closer you find the gain diode aided. Or the classic ac30 king of all class A amplifiers thats really class A/B. The germanium transistored fuzz faces never did hendrix any harm. If anything is going to wreck a valve sound its germanium transistors. As soon as the silicon fuzz faces came out he switched to them. I cant hear the difference, can you? I wonder how many people that disparage single valve pedals into solid state amps actually play their amp to the point of getting any benefit from the output section? When/if they do how much do they have to alter their eq and pedal settings to match? Even my 5 watt amps sound totally different when the output stage kicks in (and yes their both class A) Ones a 59 watkins the other is a vibrochamp xd. Despite its modelling technology the vibrochamp holds its own against the watkins (point to point, pure class A, 50's original mullard valves). Infact if i put the 10" elac speaker of the watkins in the vibrochamp I cant tell the difference between the two despite the 49 years between them.

On the subject of hybrid amps my all time favourite is the 80 series marshall valvestate. A tremendous solidstate distortion with its single 12ax7 operating on the clean channel not the gain channel. Now that has to be the warmest sounding clean solidstate amp I've ever heard. Turn it up to 10 and plug it into 2 G75 loaded cabs and spot the difference between it and a jcm800.

Theres a lot of crap about amps and rig's. The simple truth is 'use what works more than 5 nights in a row and your on the right road'.

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No no and no

I haven't played out in a long, long time, but I'm looking forward to getting back into it. Since '92 I've had a Tubeworks/MosValve half-stack sort of thing that has done an excellent job in any situation... I think Tubeworks was taken over by Genz Benz and subsequently discontinued, but their early amps were great. It seems to consist of one of those Bill Butler RealTube rack-mount units sitting on two 12" speakers stacked on top of each other. The preamp uses 12AX7s, with the rest being solid state. The clean sounds are good, the reverb is serviceable, and you can dial in as much gain as you like at low volumes with the "drive" and "stack" controls. I've never heard it at full throttle; the thing is just ridiculously loud once you start to crank it up.

Recently I decided to supplement this behemoth with something a little more manageable size-wise. I want to be able to carry guitar in one hand, amp in the other, so I've no lame excuses like mrs mondo needing the car that night..(heh). I bought a 5-Watt Swart Space Tone 6v6se and it is just beautiful. I almost love it more than my guitar. It's a bit too loud for me to turn it up around the house, but with the volume at about 2 (and yes, it does go to 11!) the place is filled with the warmest clean tones it's ever been my pleasure to produce. Something that's surprised me with this amp is its responsiveness to attack... at that volume, it will break up fractionally if you really strike hard. If you turn up to about 4, you can use the volume/tone controls on the strat to manage your sound. I haven't really had that experience before, but I'm really enjoying controlling things from the instrument side more. Going from about 7 to 10 on the guitar volume takes me from sparkling cleans to a slightly overdriven bluesy sound. I just bought a Mr Springgy reverb pedal as the Swart is as basic as it gets and I like a little splash if I can't turn up loud enough to use the house as my reverb chamber.

Anyway, rambling on a bit, I know. I'm loving the all-tube, class-A, point-to-point cloth covered wire no-solid-state-allowed-ness of the Space Tone, but a fair bit of that could just be me geeking out over Michael Swart's commitment to making these things. The craftsmanship is outstanding, and that's always a pleasure to be around. I...uh... don't know if this has anything to do with the OP's OP... heh. swartamps.com if you've not heard of them before, well worth a look just to enjoy some '60s style.

Isnt it suprising just how invasive 5watts can be around the house.

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No no and no

My amp is a Fender Deluxe VM which I won in a contest in these forums. It's the best sounding amp I've ever had, and I'm so blessed to have it. The clean channel is beyond amazing and the dirty channel isn't bad either. Usually I play through a Dunlop Classic Wah, a custom ordered Screamin' Eagle Overdrive pedal from sbnpedals.com (I don't know how I lived without it, it takes the tone I already love from my amp and my Texas Special equipped guitar and just makes it better), and a ProCo Vintage Rat into the clean channel of my Fender. I've never been so happy with my tone... Now if only I could get my hands to work right.

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
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I like to play my American Deluxe Strat through my Super Reverb Reissue with a TS808 Tube Screamer and a wah pedal in front. I also have a Carvin V3 that I like to use with all my guitars. I have an Epiphone Elitist Les Paul Custom and a Gibson Les Paul Standard 60's Neck that I use with the Carvin. The strat sounds good through the Carvin as well, but I usually use my Les Pauls with the V3. As for effects, I have a Line 6 POD X3 Live that I use to control the V3 via midi and also send the POD through the effects loop with the amp modeling turned off. That way there is no digital modeling going on, only effects. I'm hoping to get an A/B box that I can use to switch between my amps. With an A/B box I would be able to have my overdrive pedal and wah pedal going in front of both amps and not just one.

Cool!! Another Carvin owner!!

If you wanna stick with Line 6, maybe you would consider upgrading to a Flextone Series amp or a Vetta. I have a Flextone III that is really cool, but I don't use it anymore since I upgraded my amp. Seriously though, you can get some really great sounds from the Flextone. For the price you would pay for a brand new Flextone you could also buy a decent tube amp. I think individual effects are pretty cool. That way you only have to buy the effects you use. The only effects I like to use are reverb and delay. Hope this helps!!

Bought a fender blues deville in january this year, and i love it! have a t-rex mudhoney dist. pedal as well, but i don't actually need it.. hook up my 1965 model Hagström 3, and walls come down!

Hehehe!

Though Niki, one of my primary sources for reservations concerning both valves in pedals and the issue of hybrids placing the valve in the pre-amp rather than the power stage is - you yourself!

I'm certainly not going to go wading back through your posts to find the one where you talked - very persuasively - about your doubts on the worth of valves in drive pedals: but I definitely paid careful attention to what you said. As always!

If you ever start running master classes on amp-innards I shall instantly sign up...!

Cheers man - C

I'm currently using a Marshall MG30 amp that has some digital effects which I use sparingly. The only patched effect I use is a Cry baby.

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"I started out with nothing, and still have most of it"

Amps:
Vox AC15 TBXR and Fender Champion 600.

Pedals:
Electro Harmonix Holy Grail Reverb.
Digitech CF-7 Chorus Factory.
Fulltone Full-Drive 2 Mosfet
Ibanez Tube Screamer Overdrive Pro TS808


Peter

I play through a Peavey Classic 30. Completely stock, no new speakers or tubes. To me, it sounds great stock, but I'm the sort of guy who'd rather practice instead of tinker with replacement parts. Pickup changes is as far as I go.