Just bought some pedals...

[Steve A.]

In the past 2 or 3 weeks I have bought more FX pedals than I have in 10 years! LOL

The first one was an EH Black Finger tube compression pedal which I thought sounded really slick. I usually don't like compression but this one just sounded like a nice tube amp, and kinda put a nice sparkle on everything. (I thought it might be interesting to put some of that circuitry in a tube guitar amp!)

My 2nd purchase probably negated the need for the first: I got a Damage Control Liquid Blues pedal, with 2 tubes and compression, just like the EH BF, but with more gain, a switchable boost and more controls. (Damage Control makes 3 other 2-tube pedals but this one has the lowest gain.)

My 3rd acquisition was a Barber Small Fry, which I happened to use at the Redwood City Blues Jam on Wednesday night... I usually avoid the solid state pedals but this one had a nice clean boost. I checked the specs on-line and see that it has compression along with a switch to shape the assymetrical distortion. (There was a Paul Cochrane Timmy in the pedalboard, but I didn't try that one... darn!)

Actually the Barber Small Fry is probably the most versatile of the 3- along with the 4 controls on the front panel (Volume, Tone, Dynamics, Burn) there are 4 trim pots inside on the circuit board (note shape, bass, midrange and presence). Plus a 3 way mini-toggle switch on the top panel to choose the assymetric character of your distortion.

I'm not an "FX kind of guy" but I did build all of the Craig Anderton pedals in his books, and these pedals seem to go way past that technology. Adding compression to the pedals - without making it sound like an MXR Dyna-Comp is a big help. The compression in all 3 of these pedals is more like the natural compression in a tube amp.

With the Anderton pedals, I'd add switches to toggle between values of certain components, or replace fixed resistors with pots to fine-tune the sound. But the switches and pots, especially on the Small Fry really seem to do a lot! Not just fine-tuning tweaks but world-shaping control of the sound... LOL

And with all 3 of these pedals, when you turn down the volume control on your guitar, the sound doesn't get muffled, but works exactly like you'd want it to.

I guess I'm most impressed by the Small Fry, since it manages to do what it does without tubes. Definitely a big step up from the Tube Screamers and the other pedals that everyone seems to use (usually just a few cascaded IC or transistor gain stages with a pre and post volume and some control over the EQ). Been there, done that...

Steve Ahola

[Steve A.]

Update

With both the EH Black Finger and the Damage Control Liquid Blues pedals I have been experimenting with different tubes. For both boxes, replacing the right tube with a 5751 really smooths out the response, etc. The Groove Tube 5751M is pretty good for a new tube, but a NOS 5 Star 5751 is even better (especially in the Liquid Blues!)

By using a 5751 in the Liquid Blues, it solves one of my complaints: the "Nuclear" footswitch on the right adds too much gain to the pedal. With a 5751 in there I can live with the gain boost, and it keeps things from getting too raspy, to boot.

The EH Black Finger is a lot of fun- you can select between a lamp and a LED for the tube opto-compressor. There is no tone control so you have to experiment with different tubes to get the sound that you want. (I haven't even looked inside but for a retail price of $300 they ought to have a few trim pots inside for fine-tuning the sound.)

Funny thing is that both of these pedals sort of give a Dumblesque sound to your rig- I think it has something to do with the tube compressor stages... And FWIW it has been suggested that the Trainwreck designs have a lot of similarities to the LA2A tube compressor.

I was almost thinking of bringing the Liquid Blues back to exchange it for the more expensive Womanizer, but with the new tubes I put in it (including a GT12AX7M on the left side) I'm having too much fun to bring it back... (With two GT12AX7M's in there it was just too raspy! )

Steve Ahola

[David Schwab]

(With two GT12AX7M's in there it was just too raspy! )

Thanks for the review! I agree about trying different tubes. I have an old TubeWorks BlueTube pedal. It came with a TubeWorks 12AX7 tube. I had a few other AX7's laying around, including an old Sylvania, and they each had a different character. For a while I used it with a 12AU7 instead of the AX7 for less distortion.

[Steve A.]

Thanks for the review! I agree about trying different tubes. I have an old TubeWorks BlueTube pedal. It came with a TubeWorks 12AX7 tube. I had a few other AX7's laying around, including an old Sylvania, and they each had a different character. For a while I used it with a 12AU7 instead of the AX7 for less distortion.

David:

Damage Control insists that there are no user serviceable parts inside...

I would much prefer to tweak the circuits myself so that they would work decently with any tube, but not with these double-sided military spec printed circuit boards. (I remember doing something to tweak the tone on my Chandler rack mount Tube Driver- back when I knew nothing about tube circuits.)

A caveat about replacing a 12AX7 with a 12AU7- the latter can draw more current and it is known to burn out cathode resistors in some circuits (especially on printed circuit boards where they use small wattage resistors to conserve board real estate).

Steve Ahola

[David Schwab]

(I remember doing something to tweak the tone on my Chandler rack mount Tube Driver- back when I knew nothing about tube circuits.)

Yeah, that was also made by TubeWorks, who claims there never was a Chandler Tube Driver... they only marketed the BK Butler version.

[Steve A.]

Yeah, that was also made by TubeWorks, who claims there never was a Chandler Tube Driver... they only marketed the BK Butler version.

I realize that Chandler is mainly into guitars, not electronics, but out here in Northern CA it was Chandler who was selling first the floor pedal and then the rack mount Tube Driver "designed by B. K. Butler". (The floor pedal really rocked, but I decided to "upgrade" it to the rack mount model, which had more knobs and it just wasn't the same. ) It was a few years later that I saw all of the TubeWorks tube drivers, and no more of the Chandlers.

I have one Chandler Tube Driver in my rack plus 3 spares for parts in various stages of disassembly... so I know that they exist. Here is one interpretation of the relationship between Butler and Chandler:

http://www.amptone.com/distortionprods.htm

Steve Ahola