Selecting a tube preamp pedal on a $200(ish) budget

bdhoward27

bdhoward27

Feb 6, 2014
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Portsmouth, OH
#1
I'm looking to place a tube preamp on my board, preferably before my drive pedals. Budget is around $200 before tax and shipping. Not necessarily looking for a lot of gain or grit, just some rich tube harmonics to sweeten my tone.

Pedals considered so far...
Sushi Box FX - Underground Accelerator
Sushi Box FX - Slampegg Bee X
Sushi Box FX - More
Night Owl Industries - Edison Preamp

@scubaduba did an amazing job demoing the Slampegg Bee X on the thread - Tube Preamp/DI Sound Samples — Noble, Oracle, P-15, Super Stack, REDDI, Tonecraft, Jule…

Hondo Felder Music also did a great job demoing the Edison Preamp.

I can't find any sound demos of Sushi Box FX More or Underground Accelerator, though. I reached out to him on Facebook to see if he plans to put any bass sound clips online, but I've yet to get a response. I can't find any demos on YouTube either and I would like to know how they sound before I make a final decision.

If anyone in the community owns one or more of these pedals, how do you like them? Do you know where I can find good sound demos? Any input is much appreciated!
 
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#2
Can't speak for the rest but the Nightowl Edison is an always on part of my secret sauce.
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#8
Digging that Sushi Box is becoming a mainstay name in tube-powered pedal discussions, as an early adopter :cool:

The Edison is respected highly here, and for good reason from demos I've checked. Buuut I own two Sushi Box pedals and have first-hand evidence that they cover ground from "magic sauce" to hefty tube dirt, and sound fantastic the whole time. And in smaller enclosures, with more tone control options.
 
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#11
gtirard said:
@Sushi Box FX, I've got a brilliant idea: why don't you offer an option on your website like "try 3, buy 1", where your send 3 pedals to the client, he tries them, keeps one and sends back to two others?
Of course there would be additional cost, but that would be cool…
Click to expand...
Mattress and eyeglass companies can afford to do that because their profit margins are huge (somewhere over 60% on mattresses, over 90% on eyeglasses), so losses from damage and theft are affordable. I doubt there are any pedal companies operating at that level.
 
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#13
I also own a bunch of S-Box pedals, and (attention: shameless plug here) have a Space Heater for a bargain in the TB classifieds. It's the Underground Accelerator circuit without the Fender tone stack-just gain & volume....exactly the same as the UA with the tone stack bypass switch flicked......if you have eq elsewhere in your chain, this can provide anything from kleen tube warmth to heavy OD, with change to spare.

For Sale - sushi box space heater 12ax7 tube preamp
 
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#14
bdhoward27 said:
I'm looking to place a tube preamp on my board, preferably before my drive pedals. Budget is around $200 before tax and shipping. Not necessarily looking for a lot of gain or grit, just some rich tube harmonics to sweeten my tone.

Pedals considered so far...
Sushi Box FX - Underground Accelerator
Sushi Box FX - Slampegg Bee X
Sushi Box FX - More
Night Owl Industries - Edison Preamp

@scubaduba did an amazing job demoing the Slampegg Bee X on the thread - Tube Preamp/DI Sound Samples — Noble, Oracle, P-15, Super Stack, REDDI, Tonecraft, Jule…

Hondo Felder Music also did a great job demoing the Edison Preamp.

I can't find any sound demos of Sushi Box FX More or Underground Accelerator, though. I reached out to him on Facebook to see if he plans to put any bass sound clips online, but I've yet to get a response. I can't find any demos on YouTube either and I would like to know how they sound before I make a final decision.

If anyone in the community owns one or more of these pedals, how do you like them? Do you know where I can find good sound demos? Any input is much appreciated!
Click to expand...

Can't help you on the Edison but I am familiar with the Sushi's.

Slampegg will be the most colored as it is meant to give you that Ampeg tone. If you don't want to change your basic tone, might not be the one for you.

Underground Accelerator is a preamp with Fender Tone Stack so it's going to scoop some mids and give you a nice fat tone and will go into overdrive if you crank up the gain. Newer units have a tone stack bypass which make it basically a clean tube boost like the MORE.

MORE is 100% clean and offers no grit. It's meant to give you some tubey goodness and boost your other pedals. Dead simple with one knob. Has tubes on both the input and output.

For what you want I would probably go with an Underground Accelerator as with the tone stack bypassed it's basically a MORE with 1 tube.
 
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#17
I've gone through a bunch of them trying to find something that works for me. My situation is a bit more complicated because I play upright as well as electric bass. I have been looking for something that gives tube warmth and maybe just a touch of grit without veering into distortion (particularly on the E string). Right now I'm working with two different ones - I have had an Edison for a few months now, I generally like it but used it in a live setting recently and was providing just a bit more distortion than I wanted. And imo for bass, the boost switch is not neccessary - there's plenty of gain on tap without it. I also just got a Sushi Box More - seems promising, lots of warmth and no breakup. Waiting to see if I want/need both, so might be selling one or the other soon. I've tried several other Sushi Box pedals (UA, London) and didn't work for me.
 
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#19
I’ve got a v1 Edison. It’s a nice tube sweetener pedal. Obviously, there’s not much control with only the volume knob (and the boost switch on later versions). I find it has a bit of a “compression” effect and the deepest lows can get attenuated, while the mids become more forward, but not in any unpleasant “honk” sort of way. It certainly acts in a way that makes me think “that’s a tube” when it’s engaged. If you’ve got other pedals on the board, then the lack of EQ shouldn’t be an issue.

I find it works well at the end of my chain, and that it generally plays well with other pedals and basses. That said, it doesn’t improve everything in all situations, but I do have a variety of basses and pre/dirt pedals so few pedals universally work in every combo.
 
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#20
Another very satisfied Underground Accelerator user here! I set it so that when I dig in really hard, I start to get a hint of breakup, but otherwise you are just getting that nice, thickening effect from a little tube saturation in your signal, as well as that hint of natural compression.

The More will stay clean all the way through its sweep, whereas the UA can get really quite distorted if you start to crank the gain. Unpleasantly so, IMHO, but that's purely personal preference!
 
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