I was never a big “tube guy” for bass guitar. I always preferred solid state. (even though I owned a 76 SVT for a few years.. great, powerful amp, but I’m sure it contributed to all my back operations)
anyway, tried out the EBS Valve Drive for a quick month. I must’ve gotten a defective one because every tube I rolled in It, went into a thermal breakdown after an hour. I should’ve returned it, but one thing led to another, and it just sits in my storage facility. I was so turned off to the tube thing.
And then I saw a video on the slampegg bee pre with a 12AT7 in there…. Loved how it sounded with the lower gain tube. (I always thought anything over a 12AT7 for bass, went into distortion too quickly… unless you’re into metal or punk) Nathan said in a previous email to me, that you can put ANY of the 12A*7 family in there, with no problems-just gain reduction.
So I informed Nathan on the invoice notes to slip me a 12AT7 on my unit.
Didn’t realize it didn’t come with the power supply… (temporarily using the old white gigantic radio shack, multi voltage power supply 12V/800mA)
emailed Nathan for suggestions, but I never heard back from him. He’s probably busy. so I ordered a normal sized 12V/1.2A Center-Neg PS off of Amazon. Let’s hope the tip fits the unit (I know what you’re thinking. The amperage rating is overkill… but I’ll return to that in a second)
Been messing around with it for a few days…. Sounds great. It does exactly what a tube does. After a half hour, the highs start to roll off, the low mids start to bump, and after an hour, I’m into glowing romantic mush. LOL
And I gotta tell ya, after an hour and a half of that pedal being on,… well,… I won’t say you can “fry an egg on it”,…. But that pedal gets DARN WARM after a certain amount of time. I let it cool down for 10 minutes before I put it away.
Like I said, 12AX7, 5751,… those preamp tubes are just too hot for bass (in my opinion)… I like the T that’s in there. And with that, I have the gain between 9:30-10 o’clock.- and the master between 12-1 o’clock… I find thats pretty much the sweet spot for me….
Since I’m not a big fan of distorted bass, I might even roll a 12AY7, 12AV7, & even try a very low 12AU7 in there at some point, to jack that gain up a little more, while staying clean.
So here’s the question:
As the gain factor ‘goes down’ on the preamp tubes, doesn’t the ‘current draw’ of the unit “go up” inversely?
This is why I opted for a larger current draw allowance on the power supply. With the stock 12AX7, the spec says the current draw is 400mA. And again, like I said previously, the pedal,..and the old RS power supply I’m temporarily using, are both pretty Darn Warm to the touch,.. which is justifying my suspicions about the higher current flow (within the unit) using a ‘lower gain’ preamp tube.
Can somebody chime in who knows what they’re talking about (because I certainly don’t, I’m just going with my tinfoil hat!) and straighten me out about tube circuit behavior- and proper tube rolling?
Thanks
Juicy
