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Solid Gold FX Beta drive? Anyone playing one?

#81
So, yeah I REALLY like this pedal! It reminds me of the myco three I had more than any others I've tried. And I can see it being on all the time. It adds its own character, which is a good character. Lots of lows, grinds really well all over the neck. Not farty, really smooth and fat. I'm inclined to go for the "vintage" tones more than modern ones, and this achieves that sound. I like it better than darkglass vmt which I just got rid if for this. Does the same type of thing but IMO this sounds better. Again this is my taste. Score for me.
 
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#82
form the pics, it looks like it hits a J201 Jfet first then goes into an 8 pin opamp (possibly a JRC4558) under the top left C500K pot. I also see four 1N4148 diodes on the right side which I would assume are for the clipping.
it also looks like it's a dual purpose circuit board that can be used for one of their other pedals.
 
#85
You guys might know more about this stuff but I just emailed solid gold fx and literally 2 minutes later I got this response..

" Thanks for your email and i'm glad you're enjoying the Beta! The Beta is an original design. It features a discrete Jfet preamp cascading into an IC based gain stage which then hits a clipping stage and tone control."
 
#86
yaksonator said:
You guys might know more about this stuff but I just emailed solid gold fx and literally 2 minutes later I got this response..

" Thanks for your email and i'm glad you're enjoying the Beta! The Beta is an original design. It features a discrete Jfet preamp cascading into an IC based gain stage which then hits a clipping stage and tone control."
Click to expand...

that's exactly what I said it was. but then again even a tubescreamer is the basically same type of circuit only with a BJT instead of a Jfet.
 
#88
Thanks everyone for the interest and the kind words, I’m glad you’re enjoying the Beta.

I figured I’d chime in real quick to clear a few things up. First of all, all our pedals are true bypass apart from the Buffer.

Secondly, the Beta design has nothing to do with a Tubescreamer. Neither in sound, nor design.

Thirdly, for those who were wondering about our affiliation with the Solid Gold strip club, the dancers build our pedals between lap dances. :D

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us anytime at [email protected].

All the best,
Greg
 
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#95
Nice. Glad to hear it's not too dark for an SG bass. I haven't had it with the band yet, but my initial impressions are quite good. I really go for the "vintage sound" of more mids and less highs, and I play with a heavy hand in a live mix (I have an excitable drummer). This is often a bad combo because most pedals that aim for vintage tube-ish distortion have some amount of touch responsiveness, and it's easy to make stuff really fart out when you dig in and overdrive the input gain, particularly with the bass's tone rolled off. This is definitely not the case with the Beta, and I'm very impressed by that. Digging in just gives more distortion and not more compression. On the other end, at high gain settings, it doesn't "over clip" and sputter out, and as advertised it never gets fizzy. I'm fairly confident taking this into a live setting and hammering on it.

I also like that both the Gain and Tone controls are usable throughout their full sweeps. I typically only use one setting on a pedal, but it's always nice to not have to worry about bumping a knob and ruining your sound. At low gain/rolled off tone, it gets a super deep old school thump, and at high gain/full tone it gets a very sweet sounding overdrive distortion, almost like a nice tube pedal with a low gain tube (so it still has a high end roll off). I was surprised to see Yak compare it to his Myco Three, but I have a Blue Tube (12ax7) and it I'd say the Beta can compare to that at it's sweet spot settings. I was going to swap a lower gain tube in that pedal...may not bother now.

So far I've only played it through an Ampeg B50r. I have that dialed in fairly dark, and the Beta seemed to play well with it. I'm interested to see how it sounds with the tube preamp on my GK MB Fusion.
 
#96
jumblemind said:
On the other end, at high gain settings, it doesn't "over clip" and sputter out, and as advertised it never gets fizzy. I'm fairly confident taking this into a live setting and hammering on it.
Click to expand...

How would that sound?

Also; in terms of how it reacts to softer and harder touch...so far I haven't found clips demonstrating this-are there any?
More distortion when playing harder but not more compression?-I'd love to find clips demoing this!
That might end my debating( with my self, wether or not to buy one)
And... I wonder if there might be an update coming at some point , with front facing sockets as addressed above.
That'd be NICE!
:)
 
#97
cnltb said:
Also; in terms of how it reacts to softer and harder touch...so far I haven't found clips demonstrating this-are there any?
More distortion when playing harder but not more compression?-I'd love to find clips demoing this!
:)
Click to expand...

A lot of pedals are touch responsive, probably most decent overdrives that aim for an amp type of distortion are that way, because that's how tubes respond. If you hit them with more gain (ie, hitting your strings harder), the signal causes more clipping and more compression. It's not special to the Beta, but I think the way the Beta handles it is nice.

And I sort of misspoke. The Beta does compress more when you dig in, it's just that it doesn't compress so much that the low end disappears or fades back into clipping like it does on so many other overdrives, even ones made just for bass. I don't know much about circuits and gain stages, but I'm finding the Beta to be very well tuned to handle bass lines in the lower register and give those the same saturation that you can get higher up the neck. It's one of those rare pedals that can take your low end and just extend it out in different directions, saturating the sound without distorting it away. I think it would be great for players that sometimes ask for a pedal to make their sound bigger and warmer, or for a pedal that will help fill in space while a guitar player solo's.
 
#99
I don't find it transparent, it has a really pleasant character to it though. Again just fat smooth drive sound. Even at higher gain settings it's not overbearing, really finely tuned. Played with it today with the band and it adds a lot of warm grind to the mix instead of cutting distortion.. I really like that. I could see a sound guy really enjoying mixing with this pedal. Great tone! It might not cut through like some mid focused ods but I don't want that. I wanted thick and warm.. others might hear it differently than me but I'm very pleased.
 

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