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The Sushi Box FX Secret Society

#20,981
I’ve found on the Finally, it just depends on how hard a signal and mids you’re hitting it with as to how easy it will start to get driven. I guess like most drive pedals.
I have two active basses and one is a bit stronger signal level than the other and has a mids boost.
With one I start to get grindy breakup about 9 o’clock. With the other it is about 12 o’clock.
For me, unlike the poster above, this breakup is a feature not a bug.
 
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#20,982
Thanks for the responses everyone! A couple more questions:

1) This might be my first piece of gear with a swappable tube in it, so what type of tube would get the MOST headroom on the gain stage before breakup? I’m going to dive in on reading up about tubes, checking out 12au7 and 12at7 first.

2) Much more importantly, while playing a festival in the city yesterday, I was getting this insane pulsing, clicking sound coming through my in ears and the house sitting at around -40db on the fader, loud enough to be heard through the mains whenever we stopped playing. Kinda sounding like what I expect an abduction from a ufo to sound like! At this point I was using a fairly driven sound and tried to minimize this noise by turning down the finally’s gain and level controls and boosting the volume on the Q strip DI running after it. This kinda helped, but ultimately I had to flip the switch from pre out to dry pass and the bad sound went away (along with the fun drive that was dialed in).

My signal chain was Shure glxd16 > Empress bass comp > hx stomp (no blocks/basically bypassed) > finally v2 > tech21 Q strip > xlr to house

Surely there is redundancy and gain staging to figure out amongst the pedals. I thought the strange alien gurgles noise might be the digital wireless system, but bypassing that didn’t change anything and turning off the pre section seemed to be the only fix. Haven’t been able to replicate this at home on my own power grid

Is this just what you can expect tubes to do, or maybe some non ideal power from the festival? Such an intriguing little pedal!
 
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#20,983
squeally dan said:
Not to derail, but are you using an amp on stage at all or just pedalboard to PA and IEMs?
Click to expand...

squeally dan said:
Not to derail, but are you using an amp on stage at all or just pedalboard to PA and IEMs?
Click to expand...
No amp at all, and it’s great!!!

100% pedal board to PA with IEM’s for the past 3-4 years. I love my amps but the load in/load out is so much better with a streamlined setup.
 
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#20,984
Kevlanco said:
Thanks for the responses everyone! A couple more questions:

1) This might be my first piece of gear with a swappable tube in it, so what type of tube would get the MOST headroom on the gain stage before breakup? I’m going to dive in on reading up about tubes, checking out 12au7 and 12at7 first.

2) Much more importantly, while playing a festival in the city yesterday, I was getting this insane pulsing, clicking sound coming through my in ears and the house sitting at around -40db on the fader, loud enough to be heard through the mains whenever we stopped playing. Kinda sounding like what I expect an abduction from a ufo to sound like! At this point I was using a fairly driven sound and tried to minimize this noise by turning down the finally’s gain and level controls and boosting the volume on the Q strip DI running after it. This kinda helped, but ultimately I had to flip the switch from pre out to dry pass and the bad sound went away (along with the fun drive that was dialed in).

My signal chain was Shure glxd16 > Empress bass comp > hx stomp (no blocks/basically bypassed) > finally v2 > tech21 Q strip > xlr to house

Surely there is redundancy and gain staging to figure out amongst the pedals. I thought the strange alien gurgles noise might be the digital wireless system, but bypassing that didn’t change anything and turning off the pre section seemed to be the only fix. Haven’t been able to replicate this at home on my own power grid

Is this just what you can expect tubes to do, or maybe some non ideal power from the festival? Such an intriguing little pedal!
Click to expand...
For the headroom question, you’ll probably want a 12au7.

The noise thing, not sure. Most likely something in the gain staging.

Are you only using the 1/4 out on the Finally? If so, have you thought about switching it around with the Q Strip and using the DI out of the Finally?
 
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#20,985
Neptunium landed today. At first the DI output level was very low which worried me a bit. Until I realized the cheap wall wart I hooked up wasn't up to the job. So I threw it on the board, hooked it up to the DC-7 and it came to live like nobody's business.

First impression: very very nice tone sweetener and super useful EQ. The HPF+bass boost trick gives me a really nice mid forward but still thick sound. Without the HPF the lows but still a good low end push it's super deep. It reminds me of the SSDI, but I haven't A/B-ed them (yet). Super stoked I can now take this sound on the road without the hassle of a mains powered device.

TL;DR: excellent job, Nathan! My first Sushi Box is super tasteful.
 
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#20,986
Kevlanco said:
Thanks for the responses everyone! A couple more questions:

1) This might be my first piece of gear with a swappable tube in it, so what type of tube would get the MOST headroom on the gain stage before breakup? I’m going to dive in on reading up about tubes, checking out 12au7 and 12at7 first.

2) Much more importantly, while playing a festival in the city yesterday, I was getting this insane pulsing, clicking sound coming through my in ears and the house sitting at around -40db on the fader, loud enough to be heard through the mains whenever we stopped playing. Kinda sounding like what I expect an abduction from a ufo to sound like! At this point I was using a fairly driven sound and tried to minimize this noise by turning down the finally’s gain and level controls and boosting the volume on the Q strip DI running after it. This kinda helped, but ultimately I had to flip the switch from pre out to dry pass and the bad sound went away (along with the fun drive that was dialed in).

My signal chain was Shure glxd16 > Empress bass comp > hx stomp (no blocks/basically bypassed) > finally v2 > tech21 Q strip > xlr to house

Surely there is redundancy and gain staging to figure out amongst the pedals. I thought the strange alien gurgles noise might be the digital wireless system, but bypassing that didn’t change anything and turning off the pre section seemed to be the only fix. Haven’t been able to replicate this at home on my own power grid

Is this just what you can expect tubes to do, or maybe some non ideal power from the festival? Such an intriguing little pedal!
Click to expand...

A 12AU7 will be incredibly difficult to make overdrive, so if you just want clean (and maybe a little thicc), it's probably the best bet for you. You will lose some overall output, but I find that's generally compensated for easily enough by bumping the level up a bit more.

With regard to the pulsing noises, how are you powering everything? And where is the power supply physically located on the board? If the pedals aren't running on isolated taps, it could be a case of the tube circuit interacting with either the wireless unit or the Stomp. And I've also seen similar noise issues crop up when a power supply is mounted underneath, like directly underneath, a high-draw tube pedal. Not sure if any of that can help you find the source.

It could also simply be a case of bad/dirty power at the venue in question, which can bring out all kinds of weird noises in signal chains!
 
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#20,988
Kevlanco said:
Thanks for the responses everyone! A couple more questions:

1) This might be my first piece of gear with a swappable tube in it, so what type of tube would get the MOST headroom on the gain stage before breakup? I’m going to dive in on reading up about tubes, checking out 12au7 and 12at7 first.

2) Much more importantly, while playing a festival in the city yesterday, I was getting this insane pulsing, clicking sound coming through my in ears and the house sitting at around -40db on the fader, loud enough to be heard through the mains whenever we stopped playing. Kinda sounding like what I expect an abduction from a ufo to sound like! At this point I was using a fairly driven sound and tried to minimize this noise by turning down the finally’s gain and level controls and boosting the volume on the Q strip DI running after it. This kinda helped, but ultimately I had to flip the switch from pre out to dry pass and the bad sound went away (along with the fun drive that was dialed in).

My signal chain was Shure glxd16 > Empress bass comp > hx stomp (no blocks/basically bypassed) > finally v2 > tech21 Q strip > xlr to house

Surely there is redundancy and gain staging to figure out amongst the pedals. I thought the strange alien gurgles noise might be the digital wireless system, but bypassing that didn’t change anything and turning off the pre section seemed to be the only fix. Haven’t been able to replicate this at home on my own power grid

Is this just what you can expect tubes to do, or maybe some non ideal power from the festival? Such an intriguing little pedal!
Click to expand...
Was FOH sending you phantom power? I guess the Q-strip would have kept the Finally from being affected by this; but the pulsing thing sounds like a power issue if anything. Overall I'd check output levels of both the HX Stomp and the Empress Bass comp. Start at setting the comp to unity; and I don't know if you run the HX Stomp where your volume control knob sets output volume and if rolling that back cleans things up a bit (or setting it to the headphones level and programming an output level that keeps it from being too driven). From there checking that you're getting a proper 9 or 12 volts from the power supply, and the proper mA to run the Finally. Lastly; see if interactions between any of those pedals are causing it to pulse, but that's a weird one to me
 
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#20,989
So my Neptunium finally (no pun intended) arrived yesterday afternoon, tried it out quickly yesterday evening and was very pleased with the sound. Gave it a more thorough try out today for an hour or so and yeah, I can see what the fuss is about, it does the whole warm and thick whilst retaining clarity thing. Was great with my recently acquired BB2000, punchy and articulate, not so vintage vibey that it's one dimensional, everything I hoped it would be.

Then I tried it paired with my finally on either side of a stereo split, and oh my, it actually highlights just how good the finally is, the mix of the fat and warm Neptunium sound with the more focussed and dare I say it slightly more exciting sound of the finally just had me grinning away. My wife even wandered in to comment on how it sounded (which she rarely does despite also being a musician). I can't wait to gig the pair of them, they sound slightly more suitably matched than using my oracle and finally do, although that deliberate two distinct amp sounds things is great in certain situations, I think the Neptunium and finally work better as a stereo pairing, whilst the oracle and finally are better as a wet/dry setup.

Either way I'm now spoilt for choice when it comes to preamp/di options, the difficulty now becomes making an actual decision as to what to use. Not a bad problem to have...
 
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#20,990
Kevlanco said:
Thanks for the responses everyone! A couple more questions:

1) This might be my first piece of gear with a swappable tube in it, so what type of tube would get the MOST headroom on the gain stage before breakup? I’m going to dive in on reading up about tubes, checking out 12au7 and 12at7 first.

2) Much more importantly, while playing a festival in the city yesterday, I was getting this insane pulsing, clicking sound coming through my in ears and the house sitting at around -40db on the fader, loud enough to be heard through the mains whenever we stopped playing. Kinda sounding like what I expect an abduction from a ufo to sound like! At this point I was using a fairly driven sound and tried to minimize this noise by turning down the finally’s gain and level controls and boosting the volume on the Q strip DI running after it. This kinda helped, but ultimately I had to flip the switch from pre out to dry pass and the bad sound went away (along with the fun drive that was dialed in).

My signal chain was Shure glxd16 > Empress bass comp > hx stomp (no blocks/basically bypassed) > finally v2 > tech21 Q strip > xlr to house

Surely there is redundancy and gain staging to figure out amongst the pedals. I thought the strange alien gurgles noise might be the digital wireless system, but bypassing that didn’t change anything and turning off the pre section seemed to be the only fix. Haven’t been able to replicate this at home on my own power grid

Is this just what you can expect tubes to do, or maybe some non ideal power from the festival? Such an intriguing little pedal!
Click to expand...
I think I will post this picture again to help with tube selection, it gives you a rough idea what gain each tube is capable off.
If you can not use your pedal above 2 then I would drop to a 12AY7 or a 12AV7 so you get overdrive after 5 or 12 o'clock on the dial.
If you use a 12AU7 you might just hit the overdrive at 10 or max on the dial.
Have you tried lowering the signal going into the pedal ? Maybe you are sending too much signal into it ?
Valve comparison.png
 
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#20,992
Tassieviking said:
It might be worth it if people get a pedal with a VU meter on it so they can stick it between pedals to see how much signal each pedal pumps out.
I think a cheap voltmeter and a couple of jacks and a few resistors in a box is all you need.
Should be able to make one for about $20 I guess. I think I will make one for myself now that I mentioned it.
Click to expand...

I wasn't able to find a pedal that measures level and does nothing else. I wanted that to be able to dial in the right input level with different basses.

I use this now but have no idea how exact and trustworthy it is with the level meter:
www.drscientist.ca

BoostBot

The BoostBot is an always-on, ultra-compact clean boost with dynamic, real-time level display meter. The boost circuit is a classic op amp design, a clean and loud amplifier that sounds great and provides 20dB of boost. Displaying the signal level is a classic 10 Segment Bar Graph LED. Like all
www.drscientist.ca www.drscientist.ca

1720951541251.png
 
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#20,994
Been on a preamp testing kick lately and picked up a Broughton SV-Pre to try out. Spent a bit of time shooting out some cab sims on my Darkglass Element vs rolling a few 12AU7 tubes in my Finally v2...and the Finally has won! To be fair, I'll probably use the Element at home a bit because it's easy to just plug in headphones, but the Finally will be there for band practice and any gigs I use my mini board for.

20240714_142608.jpg


And RIP my Unagi sticker 😭
 
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#20,996
Feral said:
Been on a preamp testing kick lately and picked up a Broughton SV-Pre to try out. Spent a bit of time shooting out some cab sims on my Darkglass Element vs rolling a few 12AU7 tubes in my Finally v2...and the Finally has won! To be fair, I'll probably use the Element at home a bit because it's easy to just plug in headphones, but the Finally will be there for band practice and any gigs I use my mini board for.

View attachment 6980868

And RIP my Unagi sticker 😭
Click to expand...
The SV-Pre is one hell of a preamp. I used that and a finally for a couple of years for every gig I had.
 
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