The Sushi Box FX Secret Society

[Sushi Box FX]

Also Nathan, any clues on what project sparked your fancy the other night and kept you up? Or is that Top Secret until further notice?

Sure, I'm not planning on this being a commercial product, but it's something that will make my life easier, and I like talking about nerdy stuff.

So the other night I was placing an order for tubes, and as I was doing it the guitarist in my band asked me to grab a set of power tubes for him as well. Most serious tube suppliers offer matching for sets of power tubes, and some will also offer "burn-in" services. If there's an issue with a tube, the majority of quality-related failures will happen within the first 24 hours of use, so suppliers will run the tube for 24 hours straight, allowing them to weed out the ones that were likely to fail early in their life. This is common with power tubes, and in my experience seems to be the case with preamp tubes as well, but nobody seems to offer burn-in services on preamp tubes.

I immediately started thinking about building a DIY tube burn-in station for preamp tubes so I could run a dozen or so tubes at a time for 24 hours. As I was going over the idea in my head I thought about how cool it would be if I could do automated tube testing the whole time this is happening, just a simple "is it passing signal/amplifying" check so I could visually see in real time which ones fail and throw those away early, rather than put them in a pedal that only runs for 2-5 minutes of testing before being shipped to a customer, not enough time for it to show symptoms of early failure.

This is still just a mess of wires on a breadboard for now, but I do have a circuit board designed for it that should be ready in about a week, at which point I'll build up a full station and start running tubes through it. Basically all that happens is a 1kHz signal is generated and sent through each triode, then I measure the output and compare it against a calibrated number that it's supposed to be at and assign it a pass/fail value. The timer at the bottom shows how long the tube has been running for. In this picture I only have one of the triodes hooked up, which is why triode 2 is failing.

Shall we guess?

Tube based tuner

We can have a laugh at this, but I do actually have some special display tubes that I bought specifically for that purpose, and I theoretically know enough to make a digital tuner with that thing as a display. I doubt it will ever happen commercially as it would be large, expensive, and functionally worse than every other tuner on the market, but I hope to eventually build one just so I can say I did it.

 

[bassbrad]

Sure, I'm not planning on this being a commercial product, but it's something that will make my life easier, and I like talking about nerdy stuff.

So the other night I was placing an order for tubes, and as I was doing it the guitarist in my band asked me to grab a set of power tubes for him as well. Most serious tube suppliers offer matching for sets of power tubes, and some will also offer "burn-in" services. If there's an issue with a tube, the majority of quality-related failures will happen within the first 24 hours of use, so suppliers will run the tube for 24 hours straight, allowing them to weed out the ones that were likely to fail early in their life. This is common with power tubes, and in my experience seems to be the case with preamp tubes as well, but nobody seems to offer burn-in services on preamp tubes.

I immediately started thinking about building a DIY tube burn-in station for preamp tubes so I could run a dozen or so tubes at a time for 24 hours. As I was going over the idea in my head I thought about how cool it would be if I could do automated tube testing the whole time this is happening, just a simple "is it passing signal/amplifying" check so I could visually see in real time which ones fail and throw those away early, rather than put them in a pedal that only runs for 2-5 minutes of testing before being shipped to a customer, not enough time for it to show symptoms of early failure.

This is still just a mess of wires on a breadboard for now, but I do have a circuit board designed for it that should be ready in about a week, at which point I'll build up a full station and start running tubes through it. Basically all that happens is a 1kHz signal is generated and sent through each triode, then I measure the output and compare it against a calibrated number that it's supposed to be at and assign it a pass/fail value. The timer at the bottom shows how long the tube has been running for. In this picture I only have one of the triodes hooked up, which is why triode 2 is failing.

View attachment 7119763


We can have a laugh at this, but I do actually have some special display tubes that I bought specifically for that purpose, and I theoretically know enough to make a digital tuner with that thing as a display. I doubt it will ever happen commercially as it would be large, expensive, and functionally worse than every other tuner on the market, but I hope to eventually build one just so I can say I did it.

Being able to test each tube before shipping is a great idea especially as you ship pedals worldwide.

FWIW Jon Bessent my dearly departed repair buddy and guiding spirit would spec test each component he used for his pedal builds for AusTone which he meticulously built over a decade or so. If the part did not meet his spec then it went in the parts bin for Tone Craft the repair side of his business venture. He got used to spec testing each component when he worked for a company that was building power supplies for NASA to their stringent specs, he was proud that units he built were part of the Apollo Moon Missions as well as the Voyager space craft.


Invalid Link Removed

 

[rickdog]

Sure, I'm not planning on this being a commercial product, but it's something that will make my life easier, and I like talking about nerdy stuff.

So the other night I was placing an order for tubes, and as I was doing it the guitarist in my band asked me to grab a set of power tubes for him as well. Most serious tube suppliers offer matching for sets of power tubes, and some will also offer "burn-in" services. If there's an issue with a tube, the majority of quality-related failures will happen within the first 24 hours of use, so suppliers will run the tube for 24 hours straight, allowing them to weed out the ones that were likely to fail early in their life. This is common with power tubes, and in my experience seems to be the case with preamp tubes as well, but nobody seems to offer burn-in services on preamp tubes.

I immediately started thinking about building a DIY tube burn-in station for preamp tubes so I could run a dozen or so tubes at a time for 24 hours. As I was going over the idea in my head I thought about how cool it would be if I could do automated tube testing the whole time this is happening, just a simple "is it passing signal/amplifying" check so I could visually see in real time which ones fail and throw those away early, rather than put them in a pedal that only runs for 2-5 minutes of testing before being shipped to a customer, not enough time for it to show symptoms of early failure.

This is still just a mess of wires on a breadboard for now, but I do have a circuit board designed for it that should be ready in about a week, at which point I'll build up a full station and start running tubes through it. Basically all that happens is a 1kHz signal is generated and sent through each triode, then I measure the output and compare it against a calibrated number that it's supposed to be at and assign it a pass/fail value. The timer at the bottom shows how long the tube has been running for. In this picture I only have one of the triodes hooked up, which is why triode 2 is failing.

View attachment 7119763


We can have a laugh at this, but I do actually have some special display tubes that I bought specifically for that purpose, and I theoretically know enough to make a digital tuner with that thing as a display. I doubt it will ever happen commercially as it would be large, expensive, and functionally worse than every other tuner on the market, but I hope to eventually build one just so I can say I did it.

Sorry for the thread hijack, but... where did you get that tube socket breadboard adapter? That's mighty handy!

 

[Sushi Box FX]

Sorry for the thread hijack, but... where did you get that tube socket breadboard adapter? That's mighty handy!

Made it myself That was one of my very first ever PCBs that I designed and had fabricated, it was about 8 years ago now.

 

[OldShark]

I immediately started thinking about building a DIY tube burn-in station for preamp tubes so I could run a dozen or so tubes at a time for 24 hours.

Ah, so it's not a "Meanwhile" but the "Night and Day"?

For the mentioned tubed based tuner, you could probably add that to your already tubed based bass as the possibly first bass with a builtin tuner! (And with enough dirt from the builtin preamp, the turner's lacking precision would not matter anyway...)

 

[Sushi Box FX]

I took a little bit of a break tonight to work on one of my favorite pedals of all time, the Deluxe Electric Mistress. I played one of these for the first time when I worked in a music shop during university and instantly fell in love, but I was dirt poor and couldn't afford to buy it, even with my generous employee discount. I recently scored a deal on this unit, circa 1979, because it was originally a European unit so it was wired for a 220VAC input, making it a tough sell to US customers, but fortunately I know a thing or two about electronics. I rewired it to run off 9VDC so it can park comfortably on my pedalboard. Since this already destroyed it's "originalness" I decided to swap out the footswitch and add an LED.

It's the oldest piece of gear I own and is worthy of a spot on my display wall, but it sounds too good not to use regularly, so it gets a spot on my pedalboard.

 

[bassbrad]

I took a little bit of a break tonight to work on one of my favorite pedals of all time, the Deluxe Electric Mistress. I played one of these for the first time when I worked in a music shop during university and instantly fell in love, but I was dirt poor and couldn't afford to buy it, even with my generous employee discount. I recently scored a deal on this unit, circa 1979, because it was originally a European unit so it was wired for a 220VAC input, making it a tough sell to US customers, but fortunately I know a thing or two about electronics. I rewired it to run off 9VDC so it can park comfortably on my pedalboard. Since this already destroyed it's "originalness" I decided to swap out the footswitch and add an LED.

It's the oldest piece of gear I own and is worthy of a spot on my display wall, but it sounds too good not to use regularly, so it gets a spot on my pedalboard.

View attachment 7120068View attachment 7120069

It's hard to beat some of those old EHX pedals.

 

[Sushi Box FX]

It's hard to beat some of those old EHX pedals.

Yup, none are perfect, but with some finangling they can be made pretty damn close.

 

[Feral]

View attachment 7120069

I love seeing electronics internals, but olders boards with curved traces are a little unsettling for some reason. Like a Salvador Dali painting, or an AI-generated photo of a person with weird fingers.

 

[Sushi Box FX]

I love seeing electronics internals, but olders boards with curved traces are a little unsettling for some reason. Like a Salvador Dali painting, or an AI-generated photo of a person with weird fingers.

Honestly I'm with you on that. I see some modern builders use curved traces for that "vintage mojo" look, but I'm really not into it, I've never done it and don't plan to.

 

[andare]

I love seeing electronics internals, but olders boards with curved traces are a little unsettling for some reason. Like a Salvador Dali painting, or an AI-generated photo of a person with weird fingers.

Quick, someone who knows Greek invent a term for the phobia of curved circuit board traces!

We already have a ton of phobia names, this one is definitely necessary.

I love me some curved traces. The belong to that era between the late 50s and late 70s when everything was groovy.
Then the 80s arrived and bleh

 

[MIMike]

You said circa 79, but if I’m reading that color pot correctly, isn’t that from late 1980?
That would make this version slightly less groovy (only slightly less though).

I had a 1983 Small Clone (first pedal ever) that is still probably my favorite chorus for bass (mind you, I haven’t tried all that many).

 

[Rev_Slinky]

Quick, someone who knows Greek invent a term for the phobia of curved circuit board traces!

We already have a ton of phobia names, this one is definitely necessary.

I love me some curved traces. The belong to that era between the late 50s and late 70s when everything was groovy.
Then the 80s arrived and bleh

"Circuitous" is a word that's already doing double-duty in this case. Maybe "Circuitophobia"?

 

[Sushi Box FX]

You said circa 79, but if I’m reading that color pot correctly, isn’t that from late 1980?
That would make this version slightly less groovy (only slightly less though).

I had a 1983 Small Clone (first pedal ever) that is still probably my favorite chorus for bass (mind you, I haven’t tried all that many).

Good question, it certainly does look that way. The seller told me 1979, but you're right about the date code. I'll have to check the other pots and see what they say, but it seems unlikely a pot would be swapped out so soon after it was built, so it's more likely it's from 1980. It looks like 1981 is when they moved to the green artwork.

 

[bassbrad]

Yup, none are perfect, but with some finangling they can be made pretty damn close.

I have several of my all time favorite pedal Bass Balls that were "ruggederized" by Jon Bessent after they all failed. Over several years I had collected 4 that had stopped working. He sussed out the failure points on each of them and "put in the fix". So far they keep rocking.

 

[Michael Vee]

I have several of my all time favorite pedal Bass Balls that were "ruggederized" by Jon Bessent after they all failed. Over several years I had collected 4 that had stopped working. He sussed out the failure points on each of them and "put in the fix". So far they keep rocking.

Brad, is there a separate Talkbass thread about Jon Bessent? If not, you should start one. I see you've posted quite often about him. It sounds like he was quite a character, and quite good at what he did. How long has he been gone?

 

[bassbrad]

Brad, is there a separate Talkbass thread about Jon Bessent? If not, you should start one. I see you've posted quite often about him. It sounds like he was quite a character, and quite good at what he did. How long has he been gone?

Invalid Link Removed and he is sorely missed by one and all. I had the blessing of working along with him and Walter Hutcherson over many years at Musical Exchange in North central Austin. I valued their friendship and learned so much about the music biz and life from them. We never knew who might pass through the doors either shopping, needing a repair or just hang out.

 

[deepestend]

I have never really bought the tube pedal hype. But a recent unexpected trade put an older mini-tube slampegg into my hands. I thought "why not?" but didn't have high expectations for anything that different.

Well, I put it on my board last night with my regular wed night band and loved it. I was previously using a JHS Presitige Buffer Boost in the same spot, which is FET, so tube emulating. I really didn't think the slampegg would sound "that" much better.

It definitely did! The saturation and touch feel that it gave my tone last night really did make me a believer. I need to play it consistently, but I connected with sound right away. I have a Broughton Messenger after it and the high pass/low pass filter really helped a lot to dial things in.

That's my quick review... more later. But I really like the slampegg a lot.

 

[deepestend]

Also, how careful do I have to be with this pedal? Is the tube fragile at all?

 

[lomo]

Also, how careful do I have to be with this pedal? Is the tube fragile at all?

"Reasonable care" will suffice, as for any pedal or electronic device. Sudden impacts are to be avoided