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The Sushi Box FX Secret Society
- Thread starter kranahan
- Start date
I actually ran into a Boss product development guy years ago in LAX when both of our flights got delayed and we chatted for a bit. He gave me his card and said he would love to see what I'm working on. I stressed about trying to find the perfect thing to show him, then got busy enough to forget, then when I remembered it felt like too much time had passed. I've moved three times since then and now I don't know where his card ended up.
A tube pedal with a FX loop (tube sandwich?) would probably cover most of these “add a tube to my favorite pedal” ideas. It would be fairly modular anyway.
I keep thinking about something like this TBH. Especially after loving and leaving the JHS Punchline - a tube sandwich preamp pedal would be insane. MORE + FFXL + Finally? How big of a pedal do I need?
OTOH half of the fun of pedals is the modularity- a small super functional box that’s focused at what it does.
On that note I received my MORE and added it to the front of my signal chain and it rules. Everyone talks about it being a subtle tone sweetener- that thing adds so much tube goodness I can’t believe people aren’t shouting from the rooftops about it.
The signal chain starts and ends at an Empress Buffer+ as a junction box, with a MORE feeding into an Empress Bass comp, and finishing into a ParaEQ + Finally.
I guess my core sound is entirely Sushi with a fair amount of Empress seasoning.
OTOH half of the fun of pedals is the modularity- a small super functional box that’s focused at what it does.
On that note I received my MORE and added it to the front of my signal chain and it rules. Everyone talks about it being a subtle tone sweetener- that thing adds so much tube goodness I can’t believe people aren’t shouting from the rooftops about it.
The signal chain starts and ends at an Empress Buffer+ as a junction box, with a MORE feeding into an Empress Bass comp, and finishing into a ParaEQ + Finally.
I guess my core sound is entirely Sushi with a fair amount of Empress seasoning.
My boards been Sushi and Source Audio for along time now! That's where the More is great to use. I like to stick it after the digital pedals.
Hmm... I have an early version of the Markbass Compressor and I love it... but it takes up a lot of space! I don't have an Alma... I'd have to sell my Compressor to fund the SS... Please, when you have had time to play... I'd love to know what you gain and what you miss out when you swap out your Compressor for the SS.
You would need a butt load of tubes in an Ultrawave for all those different separate bands of drive, plus you would get a few variations of tube drive out of it to chose from, basically something like pentode and triode tube drive, rather than a broad palette of completely different types of drive (that said a 3 band tube drive would be cool, and I think actually within reason too).
Just add a simple tube preamp, or something like the Sushibox More, at the end of yoru chain, after all your digital pedals, to add some unique tube warmth, saturation and compression to the equation. and call it a day.
Randomly adding tubes to every pedal in existence is not going to be a viable solution, neither from a practical, space efficiency, tone or economical point of view.
And for sure adding it to multifunction digital drive pedals, other than for final gain stage coloration (at which point, as said, you would be better off just adding one single tube preamp at the end of your signal path), kind of defeats the point of them.
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Or how about a Boss TU-2TU(be)...
The sky is the limit, as far as goes tube technology.
Well so far the SS has pretty much relegated the Compressore to the shelf, I'm sure I'll use it again in the future, but size and power wise it's a bit of a pita.
I've mostly been switching between the Alma and the SS depending on mood/feel, they're different enough that I feel I can justify both, and on occasion I've been running them one into the other which sounds great, but admittedly might be too much for some situations.
The SS has more heft/"bigness" to the sound which I really like, more so than the Markbass, I like the pre and post gain controls on the markbass for dialling in plenty of the character it has, usually gain at around 3 o'clock, threshold at about 11 but with a fairly low ratio so it doesn't get too squeezy. I'm finding the SS more versatile, there's 3 or 4 settings that I already like, and while there's enough change when you turn a knob that you can get a difference, it's not so much that you're searching for a narrow window of useability all the time.
I'd be happy using it as my only compressor, if I was a really percussive slap player etc then I don't know that it would be the one for me, although I'm not, so it's hard to say for certain. I like that I can use it in almost the same way as the More, but then dial in a bit more compression which makes it feel even more tube-y, and it also works to do a really nice full compressor sound, when you want it to just start to sound like it's compressed but makes it sit in a band mix really well.
I doubt that anyone would be disappointed with it, unless you want a really specific type of compression that's far from this (in which case you probably wouldn't be looking at this style anyway), but for the tone sweetening, signal enhancing type of compression I think it's tough to beat.
I made one of those once, but I overcomplicated it and it was too big to be a really sexy idea, but I liked the idea enough that it has stayed on my list as something I want to bring back to the bench eventually.
I'm remarkably proud of the things I make, but I will always try to keep learning more, which is why my products evolve over time. When I have a failed design I'll put it on a shelf, then every now and then I'll look back on them and say "I wonder if I'm smart enough to make that work yet". If not, I'll let it sit a bit longer and try to learn more stuff.
This would unironically be amazing. The lower-gain custom mode on the Waza version is like a totally different pedal. The mid-sweep control on a tube pre would be great.
FWIW I have been considering moving the MORE to live in the basement of my SA pedalboard as a next to final stage but then I am using a HW UA that really warms things up.
A note on Finally. I had v2 with the 12ax7. Moved it when I got my Khan, but got to missing it. Just picked up a v2 BIM and also a 12ax7 tube I can roll in when I’m yearning for that sound.
I hooked up just my monitor, QSC CP12, and ran the Finally xlr into it. Playing my Am Pro II PJ into just that, man, it sounded really really good. Cranked the gain to about 3 o’clock. Wow. Good stuff.
Love pedals and stuff, but that little pedal is really plenty. I could play out with that and a tuner and it would be great.
What would be cool would be if it had the au7 and ax7 and you could switch back and forth.
I hooked up just my monitor, QSC CP12, and ran the Finally xlr into it. Playing my Am Pro II PJ into just that, man, it sounded really really good. Cranked the gain to about 3 o’clock. Wow. Good stuff.
Love pedals and stuff, but that little pedal is really plenty. I could play out with that and a tuner and it would be great.
What would be cool would be if it had the au7 and ax7 and you could switch back and forth.
Excellent, glad to hear the Single Slice made it okay, and looking forward to your thoughts on the C2C Wrecking Ball.
What's the extra switch for on your Diplomat? Don't think I've seen that before.
I placed a switch to cut out the Bright cap C13, bright caps kill of the bass when you turn the volume down and I did not want that as a permanent feature.
The extra caps you placed on the 8 position switch lets the pedal go nice and low when you turn off the bright cap.
I modded many of my pedals with a Deep switch (left side) and Bright switch (right side)
Deep switch usually increases the capacitor value on the cathode bypass cap
Bright switch just lifts the bright caps
The extra caps you placed on the 8 position switch lets the pedal go nice and low when you turn off the bright cap.
I modded many of my pedals with a Deep switch (left side) and Bright switch (right side)
Deep switch usually increases the capacitor value on the cathode bypass cap
Bright switch just lifts the bright caps
Attachments
I love the Red Sparkle Nobelium, looks awesome!
That's an impressive collection
I need to know about that power amp? with the transformer on top. Very cool setup.
@Mr. Sushi- With the Neptunium, is there a way to tell the approximate amount of mid cut and the approximate frequency cut when the settings are-
Low cut On
Bass at 3 o’clock
Treble at 1 o’clock
