The Sushi Box FX Secret Society

[FronTowardEnemy]

I think my Finally had beer spilled on it the first time I played it live. Luckily it didn't spill into the grille.
Before you ask: yes, of course it was one of the guitarists who spilled it.

About 10 years ago a patron spilled beer into my guitarist all tube Hughs and Kettner combo while handing him said beer.

Amp shut down immediately. We were about 20-25 min away from home so we took a break while our guitarist went home to grab his backup.

 

[Rev_Slinky]

About 10 years ago a patron spilled beer into my guitarist all tube Hughs and Kettner combo while handing him said beer.

Amp shut down immediately. We were about 20-25 min away from home so we took a break while our guitarist went home to grab his backup.

In college I had an entire pitcher of Fat Tire vibrate off the table and fall directly on my Morley Fuzz/Wah pedal. That's a huge pedal that is, apparently, mostly hollow, because the amount of beer that came out of it was incredible. That crazy Cylon of a pedal kept kicking though.

 

[noahw1]

I'm curious if anyone else had an issue with their Sushi Box pedal, in my case an Underground Accelerator, not playing nice with another pedal? My UA is at the front of my board and I also have a Malekko Diabolik fuzz pedal that is really neutered by the UA. It sounds thin with the UA on but I when I turn off the UA boom! it's back to normal. I had never had an issue with it until the UA joined the family.

 

[tidbits]

I'm curious if anyone else had an issue with their Sushi Box pedal, in my case an Underground Accelerator, not playing nice with another pedal? My UA is at the front of my board and I also have a Malekko Diabolik fuzz pedal that is really neutered by the UA. It sounds thin with the UA on but I when I turn off the UA boom! it's back to normal. I had never had an issue with it until the UA joined the family.

This is more of a guess, but was the Fuzz previously first in line? It might be better to keep in there. A lot of fuzz pedals are sensitive to impedance (and out of my expertise, but also have some interaction with passive pickups) and you don't want them behind any kind of a buffer. Basically any pedal when engaged is going to act as a buffer.

The UA is true bypass, so when it's disengaged, you've got that Pickup/Fuzz impedance match - and when it's engaged you're inserting a buffer, and changing the impedance the pickups/fuzz "see", and that's changing things tonally.

 

[S-Bigbottom]

Been a few years of two to three days, 8 to 12 hours or so a week and the ol' original Finally still performs as the day I got it new.

 

[CamJazzBass]

Been a few years of two to three days, 8 to 12 hours or so a week and the ol' original Finally still performs as the day I got it new.



View attachment 7376946

I recently went back to a v1 Finally. Love it. It just has some special sauce to it. The other models are wonderful too, but that v1 has the best touch sensitive grit I’ve ever heard.

 

[noahw1]

This is more of a guess, but was the Fuzz previously first in line? It might be better to keep in there. A lot of fuzz pedals are sensitive to impedance (and out of my expertise, but also have some interaction with passive pickups) and you don't want them behind any kind of a buffer. Basically any pedal when engaged is going to act as a buffer.

The UA is true bypass, so when it's disengaged, you've got that Pickup/Fuzz impedance match - and when it's engaged you're inserting a buffer, and changing the impedance the pickups/fuzz "see", and that's changing things tonally.

Fuzz has always been middle of the board. Board looks like this compressor > UA (might go back to UA first) > c4 synth > OD > fuzz > Afterneath.
UA had been first and I just recently switched to compressor first as an experiment. Maybe I’ll try fuzz after compressor than UA.

 

[andare]

I recently went back to a v1 Finally. Love it. It just has some special sauce to it. The other models are wonderful too, but that v1 has the best touch sensitive grit I’ve ever heard.

Might be a different tube/tube batch? Or maybe the taper of the Gain pot is different? WHat tube do you have in it?

My Finally v3 has a 12AX7 - it was my own request to Nathan - and while it is great, it has too much gain and the grit comes on rather suddenly at 2 o'clock clock, and it's not subtle. My bad. A lower gain tube like the 5751 should fix that.

 

[mikeswals]

My v1 has an old 1957 Sylvania 12AU7, just beautiful for my ampless board.

My guitarist liked mine, so he ordered himself a v3 and requested it stock with a 12AX7.
Then one gig he complained to me it was distortion 100% of the time, to which I pointed out to him that his tube choice is too much gain. He changed it to lower gain one and is very happy.

To me a 5751 isn't much less gainy from a 12AX7, but try it if you can.
Maybe a 12AT7 too?

 

[mikeswals]

About 10 years ago a patron spilled beer into my guitarist all tube Hughs and Kettner combo while handing him said beer.

Amp shut down immediately. We were about 20-25 min away from home so we took a break while our guitarist went home to grab his backup.

Leaving us hangin!

Did the amp survive???

 

[andare]

My v1 has an old 1957 Sylvania 12AU7, just beautiful for my ampless board.

My guitarist liked mine, so he ordered himself a v3 and requested it stock with a 12AX7.
Then one gig he complained to me it was distortion 100% of the time, to which I pointed out to him that his tube choice is too much gain. He changed it to lower gain one and is very happy.

To me a 5751 isn't much less gainy from a 12AX7, but try it if you can.
Maybe a 12AT7 too?

I'm conflicted between the two. The 12AT7 seems like the better choice since it's lower gain but I read it sounds thinner than the 5751 and that's a no-no.

 

[FronTowardEnemy]

Leaving us hangin!

Did the amp survive???

Took it to our tech and all it needed was a retube and some cleaning up. Worked fine after that.

 

[bucephylus]

I'm curious if anyone else had an issue with their Sushi Box pedal, in my case an Underground Accelerator, not playing nice with another pedal? My UA is at the front of my board and I also have a Malekko Diabolik fuzz pedal that is really neutered by the UA. It sounds thin with the UA on but I when I turn off the UA boom! it's back to normal. I had never had an issue with it until the UA joined the family.

My $0.019:

Lots of choices for signal chain order on the pedal board!

The SB preamp pedals pretty much replace the preamp stage in your hybrid amp head. So, one way to think about the signal chain order is whether you put your pedalboard effects into the signal chain via the effects loop or upstream into the amp head input. Many effects are better upstream of the preamp tube; though there certainly are exceptions. Kind of, whatever works.

I don’t use the kinds of effects that are best in the effects loop. So, the SB preamps on my boards are close to the left end of the board; the one exception being an HPF for the power amp stage feed.

There are also SB pedals, which work well upstream on the board; one example being the More pedal. I have the More feeding a Tech 21 BDDI V1 for a very effective Ampeg-ish tone; though I haven’t compared that combo to the recent SBVT pedal. I will say the BDDI has some very nice features, particularly the Send controls, which make many of the SE’s at my gigs happy.

Lastly, I have found the 5751 tubes to be the most tolerant of higher gain inputs of the various 12A#7 varieties; and have those in both the VZ and PMLE, and the Output of the More. FWIW.

 

[CamJazzBass]

Might be a different tube/tube batch? Or maybe the taper of the Gain pot is different? WHat tube do you have in it?

My Finally v3 has a 12AX7 - it was my own request to Nathan - and while it is great, it has too much gain and the grit comes on rather suddenly at 2 o'clock clock, and it's not subtle. My bad. A lower gain tube like the 5751 should fix that.

Mine has a 12ax7 tube in it and the Lightning Boy transformer. I've not looked under the hood to see what brand of tube, but I think it's probably the original JJ from Sushibox. I previously had a v1 just like this one and it sounds the same as my old one.

 

[bassbrad]

I have a first run Finally v1 with a Jensen transformer and original JJ 12ax7 that still sounds amazing to me, have not tried the later versions. The board below is still my go to for recording most of my commercial work as it covers all the best of tones. IMHO those mini tube versions have something special going on. Slampegg Bee, Particle Accelerator, Ictineo, LBA2020 and finally. I'll patch in a Zoom MS70CDR if any effects are needed.

 

[JackFawkes]

I wanted to ask if, to have more headroom, it's a good idea to use a 5751 tube in the Finally V3? I have one in my UA and I really like it.

You've already gotten some great responses, but I'll share mine too. If you like using the Finally to get texture/distortion, but don't want it ALL the time, I think 5751 is the sweet spot (it's the highest-gain tube that I personally recommend for the Finally).
But if you want a lot more headroom (while still being able to push for distortion when you really want it) a 12AY7 is probably the best answer.

I have a 12AX7 in mine. Ridiculously loud. It's not a good fit in my opinion because the output is not manageable and the grit comes on suddenly at 2 o'clock. Don't know what the taper is in the Gain pot. The pedal is designed for the 12AU7, which I doubt breaks up at all.

I agree with the first part but not the second part, the Finally was designed for the 12AX7.
Through it's many iterations (different transformers, higher operational voltage, HPFs, and different stock tube), I don't think @Sushi Box FX has ever changed the cathode resistor specifically for the 12AU7. But yes, the 12AU7 is typically pretty challenging to push non-linear into break up.

However I'm just thinking of putting a 5751 in mine to tame the output and smooth out the onset of grit.
This is based on recommendations from this thread. Sorry I forget the name of the person who vouched for this tube.

Probably me. I never shut up about how perfect I think the 5751 is in the Finally

How much Sushi Box is too much? I want to get a Finally because I'm without a DI on my board but I feel running a MORE>UA>Finally seems like overkill.... How much toobiness is too much?

It certainly varies from chain-to-chain (and depending on what's doing your power amplification), but "too much toobiness" is a real thing.
I'd personally say that MORE > UA > Finally is pretty close to the limit, but not necessarily overboard depending on how it's dialed. In general, a MORE at the beginning will have a more subtle effect than a MORE at the end.

I really love the MORE, but I honestly think it needs to be thought of and treated like a Clean Boost. I think it's most effective at the beginning of a chain to pull up the relatively low output of passive pickups, or used to push a hotter signal into a pedal or amp that specifically likes receiving a hot input.

I recently went back to a v1 Finally. Love it. It just has some special sauce to it. The other models are wonderful too, but that v1 has the best touch sensitive grit I’ve ever heard.

Only thing that I can think of is that the first run of them actually had a little bit lower operational voltage. But that's one of those things where there's no real "right" or "wrong", at least not with @Sushi Box FX , because Nathan designs all of his circuits to run the tubes in the operational window of their full and proper voltage; some iterations just on the lower-side of the window while others on the higher-side; but all of them in the general "sweet spot".
Ultimately, I think it's just your Finally being a Finally, it's wonderful expression of an excellent little circuit.

To me a 5751 isn't much less gainy from a 12AX7, but try it if you can.
Maybe a 12AT7 too?

You're right, the 5751 isn't that much lower; in my opinion it's juuust enough to take the "edge" off while keeping all the other characteristics of the 12AX7.
12AT7 works if you want/need something even lower gain (without losing all texture entirely to a 12AU7), but I much prefer the 12AY7 over the 12AT7 for that purpose.

I'm conflicted between the two. The 12AT7 seems like the better choice since it's lower gain but I read it sounds thinner than the 5751 and that's a no-no.

Yeah, I personally like the 12AY7 better as a compromise between the 5751 and the 12AU7 in the Finally.
(and in pretty much every other audio application too, to be honest)

Mine has a 12ax7 tube in it and the Lightning Boy transformer. I've not looked under the hood to see what brand of tube, but I think it's probably the original JJ from Sushibox. I previously had a v1 just like this one and it sounds the same as my old one.

Yeah, if you haven't changed it then it's very likely the normal JJ. The only other time @Sushi Box FX has really used a different brand of 12__7 tubes was for a brief moment when JJs were way backordered and he used some Psvane tubes in the interim.

Jack

 

[tidbits]

12AY7 was also the tube I liked the most for that low gain texture in the Finally. Easy to keep clean if you wanted, nice breakup available without getting insane. I never got my hands on a 5751, but I didn’t love the 12AT7 I had started with.

 

[Tassieviking]

Might as well throw this up here again I guess

 

[darev]

Might as well throw this up here again I guess

I need that as a wallet card

 

[S-Bigbottom]

Finally V1 with a 12AX7 is clean until I dig in, then it is that light Paul McCartney shimmer fuzz you hear on his Beatles isolation tracks but not in the songs.
In the mix my sound is totally country thumpy, reggae smooth or organ and piano clean. Get it just on the edge and let the touch do the adjustments, very dynamic.
Smooth when light, a bit of fuzz and squish when ya push. In the mix it is Fan diddly an tasticly clean and clear.