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The Sushi Box FX Secret Society

#4,101
So about a month ago a buddy of mine sent me back a couple pedals I gave him forever ago, he's getting married and it trying to clear out gear to pay for stuff, so I told him I would list the pedals for sale for him, figured I may be able to find someone interested.

Well with how busy I tend to make myself I haven't even opened the box :P But there are two tube preamps in there, one of which is the precursor to PA, I called it "Omnibox" since it was supposed to be my one-box solution to everything. It has the alembic preamp with the mini tube, and that fed into a cabsim which went through both a headphone output and an XLR DI output. The other one is an original tube preamp design, but if you picture PA with an Ampeg tonestack that's 90% of it. At some point (probably when February is finished) I'll get it opened up to get pictures and maybe demos of them to see if anyone wants them. If not I'll just pay my friend for them and keep them as history pieces :P
 
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#4,102
Sushi Box FX said:
So about a month ago a buddy of mine sent me back a couple pedals I gave him forever ago, he's getting married and it trying to clear out gear to pay for stuff, so I told him I would list the pedals for sale for him, figured I may be able to find someone interested.

Well with how busy I tend to make myself I haven't even opened the box :p But there are two tube preamps in there, one of which is the precursor to PA, I called it "Omnibox" since it was supposed to be my one-box solution to everything. It has the alembic preamp with the mini tube, and that fed into a cabsim which went through both a headphone output and an XLR DI output. The other one is an original tube preamp design, but if you picture PA with an Ampeg tonestack that's 90% of it. At some point (probably when February is finished) I'll get it opened up to get pictures and maybe demos of them to see if anyone wants them. If not I'll just pay my friend for them and keep them as history pieces :p
Click to expand...
Yeah, right, nobody would want those....
 
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#4,103
jbybj said:
Yeah, right, nobody would want those....
Click to expand...
Well I mean they're on the uglier side of things :P I hadn't even gotten into lasers yet, these were CNC engraved. And they have side jacks. And not a huge issue but the circuit board design was also ugly, I hadn't gotten a firm grasp on how to make things look nice yet. Maybe tomorrow I'll at least open up the box and snap some pictures so you can see what they look like.
 
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#4,106
Okay, I've done a total of three Dr. Wattson mods now (including my own) and I have an observation. Before I did the resistor mod one mine I swapped the potentiometer for a log taper instead of the linear taper, and between that and the resistor mod it shifted unity volume around 12:00. Leaving the pot as a linear taper and just doing the resistor mod brings unity volume around 9:00 or 10:00. Swapping pots is less fun, the circuti board has to be completely removed, a lot more heat is needed (that's what I was doing when pads started lifting on mine), so I don't plan to do that on mods, but all new Dr Wattsons starting in February will have log pots in addition to the resistor mod.
 
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#4,107
And now for more news regarding things I don't have time for but that I'm going to lose sleep over anyway so I may as well stay up and work on them:

TB member @cavemanbass saw my comments about the gain reduction meter on Deep Dish and generously offered to send me his Empress Compressor to take a look at and see how they do their meter. It turns out they use the exact same chip as I have in Deep Dish (they actually use two, and switch between them for Input vs GR indicating), but they have it hooked up differently. Their sidechain is obviously different so it won't likely be a drop-in fix I can do to Deep Dish, but it gives a direction to look at for refining the GR meter in Deep Dish.
 
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#4,108
Sushi Box FX said:
And now for more news regarding things I don't have time for but that I'm going to lose sleep over anyway so I may as well stay up and work on them:

TB member @cavemanbass saw my comments about the gain reduction meter on Deep Dish and generously offered to send me his Empress Compressor to take a look at and see how they do their meter. It turns out they use the exact same chip as I have in Deep Dish (they actually use two, and switch between them for Input vs GR indicating), but they have it hooked up differently. Their sidechain is obviously different so it won't likely be a drop-in fix I can do to Deep Dish, but it gives a direction to look at for refining the GR meter in Deep Dish.
Click to expand...
Add it to the list...

Also, is this the mk I or mk ii, or does is the metering the same in the empress?
 
#4,110
Sushi Box FX said:
This was a mk I, and while I haven't seen the guts of the mk II based on what I read on the differences between the two I don't think the metering changed.
Click to expand...
The MkI meter lets you switch between gain reduction, input or both. The MkII and BC show both gain reduction and input levels on separate meters at the same time. There are more LEDs on the MKII and BC as well. I don't know if this is useful information but I thought I'd share.
 
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#4,111
kranahan said:
The MkI meter lets you switch between gain reduction, input or both. The MkII and BC show both gain reduction and input levels on separate meters at the same time. There are more LEDs on the MKII and BC as well. I don't know if this is useful information but I thought I'd share.
Click to expand...
Interesting, the chip they use in MkI (and that I use in DD) is limited to 10 LEDs, I wonder if they are using a different chip on MkII then.
 
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#4,112
Sushi Box FX said:
Interesting, the chip they use in MkI (and that I use in DD) is limited to 10 LEDs, I wonder if they are using a different chip on MkII then.
Click to expand...
I thought the metering in the BC was slightly better than the original although I didn't have them side by side. Both are still best in class in regards to metering though. I would have sent you my BC but it got returned because of a factory defect... Maybe someone else can send a MKII or BC your way.
 
#4,113
kranahan said:
I thought the metering in the BC was slightly better than the original although I didn't have them side by side. Both are still best in class in regards to metering though. I would have sent you my BC but it got returned because of a factory defect... Maybe someone else can send a MKII or BC your way.
Click to expand...
Honestly if anyone has one and can just shoot me a reasonable resolution gutshot that would be a good start, I'm really curious what chip they used now. I'm still going to start with trying some of the things they did on the MkI with Deep Dish and see if it helps, but I'm always curious about things.
 
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#4,115
So.... You guys ready for me to discontinue the mini tube builds yet?

IMG_20210226_160935.jpg
 
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#4,119
kranahan said:
The real question is: Do you prefer the bigger tubes over the minis?
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Like me personally? I honestly do. The amount of work it takes to build is similar, X series have a couple less components though so the circuit board comes together a little faster. X series are more efficient power wise, and personally I like the sound better. They also tend to have less issues with noise, and if anything goes wrong like a tube going bad you don't need to send it to me for repair, you just open it up and swap the tube(s).
 
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