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The Sushi Box FX Secret Society
- Thread starter kranahan
- Start date
Thanks
I'm holding off on shipping until they're all finished so I can get a big group shot of all of them together 
I'm really proud of how they're turning out and I'm going to miss looking at them, so I need to get plenty of pics.
Also for the FX loop, it sounds like top jacks for everything is the winner, that works for me. Also I like @Sonicblaze 's idea of having a dry pass through with blend control. So here's what I'm thinking:
- 125B enclosure (typical single tube size a la Slampegg et al) but horizontal/landscape orientation
- Single tube, probably 12AT7 or 12AU7
- Input, output, send, return, and power jacks all on top of the enclosure
- no footswitch, it will be wired for always on
- Dry pass-through for clean blend of pedals in the loop that don't have clean blend
- Controls for send level, return level, and clean blend; might decide to add a master output level if I think it would be useful, or possibly an internal set-and-forget master output trimpot
- Target price of $200 or less
Opinions:
- Footswitch to dis/engage the loop would be beneficial.
- With Send and Return level controls, a Dry Level control might be better than a blend.
- Master output would be a nice touch, but probably not an absolute must.
- From my experience with the Broughton Filter FX Loop, a switchable/adjustable LPF on the clean signal, and HPF on the wet signal, does absolute wonders for blending the two signals and making them sound cohesive. I believe the Damnation Audio Loop Blender also uses a low pass on the clean signal.
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Man, I didn't even think about the fact that there should be a way of turning off your pedal. So here's the question, should the footswitch disengage the pedal in the loop and leave the tube section active, or bypass the whole thing?
Duly noted, I'll look at dry level vs blend, they would accomplish the same thing, just be wired a little different.
I thought about adding filters, but decided at least for the first draft I wanted to go as simple as possible. I mean I haven't even made my tube HPF yet, doing an FX loop/HPF/LPF would be a big step. So it would be neat and I won't say it won't happen eventually, but the first version likely won't have it.
The FFXL is king! You're almost there on the FFXL explanation. Clean has an LPF. Effected has HPF before, LPF after.
The Bloop has a 1k fixed LPF on the clean signal, which is too high in my opinion. I was in talks with Jeff about an adjustable LPF just before Covid hit but then you know what happened from there.
I like the idea of a simple switched effects loop with a level control to maintain unity or slight boost, adding a wet dry mix is a nice idea but frankly it is not something I use very often.
@Sushi Box FX FWIW not every one is devoted to the whole hpf/lpf bag as so many others are enamored with. To me those are tools for managing sound systems, mixing or amplification not so much for my effects chain. I do use those type devices but certainly not as effects or tone modifiers. Loading up features will increase the price and to be honest affordability was a big draw for me to Sushi Box.
@kranahan I get where you are going but your ultimate dream box is a financial nightmare for me and likely others.
Trying to incorporate everything that Broughton, Damnation Audio and others do to follow popular trends or market demand is going to eventually rob Sushi Box of it's unique character. Collaborating with those other builders on incorporating tube stages might be a better plan. Or why try to reinvent the wheel?
@Sushi Box FX FWIW not every one is devoted to the whole hpf/lpf bag as so many others are enamored with. To me those are tools for managing sound systems, mixing or amplification not so much for my effects chain. I do use those type devices but certainly not as effects or tone modifiers. Loading up features will increase the price and to be honest affordability was a big draw for me to Sushi Box.
@kranahan I get where you are going but your ultimate dream box is a financial nightmare for me and likely others.
Trying to incorporate everything that Broughton, Damnation Audio and others do to follow popular trends or market demand is going to eventually rob Sushi Box of it's unique character. Collaborating with those other builders on incorporating tube stages might be a better plan. Or why try to reinvent the wheel?
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I'm just adding onto @NKBassman's comments. But since you @ me... Yes, I'd definitely want the ultimate FX loop and not a half ass loop.
Thought of this post when I happend by the Meatsmoke page which says "Verellen has decided to halt production on all Verellen Amplifiers for the foreseeable future. We are unfortunately no longer able to have these amps built at this time."
An idea for a SB pedal or variation on that theme?
Bypass the whole thing. The tube sections will be gained in response to the item in the FX loop. Turning off only the loop leaves two tube gain stages, which could result in a weird volume shift.
Sushi Box's unique character is that everything has a tube in it. That's not true for the others you listed.
If you want cheap, Amazon broke into the pedal market a couple years ago...
Someone mentioned a while ago that they had a Meatsmoke that they would be willing to let me take a look and possibly trace the circuit, but it was at a time when I was super busy (shocking I know). Trying to remember who that was
The best thing about @Sushi Box FX is that his pre amps are based on popular bass and guitar amps and he is planning to use either the classic Jensen DI or the Lightning Boy Audio transformer at affordable rates. Having multiple voicing choices is a real plus.
I'm sure that @Sushi Box FX will agree that his mission is not to simply take others designs and stick a tube in them but to continue with his design criteria and integrity and his need to evolve and improve his designs. Much like we have seen him move away from the micro tubes and the discontinued PAX.
Not for me, Space Heater is an original design.
So short answer (not something I do often, I like talking about pedals
): it will be my own direction. Long answer: I'm not looking to clone the Noble. It is a really nice preamp and I like what he did with it, but there's no reason I can't create something just as good without copying Noble.Also, because variety is the spice of life, I plan on doing a couple different DI designs. I'll have at least one that's just a single tube, and the goal will be to make an exceptional sounding tube DI as compact and affordable as possible. I love the Noble, and there are a number of excellent tube DI's out there, but they are expensive. Tube DI shouldn't just be a thing reserved for professionals, doctors, and lawyers. Now I wouldn't be able to sell it for $100 as I would lose money on it (good DI transformers are expensive), but I expect to be able to get a simple tube DI for around $200.
I'm also planning to do a more complicated version with multiple tubes and more controls, and that will be my "Noble competitor," but that will still be a lot less than the Noble.
I will go on record as saying I don't think the Noble is overrated or overpriced. I believe I talked about this before. Noble uses excellent quality components, everything is meticulously built by hand by someone that obviously has skill and experience. The workmanship is exceptional, and I think between the quality of the design, the quality of the parts, and the quality of the workmanship, Noble preamps have a fair pricetag.
So how can I do things so much cheaper? I'm also a one-man "boutique" shop, but my goal has always been to be "budget boutique." That's why I use circuit boards instead of turretboards or point-to-point wiring, that's why I use SMD components instead of more 'mojo' components and solder them en masse in a reflow oven instead of soldering every component by hand, that's why I design things above all to be easy and fast to assemble. I've seen some pedal circuit boards that look like works of art, whereas mine are more utilitarian. I appreciate everything else, but my goal is to get a great circuit and build it with great components, but to make it cheap.
As for original designs vs clones, I like to think of it like a band. I watched a documentary years ago about Van Halen, and I recall they largely started doing covers, then they would slip originals here and there into their set, and start to phase covers out and originals in, until they were no longer doing covers. You get people to listen to your originals by first doing a good job with covers.
If I started out doing original preamp designs, no one would care, I would be just another guy making just another pedal in his garage. So how do I get people's attention? For bassists I do an Alembic clone, that's what really got me in the door. Before I did Particle Accelerator nobody knew who I was. I followed that up with an Ampeg B15 (or B25, as we've discussed) preamp for good measure, to make sure I really had the bassists' attention. Now I'm trying to get guitarists' attention, so how do I do it? Not with original guitar preamp designs, but with a Mesa preamp, a JCM800 preamp, and a Kingsley clone.
If I had released the Space Heater before the Particle Accelerator, it would have gone nowhere. But because I did circuits everybody knows first and did them pretty well and at a decent price, I was able to slide in an original design at a decent price and now people really like it (which still puts a smile on my face every time I hear someone talk about it).
I don't think I'll ever stop doing versions of classic circuits; if someone likes something, it's because it sounds good, and it makes sense for me to make things that sound good. But as time goes on and I get more of this "business" thing figured out I want to start bringing in more and more original designs. I don't need to be the Van Halen of the pedal world, but I feel a lot more proud of a successful pedal when I know that it came straight from my brain, not someone else's.
Man, I talk a lot
