The Sushi Box FX Secret Society

[Kelly robinson]

Wow - " Finally " looks like a big winner - when will ordering be available and do we know the ball park price ? ....Kelly

 

[Pedalnetics]

So the PreOut/DryOut switch was removed because I did it wrong, but you get the idea of what it will look like. I'm considering fixing the design and sending the revised board out with my next order so I can offer it in October. It's basically a Space Heater plus a transformer and a couple switches, so it would be a low risk design. Thoughts?

I wouldn't even offer it for sale until it's 100% confirmed working with the new design, less WH Part 2 due to rushing/some other error hidden by the switch

 

[Sushi Box FX]

I wouldn't even offer it for sale until it's 100% confirmed working with the new design, less WH Part 2 due to rushing/some other error hidden by the switch

WH is the first thing I think of any time I have a new design, I just figured Finally would be lower risk due to most of its circuit being borrowed from an otherwise verified circuit.

 

[NKBassman]

Right, sorry, my wife lured me upstairs with soda and popcorn and the next thing I knew I was watching a movie nowhere near my workshop.

So the PreOut/DryOut switch was removed because I did it wrong, but you get the idea of what it will look like. I'm considering fixing the design and sending the revised board out with my next order so I can offer it in October. It's basically a Space Heater plus a transformer and a couple switches, so it would be a low risk design. Thoughts?

Is it capable of getting up into overdrive territory like the Space Heater?

 

[NKBassman]

Excellent imho! Also if you add hpf (even if just fixed at 30-40 Hz) it would be my dream pedal)

If this, then it should be switchable IMO. As a rule, a "DI" should be full range.

 

[FronTowardEnemy]

Right, sorry, my wife lured me upstairs with soda and popcorn and the next thing I knew I was watching a movie nowhere near my workshop.

So the PreOut/DryOut switch was removed because I did it wrong, but you get the idea of what it will look like. I'm considering fixing the design and sending the revised board out with my next order so I can offer it in October. It's basically a Space Heater plus a transformer and a couple switches, so it would be a low risk design. Thoughts?

View attachment 4400888 View attachment 4400889 View attachment 4400890

I would give this a shot with my IEM board for sure.

 

[FronTowardEnemy]

I got my Underground Accelerator the other day. Haven’t had a chance to try it through an amp but it sounds incredible going direct into my audio interface. The tone controls are very accommodating and it absolutely fattened up what is normal a ‘meh’ direct tone. You could absolutely track direct with this pedal. I’m looking forward to playing more with the gain knob when I can run it through an amp. Now I have to find room for it on my board. I just upgraded to a bigger board too!!! It will have to live off to the side or I’ll need to make a tough decision. I don’t like running pedals off my board so something will probably have to go. Sometimes I feel like I should just run with two boards: one all dirt and ore amps and the other modulation and time effects.

I spent some time with mine. I’m coming from a PAX, running a passive P and J bass into any on my amps; Fender Rumble 500c, GB SM 9.2, GB STL 900, Ashdown LB30, and Fender Super Bassman.

UA plays well with all my amps. The PAX didn’t play well with the OD of the rumble and was a bit noisier through my all tube amps.

I feel that UA is a step above in every aspect of my PAX. The gain knob does exactly what I want it to do, ranging from clean to full on OD. I like just a tad bit of hair when I dig in, like the old 70’s rock bass recordings. It handles dynamics well in this regard, and I can dial in a nice fat bottom with prominent mids and an ever present top end that is clear and smooth.

I still love my PAX but the UA really is the pinnacle of tube preamps IMO. Great price, quality build, killer sound, and looks freaking awesome.

@Sushi Box FX
You really hit the nail on the head with this pedal. I am going to be doing an out of state gig next week and can’t wait to flow the golden tones of this box out to the PA into the crowds ears.

Full disclosure; I’ve been at this for a long time and people reading this might think it is a “honeymoon” phase, but I buy, test and gig gear enough to know what is up and what will work for me. This killer little box is incredibly useful for us tube lovers.

 

[NKBassman]

I spent some time with mine. I’m coming from a PAX, running a passive P and J bass into any on my amps; Fender Rumble 500c, GB SM 9.2, GB STL 900, Ashdown LB30, and Fender Super Bassman.

UA plays well with all my amps. The PAX didn’t play well with the OD of the rumble and was a bit noisier through my all tube amps.

I feel that UA is a step above in every aspect of my PAX. The gain knob does exactly what I want it to do, ranging from clean to full on OD. I like just a tad bit of hair when I dig in, like the old 70’s rock bass recordings. It handles dynamics well in this regard, and I can dial in a nice fat bottom with prominent mids and an ever present top end that is clear and smooth.

I still love my PAX but the UA really is the pinnacle of tube preamps IMO. Great price, quality build, killer sound, and looks freaking awesome.

@Sushi Box FX
You really hit the nail on the head with this pedal. I am going to be doing an out of state gig next week and can’t wait to flow the golden tones of this box out to the PA into the crowds ears.

Full disclosure; I’ve been at this for a long time and people reading this might think it is a “honeymoon” phase, but I buy, test and gig gear enough to know what is up and what will work for me. This killer little box is incredibly useful for us tube lovers.

Did you get the special limited edition UA, or the new "stock" version?

 

[FronTowardEnemy]

Did you get the special limited edition UA, or the new "stock" version?

Stock version.

 

[j5eugene]

If this, then it should be switchable IMO. As a rule, a "DI" should be full range.

Definitely switchable, although in my case could be always on probably)

 

[labeledbass]

Yeah I saw some gutshots of one of the rackmount units when I was first looking into this and they looked good. They didn't look anything like this:

View attachment 4400477

Looking at the pictures again made me upset and I had written a super long post about it, but I deleted it since I try not to speak negatively about manufacturers, especially since I have heard nothing but good things about Verellen amplifiers. But for something around the same price point as a Noble I was very surprised at the quality I saw.

not rehashing, but this is what they all look like. I've seen about 3 techs now fix burnt out resistors that actually lead to less wires, so if you see one of those grab it, but I never understood the layout, especially with the room given. You can still have large components like this and organize them in a tidy fashion, and kill all the noise to boot - I bet you can pick up AM radio in France with that thing

 

[Sushi Box FX]

Excellent imho! Also if you add hpf (even if just fixed at 30-40 Hz) it would be my dream pedal)

I'm not planning to add filtering of any kind to this one. I will be doing a more complicated tube DI in the near future that will have more tone shaping options, but the goal of this one is to have a simple, compact, affordable tube DI.

Wow - " Finally " looks like a big winner - when will ordering be available and do we know the ball park price ? ....Kelly

I'm going to order the updated board today so I should have them back in a week or so. I'd love to have them available for October, but it would be cutting it close if there were any issues that I missed on the new boards. Ball park price is $220.

Is it capable of getting up into overdrive territory like the Space Heater?

With a 12AX7 yes it is, but going direct into my interface and out my studio monitors it sounds like garbage overdriven, so depending on what you're running into you may not want it to.

I spent some time with mine. I’m coming from a PAX, running a passive P and J bass into any on my amps; Fender Rumble 500c, GB SM 9.2, GB STL 900, Ashdown LB30, and Fender Super Bassman.

UA plays well with all my amps. The PAX didn’t play well with the OD of the rumble and was a bit noisier through my all tube amps.

I feel that UA is a step above in every aspect of my PAX. The gain knob does exactly what I want it to do, ranging from clean to full on OD. I like just a tad bit of hair when I dig in, like the old 70’s rock bass recordings. It handles dynamics well in this regard, and I can dial in a nice fat bottom with prominent mids and an ever present top end that is clear and smooth.

I still love my PAX but the UA really is the pinnacle of tube preamps IMO. Great price, quality build, killer sound, and looks freaking awesome.

@Sushi Box FX
You really hit the nail on the head with this pedal. I am going to be doing an out of state gig next week and can’t wait to flow the golden tones of this box out to the PA into the crowds ears.

Full disclosure; I’ve been at this for a long time and people reading this might think it is a “honeymoon” phase, but I buy, test and gig gear enough to know what is up and what will work for me. This killer little box is incredibly useful for us tube lovers.

Thanks man, I appreciate the review and the kind words. PAX and LUX together outsold pretty much everything else, and I always felt like each had something the other was missing, so frankly I'm not sure why it took me so long to decide to combine the two. The goal was universal flexibility, something that would work well for everyone, and it sounds like I got pretty close

 

[mmbongo]

I spent some time with mine. I’m coming from a PAX, running a passive P and J bass into any on my amps; Fender Rumble 500c, GB SM 9.2, GB STL 900, Ashdown LB30, and Fender Super Bassman.

UA plays well with all my amps. The PAX didn’t play well with the OD of the rumble and was a bit noisier through my all tube amps.

I feel that UA is a step above in every aspect of my PAX. The gain knob does exactly what I want it to do, ranging from clean to full on OD. I like just a tad bit of hair when I dig in, like the old 70’s rock bass recordings. It handles dynamics well in this regard, and I can dial in a nice fat bottom with prominent mids and an ever present top end that is clear and smooth.

I still love my PAX but the UA really is the pinnacle of tube preamps IMO. Great price, quality build, killer sound, and looks freaking awesome.

@Sushi Box FX
You really hit the nail on the head with this pedal. I am going to be doing an out of state gig next week and can’t wait to flow the golden tones of this box out to the PA into the crowds ears.

Full disclosure; I’ve been at this for a long time and people reading this might think it is a “honeymoon” phase, but I buy, test and gig gear enough to know what is up and what will work for me. This killer little box is incredibly useful for us tube lovers.

My UA is out for delivery today, a day earlier than it initially said! Which is great because we have a gig tomorrow night.

Can't wait to put it up against my PAX, PA-mini and LU-mini to see which one wins my coveted preamp spot! Right now it's the LU-mini. I actually hope the UA sounds more like the mini-tube preamps.

 

[NKBassman]

With a 12AX7 yes it is, but going direct into my interface and out my studio monitors it sounds like garbage overdriven, so depending on what you're running into you may not want it to.

Reading between the lines, I assume that subbing in other lower gain 12A_7 tubes would also work?

 

[Sushi Box FX]

Reading between the lines, I assume that subbing in other lower gain 12A_7 tubes would also work?

Yup, I'm planning to try 12AT7 in it when I have some more time to play with it. 12AU7 will obviously work as well if you want completely squeaky clean, I'll try that as well.

 

[FronTowardEnemy]

My UA is out for delivery today, a day earlier than it initially said! Which is great because we have a gig tomorrow night.

Can't wait to put it up against my PAX, PA-mini and LU-mini to see which one wins my coveted preamp spot! Right now it's the LU-mini. I actually hope the UA sounds more like the mini-tube preamps.

That’s great! I have to wait a week to try it out in a live setting, but I already know that the PAX killed it live so the UA will be an upgrade.

 

[Sushi Box FX]

New boards have been ordered! They estimate 4 days for production, then I always pay extra for 2-4 day express shipping, and I get most orders in a little over a week. Naturally I track progress multiple times per day (I'm one of those people) so I will keep everyone posted. I think it would be reasonable to expect Finally to be available for the October batch, I'll wait a bit then have another review of the design. One of the benefits of being incredibly forgetful is that I can come back to something 2 hours after I drew it and it's like seeing it for the first time

This batch will have the following:

• Finally tube DI (updated to fix prototype issues)
• Echosaurus delay (same circuit as original in smaller enclosure)
• Sashimi Fuzz (mk ii, complete redesign)
• Mirage Tremolo (all tube this time, no more solid state LFO)
• Brisket preamp (prototype)
• Bluesbreaker clone (long story)

With Finally being a low-risk design at this point I'm pretty confident this respin should be good to go for October, but Sashimi and Brisket are still higher risk so I'm going to hold off on opening ordering for those. Echosaurus I'm on a 6 month waitlist to get more FV-1 chips so it may be a bit before I can offer that again. Mirage Tremolo is going to be interesting because it's from an unverified schematic that I hadn't even thought about in 5 years, but based on my understanding it should work. Obviously lots of unknowns going on there though.

 

[bassbrad]

@Sushi Box FX my one big with for Finally/Nuclear Assassinator (still love the double ASS ~ can't wait for the artwerk) would be to have a mute footseitch that silences both outputs. This is one really major issue for me ever since starting to use DI boxes way back in 1978 when I bought my very first one, an MXR NG/LD that I still have after travelling the globe several times on my various pedal boards, gigs and sessions original box and all. I realize this might not be a common thing but in my experience that would be something very useful to have footly available

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my PAX and UA on Saturday but will not have much time for testing as I am doing several acoustic / protest sets.

 

[Sushi Box FX]

@Sushi Box FX my one big with for Finally/Nuclear Assassinator (still love the double ASS ~ can't wait for the artwerk) would be to have a mute footswitch that silences both outputs.

Unfortunately there's absolutely no way I could fit a footswitch in there. Between the tube, transformer, XLR jack, pots, and switches, I've used up all the space I have to work with in this box. I'm having trouble understanding the need for a mute though, what would that be used for? I would expect the DI to come last in the chain, and I figured if you need to mute for an instrument change etc you would mute further up the chain, like with a tuner. I guess if the DI is the only thing you're using in your rig and you have a clip-on tuner, but from what I've seen the kind of people that gig with zero pedals aren't usually the kind of people that gig with multiple basses.

 

[MrBass617]

I received my Space Heater today, 1 day earlier than originally forecast.
Unfortunately, when I added it to this board, I am getting a high pitch squeal from my PAX, whether or not the SH is on. If I remove the SH from the signal chain, no noise. The noise gets worse if the SH is on along with the PAX, but quieter with only SH on, (Fliptop on/off makes no difference). Still a slight high pitch even when all off. Power supply does not indicate an overload or near overload. 9v 660mA to each SB pedal, tuner and compressor, 18v 330mA to the Fliptop. Not sure what to troubleshoot next.