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The Sushi Box FX Secret Society
- Thread starter kranahan
- Start date
@lomo how did the comparison go?
Also, for anyone that has a Space Heater and a UA or Slampegg, with EQ set flat (wherever the bass/middle/treble controls need to be set in order to have as little boost/cut as possible), how do they compare to the SH? Do the different circuits themselves make a significant tonal difference? Or, are they pretty much the same and the EQ just adds a little more flexibility?
Also, for anyone that has a Space Heater and a UA or Slampegg, with EQ set flat (wherever the bass/middle/treble controls need to be set in order to have as little boost/cut as possible), how do they compare to the SH? Do the different circuits themselves make a significant tonal difference? Or, are they pretty much the same and the EQ just adds a little more flexibility?
I now have an SMD SH (bought used) and both SMD and HW UAs (and a Slampeg on order for July) . I did a lot of experimentation and to my ear there's no difference when the UA's Fender stack is flat (BMT at 0-10-0). If you don't want the added eq, I see no advantage to the UA over the SH. BUT, if you are a tube sipping junkie who revels in the rabbit hole of tube rolling (which I do not), then having some built in eq seems to bring out whatever differences exist between tubes. I do not profess to know why, or even whether it's simply that my ears hear the differences better with a bit more bass: this was in no way shape or form a reliable, blinded experiment. I was alone in my music space with covid messin' 'round. If I had set out to do this "right" (which I might do down the road) I would have played 3 riffs into a looper, then recorded the loop as it played back at the same level through each pedal/tube combination so that it could be listened to blindly by others for a meaningful/ unbiased evaluation. That said, I found no detectable differences between my HW and SMD HAs and SMD SH in terms of tone, but when I changed tubes, the minimal differences I (believe) I heard were occasionally accentuated when I bumped the bass to 25% from 0 (through the UAs). When I roll tubes, I like to find the ones that have the most gradual breakup, and try to avoid those that transition too abruptly from minimal peach fuzz to full on hipster beard. My fave 12ax7s are both from the 60s: one was manufactured by Amperex and rebranded for the Canuck market as Electrohome....it was pulled from an old organ. The other is a USA Raytheon.....they break up very slowly so they're very tweakable. The 12at7 tubes I tried were all too clean for my taste. The 12au7 tubes were cleaner but to my ear didn't sound better than a 12ax7 set with the gain where I like it. I will be selling one of my Sushi boxes of joy.....now I have to finalize my 2 boards and decide which one is out. In the end, I don't think it will matter much in terms of tone. When the dust settles I'll also have a spare board and multiple other pedals FS.
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That pretty much matches my experience with "tube rolling" antique thermionic valves as well... and I have a theory for why their differences might be more audible with more low frequency going through them.
To my ear, played clean the differences between most of the tubes are present, but so subtle that they're hard to even describe... and that's when playing a single guitar or bass through in a controlled listening environment, add just one more instrument and the subtle differences disappear pretty much entirely.
However! When boosting the signal to the tube and pushing it into saturation, I find that not only does each tube (of the same type) go into distortion at different points, but the difference in character/texture of their distortion is more noticeable than their clean characteristics were.
Perhaps even though the human ear isn't as responsive to low frequency sound as it is to high frequency sound, the tube is just as sensitive. So as the bass is dialed up, each tube's more distinct saturated character becomes more apparent more quickly?
Mr. Sushi, since you are offering diy pcb’s, have you considered offering full kits with all the components? It would save you time from builds and give you more time for design. It would save us the hassle of tracking down all the components. I still fondly remember building a Heathkit amp and tuner back in the day.
I considered it briefly and even ordered a design with that intention, but it turns out putting together all the components for a kit in an organized way such that a customer could easily assemble it takes considerably more time than I expected. For SMD builds I get the boards pre-populated from the factory, so the amount of time it takes to add the last few components and put it in the box is negligible compared to the amount of time it takes to sort a couple dozen components into labeled bags. I've provided links to the components required for each of the DIY boards I offer, and they were designed specifically to use easy-to-source components, but organizing a kit is just too much hands-on time for me.
Also because I designed these boards to be easy to assemble I've eliminated the right-angle tube socket assembly, which limits the complexity of circuit I can put in. Pretty much anything more than 3 pots is out, which leaves me with Space Heater and Black Eye. I don't plan on reaching further into the DIY direction, I think this is as far as I'm going to go.
There are several companies that all they do is offer DIY kits [Moody, GGG, BYOC...] and even they are having issues stocking and filling all the parts for their kits. All of these are great ideas but really are getting *** off the course for @Sushi Box FX mission of building unique and spectacular products for musicians at affordable prices as his hobby. I am the first to admit guilt at making suggestions to get @Sushi Box FX off mission and have tried to tamp down and leave him to his best intentions.
I'm always open to suggestions, worst case scenario it becomes practice for me saying no, something I'm historically bad at
I try to say yes as often as possible, but I'm trying to get more realistic about my abilities and my time. But at the same time I think it's important to hear what sort of things people want. If what I'm doing isn't in line with what customers want, it isn't going to go well.
Next up for swag, can we get sushi-shaped/colored candy in the boxes?
Raindrops Mini Gummy Sushi - 12 Pc. | Oriental Trading
*almost $4 per is ridiculous. But still, cute and awesome.
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Quick heads up, there are still 7 slots available for the July batch, I'm planning to close ordering July 1 whether it's full or not so I can get started on ordering parts for the month.
@Sushi Box FX I do want to order a HWUA with tone bypass full artwork is that ready to order yet? everything else on my wishlist is in development.
Yes, tone stack bypass HWUA and SMD UA will both be ready for July.
I'm always open to suggestions, worst case scenario it becomes practice for me saying no, something I'm historically bad at
You seem busy enough with everything you already do. I, for one, am ecstatic that you are offering Space Heater boards. Offering kits would make you responsible for every component you offer. If any component is faulty, there is a good chance they would turn to you to remedy this.
There are a plethora of companies that only sell boards and they seem to do just fine. I get it if boards were your only game, it would make sense (and dollars
) to offer kits because there would be a markup on the components. But it's not. And I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that by not offering kits you would only loose a small fraction of potential customers. The diy crowd is huge.
I'll also bet dollars to doughnuts that when the SH boards become available, they'll sell fast.
Fine. Slampegg ordered.
I'm going to venture a response, but I'll gladly defer to anyone else's knowledge or opinion on this: I do believe that the different circuit design of each preamp (in this case, the SH/UA vs. Slampegg) does still produce slightly different voices, even when set flat.
I think the biggest difference on the surface is relative gain.
While the SH and UA share the same topology (modified F-2B), I believe that the presence of the tone stack in the UA reduces the total amount of output signal, even when set flat... which is why @Sushi Box FX is making a version with a switch that removes the tone stack from the circuit entirely, which I speculate might feel like a mild "boost" if you were to switch the tone stack "off" while it's set flat.
The Slampegg circuit (B-15N/B-25) is different, but also loses some overall output due to presence of a tone stack.
But I think once Master and Gain knobs were adjusted equally on the SH/UA and Slampegg, there would still be some subtle differences between the two when set flat; and I think think that's due to the two different circuits handling the frequency cutoffs at the high and low ends at slightly different points.
Additionally, both designs have different amounts of "headroom" that they can increase the signal to before they begin to introduce distortion.
Of course all that is mostly "academic". In most situations the purpose of a tone stack is to let you make pleasing adjustments for whatever equipment/venue/mix you're playing with; setting it flat is a good starting point, but usually not going to give the exact sound you want in a given situation. (For the record, I prefer to EQ with the James/Baxandall tone stack over the Fender/TMB)
If you prefer to make those sort of adjustments elsewhere in your rig and just want to add a bit of tube "roundess" without having another tone stack to worry about, that's what the EQ-less designs like the Space Heater, More, and Greenhouse are for.
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Ordered. Boom.
I meant to close out July ordering at midnight but I forgot, so I'm going to leave it open for a couple more hours before I start putting together my list to get parts ordered tonight. I know I say this a lot but I feel like I need to say it a lot, thank you all for your continued support and for allowing me to continue building neat stuff for you.
Also a quick note, I see there's a JC Emerald order this month, there was one last month as well. As long as people keep ordering them I'll keep offering them, but if I ever have two months in a row with no orders, I'm going to discontinue JC Emerald. It's a great pedal, but if people aren't excited about then it's hard for me to be excited about it.
EDIT: another quick note I forgot to mention, my tube supplier sent me my backordered batch of JJ/Tesla 12AX7, so if those continue to be available like they were before I'll look at switching back to JJ. I like Psvane but I know JJ has higher manufacturing output so they're typically more likely to be easy to get. I thought about trying to offer either as options, but that's one more thing to keep track of, and based on historical evidence I am not good at keeping track of things.
EDIT: another quick note I forgot to mention, my tube supplier sent me my backordered batch of JJ/Tesla 12AX7, so if those continue to be available like they were before I'll look at switching back to JJ. I like Psvane but I know JJ has higher manufacturing output so they're typically more likely to be easy to get. I thought about trying to offer either as options, but that's one more thing to keep track of, and based on historical evidence I am not good at keeping track of things.
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If you discontinue the Emerald, you could maybe replace it with a tube-driven envelope filter. (says the envelope filter junkie. 
) That would certainly have my attention anyway. 
5sg.
) That would certainly have my attention anyway. 5sg.
