Is this a thing? Adjusting trim pots only when the pedal is plugged in? I'm new to opening pedals.
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The Sushi Box FX Secret Society
- Thread starter kranahan
- Start date
Is this a thing? Adjusting trim pots only when the pedal is plugged in? I'm new to opening pedals.
I’m fairly certain you should do it the opposite way.
I do it occasionally, but I also have an intimate knowledge of which bits on the inside are safe and which bits will murder me. If you're VERY CAREFUL it can be done, but I generally recommend only opening the pedal when it is unplugged and powered off. Due to, you know, murderous voltages.
- Feb 16, 2008
- 21,240
- 23,636
- Disclosures
- John K Custom Basses
SushiBox More vs Chase Tone Secret pre quick comparison sound clip.
first bypassed, then the More and finally the Secret Pre:
i personally prefer the Chase tone for its added girth to the g string, but the more has a bit more clarity.
first bypassed, then the More and finally the Secret Pre:
i personally prefer the Chase tone for its added girth to the g string, but the more has a bit more clarity.
Well in theory you can do anything once… but not always twice.
if you’re new to the idea of opening pedals up, the potentially lethal voltages within might not be your thing yet.
Sorry, I hope that my live trim pot adjustment technique doesn't kill anybody. I felt comfortable doing it, with my EE background, I've been into all kinds of electronics, but not anything with tubes. However I know that tubes deal with high voltages and no what not to touch and what tools to use, like my plastic screwdrivers for the trim pot. I had originally made two adjustments the safe way.
I would like to note that a guy at a company I used to work at died while messing with high voltage, and we worked with it every day. No matter you background, be careful. Electricity doesn't care. Complacency kills. Statistics show that more people die of 120v single phase than 460 v three phase. Why? Well when you see wires thicker than your thumb, it causes a pucker factor, and you make sure the thing is turned off.
An electrician friend of mine gave great advice: "test before you touch." In context, he was talking about turning it off, then testing to ensure it was off before touching (with a multimeter). Some capacitors take a bit to loose their charge, and still may carry a lethal load. I'm unfamiliar with the size of capacitors in pedals, but they probably dont carry a lethal load, bigger systems can though.
I have made adjustments while something is running, but always with caution, and almost always with an insulated shaft on the screwdriver.
The EHS manager (safety guy) should be proud. Clearly I've been reading his emails before deleting them....
TLDR: sparky stuff hurts and can kill. be careful.
Edit: Lol... the EHS safety email for today is about electricity....
An electrician friend of mine gave great advice: "test before you touch." In context, he was talking about turning it off, then testing to ensure it was off before touching (with a multimeter). Some capacitors take a bit to loose their charge, and still may carry a lethal load. I'm unfamiliar with the size of capacitors in pedals, but they probably dont carry a lethal load, bigger systems can though.
I have made adjustments while something is running, but always with caution, and almost always with an insulated shaft on the screwdriver.
The EHS manager (safety guy) should be proud. Clearly I've been reading his emails before deleting them....
TLDR: sparky stuff hurts and can kill. be careful.
Edit: Lol... the EHS safety email for today is about electricity....
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This is kind of a specific question but I recently just purchased a fender bassman 100t. It has a power amp in on the back and I’m assuming that I could plug a sushi box preamp in and then use it with the power amp. Am I assuming correctly?
My Space Heater has 250v electrolytics and 630v film capacitors in it. Nixie type power supplies can surprise you if you don’t know they’re there.
^^^^^^This, in spades, with cherries on top. Web forums can be hazardous for those who are not legit experts in any field. Partial info is oft worse than none. Unplug and wait, unless you're truly qualified. Note that neither internet browsing nor sleeping at a Holiday Inn Express does an expert make
It sounds like that input is not appropriate for the SH, which is a preamp. "Power amp in" is a port used to connect a power amp that will then use the Bassman's internal preamp. Just connect your bass>>>space heater>>right into the Bassman's main input and be happy
. If the Bassman has an FX loop and you want to use only the SH as a preamp , then connect it to the return input of the fx loop.I'd prefer the 1st option....setting the Bassman for warm but not overdriven, and using the SH to get some nice overdrive when desired. YMMV.
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All of my pedals use a 10µF reservoir capacitor with the SMD pedals running around 235V and the HW pedals running around 250V. When power is removed, the capacitor drains down to 0V in 8-10 seconds, so they're safe to handle shortly after power is removed, unlike most amplifiers which can still "bite" for a considerable amount of time if a self-discharge wasn't built into the power supply.
That being said I will always recommend erring on the side of caution. I was taught that no matter your level of experience you should always be a little bit scared. Not paralyzed by fear, but scared enough to be 100% careful all the time. As noted the electrons don't care how many years of experience you have, they'll still kill you. The SMPS used in my pedals is fairly limited to current output so they're less likely to kill you than a big power transformer hooked up to line voltage, but 350V across the heart is 350V across the heart, regardless of the amount of current. Please don't die.
You are correct. The "Preamp Out" and "Power Amp In" equate to an FX loop send and return, respectively. You should be able to run any sushi box preamp into the power amp input and bypass the stock Bassman preamp.
I work with industrial/commercial equipment. Larger parts generally. I've been bitten too many times, even when being careful. That's the main reason I commented. One bite had my heart rate elevated for 30 min. I'll get a little angry retelling the story so I wont. That's the reason they say "test before you touch." Some jerk may have done a janky repair in the past that you cant see....
too late to edit.... if yall didn't figure it out, I was referencing repairing industrial equipment, not pedals. Pedals you SHOULD be able to see everything, especially if you unplug first, then the entire circuit is on the desk. lots simpler!
IT'S FINISHED.
After two years, countless hours of work, and a dozen or so revisions, Venus X is finally at a point where I'm happy with it. Both channels of the preamp sound great, the EQ sounds great, the D.I. (obviously) sounds great, and the cabsim (which emulates Tony's favorite 4x10 cab) sounds great. This is the first "production representative unit" which is on its way to @TonyP- right now, I'll have at least one more built up to bring with me to NAMM, and hopefully you'll be seeing (and hearing) a lot of these around shortly. I'll try to at least get some quick sound clips done when I get another unit built up so you can get a preview of the sound. This is a secret society, after all.
After two years, countless hours of work, and a dozen or so revisions, Venus X is finally at a point where I'm happy with it. Both channels of the preamp sound great, the EQ sounds great, the D.I. (obviously) sounds great, and the cabsim (which emulates Tony's favorite 4x10 cab) sounds great. This is the first "production representative unit" which is on its way to @TonyP- right now, I'll have at least one more built up to bring with me to NAMM, and hopefully you'll be seeing (and hearing) a lot of these around shortly. I'll try to at least get some quick sound clips done when I get another unit built up so you can get a preview of the sound. This is a secret society, after all.
I've been watching the development of this pedal with a sort of detached interest. I'm a jazz guy that mainly plays Double Bass that dearly loves my Space Heater and UA, so it wasn't on my radar... however now that I'm looking at it and see the options... I'm more interested in it than I really thought I would be.
During the development process we tried to look at what would suit Tony's needs while still making it flexible enough for a variety of players, and I think we did a pretty good job with it. Tony's style is punchy and modern and very much not jazz, but the EQ makes it flexible enough that it can suit a wide range of styles. I'm not much of a player, but I play enough to know that even my taste in tone is different from Tony's, but I can easily dial in exactly what I'm looking for with Venus X, and I hope that just everyone else will be able to as well. At the risk of sounding boastful, I'm very proud of the finished product and everything it can do.
Yeah that's exactly how I was thinking about it in the beginning. I'm generally not a fan of signature pedals because they generally don't match my idea of tone. I agree that Tony is a MONSTER player but his sound is generally away from what I pursue. However as a visual consumer... when I was looking at how it was laid out in the "final" iteration I was already thinking about how I could probably dial in my tone with what I saw on that pedal... plus the DI and the dry out are just nice options that really elevate this concept. In my mind it was elevating the Finally (which is an awesome pedal) into another cool tube pre/DI with a cabsim and potentially some nice eq options.
What tone stack do you use in the Venus and what's the price going to be... also, any way to get an fx loop in there?
