There’s so many different flavors of Sushi. No pun intended. I’d do what @Sonicblaze said and listen to some clips from the website. That being said, maybe the Dr Wattson, Sunnday Drive and London Underground are of interest.
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The Sushi Box FX Secret Society
- Thread starter kranahan
- Start date
Obviously I'm a little biased, but any of my preamps will kick the snot out of a valvecaster any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Valvecaster runs starved voltages on the plates which technically works, but in my only-occasionally-humble opinion Valvecaster's main appeal is as a low-gain overdrive, running it clean without breakup it's not that special. A high-voltage tube preamp would fit the bill much better.
P.S. Interestingly enough Valvecaster was actually the very first pedal I ever built, the one that started me into this hobby. I did it as a project for my Intro to Circuits class in college 7 years ago
I think London Underground or Particle Accelerator would both be good bets for all clean no breakup. If you're willing to tolerate a little breakup I think Dr. Wattson is going to be hard to beat, that's becoming my new favorite preamp for bass. Sunnday Drive is awesome and has good cleans, but it can also get SUPER heavy, especially with the boost.
I think one of the next pedals I want to tackle would be a simple two-knob, single tube preamp just for warmth without tone shaping. The more I hear about what people want the more I think that idea is a winner. Plus I could probably do it small and (relatively) cheap.
I knew there was a reason you purchased that Edison... You could kill the market with a mini tube version.
In all honesty I did purchase the Edison because I think it's a really neat pedal. LA-1A and Noble I purchased to reverse engineer, and I plan to sell as soon as I have a similar working product, but I will be keeping the Edison. I am a little disappointed though, I found out after I ordered it that they run the tube at 27V in the Edison. It's better than the Valvecaster running at 9V, but they're using an EF86, that thing is good for up to 300V on the plates. So whether I end up tracing it and seeing how it works or not remains to be seen, but I will definitely be dropping another circuit board in there to give it proper tube voltages.
Lowendtech
Happily trending in my own peculiar direction.
That would be sweet. The Edison adds some warmth but I always felt it could add more. Maybe you could add some tube gain to get some saturation to open it up a little. Would the higher voltage do a similar thing?
Then make a sushi caster, I keep asking this. I would probably take this over any other pedal simply because it's so easy to add with whatever tone model I currently have running. I'm pretty sure most of the Matsumin casters where keeping the plate voltage low for current draw. I dont remember to many high current dyi pedals back then
Lowendtech
Happily trending in my own peculiar direction.
Oh I just envisioned a tube boost with gain/volume and a loop. Dammit.
Well, not a Sushi pedal, but a Peterson Strobostomp HD tuner came in this afternoon. My presumable/likely/unless Señor Sushi reveals even more epic awesomeness than already forthcoming/inbound Slampegg is in a January slot, so I'll be just abusing my Particle Accelerator with SO MUCH FUN via a compressor/boost prior to it till then.
I'm currently seeing if Adorama will cut a super special deal on a field audio recorder for me. If they won't, I just might scrape the barrel and throw that $ at the DC7 while it's on sale. A lot's gonna happen in the next 24 hrs for me!
The high voltage would most likely make it cleaner and warmer, but depending on how the circuit is set up it could help it saturate a bit. It would definitely change the characteristics of the drive if it was driving. The reason I stick with full high-voltage tube drives instead of starving them (which is easier in pedals) is that once you've tasted 200V+ drive, starved just feels a little anemic and harsh.
My understanding was that the original Matsumin design was made to be a simple, low parts count design that could run off a 9V battery. At 160mA or so it would suck a 9V dry in just a few hours, but it theoretically worked. The current draw from plates is usually a handful of mA, so I don't think current is a good justification for starving the tube. Even with an inefficient supply you'd be looking at maybe an extra 5-10mA of draw, but the heater alone pulls around 150mA, so an extra little bit wouldn't kill you. The switch mode power supply I use has been around for quite a while (google "ne555 nixie supply" and mine will be in the top couple results), but it may have been a fairly recent thing to add to pedals.
I've seen people run Valvecasters as high as 60V at the plate, but there really isn't any reason not to run one at 200V. I may give it a shot just as a prototype, see how it sounds.
Adding a loop wouldn't be too hard. This would be a single tube, so two triode stages, and adding a loop between them would be trivial. In that case the "gain" would effectively be your "send" control for the loop, and your "volume" would be your "return" control. Adding a loop may affect the size I would be able to fit it in, but depending on what tube I use I could still make it pretty small.
Yes please. I’ll buy one. As said before. Low gurgling tube driver is what I need. Also looking for voicing too. When I turn on the Bug Drive it’s as if all my effects and sound in general starts to “sing” but there’s still a touch of unwanted higher end hair.
Perhaps I’m asking for too much?
Not to disparage Sushi in any way, but if you can get your hands on a Bug Caster I think you'd like it. I run mine very clean just as a signal booster usually at the front end of my chain. It is pretty subtle but adds a very nice something something. It's not my favorite for any actual overdrive though.
Obviously I'm a little biased, but any of my preamps will kick the snot out of a valvecaster any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Valvecaster runs starved voltages on the plates which technically works, but in my only-occasionally-humble opinion Valvecaster's main appeal is as a low-gain overdrive, running it clean without breakup it's not that special. A high-voltage tube preamp would fit the bill much better.
P.S. Interestingly enough Valvecaster was actually the very first pedal I ever built, the one that started me into this hobby. I did it as a project for my Intro to Circuits class in college 7 years ago
I think London Underground or Particle Accelerator would both be good bets for all clean no breakup. If you're willing to tolerate a little breakup I think Dr. Wattson is going to be hard to beat, that's becoming my new favorite preamp for bass. Sunnday Drive is awesome and has good cleans, but it can also get SUPER heavy, especially with the boost.
I think one of the next pedals I want to tackle would be a simple two-knob, single tube preamp just for warmth without tone shaping. The more I hear about what people want the more I think that idea is a winner. Plus I could probably do it small and (relatively) cheap.
That being said, I'm sure a high voltage Sushicaster would sound even better! I do think some sort of basic tone shaping wouldn't be a bad thing though. Either a standard "Tone" high frequency rolloff, or a basic tilt EQ would suit the bill. But otherwise clean and warm with maybe a bit of hair at the upper reach of the gain knob I think would be ideal.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what the London Underground can do. Though honestly the thought of running it clean barely crossed my mind
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A Sushi version of an Edison would be highly intriguing!
5sg.
5sg.
Yeah I'm really excited to see how it goes. I've only ever owned an amp with an EF86 in the preamp once, and it was for about 2 days (bought it broken and fixed to flip) but I remember liking the tone of it. If I were to try a mini-tube version I would need to find a suitable mini pentode, which are admittedly less common than triodes like 6N21B. I do have one that would be worth trying, and an idea for a couple others, but that will take some more reading.
I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm really excited to plug the thing in and play with it
Yeah it took me a second to figure mine out, it honestly took away from my tube pre it was going into at first, only until I backed off the gain and used the volume did everything come back, and then added tubeish tonzs. I've heard both bugs ran together sound amazing, if that were the case and something synergetic was going on, making one pedal that accomplished what both bugs are doing would be bees knees
The last one I had was pretty well built from someone I knew, it ran at 15V and I think I remember him connecting 2 pins on the valve to combine voltage on the heaters, I think he did that for less tax on the supply, I can't remember its been a while. But it did sound good, I know starved is basic marketing hype but I've heard at least 3 now that rival other 200+ plate volt preamps, breakup and tone wise, headroom was always to be desired though. There's one more I've heard good reviews, but its really hard to get ahold of
- Feb 16, 2008
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- John K Custom Basses
i know that Sunn Model T's are pretty popular with bass players but after owning mulitples of A LOT of Sunn amps, IMO, the 200S/190B is/was the the best sounding one out of all of them, and the 2000S/350B was a pretty close second. i'd like to see a Sushibox 200S or a 2000S in the future. and by the way, it's a very simple circuit.
