Tube Distortion/overdrive preamp circuit needed

[tschrama]

OK, just 2 my cents for touch sensitive boost:


1] you need a fair bit of loudness, yeh, real SPL .. the amount of sound makes a big difference. It help sustaining you notes and makes it easier to play softly-clean..while still having plenty of grunt to spare it you hit you strings hard.

2] for the boost I would recommend the first stage of a Marshall 2204 (100K, 12ax7, 2.7K|680nF, 22nF) followed by a cathode follower (100k from cathode to gnd).. some how a tube allways give more 'singing' quality, and nicer high-end ring, than any JFET or opamp config I tried...

goodluck..

PS what is you main amp/cab?

PPS
I keep a SPL meter next to me while I am playing, no kidding! My guitar really begings to sound nice around 90dB.. that's loud I know..

[unclejed613]

i've seen some DC-DC converter modules that take 5-24V in and have outputs in the 100-200V range (regulated quite stiffly and cleanly at whatever voltage is selected). i was thinking of trying one of these in my next model of the stompbox. using 100V for the 6BF7 tubes would increase the gain of a single stage to about 50, so i wouldn't need to cascade the stages. this would also work for a 12AX7 version also and increase the gain of a single stage to well over 100...... then again, i may have to make my own..... i found one such module listed in newark's catalog .... for $60.00. dc-dc converters aren't difficult to homebrew if you have a few toroid cores in your parts box. i'll just need a wall wart capable of a bit more current........

[pjpoes]

I have a Vox AC30tb clone which is all point to point as one of my main, but my primary is an Orange Amp AD30TC with upgraded caps to pio's. I also have NOS tubes in all my amps, but none of the really crazy ones, no Amprex Buggle Boy or anything like that. I had some weber speakers, but I sold them, which I now regret, so my cabs have Celestion Vintage 30's in them. I want to try and pickup some Weber alnico based speakers, maybe the blue bell clone or something would be nice.

I don't see how my comments are all that confusing, but I'm sorry if thats so. I know that many players try to achieve the sound I've described with compression and transistor distortion, but not all have, and its not what I'm looking for. I find that pure tube tone is better, and that the distortion I achieve from something like my orange amp is just better in all ways. I'm not looking for massive amounts of gain for that heavy metal sound. I have heard and owned many solidstate and tube effects pedals and preamps before, and I've found that the lower voltage (12 volt) tube effects just don't sound the same when distorting as do the higher voltage ones. As for solid state, well as I said, I have a lot of them. I have tube screamers, big muffs, diy pedals, seymour duncan booster pedal, tubeworks tube pedals, a gainiac, etc. None of them are what I am currently looking for, while some give the basic sound I want, none have the purity of tone and touch sensitivity that you get from that pure tube system.

[wakibaki]

Originally posted by pjpoes
none have the purity of tone and touch sensitivity that you get from that pure tube system.

Which pure tube system?

Perhaps if you told us which performer's tone is close...

w

[tschrama]

idem dito...

explain which performer's tone is closest to you dream tone..

[fran99]

Hi all,
I just love to dime my amp and do the Mosfet regulator attenuation thing... Sounds awesome.. Since discovering this little mod I have never looked back from creamy overdriven tones that lose hardly any tone when the volume is reduced..
I got the schematic for the mod here if anyones curious.

Power sliding Tube Amplifiers

I have a JTM45 clone Btw..

[gain-wire]

As a guitar player and an electronics technician/hobbyist at heart, I would like to help you just as the other readers do. however I must clearly understand what KIND of sound you're looking for. As mentionned before if you could give us sonic examples (Chords resonating à la Van Halen, Won't get fooled again type intro sound, etc) then we'll be much more able to know what type of electronic solution to provide.

I was particularly interested when you said: "I was thinking that using a single 12ax7 would be fine, the iron needed should be pretty low level. I'm assuming I would need a small preamp sized power transformer, and that would really be it."
So you want to actually have a little class-A preamplifer, made as a power amplifier, to drive the input of your Orange Amplifier.
Is that your idea?

If so, then why not something like this:
Oh, wait I gotta draw it...

[gain-wire]

OK, so I couldn't get my scanner to work because Canon's website is too retarded to be able to open ANY kind of file. Here's a picture of my already not-so-nice drawing:

Let me know if this is more like what you're looking for.