Which pedals/preamp are you using?

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Loc9

Loc9

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Curious to know which pedals/preamp people are finding works well. What type of music are you using it for?

I'm a new user and currently I'm running a Blackstar HT Dual ahead of my CAB. With some experimentation I'm starting to get some good tones.. both clean and pretty high gain!

I see the Bogner Red in particular gets a lot of love around here. I was considering that pedal for a bit but was intrigued by the HT Dual since it has a tube in the circuit.

What are people liking these days? I'm not necessarily looking for a new pedal but you never know! :rock:
 
I'm currently using custom Egnater/Randall MTS tube preamps (Marshall Super Lead, Hiwatt DR-103, Orange OR120, Vox AC30TB, Matchless Chieftain, Fender Deluxe, Kirk Hammet KH-3) in a custom RM2, and a vintage Kittyhawk Quattro tube preamp

The Two Notes Torpedos will work great with any preamp.
 
I've been using the BOSS GT pedals since they started making them and always found the cab sims to be the weakest point of their COSM technology by far, to the point of never using them with headphones/direct.

Currently using the GT100 - it sounds divine when cranked through my 2 Tech 21 Power Engine cabinets but it's got that same old mucky 1980's sounding COSM direct. That's why I bought the CAB - I disable the speaker sims in the GT100 and put the CAB in the GT's effects loop placed right after the GT100 preamp in the chain. The difference is like night and day. I've played 2 gigs with this rig and although there's nothing like a real cabinet blasting behind you it sure is nice to have the option to leave my cabinets at home when I'm feeling lazy. Yay for CAB!
 
micycle":1s1bg5t3 said:
I've been using the BOSS GT pedals since they started making them and always found the cab sims to be the weakest point of their COSM technology by far, to the point of never using them with headphones/direct.
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I always thought that as well...and it still stands for the high gain models, but the clean models are pretty good i'm finding out recently
 
I use an Effectrode Blackbird SR-71 preamp pedal with a C.A.B. and get great results.
 
That's why I bought the CAB - I disable the speaker sims in the GT100 and put the CAB in the GT's effects loop placed right after the GT100 preamp in the chain. The difference is like night and day. I've played 2 gigs with this rig and although there's nothing like a real cabinet blasting behind you it sure is nice to have the option to leave my cabinets at home when I'm feeling lazy. Yay for CAB!
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I have to say that a friend of mine who happens to be a Roland/Boss demonstrator came with his GT100 to do a little demo on our booth at the Musikmesse. Coupled with the C.A.B. the sound was OK, but I couldn't find (in a very limited amount of time) how to fix this strange behavior of the GT100 with the high gain simulations in the mid-high frequencies. I guess with more time I would be able to do better and your testimony let me hope for that. ;)
 
I use an Effectrode Blackbird SR-71 preamp pedal with a C.A.B. and get great re
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I begin to receive some questions about this product, how does it sound? Did you do some samples with it and the C.A.B.?
 
When I first received my C.A.B. I posted a song I quickly did here: viewtopic.php?f=75&t=138341 All guitars and bass were recorded through the Effectrode Blackbird SR71 preamp pedal.

I am busy over the next few days but will try to record and post some samples of guitar only. Personally, I prefer how things sound in a mix vs. standalone since that's where it ends up whether live or in the studio.

Scott
 
Of course, now I remember. ;)

Guitar in a mix is better. Everybody say they want isolated guitar tracks but actually (almost) nobody knows how an isolated guitar track sould sound like. ;)
 
That's always been my position. On the Effectrode site I actually have 2 demos that Phil Taylor posted under the sounds section for the Blackbird. I remember seeing on another site someone saying that it sounded too polished or overproduced (they were referring to the samples on the site in general) since it was a full mix and not standalone clips. What does too polished or overproduced mean? It's a demo after all.
 
guillaume_pille":ku6hz6wl said:
I have to say that a friend of mine who happens to be a Roland/Boss demonstrator came with his GT100 to do a little demo on our booth at the Musikmesse. Coupled with the C.A.B. the sound was OK, but I couldn't find (in a very limited amount of time) how to fix this strange behavior of the GT100 with the high gain simulations in the mid-high frequencies. I guess with more time I would be able to do better and your testimony let me hope for that. ;)
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Yeah, the GT's definitely require some hands-on time and patience.. that high gain/mid-high thing you mentioned is the COSM sound I'm referring to. Yuck. The thing with the GTs (IMO) is you have to build patches from scratch. The presets are always junk.. so if you were playing around with those that probably wasn't doing you any favors.

I use the GT with DIRECT/PHONES output setting and its speaker sims disabled 100% of the time. I plug that right into my Tech 21 cabinets... with the CAB I use only its EQ (which is awesome, by the way) and one of the 4x12 CABs and am able to get super close to what the Tech 21's sound like without having to lay a finger on my GT100. I have two main tones - cleaner/lower gain bluesy crunch and high gain and both sound really good through the CAB.
 
79sg":m0kx9cb8 said:
When I first received my C.A.B. I posted a song I quickly did here: viewtopic.php?f=75&t=138341 All guitars and bass were recorded through the Effectrode Blackbird SR71 preamp pedal.

I am busy over the next few days but will try to record and post some samples of guitar only. Personally, I prefer how things sound in a mix vs. standalone since that's where it ends up whether live or in the studio.

Scott
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Thanks for posting! That pedal seems really cool. I'm contemplating... The demos are really nice and I can tell it has versatility. I like that the tubes are "exposed" and so you can replace them if needed. Plus there's three tubes! That's like a real amp. Very cool looking pedal.
 
It's a great pedal. Phil Taylor has created some very nice tube based effects pedals.
With respect to the Blackbird preamp pedal, the clean channel is based on a Blackface Fender Twin, the 2 overdrive channels are based upon a Dumble circuit and a Soldano circuit (per the manual). Yes you can experiment with different tubes. Very cool.
 
Hello rig-talk,
I'm using an AMT SS-11 right now. Of course it sounds great with the Cab I just bought (and which is already my favorite piece of gear- after my guitar) :)
I recommend to change the original tubes though : too much highs with them.
 
FIREBALL":3qhhrz1y said:
heres my diezel herbert with my boss 10 band eq....the boss eq is my favorite pedal ever....sculpts your tone so well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTOM4Bo9cGs
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That's a good idea. I've looked at the boss 10band before but this would help me quite a bit for this specific application. The Blackstar HT DUAL could use some extra eq tweaking before it hits the CAB... or maybe after! :yes:
 
I'm a new-ish CAB user. when I first got it, I found that things sounded WAY better for my dirt pedals going into the CAB than it did directly into my interface (Duet2), but was still lacking a little something. I've been looking around for preamps to check out/use, proper standalone tube preamps intended to go into a power amp, not another solid state dirt pedal calling iteself a preamp or another dirt pedal with build in cab emulation intended primarily for dirt directly into an interface... I just want a good base clean(ish) preamp with tons of headroom that I can hit with pedals without overloading them and getting hard distortion. not a lot out there that I've seen.

I eventually found and bought a Kingsley Squire, with is based on blackface fenders, in pedal format, and completely intended to be run into a power amp. works great with the cab, really adds a little something that I thought was missing, handles my dirt pedals pretty well (except for fuzz... still can't nail a good direct fuzz sound), though I'm currently in the process of auditioning all my gear through the Squire/CAB combo so see what works best.

I am, however, still in the market for another preamp to give a different flavor than a fender. maybe something hiwatt or vox based? once again, something to be a CLEAN base to work as the initial tone and build from there... any suggestions on where to look or someone that can build something? just need a clean single channel with headroom and basic tone shaping. I know others are using the Blackbird or Bad Cat pedals or AMT stuff, but those seem overkill (two or more channels) and once again seem to focus on dirty tones from what I've seen.
 
LT|MH":26jddqf3 said:
I am, however, still in the market for another preamp to give a different flavor than a fender. maybe something hiwatt or vox based? once again, something to be a CLEAN base to work as the initial tone and build from there... any suggestions on where to look or someone that can build something? just need a clean single channel with headroom and basic tone shaping. I know others are using the Blackbird or Bad Cat pedals or AMT stuff, but those seem overkill (two or more channels) and once again seem to focus on dirty tones from what I've seen.
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I feel ya. I'd be interested in a good clean preamp as well. If you find one let us know. Seems most have 2 channels and geared more towards distortion. I like the HT Dual cleans ok but they're not the best I think. That Blackbird is sure interesting looking and I may consider that at some point.

Loving the CAB now that I've dialed it in better!
 
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