This forum, the players and the electronic geeks out here have vastly advanced the steel guitar community as a whole. I want to thank Brad and all for their shared experience and knowledge as to where this unit fits in as to steel applications. I would not have a problem using this amp at all as a backup in the event my main rig had a tube or electronic failure.
#Bk butler tube driver tube works mod#
The mod has helped bring the unit into a more user friendly range for steel guitar amplification. The bottom line is that it is a 2 channel preamp with stacking features that was designed around guitar players. It can be used to connect to a standard power amp or it also has a reduced level line out so that it could be put in front of a regular amp's input for possibly warming the tone a bit. Some of the nicer features of this preamp is the dual line out levels. The sound was warmer and a lot more tube like than any S.S. The bright harshness of the preamp was able to be cut back with the presence controls on the Mosvalve.Įven though it could not match up to the sound quality and versatility of the same rack setup with my Revelation installed in its place, the Blue Tube 2 was nothing to be ashamed of. with Lawrence pickups through the Blue Tube, TC Electronics M 300, Mosvalve 500 and nicely built Rick Johnson cabinets with 1501-4 Black Widow speakers. But as we all know, the sound is the combination of all components as well as the man behind the guitar.
It's hard for me to fairly state how good the actual preamp stand alone sound is, as when I tested the unit, it was combined with the best off all equipment. It was a bit bright and only had about so many tone options but these were in a decent range. The sound of the modifed Blue Tube was fairly decent when set up with my rack combination. It's definately not a "Revelation" but it could be considered a fair " tube pre-amp". It was working fine after I cleaned the pots but Brad contacted me as he had not viewed one of these yet and he offered to professionaly clean the amp up and check the tubes at "no cost." That's hard to turn down.īrad asked me to send the pre-amp to his shop so that he could see what the pre-amp and mod was all about. I'm sure that it's pretty obvious that Brad has the pre-amp that I bought off the Forum. One bonus is that since the tubes aren't actually operating at real tube voltages, they should last a long time. But for big, warm, lush and detailed, I'd say actual tube preamps have it beat pretty good. I bet for steel players who like a good amount of bite and cut, it's probably a pretty decent device. It's a bit solid state and edgy sounding in the treble, but more tubey than an all transistor preamp. It does have a kind of lively and energetic sound like a tube amp. The sound is not bad, a little grainy and harsh and lacking that deep dimension that high voltage tube devices give, but really not too bad sounding. It's kind of noisy with hum and hiss too, but not horrible. I always thought these units were real tube devices, as their name would imply, but apparently not. I guess it's kind of like their famous tube distortion pedal that uses transistors for some gain staging, and simply passes thru the starved tubes to get a little of that tone quality and overdrive if you want. The plate voltages seem to be topping out at around 20v.
#Bk butler tube driver tube works full#
I didn't realize that it was so full of transistors, and that the tubes aren't really operating in the real voltage range that tubes like. I just got done poking around inside one of these preamps.