Dinosaural Tube Bender

Submitted on September 16, 2005

Pictures

  • Dinosaural Tube Bender
  • Dinosaural Tube Bender
  • Dinosaural Tube Bender
  • Dinosaural Tube Bender
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Controls

  • Drive
  • Tone
  • Level

Information

Dinosaural

A New Overdrive Effect for Guitars and more - hereafter referred to as "TB"

A simple, useful accessory that creates valve-like (tube) distortion without a valve amp, or pushes a "real" valve amp just that bit harder, to enhance what it already does to some degree. All this and then beyond into rich, sustaining fuzz distortion. Uses super-quiet analogue Class A discrete transistor circuitry for ultimate in sound quality and transparency of tone.

The TB can be set semi-clean and used to push a bigger level into the input of a valve amp, thereby adding a subtle distortion and tonal fatness. Also, its Drive control gives a progressively variable distortion content, ranging from just perceptible, gentle overdrive to blatant fuzz, with a far more gradual action than that of other overdrive devices, which rarely cross both territories. Used in this way, it can easily be tweaked to become a permanent part of the musician's sound rather than an occasionally used effect.

Doubling as a "lo-fi box" and general studio treatment tool, the TB can be used with a microphone input to give some very hot vocal sounds! Almost any instrument or low line level signal can be fed through this device to get some gentle distortion through to pseudo-AM Radio sounds and then saturation.

We've eliminated the narrow bandwidth and lack of openness of conventional overdrive pedals; TB uses a new purpose-designed low-noise, class A discrete transistor circuit. This creates a very valve-like harmonic response, with dominant 2nd harmonic and progressively greater amounts of 3rd controlled by how hard you play and that all-important Drive setting. To vary the colour, there's a cut/boost Tone control with plenty of "swing", a press-switch to shift the Tone control's overall frequency range and finally, an overall Level control for presetting the bypass/effect volume ratio.

Either a 9-volt battery or 9-volt external dc power supply (Spec: tip positive, 3.5mm Mini-Jack, regulated and smoothed, low ripple with 100mA or more current capability) can be used with this pedal.

A fine "overdriven valve amp" effect with plenty of warmth and harmonics is available at low-to-medium drive settings, and rich sustaining distortion and fuzz-tone textures at the highest drive settings, which you can adjust to taste with the Tone pot as well as your guitar's tone control and pickup selector, always a worthwhile thing to try.

A key feature of this design is that the distortion colour can be quite effectively and progressively controlled by the guitar - set the Drive around 10 o'clock, and you'll have anything from clean to crunch available between 6/10 and 10/10 on your guitar's Volume control. This box works very well with all kinds of classic guitars, with either single-coil or hum-bucking pickups. The character of the instrument is retained - and even enhanced - by the TB.

Set the Drive higher for sounds from crunch rhythm to lead overdrive. Also, when using the neck pickup on the guitar, try rolling back the tone to get the fabled "Woman Tone" of yesteryear! It really sings when the drive is wound up on the TB!

The TB's unique and innovative design gives a very pure sound, with more available capabilities and sonic richness, and less of the drawbacks of other overdrive designs - where high drive settings can sound glassy and nasal, while the bypass sound is often audibly compromised by the use of transistor "emitter-follower" buffers in line with the signal. Most discerning guitar players (particularly those with vintage instruments) dislike the use of such buffers, as these subtly alter the tone of the instrument, and not necessarily for the better! No danger of that with TB's mechanical true-bypass arrangement, which puts the input straight to the output in bypass with no "tone sucking", or signal loss.

The LED effect status/relative battery voltage indicator does not affect the true-bypass wiring, as found in some other designs. There is no audible "click" or "thump" when switching between straight sound and effect with the TB.

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fx pedal stompbox stomp box guitar effects pedal overdrive over drive gain saturation distortion/fuzz/overdrive dirt grit distortion dist distorted distort
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