Suggestions for a tube preamp (sort of)

jon_kull · Post by **jon_kull** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 6:53 pm

I used to have a Klemt Echolette. One day I turned it on and it exploded...smoke, sparks and flames...quite a sight. I keep trying to get another Klemt but always get out-bid so I've decided to look for alternatives. Anyway I miss the nice warm tube driven tone it produced and was wondering if anyone could recommend a substitute...something with tubes maybe in stomp-box form. I'm not looking for extreme distortion or lo-fi craziness and the echo/delay aspect is not important. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

jon_kull · Post by **jon_kull** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:58 pm

I'm going to bump this two year old thread only because I'm bidding on another Klemt and the price is getting a little too high...

bunnyman · Post by **bunnyman** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 10:14 am

My fave distortion is the ColorSound SupaToneBender (Steve Hackett edition). It doesn't suck the bass out and is very even. Might be a bit over the top for you, though. Another great distortion is the ElectroHarmonix Tube Zipper, which is a distortion/envelope filter unit. If you just want the tube distortion, you can turn off the filter part and vice versa. Might be more your style, since it has tubes (a couple 12AX7s).

thermionicjunky · Post by **thermionicjunky** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 11:58 pm

I actually have a Speakeasy Vintage Music tube preamp that is designed for Hammond clones. It has only a 1/4 inch out rather than a Leslie out. It's in a Hammond-style enclosure. I'm only using the other one that I have, which is made for guitar. If you think you might like it, I could sell you mine for a reasonable price. Perhaps I could record a sample of it processing synth sounds?

gd · Post by gd » Wed Apr 22, 2009 12:32 am

I have a Speakeasy Stereo pre and quite like it and they are relatively inexpensive to boot.

Hyphen nation · Post by **Hyphen nation** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:25 am

jon_kull wrote:I used to have a Klemt Echolette. One day I turned it on and it exploded...smoke, sparks and flames...quite a sight. I keep trying to get another Klemt but always get out-bid so I've decided to look for alternatives. Anyway I miss the nice warm tube driven tone it produced and was wondering if anyone could recommend a substitute...something with tubes maybe in stomp-box form. I'm not looking for extreme distortion or lo-fi craziness and the echo/delay aspect is not important. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Do you still have it? Tube Amps are EXTREMELY simple circuits...unless the whole thing melted down, a good tech should be able to fix it..

Voltor07 · Post by **Voltor07** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:45 am

Hyphen nation wrote: Do you still have it? Tube Amps are EXTREMELY simple circuits...unless the whole thing melted down, a good tech should be able to fix it..

Yeah...simple circuits, time consuming, and expensive. Usually, when a tube amp sparks, catches fire, etc. it's the transformer. Transformers alone can go for $100 or more. If the transformer blows, it usually takes several tens of dollars worth of parts. Then there's labor charges. Going through all the spaghetti in a tube amp takes a lot of time, let alone testing every single component for failure. I am ten hours and $300 into components deep in an old GE Classic 7600 stereo tube amp right now. I've shelved it for now, until I decide to go back to it. I dunno. It seems it would be cheaper to replace a blown tube amp. Mine's not blown, it's just old and needs a forty year checkup.

ColorForm2113 · Post by **ColorForm2113** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 11:50 am

Fulltone tube tape echo? Depending on your price range, that thing is expensive but sounds so beautiful. Or on the much more affordable side electro harmonix has a good variety of tube powered pedals, distortions, compressors, eqs , etc

jon_kull · Post by **jon_kull** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:30 pm

No...It's long gone. It literally went up in flames. By the time I got the fire out it was pretty crispy and deformed. It's a shame I loved the sound of that Klemt.

I've been looking at the Fulltone Tube Tape Echo. There was one on ebay with a $750 BIN but I wasn't quick enough. In the meantime I'll look into some of your other suggestions.

acorkos · Post by **acorkos** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:17 pm

the fulltone TTE is the way to go. the problem with those old tube tape echos isn't the tube circuitry (that stuff is usually reapairable/replaceable)....it's the motors, heads and other tape transport components that are not replaceable. the old tape circuits were pretty noisy, too, unlike the fulltone TTE. IMO, the old tube tape stuff is nice for your antique collection, but generally unreliable, especially for gigging. i had a solid state Sireko tape echo unit I got in a trade....it worked OK, but i would never trust it for my rig. noisy POS, too.

calaverasgrande · Post by **calaverasgrande** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:28 pm

forget about tubes. They arent as significant in the signal path as audio transformers. I have a lot of success using old 70's transformer based mixers in my studio. Not giant Neves or APIs. Think Yamaha PM180, PM700, PM1000. Also older Soundcraft mixers. Even old Shure mixers are really good for putting the brown in your sound.
I am sure I am not the only person to find even the warmest moog sound will sound kind of flat and 2d when recorded into a computer. Run it thru a nice preamp or mixer and you will be surprised.
Another option is the Summit audio 2ba221. It has mic, line and instrument level inputs. It's a solidstate preamp with a tube output amp. It also has a seperate SS output as well. I really like it as it has a variable highpass filter on the mic amp. So I can pull a little low end off my moog when it is crazy low. Which actually makes it mix better.

Moog Music Forum

Suggestions for a tube preamp (sort of)

Suggestions for a tube preamp (sort of)

Re: Suggestions for a tube preamp (sort of)

Re: Suggestions for a tube preamp (sort of)