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Finally, after all these years, I took the plunge and bought my first boutique pedal: a Tube Driver made by The Man himself, B.K. Butler.
To be precise, I bought two of them from him, and had him add the Bias control to one. It's definitely a different animal than a BOSS pedal. I'm still not totally used to the tonal characteristics of an all-tube head "in person" (years of racks and hybrids), but I'm adjusting nicely, I think. The Tube Driver isn't exactly what I was expecting tone-wise, but I'm not unhappy with it at all.
At any rate, I set the JCM800 up for High input, Gain on about 3, Master on about 5, EQ and Presence at 5, so the Cleans are mostly clean (can't get true clean from it), and set one pedal up as Tube Drive on 5, Bass on 3, High on 7 or 8, and Out Level to 10. The other pedal is set to Tube Drive 9 or 10, Lo 3 or 4, High 7 or 8, and Out Level on about 7, and the Bias control on about 6 or 7.
I will say they're not really designed to run one into the other, boosting each other, as it were.
As well, the controls are super-sensitive - there's a noticeable difference between 4 and 5 on the Lo (bass) knob.
I've been able to get decent Heavy Metal tones out of it (Priest, Maiden), but so far I'm not hearing Surfing With The Alien or Satch Boogie, and it doesn't do early Thrash too convincingly. Then again, neither do I
Turning up the Gain on the Marshall, though, and it gets a bit more brutal, but can get out of control quickly. Maybe if I was not 3 feet from everything or had better shielding in the guitar I could tame the squealing. A noise gate would be useful.
But without a dedicated Clean channel on the amp, you get dirt and more dirt.
And the pedal doesn't do clean, either. As well, the tone controls work similarly to a RAT; adjust the Lo EQ control near the bottom of the sweep and you get a couple of notches where the mids seem to shift as it goes from "no bass" to "starting to get muddy". The High EQ control goes from somewhat-not-really-doing-anything-I-can-tell to grainy gritty glass rattle. There's a small useable range, at least in my ears, with my guitar, and my amp.
The manual says something about the pedal's tone improving with use, so I took that to mean there's a burn in period, and I was right. When I first hooked it up this morning, it seemed to fade in and out, even after about 20 minutes of being engaged, especially as I tweaked the knobs, but then straightened out. So I left them both on and took a wee nap. Note there's no real "on" as it's always there, just not always boosting. I'm guessing it's not true bypass.
It does seem to compress a bit with the pedal's Drive on 10 and the amp's Gain on 10, rather than just "moar moar moar!!!". There's a point in the Gain sweep where you stop hearing more juice as you turn the knob up, but that's like around 7 or 8, so it's got more useable travel than not.
Haven't tried it with the TripleRec yet, but then, do I really need to!? Wouldn't that be a sign the amp needed repair? Ah well, I'm happy enough with them. Might take more tweaking to dial in tones I'd stick with, but that's fine, it ain't like I got a major tour coming up in a week
Mr Butler shipped them lickety split, too. Bought last Thursday and got it yesterday, from Colorado to TN in 4 business days. You go, Post Office. Their delivery schedule said it wouldn't be here til this Thursday (Aug 6th), so yay.
To be precise, I bought two of them from him, and had him add the Bias control to one. It's definitely a different animal than a BOSS pedal. I'm still not totally used to the tonal characteristics of an all-tube head "in person" (years of racks and hybrids), but I'm adjusting nicely, I think. The Tube Driver isn't exactly what I was expecting tone-wise, but I'm not unhappy with it at all.
At any rate, I set the JCM800 up for High input, Gain on about 3, Master on about 5, EQ and Presence at 5, so the Cleans are mostly clean (can't get true clean from it), and set one pedal up as Tube Drive on 5, Bass on 3, High on 7 or 8, and Out Level to 10. The other pedal is set to Tube Drive 9 or 10, Lo 3 or 4, High 7 or 8, and Out Level on about 7, and the Bias control on about 6 or 7.
I will say they're not really designed to run one into the other, boosting each other, as it were.
As well, the controls are super-sensitive - there's a noticeable difference between 4 and 5 on the Lo (bass) knob.
I've been able to get decent Heavy Metal tones out of it (Priest, Maiden), but so far I'm not hearing Surfing With The Alien or Satch Boogie, and it doesn't do early Thrash too convincingly. Then again, neither do I
Turning up the Gain on the Marshall, though, and it gets a bit more brutal, but can get out of control quickly. Maybe if I was not 3 feet from everything or had better shielding in the guitar I could tame the squealing. A noise gate would be useful.
But without a dedicated Clean channel on the amp, you get dirt and more dirt.
And the pedal doesn't do clean, either. As well, the tone controls work similarly to a RAT; adjust the Lo EQ control near the bottom of the sweep and you get a couple of notches where the mids seem to shift as it goes from "no bass" to "starting to get muddy". The High EQ control goes from somewhat-not-really-doing-anything-I-can-tell to grainy gritty glass rattle. There's a small useable range, at least in my ears, with my guitar, and my amp.
The manual says something about the pedal's tone improving with use, so I took that to mean there's a burn in period, and I was right. When I first hooked it up this morning, it seemed to fade in and out, even after about 20 minutes of being engaged, especially as I tweaked the knobs, but then straightened out. So I left them both on and took a wee nap. Note there's no real "on" as it's always there, just not always boosting. I'm guessing it's not true bypass.
It does seem to compress a bit with the pedal's Drive on 10 and the amp's Gain on 10, rather than just "moar moar moar!!!". There's a point in the Gain sweep where you stop hearing more juice as you turn the knob up, but that's like around 7 or 8, so it's got more useable travel than not.
Haven't tried it with the TripleRec yet, but then, do I really need to!? Wouldn't that be a sign the amp needed repair? Ah well, I'm happy enough with them. Might take more tweaking to dial in tones I'd stick with, but that's fine, it ain't like I got a major tour coming up in a week
Mr Butler shipped them lickety split, too. Bought last Thursday and got it yesterday, from Colorado to TN in 4 business days. You go, Post Office. Their delivery schedule said it wouldn't be here til this Thursday (Aug 6th), so yay.
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