hvyj
870 posts
Dec 06, 2010
8:27 AM
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I've occasionally made the observation that i don't use effects pedals with tube amps because the effects mess with the tone of the tube amp and the tube amp messes with the sound of the effects pedals.
But since I've been using my Super Reverb and my Princeton Reverb for certain gigs lately, I've had to make compromises. The bandleaders I work with are so used to me using a pedal board through my SWR Baby Baby Blue acoustic bass amp, they now expect me to be able to use a MicroPOG octave divider effect or a rotary speaker effect for certain tunes.
Solution: I got a second MicroPOG with a true bypass mod from Analogman. The problem i had using an MP with tube amps was not what it sounded like with effect engaged, but that the dry signal of stock MP drives pretty hard when the effect is not engaged causing feedback problems. The true bypass mod took care of that and eliminated the problem completely. I just have to adjust the 3 control knobs a little differently to balance the volume of the effect signal with the bypassed signal and to compensate for how the tube amps reproduce the upper octave when the effect is engaged.
For rotary speaker effect, I had been using a RotoSim which sounds great through my SWR bass amp (solid state power stage and tube preamp) but doesn't sound anywhere near as clean and rich through my tube amps. So, I tried a Retro-Sonic Chorus on its vibrato setting. BINGO! The Reto-Sonic set on vibrato gives a nice rotary speaker effect that sounds good through the textured tone of a tube amp--not as rich and Leslie-like as the RotoSim sounds through my SWR, but a very decent rotovibe-like effect that works very well with tube amp tone. And it's true bypass.
So, I got myself a Pedaltrain Nano to mount these 2 pedals on and now i have a little pedalboard I am able to use for MicroPOG and rotary effect without compromising the tone i get when i use my tube amps. Of course, i still have my more elaborate Pedaltrain Mini pedalboard that i use with my SWR.
Anyway, the point is that the Retro-Sonic Chorus pedal is worth checking out for its vibrato effect. Very nice, very harp friendly unit that is very easy to set up and operate. And it works very well through tube amps. The chorus effect itself is not as useful as the vibrato setting, but the vibrato setting is very useful. Of course, as with any effects, you don't want to overdo it.
FWIW
Last Edited by on Dec 06, 2010 12:44 PM
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