A 60s dallasarbiter fuzz face, a vintage ts808 ibanez tube screamer, and, just to its right and off the board, an mxr flangerdoubler feed into the tworock head. It looks like he runs the echoplex into the tube driver, meaning that the tube driver is distorting the delay. Overall, although my time with it is limited, im impressed and looking forward to finding more great sounds from this beast. Shown above j mascis 5 knob tube works real tube overdrives with js settings, and his four knob 911 tube driver. Take a peek inside the ab process of our tone party hangs. Everything you ever wanted to know about preamp tubes.
I can cop the violin tone by running my sgs neck pickup 57 classic into my tube. Evh was using a real echoplex and not just some preamp loosely based on the echoplexs front end. In the mid1950s, guitar distortion sounds started to evolve based on sounds created earlier in the decade by. Evh had a slight echoplex slapback tape delay on for a lot of his guitar stuff. Eric johnson interview guitars amp effects on up close album part 3 of 3.
The best overdrive pedals for the blues happy bluesman. The echoplex ep3 tape echo unit is famous for its deliciously warm, organic modulation and sweet musical voicea key component to some of the most iconic guitar tones from the 60s and 70s. Placing the echoplex in the signal chain between the guitar and the tube driver causes the delayecho effects to only be prominent on more. Legend has it that a dallas rangemaster was involved in driving erics jtm45.
Echo and intensity, this analogue tonemachine is able to produce delay times. Both input and output jacks turn into stereo ins and outs with a trs cable, giving players with stereo rigs plenty of routing options. With a 52 gibson es5 into a fender vibroking, the ep2s slapback almost makes you think youre in sun studios. He uses a lot of delay all the time, he goes through his echoplex s, and uses a deluxe memory man for extra delay. Here is a walk through of how i get an eric johnson inspired lead tone. The song was played with a gibson es335 as well as a fender stratocaster through a b. Heart of the tube driver is a real handselected 12ax7 tube by bk butler himself. Dunlop echoplex delay guitar effects pedal guitar center.
The tone on the title track is so big, throaty, and dry. Mxr fet driver discussion in the stomp box started by gtrguru, aug. First guitar i tried was this 1972 tele into a chandler tube driver and echoplex. In the late 70s, with the transistor boom, pedals like the tube. The fet preamp in the echoplex circuit is basically a buffer for the tape delay circuit and also the bypass circuit. Danelectro fuzz face, echoplex tube driver, 50100w marshall, and the secret ingredient. Tube driver original by bk butler with bias control.
Doesnt he have an echoplex still running into his rhythm. The tube drive was far more than what i thought i would find, in fact i would dare to say that its what ive been looking for for the past five years. We used an eventide 949 harmonizer for the pitchshift effect. Im not preoccupied by achieving an exacting recreation of his tone, but one that works for me and my rig. Echoplex tube driver sd mod tone party tech youtube. Boss ds1 tube driver mod from pedaldoc guitarkitbuilder. Without the buffer in front, your fuzz should go from raging lead when. Echoplex tape delay units have been a salient element in the tone of guitar greats since their introduction in 1961. Johnsons legendarily messy pedalboard was in full effect for his summer 2011 tour. What other items do customers buy after viewing this item.
While overdriven tube amps are still used to obtain overdrive, especially in genres like blues and rockabilly, a number of. Near the end of the tube echoplex s run, a final addition was made. In the 2000 show his tech told me there wasnt any ep used for his lead sound, only for cleans. In this way, your guitar and amp retain more of their natural sound. Take your overdrive and distortion tones into new territory. How effects routing produced classic tones by hendrix, van. After chandlers trademark on the name tube driver lapsed in 1993, butler started making them again under his tube works brand. The first tube echoplex had no number designation but was retroactively designated the ep1 after the unit received its first upgrade. Most of us, when we try to describe our favourite guitar tone, use words like. Apparently, they were made in the mid to early 90s and were one of the first tube ss hybrids peavey, legend, music man and others were doing the hybrid thing long before the tube driver. The rhythm splits off into another ab box for two different rhythm options. Tube drive overdrive guitar effects pedal effectrode. Unlike the tube screamer, the blues driver pushes your guitar into overdrive, but it does so without dramatically altering the frequencies of the signal.
Dirty rhythm fuzz face, tube screamer, mxr flanger into a tworock traditional clean. Simple explanation of eric johnson violin tone the gear page. It goes without saying that there was a hefty amount of distortion, but eddie successfully ran an echoplex ep3 into the front end of his amp that significantly enhanced his tone and the guitar parts he played. Dunlop echoplex delay guitar effects pedal duration. In the 1950s, maestro was a leader in vacuum tube technology.
Simple explanation of eric johnson violin tone page 2. My signal travel straight from the guitar into a cotalab buffer, hidden under the. In simple terms, a tube s job is to make a small voltage guitar signal into a bigger one. Dont even use it in the same sentence as a plug in as you may be turned into a newt 2. I used a bk butler tube driver for years but as i went from that mid rangy. To run a 110120v tube driver on 220240v mains power, use a stepup voltage converter. I plugged up a 1957 tweed champ into a marshall 4x12.
The echoplex delay is engineered to sound like a perfectly calibrated echoplex, fresh off the maestro assembly line in the 1970s, but with some hidden features to adapt to the modern players. These can include compressors, preamps, boosts, overdrives, distortions, and fuzzes not to mention. Clean deluxe memory man into two fender twin reverbs micd in stereo. The core of the pedal is a handselected 12ax7 tube which gives you a lovely sort of fuzzdrive sound than can sound amazingly smooth and textured in the hands of masters like david gilmour who still features 2 of these within his. Does he plug into the echoplex because he likes how the eps preamp conditions the tone or does he also use the delay or both. Trust me, please, its the slight overloading of a fuzz or other dirt into the tube driver. Just wondering how it matches up to a real echoplex or if its worth. Johnson is usually going to send his signal to an old maestro echoplex. Conversely, if you plug a tube driver with a 220240v transformer meant for the eurpoean market into a 110120v outlet, it will only draw 14 the power it needs and may not function properly. In this article we cover the tube driver modification sold by pedaldoc of burgos, spain. Eddies early sound was achieved by cranking every knob on his late60s marshall super lead to 10.
The most simple version of this, of course, is to put a powerful boost or preamp in front of a tube amp, crank up the pedal and listen to the amp break up into overdrive. Bk butlers original hand made tube driver guitar pedal used by eric johnson, david gilmour, billy gibbons, joe satriani, kenny wayne shepherd. His dirty tones are from a tube driver or an old dallas fuzz into an overdriven marshall amp. Its just that guys like eric johnson run echoplexes straight into cranked up marshalls and tube drivers with fuzz faces behind it and his delay sound doesnt sound that dirty. The other day, i went into a used guitar store hoping to find any decent overdrive pedal and boy was i extremely pleased with what i found. I think u remember seeing a few things in guitar magazines describing complex clean, rhythm drive and lead signal paths. Pluck a string on your guitar and the pickup sends a small voltage to the input of your amplifier, where it is passed along to the grid of the first preamp tube think of it as the input of this tube. Signal chain, fender telecaster into the mxr exhoplex preamp then echoplex delay into a 1974 marshall jmp 100w super lead. Thing is though, johnson really isnt using this much for echo these days that honor goes to an ehx deluxe memory man. The dunlop cry baby goes into his marshall lead rig, via an echoplex and a b. The tube driver as a boost into a plexi type amp with an echoplex or something similar, bridge tone control on 67, and some good volume is the closest you can get, but into a clean fender amp you have to mess with things to make up for the different frequency response and make some different choices. The original ep3 units, however, are expensive, temperamental, and larger than a vcr.
In most cases, youll already be gain stacking without realising it, as elements of your chain will have preamps, or blend controls, which are often built using an. The fulltone does nice things for the guitar sound, as pointed out above, the nonecho tone is helped as well. In the early days, there wasnt another game in town when it came to discreet and portable echo units which accounts for its early usage. Later, harristeller of chicago took over production. Vintage echoplex ep3 vs fulltone tube tape vs echoboy. Knowing which pedals to choose for your amp gilmourish.
Compatible with all electric guitars and amplifiers. This tube driver was a lower cost, entry level version, housed in a smaller enclosure. In his tone secrets videos, pete shares tips, tricks, and approaches to getting cool guitar sounds. Do tube tape echoes have more headroom than digital delays. The board starts with a master ab switch for lead or rhythm. Something ive been wondering about ejs violin tone is the placement of the delay. Butler tube driver famously used by david gilmour, eric johnson, billy gibbons and joe satriani to name a few. This defeated the erase head, as in the playback mode, but left the. Cascading an opamp into an fet has been done before.
In his lead effects chain is an original vox wah into an echoplex into a tube driver, ending up in his marshall. Distortion and overdrive are forms of audio signal processing used to alter the sound of. Now looking at the pedal board, the echoplex does goes before the tube driver. It was the kramer into a vox wah and a chandler tube driver into a marshall halfstack. Pedaldoc specializes in the production of kits to convert standard guitar pedals into boutiquetone stomp boxes, in most cases just by changing a few components. The coloration of tube echoplex from the m does a great job too. The secrets behind eric johnsons tone on cliffs of dover guitar. With a heavyduty phase 90sized housing, a replica ep3 knob, true bypass switching and a status led, the echoplex preamp is as ready for the road as it is the recording studio. The predecessor of the echoplex was a tape echo designed by ray butts in the 1950s, who built it into a guitar.