How Does This Idea Sound?

[Lyle Caldwell]

I'm playing around with the idea of putting the boost from the Strat Elite and the preamp of the Gibson Lab 5 together in a pedal that could be used either as an entire preamp running into a power amp section or used as a distortion pedal in front of a regular amp.

Yes, this is directly aimed at King's X/Ty Tabor fans but having it work as a pedal as well as a preamp would make it useful to a lot of guys who like having distinctive distortion sounds.

I would be making it a bit more versatile than the Lab preamp - Ty found settings that sound cool but there are a lot of awful sounds in that thing - I would eliminate the yuck while making the cool things easier to find.

This would be a tough project as some of the chips used in the Lab series haven't been made since 1975 so I would have to replicate the performance and sound using current production chips. I wouldn't want to do all this work and invest a lot of money into it for the guitar community to go "meh."

So, what do you guys think? I know there are some hard rock/metal guys on here. For the rest of you, please don't use this thread as a platform to tell us how cool your tweed champ is or how you don't need pedals.

Champs are very cool and pedals aren't always needed. No argument. But for those who like toys this would be a cool one.

 

[Goodcleanfun]

if I want hard rock/metal I go to the Jekyll & Hyde or the Tight Metal pedal (amptweaker).

But, hey, yours could work too, but if what you say about the chips being hard to obtain is true then that comes with a price increase which narrows your clientele and seemingly, other pedals can do something similar?

 

[Lyle Caldwell]

No other pedals or amps get this particular sound. I wouldn't be using the hard to find chips but rather duplicating their sound with a combination of modern components and discrete circuits.

Here's a video showing the sounds of the Lab 5 series preamp. Notice the player goes from a great clean to a great dirty sound (and in between) with just the volume knob on his guitar.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIlcZ1ESRq4]Ty Tabor Early Tone (Prisoner) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Cygnus X1]

Seems you, especially you...could isolate that particular tone just with a bit of EQ on your Telos.
Not cheap, but I think it's there.
Therein lies the rub.
Target is limited.

I liked how the Telos acted like that, like a tube amp that was touch sensitive and responded to what my guitar was set at.
Like a good amp ought to.

 

[Lyle Caldwell]

Well, thanks, I have to do some spice modeling and a prototype before I'm 100% sure, but I think the "magic" in this particular preamp is in the tone stack and the multi-frequency circuit. An awful lot of 4558s in there creating some very unique phase shifts.

But there's also a final gain stage where they go from about 30mv to 4.4v using a chip that hasn't been made since 1975. The question for me is was that chip just providing a lot of gain (which is easily done with other modern components) or was a lot of the character coming from this particular gain stage (in which case I'll need to build a discrete version of this gain stage with very specific transistors).

For those who haven't played a Lab series, it's one of the most interesting sounding solid state amps ever made. Feels really good too. Pretty sure most of you guys have heard BB King play over the past 30 years - that's usually a Lab series he's playing through.

As far as a limited audience goes, hard to tell. I know there's a large number of Ty Tabor/King's X freaks out there. But I think this would be a cool pedal/preamp for a wide range of playes.

They're hard to find in good condition, service is iffy due to parts no longer being available, and they weigh a ton. I think it would be cool to make it available in a pedal.

 

[Goodcleanfun]

how much are you looking at for retail?

 

[Lyle Caldwell]

Too early to say for sure, but with two footswitches and 8 knobs it would be right there with the Triad and Telos which are $325.

 

[Hector Arcadius]

No other pedals or amps get this particular sound. I wouldn't be using the hard to find chips but rather duplicating their sound with a combination of modern components and discrete circuits.

Here's a video showing the sounds of the Lab 5 series preamp. Notice the player goes from a great clean to a great dirty sound (and in between) with just the volume knob on his guitar.

Ty Tabor Early Tone (Prisoner) - YouTube

That's some great tone there Lyle, for sure. It sounds like a great idea and very promising indeed. Now if there is a market for such a high-end distortion pedal, it's up to you to decide. I would rock it, no doubt about it!

 

[mudfinger]

I don't think I'd be personally interested in this, Lyle, but I do think that the concept of an overdrive pedal that can also be used to drive the power section of a PA is a most excellent idea. It's one of the features of the Ethos that helped me to rationalize the price. My backup amp is my pedalboard; can't beat that with a stick!

 

[Ed B]

It's a fantastic idea.

I think the issue will be the target as mentioned. People may not accept what this could do until they try it. Then you'll have the issue with price. I'm not questioning it's value, by any means. It's easy for people to talk themselves out of spending money when they "think" they can get those tones for less. In this case they could be wrong, but perception is a powerful thing. You'll have to prove it to them.

Since my amps don't have effects loops I wouldn't be able to use this one. However I have your 3.14 in my sights.

You can do it man!! It may not take over, but I can see many players LOVING this idea.

 

[switchback]

I for one vote "do it" I love Ty's tone and the distortion on that video is smooooth ! Maybe you could make a mini pedal version like the footprint of the lovepedal amp 50 or Redwitch seven sisters pedals. I would snap that up faster than treefrog snatching a fly. I don't mind internal pots, and whatever you need to do to make it work. I think its a GREAT idea and would love to see it created. I personally won't buy it full size, but as I said as mini pedal, absolutely !!

 

[Hector Arcadius]

However I have your 3.14 in my sights.

+1


That makes two of us...

 

[Krinkle]

Hi everybody. I'm new here and this is my first post. I was doing my usual internet search for anything Ty Tabor related and I found this thread. It's right up my alley so this will be a long first post, my apologies in advance, but when it comes to Ty Tabor and Kings X, I can't shut up.

The idea to build that preamp is a GREAT idea!!!!!

I'm a tech and I have been thinking about making the same thing for a while now but other projects, especially home repairs, keep getting in the way. Plus, I already have the L5 so I don't really need it, but it sure would be nice to have that preamp in a 1U size.

I just finished building a complete "Gretchen" rig. I tried anything and everything to get the tone from that album/cd and nothing came even remotely close, depending on what your version of close is, of course.

So about 5 years ago I started looking for the same gear that Ty Tabor used and just last night I finally got to the point where I feel that I have the same tone.

The last step for me was the conversion of a MIM Strat into an Elite Strat. I bought 3 Elite PUPs on eBay and built the preamp based on Fender documentation. The L5 and Elite together are just plain magical.

My signal chain is as follows;

Modded Fender MIM to Elite->LAB Series L5 "Low" input with settings from Guitar Player TT interview->L5 preamp out to BS2 buffer to split signal to feed stereo FX->L&R Alesis Midiverb II->

L into Ibanez DD-200 Delay #1->L into Crown Micro-Tech 600 Power Amp
R into Ibanez DD-200 Delay #2->R into Crown Micro-Tech 600 Power Amp

Crown Power Amp outs into Peavey 4x12 cab with four 16 Ohm Celestion G12K-85's, wired 2 in parallel a side to get 8 Ohms x 2 sets for stereo.

I had read that this is supposedly what Ty tabor used to make that CD, and after using all of this gear together it sounds identical to me. I realize this is obsessive, but I HAD to have that tone.

I think you/Lyle should get the CA3094's off eBay and build an identical clone of the sections of the L5 that Tabor used, they're around and there seems to be quantities. Adding the Elite preamp is a great idea but you would have to compensate/adjust for a few things;

The rolling back of the volume pot on the Elite to get the clean and in between tones would be in a different position in the circuit if you just fed a guitar signal into a pedal/rack version. You have the extra pots, PUPS, capacitors from the guitar feeding the preamp that is normally fed with just pickups. So rolling back the volume pot on the guitar is not the same as rolling back the volume pot of the preamp circuit. I built the preamp into a pedal before I modded the Strat, and when I used my regular Strat, the roll off is not the same. The same thing goes for the mid boost pot, I believe that Ty rolled it back closer to 1 for the clean tones in songs like Goldilox, and put it closer to 10 for solos. I suppose you could add second setting pots the same as you would a second channel and switch them back and forth, it's not imposibble, just one of the details that would need to be taken care of.

As for the L5 preamp, besides the transconductance IC, the Mid Frequency pot is a dual ganged reverse taper. I wasn't able to readily find one, haven't looked lately.

Those were a few of the challenges I noticed.

I have studied the Elite and L5 schematics extensively and by playing around with different settings to get different tones I may be able to help. If you would like any input, just give me a shout.

Darrin