tried 12at7 tubes to get cleaner

[briman]

I swapped my pre amp tubes today which were 12ax7's for 12at7 and was hoping for a cleaner sound. I did get a cleaner sound. It's actually great but I still have to turn my pre amp to almost .5 (7 oclock). I did all this hoping that I could use a tube screamer pedal to get more gain and then just click it off in order to have 2 chanel kind of. But the gain sounds very thin and microsonic with the TS7 tube screamer. Have any of you guys tried any other type of pedal for gain like a boss ds1 or something? I put my old tubes back in and am hoping to try the whole process again with a different pedal. I however have a feeling that nothing will compare to the preamp gain from the splawn itself?

[splawndude]

Yeah, there is not much that will compare to the preamp of the Splawn imo. A friendly suggestion would have been to ask first about the preamp tubes. 12AT7s have about 30% less gain than a 12AX7 so that is pretty significant. The V1 preamp tube controls the clean channel and the first gain stage so maybe try a 12AT7 there and the rest 12AX7s. You can also experiment with 5751s (Jan Phillips) as they are smooth and kinda in between a AT7 and a AX7.

As far as other pedals I like my MXR Zakk OD and Bad Monkey seperately but I know some people 'stack' OD pedals but that won't be a 1 switch thing. Maybe a Fulltone OCD?

[briman]

thanks for the reply splawndude. Yeah I am gonna try the ds1 by boss or MXR Zakk od. I am just looking for a gain that sounds similar to the on board pre amp gain so that I can have a clean and od chanel basically. I'll tell you though that the TS7 sounded like crap.

[speedemon]

Ok,

this has been covered elsewhere, but I will repeat it here.

1) It is interesting that you like the sound of 12AT7s, if that tone suits you then;

2) There are numerous excellent OD and Dist pedals for $150 to $200; don't waste time on Boss and Ibeenhad pedals (the GE7, TU2 and TS808 are exceptions). I found the Zakk Wylde and most MXR pedals to be "good enough" as well. I believe you are in the UK, and it is likely that the excellent Rothwell pedals are available to you.

3) Despite being a master volume amp, the Splawn is very sensitive to guitar volume and pickup height. While these are not footswitchable, do not exclude them in your search for variety.


Good luck and have fun!

[briman]

thank speedemon. I agree it is definetely an Ibeenhad pedal! Luckily I didn't buy it...... I borrowed it, so it's going back to my buddy soon. I am gonna try something like an mxr Zakk or whatever's available locally second hand. I am in Canada not U.K. and in Montreal to be exact. Montreal has alot of musicians and it's good because there's always tons of stuff for sale on craigslist or kijiji. I like the sound of the 12at7's for the clean. I didn't really play around with them for gain from the amp.......only from the pedal which sucked. I think they sounded familiar to the 12ax7's when I briefly played around with the pre amp knob. Anyways..... I couldn't be happier with my gain tone but am just curiously trying this to see if I can get a bettter clean than rolling back the guitar volume. It's good but not punchy clean if you know what I mean.

[speedemon]

Ahh Montreal,

been 2x, F1GP du Canada! J. Villeneuve into the grass at turn 1. His pops won the first Long Beach GP I went to here in Los Angeles. Fun times. Some people are not so nice when they hear you speak English...we'll give you a pass for the board...ok j/k.

montreal.fr.craigslist.ca/msg/2231443102.html

montreal.fr.craigslist.ca/msg/2225185110.html Tubeworks Realtube

Your craigslist is a bit limited, but I found a couple interesting items for you to look at.

Also, if you just want to "punch up" the clean, a compressor works well for that. I have the Pigtronix Philosopher's Tone, has an OD built in that you can mix with the clean signal, a mighty fine pedal. Rothwell and Robert Keeley also make nice comp pedals

Have fun!

[briman]

Yeah I am english. Born and raised here. I can speak french too..... I basically had no choice if I wanted to find work! There are alot of very nice french people here. You will get the occasional jerk that wasn't intelligent enough to learn english that will give a dirty look if you speak english. Pretty rare now a days though. The younger generation is mostly bilingual and mix amongst eachother more that when I was younger. In my school days.... it was the english hanging out with the english and french with the french. Alot of different nationalities here too. Montreal is known for it's beautiful women too!
Anyways back on topic...... I actually saw that Homebrew Big D and might get it and try it out. Thanks for checking it out.