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The Features
As I have mentioned elsewhere, the Tube Zone is my favourite
overdrive pedal. It has grown somewhat over the last number of
years, and may seem a bit challenging at first. But for those
of you who are prepared to put in a bit of time understanding
the way it works, you will be rewarded with gorgeous tone, and
unparalleled flexibility.
Drive Control:
The gain control adjusts the gain of all 4 gain stages. As
mentioned previously, the Tube Zone gets it's unique tone by
mimicking the signal path of modern valve map, and by clipping
the signal up to 4 times. This doesn't just make the Tube Zone
great as a high gain pedal, but also as a low gain pedal. By
having the Drive control control multiple stages at once, you
can effectively control how many of these stages clip. With the
gain turned down low, it may be that just the last stage clips
(or maybe last 2 stages). As the Drive increase, more stages
'light up'. This is very different to the way that pedals
normally work, where one stage has it's gain changed
dramatically in order to cover higher gain sounds.
One interesting feature of the Tube Zone is that I have designed
drive control to have a very unique sweep. With the drive set to
50%, you're actually only using about 3% of the available gain.
By designing the Drive sweep like this, you're able to get a lot
of control over the lower gain sounds. So despite that fact that
the Tube Zone has about 250% more gain than the most popular
'metal' pedal on the market today, you can still have very fine
control over the lower gain sounds (which are just stunning!)
Character Control:
This is a feature which is not available from any other
manufacturer (as far as I know!). This is effectively a
pre-overdrive bass control. By controlling the amount of bass in
the pre-overdrive signal, you can change the character or feel
of the overdriven sound. By turning character all the way down,
you can get great, tight, high gain sounds, wonderful for
palm-muting. Turning up the character adds more 'momentum' to
the tone, and works wonderfully with single note work. Most
other pedals will only have one static 'character' for the
overdrive.
Tone Control:
This is a 'balancing' control. Unlike other designs which
progressively roll off the top end of your guitar sound, this
tone control affects both the low and high frequencies. It's
effectively like having a 2 band low/high EQ. As you turn down
the tone control, the lows increase, whilst the highs increase.
Visa versa as you turn up the tone control. This, in conjunction
with the mid, brightness and internal presence controls means
that you can dial in almost any tone you like.
Mid Control:
The first generation of Tube Zones had a 2 position mid switch
(mid hump, and mid cut). the second generation had a 3 position
switch (mid hump, 'flat' and mid cut). For the latest Tube Zone,
the mid control has evolved into a continuous external control.
The reason for this is that the mids are probably the most
important frequencies for determining the overall sonic
footprint of the pedal, so the more control the better! The mid
control featured on the Tube Zone is unique in that it is highly
interactive with the tone control.
Brightness Control:
This was initially an internal control (like the character
control), but has been turned into an external control. The
brightness control was initially designed to allow users to
match the brightness of the pedal for their rig and taste. It
was intended as a set-and-forget controls for people with a
consistent rig. However, a common request from many professional
players who found themselves using different 'house-rigs' every
night was to make this control external so that they sound set
the brightness from night to night. This is the last tone
shaping control in the signal path.
Presence Control (Internal):
Another request I've received from users is a way of controlling
the neutral 'shape' of the Tube Zone's tone. You see, my ears
tend to gravitate towards a full low end. I like pedals to move
a bit of air. Some people found that there was a bit too much
low end with the Tube Zone, and that they had to turn the tone
control up a bit too much in order to reduce the low end. So I
came up with the idea of adding this 'presence' control. Of
course, it's not a true presence control (which is a power-amp
feedback control), but the way that this control affects the
frequency response is quite similar to the way that a presence
control works on modern tube amps, hence the name. This control
adjusts the top 'band' of frequencies. By turning this up, you
can make the top band more prominent, and hence create the
feeling that the lows are not as ‘boomy’. Similarly, this allows
people who prefer a huge low end to dial in an even more extreme
low/high ratio.
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