I had one of these:
Running into a Peavey mono poweramp W/ a built in compressor circuit way back in the late 90's. Probably sounded as bad as you think it did.

Has anyone messed with the Orange Bax Bangeetar pedal?
They are an Op Amp guitar preamp circuit that kinda follows a classic guitar preamp topology (not unlike the CR120 head).
They've recently been discontinued and right now they seem to be dropping in price. I know it's a pedal, but it seems like it could be a cool weirdo preamp "brain".

That parametric midrange looks fun

I have what I assume is it's cousin, the two stroke

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... t-eq-pedal
It's fine and does its job to brighten up the signal a little bit and give me a little volume without getting dirty, so for me it works. I was looking for a way to get my 1 of my amps to sound a little less muddy when loud and clean, and once I found the right settings on this thing, I kinda left it alone.

A relatively inexpensive solution to a problem for me, so thumbs up.

I found one of these in a closet at work. Seymour Duncan Palladium distortion / preamp pedal.
I brought it home to see if it could turn my quilter into a modern, high-gain amp. It's fine. It does a thing, and, like most amps in general, it sounds best with some volume behind it. My Idea was to see if it wound be a good second amp to pair with my Traynor in a two amp rig. It didn't feel right.

benadrian wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2023 10:02 am I found one of these in a closet at work. Seymour Duncan Palladium distortion / preamp pedal.

I brought it home to see if it could turn my quilter into a modern, high-gain amp. It's fine. It does a thing, and, like most amps in general, it sounds best with some volume behind it. My Idea was to see if it wound be a good second amp to pair with my Traynor in a two amp rig. It didn't feel right.

If you want a specific sound, it's a pretty common practice when duplicating tube preamps to just make them with FETs instead. Ive done this plenty and the results are solid. I dont know what this Seymour Duncan think is but if one wanted a SLO, for example, you could knock that circuit out with FETs and it'll sound quite decent.

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2023 11:25 am If you want a specific sound, it's a pretty common practice when duplicating tube preamps to just make them with FETs instead. Ive done this plenty and the results are solid. I dont know what this Seymour Duncan think is but if one wanted a SLO, for example, you could knock that circuit out with FETs and it'll sound quite decent.

I had a plan to do this a while back; build two FET guitar preamps in a 1u rack enclosure. I just decided to use Helix instead. I keep vacillating between wanting to use only gear that I physically made, and using gear that I helped develop.

This whole preamp thread is just me chasing weird guitar sounds for the sake of curiosity. I love finding gear that makes me go "what the fuck were they thinking?" and "can I ruin someone's day with this?" I really enjoy finding forgotten and unloved gear and seeing what it can do.

My favorite bass preamp of all time is exactly that - "Vibration Sound Technology" in Ontario sold these with a matching cab with the power amp in the cabinet. So the cabs were crazy heavy, but the heads were nice and light. Cut to 30, 40 years later and people don't know what they are or what to do with them. I ran one into a power amp and it really grinds. I had to wonder if anyone knew what the controls actually did

after seeing Pissed Jeans recently, I am all about the shitty peavey combo sound. makes me want to dig out my old Peavey practice amp.

they were fuckin' great, by the way. what an awesome weird band.

I posted this in another thread a while back but I feel like it should be here too, because JFC this dude has seemingly every guitar preamp ever made: