Best being the Valvulator (with JJ gold pin ECC83, of course), and worst being my apparent lack of ability in my videos to communicate with other humans. This is also the demo I never thought I’d do. Well, at least not in this positive of a light. See, the idea of buffers in your signal chain to curb tone loss makes sense to me. They change your signal to lo impedance, which better enables it to go through long signal chains without getting bogged down as much; hence, less loss of treble, presence, feel, and clarity. And the loss of these things is a real problem for anyone with a pedalboard. True bypass is great, but even with true bypass, the cable and circuit length of multiple pedals starts to add up. But every time I tried a buffer, either before or after my pedalboard, they either did nothing, or added to much of an artificial sounding treble. So I’ve stuck with just true bypass loopers with master bypass for a while.
And since I was happy with how those helped my tone, I kind of put trying out a Valvulator on the back-burner. I had tried one before, but with not only the stock Sovtek tube, but an old one at that. So, I just got around to getting one of these (and putting in a little thing I like to call, a ‘good’ tube) a few weeks ago. And finally…finally. A buffer that does what logic tells you it’s supposed to do. I am quite impressed.
The outside. Looks really cool and industrial. You can just look down at your board and feel toneful, even if it’s not.
And here’s the inside of mine. Very nicely wired, and a lot going on. Kind of like a mini amp. Oh, and I made sure to take the picture after installing the JJ gold pin ECC83. (There are two things to take note of here, for when you are talking tone with other guitarists. Use the word ‘install’ whenever possible, even if it’s just referring to popping a tube in and out of a socket or plugging a cable in (i.e. I just installed some Lavacables on my board); and always use the British designation of tubes. ECC83 is really just a 12AX7 by the American designation. But ECC83 sounds waaaay better.)
Setups for the Video
1) For the first part of the video, I’m running the Valvulator first in the chain, but in a bypass looper to hear it in and out of the signal chain.
Prairiewood Les Paul–>
Dan Burgess bypass looper–>
(Fryette Valvulator–>
Loop-Master bypass looper–>
Loop-Master bypass looper–>
Matchless HC30–>
2) In the last part of the video, I rewire and put my whole board, including the Valvulator, in the loop of the Dan Burgess bypass looper.
Prairiewood Les Paul–>
Dan Burgess bypass looper–>
(Fryette Valvulator–>Loop-Master bypass looper–>Loop-Master bypass looper–>
Matchless HC30–>
In both setups, none of the loops in the Loop-Master are engaged, except when it’s obvious that I’m turning effects on. Oh, and I kind of tore apart a section of my board to do this, so sorry about the cables going everywhere blocking views.
And here’s the admittedly quite terrible video. Just try to listen for the Valvulator. It does such a good job, you can even tell the difference on a youtube video. Oh, and my Valvulator is an old one, before VHT changed their name to Fryette.
The Video
Conclusions
Wow, talking really does seem to pose an issue for me. This buffer does a lot for your tone; but by keeping it true to your tone, not by artificially adding in more highs. Puts presence, weight, feel, and clarity back. Still sounds good with drives and effects…and it looks cool. (I think I said that already. But just for good measure: it looks cool. And you can see the tube glowing in it! hehe) However, and this is not shown on the video because the difference was so subtle it wouldn’t have come through, but I did try the Valvulator as the only pedal in the chain, versus plugging straight in. And in my humble opinion, straight in still had the slight edge. So slight that the camera had difficulty picking it up, but still there. I mention this because whenever I do a tone loss post, I always get comments that plugging straight in sounds better than bypass loopers, buffers, or true bypass. Which is absolutely true. But for those of us who dig using effects every once in a while (or a great deal ;) ), I am looking for the greatest possible sounding compromise short of plugging straight into the amp for the verses, and then grabbing the cable and sticking it into a delay really quick for the choruses. So if you are going to be plugging straight in, I do not think you have need of this buffer. But if you have pedals, you gotta try it out. :)
Verdict
It’s a mainstay. The main thing for me was how much punch and clarity it brought back to my mids, without losing warmth. I even tried it without the bypass loopers, and it still did a good job. Didn’t sound quite as good as with the bypass loopers though, plus they give me the opportunity to control everything in front of me, have master bypass, troubleshoot on the fly, and even with a buffer…I still want my signal to be as clean and pure as possible. This Valvulator switching your signal to lo impedance plays into that mentality, and it really works for me. It’s the integrity of the signal. It also has a ground switch to alleviate any hum that its circuit might induce being on the same power source as your amp, as well as a second output and 4 isolated 9 volt power supply outlets (some models have 3 9v and 1 12v). Which is a huge bonus. I had a second PP2+ that I was only using for 4 pedals, so I was able to sell it and buy this for the same price. Got a buffer and kept the power outlets. Pretty rad pedal here. And hey, you can see the tube glowing in it!!
Splendid.
Karl.
Guitar for Worship 