I've splurged quite a bit of money on a new, sought-after pedal.

I hadn’t seen that one before. But I’m listening to Pete Thorn’s video and it sounds great!
 
Dew Knot Humps said:
Initial impressions?
Click to expand...
So far, I'm really impressed. I have to give a proviso: Im playing it on holiday at my daughter's house, on her guitar (DeArmond Starfire), and through really basic earbuds. First reaction it sounds great. The first channel is very blackface Fender. Even dry without reverb or tremolo was very addictive. I played a lot of Steve Cropper and Reggie Young licks and parts and it sounded fantastic. Turn that channel up to full volume and you'll feel an inexorable pull to play James Gang Funk #49.
The reverb is very strong, I was playing it on 1 on the dial and that was plenty enough. The stereo tremolo is the secret weapon, it is absolutely fantastic and so much fun to play. I think it's the best tremolo I've tried. It's a tube-driven trem,and it seems to also alter the tone. It sounds huge. I tried a whole bunch of rockabilly and some Doors tunes and they sounded stupendous.

The lead channel is basically a Tweed, and does that falling apart dirty tone when you turn it up. It's also got a mid-bite control which shifts the sound from Fender Tweed into I guess Marshall JTM45 territory? I was banging out 'Good Times, Bad Times' and 'Celebration Day' and it really suited that early Zep sound.

I can't wait to get back to China and put it through its paces with my Tele in the rehearsal studio, both straight into the PA and into the effects loops of some amps to see which I like most. I'm also really excited to find out how it handles a RAT, a Bluesdriver, and a Yellow Comp.
 
That looks awesome! My Tone King Gremlin is my favorite amp, I wonder if they share any of the same topology?
 
HNSAPD! Sounds like you can do a lot with that thing! Like you could in theory bring just that, your guitar and a tuner to the gig/rehearsal. How would you rate it for recording straight into the interface?
 
Monson said:
HNSAPD! Sounds like you can do a lot with that thing! Like you could in theory bring just that, your guitar and a tuner to the gig/rehearsal. How would you rate it for recording straight into the interface?
Click to expand...
I'm traveling at the moment and haven't been able to do any playing, but I will get back to China at the weekend and I'm really forward to putting it through its paces. I'll primarily be using it for live playing (gigs and rehearsals) and home practice through headphones (bought some Sennheiser 560s and I'm really looking forward to trying them too! ). But now that you've mentioned home recording I should think about that.

I'm,very into the idea of
a minimal board. Ideally I'll try and see if I can make do with just a tuner pedal,and an analog delay. I think I might try one gain pedal as a boost, either a Turbo Rat or a Blues Drive. But I might not need them at all!
 
How's it going with the pedal? Does it work well with the Rat and Blues Drive? Do you think you could record with it straight into the interface using the onboard effects only?
 
Monson said:
How's it going with the pedal? Does it work well with the Rat and Blues Drive? Do you think you could record with it straight into the interface using the onboard effects only?
Click to expand...

I haven't had the opportunity to play it at band practice or gig yet (real life things have been crazy busy for my bandmates) but I hope to rectify that this weekend. In the meantime I've been putting in a lot of time with it just with headphones, and I couldn't be happier with it. It's genuinely the best sounding piece of gear I've owned. I was expecting it to be a very nice sounding blackface deluxe, and channel 1 is absolutely that. But what's surprised me is how versatile the second channel (lead channel) is. The midbite control takes it from tweed to JTM45, and I've been spending a lot of time with the JTM45 sound through the 4 x12 cabinet IR. It's a really great, dynamic, responsive Malcolm and Angus rock tone.

I've got a gig in a couple of weeks time and I think I'm just try to do with just two pedals: an analog delay and a RAT, and I'll probably only use the RAT very sparingly. (as a fuzz for the 'Cherub Rock' solo, being the main one). The rest of the time I think the Tone King sounds fantastic the way it is. But I'll see how I get on at my practice this weekend.

But, yeah, I think it would be be great straight into the interface for recording. Really user-friendly and intuitive, the reverb and tube-driven stereo tremolo sound sensational, the attenuator controls let you really dial in your level of warmth or break up, and the IR options are all distinctly good.
 
Motorik said:
I haven't had the opportunity to play it at band practice or gig yet (real life things have been crazy busy for my bandmates) but I hope to rectify that this weekend. In the meantime I've been putting in a lot of time with it just with headphones, and I couldn't be happier with it. It's genuinely the best sounding piece of gear I've owned. I was expecting it to be a very nice sounding blackface deluxe, and channel 1 is absolutely that. But what's surprised me is how versatile the second channel (lead channel) is. The midbite control takes it from tweed to JTM45, and I've been spending a lot of time with the JTM45 sound through the 4 x12 cabinet IR. It's a really great, dynamic, responsive Malcolm and Angus rock tone.

I've got a gig in a couple of weeks time and I think I'm just try to do with just two pedals: an analog delay and a RAT, and I'll probably only use the RAT very sparingly. (as a fuzz for the 'Cherub Rock' solo, being the main one). The rest of the time I think the Tone King sounds fantastic the way it is. But I'll see how I get on at my practice this weekend.

But, yeah, I think it would be be great straight into the interface for recording. Really user-friendly and intuitive, the reverb and tube-driven stereo tremolo sound sensational, the attenuator controls let you really dial in your level of warmth or break up, and the IR options are all distinctly good.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you're enjoying it! With the Ampster I was a bit worried at first it wouldn't work without the quick reamping I'm so used to with plugins, but as I got more and more familiar with it, it's really no issue at all. I'm sure it's the same with the Tone King, as you get the hang of it you can dial in pretty much any tone you need on the fly. The secret is knowing your gear, I guess.

I watched Pete Thorn's demo on YT, and the thing sounds impressive, perhaps a bit gainier than I thought, but that could be down to Pete's playing style and preferences. That said, even with YTs somewhat aggressive compression it just has a very pleasant basic tone. I think it's pretty cool it has onboard trem and verb on top of the 'standard' tones that I guess you can tweak to your heart's content.

And I noticed it has the option of loading third party IRs, which is insane when you think about it. That way you can get almost any flavour!
 
Monson said:
I'm glad you're enjoying it! With the Ampster I was a bit worried at first it wouldn't work without the quick reamping I'm so used to with plugins, but as I got more and more familiar with it, it's really no issue at all. I'm sure it's the same with the Tone King, as you get the hang of it you can dial in pretty much any tone you need on the fly. The secret is knowing your gear, I guess.

I watched Pete Thorn's demo on YT, and the thing sounds impressive, perhaps a bit gainier than I thought, but that could be down to Pete's playing style and preferences. That said, even with YTs somewhat aggressive compression it just has a very pleasant basic tone. I think it's pretty cool it has onboard trem and verb on top of the 'standard' tones that I guess you can tweak to your heart's content.

And I noticed it has the option of loading third party IRs, which is insane when you think about it. That way you can get almost any flavour!
Click to expand...


It does have more gain on tap than I was anticipated, which has been an added bonus for me. The blackface clean-to-break-up tones are gorgeous and why I bought it, but having a JTM45-ish option in the lead channel has been so satisfying.
I had my first actual band practice with it tonight, so this was my first chance to hear it loud through a PA, and it was great. My singer was playing his Lester through a Marshall JCM900, and I was playing my Tele, and the Tone King sounded fantastic. Really 'Zep 1'-esque Tele tone. I briefly used a RAT at the beginning of the practice, but then opted to do without pedals at all, and I honestly didn't feel like I needed them. I just rode the volume and tone knobs to go from clean to dirty, old school. I mad a decision not to use my delay pedal either. The Tone KIng's reverb and tremolo were more than enough.

So yeah, I'm really happy with the Tone King preamp. It's doing exactly what I hoped, and then some.

Now, having said all that about pedals, at the end of the practice my lead singer surprised me by offering his MXR Dookie Drive to take home and try, and I'm looking forward to trying i with the Tone King tomorrow, because it seems like a very cool pedal. I'll let you know how it sounds!
 
Motorik said:
It does have more gain on tap than I was anticipated, which has been an added bonus for me. The blackface clean-to-break-up tones are gorgeous and why I bought it, but having a JTM45-ish option in the lead channel has been so satisfying.
I had my first actual band practice with it tonight, so this was my first chance to hear it loud through a PA, and it was great. My singer was playing his Lester through a Marshall JCM900, and I was playing my Tele, and the Tone King sounded fantastic. Really 'Zep 1'-esque Tele tone. I briefly used a RAT at the beginning of the practice, but then opted to do without pedals at all, and I honestly didn't feel like I needed them. I just rode the volume and tone knobs to go from clean to dirty, old school. I mad a decision not to use my delay pedal either. The Tone KIng's reverb and tremolo were more than enough.

So yeah, I'm really happy with the Tone King preamp. It's doing exactly what I hoped, and then some.

Now, having said all that about pedals, at the end of the practice my lead singer surprised me by offering his MXR Dookie Drive to take home and try, and I'm looking forward to trying i with the Tone King tomorrow, because it seems like a very cool pedal. I'll let you know how it sounds!
Click to expand...
Trying new pedals is always fun, but there's something special about going old-school and using just the volume and tone controls on whatever guitar you're playing. I guess it's the simplicity of it and discovering all those sounds you can get by picking different places, flipping the pick or going finger-style. I can imagine the Tone King is a great platform for that approach. Have you tried leaving the trem on permanently but set very subtly? I do that a lot with the Champ, in fact I played an entire gig that way, and you can sort of work the wobble by how you play without touching the amp. It's quite fun and almost trance-inducing.
 
Monson said:
Trying new pedals is always fun, but there's something special about going old-school and using just the volume and tone controls on whatever guitar you're playing. I guess it's the simplicity of it and discovering all those sounds you can get by picking different places, flipping the pick or going finger-style. I can imagine the Tone King is a great platform for that approach. Have you tried leaving the trem on permanently but set very subtly? I do that a lot with the Champ, in fact I played an entire gig that way, and you can sort of work the wobble by how you play without touching the amp. It's quite fun and almost trance-inducing.
Click to expand...

Ha! Great minds and all that, because that is exactly what I do. :thu: I have the trem on pretty much all the time, but with the depth turned down to about 9 o'clock or less. It's not obvious, but it adds a subtle sense of movement or shimmer to everything. I love it.

The other thing I've been loving and which seems to be skipped over in most of the demo vids is the very fifties Tweed setting. Most of the demos focus on the luscious blackface cleans, then the blackface breaking up tone, then when they move to the other channel then start off by saying it's a Tweed style circuit, but with the mid-bite control it modifies it and takes you into JTM45 territory. They then spend a lot of time doing that JTM45 thing (which is great), but they don't spend much time on the actual loose bass, falling apart, bonafide Tweed Deluxe tone. I spent about three hours last night just playing on that setting and with the trem around noon, and it's the swampiest thing I've ever heard. It's really, really retro-sounding and so much fun. In the additional IRs there's an old 1x12 Supro speaker, so I'll probably try that next.
 
Motorik said:
Ha! Great minds and all that, because that is exactly what I do. :thu: I have the trem on pretty much all the time, but with the depth turned down to about 9 o'clock or less. It's not obvious, but it adds a subtle sense of movement or shimmer to everything. I love it.
Click to expand...
Last Friday I played an entire gig with the trem on like that. It's amazing how it makes a simple chord or single note sound like a million bucks. It was almost embarrassing how much people complimented my playing when all I did was strumming a few campfire chords.
Motorik said:
Holy fucking crap! They're doing the Royalist now:

https://www.andertons.co.uk/tone-king-royalist-tube-preamp-pedal/
Click to expand...
I'm not that into the Marshall tone, but I think it's pretty cool they've added reverb. I bet you can get some fantastic old school rock sounds with that thing at any volume, and not hurt your back.
 
Monson said:
Last Friday I played an entire gig with the trem on like that. It's amazing how it makes a simple chord or single note sound like a million bucks. It was almost embarrassing how much people complimented my playing when all I did was strumming a few campfire chords.
Click to expand...

Ha! There we go, audience satisfied and a job well done. :thu: Were you playing your lovely new Gretsch?
 
Motorik said:
Ha! There we go, audience satisfied and a job well done. :thu: Were you playing your lovely new Gretsch?
Click to expand...
Yes, just the Gretsch and the little Champ, no pedals except a tuner. With that guitar I find it's quite easy to control the volume just by picking softer or harder, or fingerpick. No need for the volume knobs really. If I need more than that I'll flip the pick for some fake breakup (would that be fakeup or faux-verdrive? :embarrassed: ).
 
Monson said:
Yes, just the Gretsch and the little Champ, no pedals except a tuner. With that guitar I find it's quite easy to control the volume just by picking softer or harder, or fingerpick. No need for the volume knobs really. If I need more than that I'll flip the pick for some fake breakup (would that be fakeup or faux-verdrive? :embarrassed: ).
Click to expand...
I love that. It's a very pure form of playing. It makes me think of how Scotty Moore, Carl Perkins, or James Burton would have played.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top