Peavey Tube Sweetener Schematic
- Thread starter knave101
- Start date
Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:
While I was working at Peavey I resisted making this product for years. Peavey made some credible actual tube products (like AMR VCL/VMP) that are fairly well respected.
Hartley got some other product manager to make one of these after I changed jobs into a different area of the company.
I think this whole product category is nonsense, while opinions vary. if you want to copy a Peavey tube product, look at the VMP or VCL that IMO do something useful.
JR
PS: Sorry, just felt like sharing my personal experience (and opinion) surrounding this specific product.
Hartley got some other product manager to make one of these after I changed jobs into a different area of the company.
I think this whole product category is nonsense, while opinions vary. if you want to copy a Peavey tube product, look at the VMP or VCL that IMO do something useful.
JR
PS: Sorry, just felt like sharing my personal experience (and opinion) surrounding this specific product.
knave101
Member
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2012
- Messages
- 11
Thanks...I've heard that before....but I couldn't resist trying it. I have two VMP's and 1 VCL/2....and I know they are great. I just wanted to try out the sweetener. It's like "I have the Gremlin, then picked up the Pacer, but I still have to get my hands on the elusive Matador" (AMC 70's car analogy for those of you too young to remember)....even if I don't know what it does or is intended to do. They are cheap.
My preliminary thoughts are that it certainly does add distortion to voice...if desired...I made some recordings panning the "sugar" from 0 to 11 and at about 7 it really kicks in. The "spice" and "Level" I just leave at full. Voice is generally difficult to add such effects to.
But in my opinion the great part about the VMP and VCL2, and I know you've mentioned you had something to do with it, is the high z out or transformer out. They work perfectly for incorporating an unbalanced piece of equipment, such as the tube sweetener, and the Ampex MX10...which is unbalanced out as well. Because the Sweetener is unbalanced...if fits most easily between the VMP and the VCL/2. Unbalanced VMP out into the Sweetener, and unbalanced out of the Sweetener into the VCL2 unbalanced in. Though I'm not sure that is where it is best applied.
But......I'm still looking for the sweetener schematic if anyone has one to share. Thank you in advance.
My preliminary thoughts are that it certainly does add distortion to voice...if desired...I made some recordings panning the "sugar" from 0 to 11 and at about 7 it really kicks in. The "spice" and "Level" I just leave at full. Voice is generally difficult to add such effects to.
But in my opinion the great part about the VMP and VCL2, and I know you've mentioned you had something to do with it, is the high z out or transformer out. They work perfectly for incorporating an unbalanced piece of equipment, such as the tube sweetener, and the Ampex MX10...which is unbalanced out as well. Because the Sweetener is unbalanced...if fits most easily between the VMP and the VCL/2. Unbalanced VMP out into the Sweetener, and unbalanced out of the Sweetener into the VCL2 unbalanced in. Though I'm not sure that is where it is best applied.
But......I'm still looking for the sweetener schematic if anyone has one to share. Thank you in advance.
Sorry I realize my post was kind of harsh, but it is how I feel.
Jack Sondermeyer was the senior engineer on the VCL and VMP. Jack was an old school tube designer from back before transistors were robust. The design brief for the VMP and VCL was to make a serious studio quality audio path.
The tube sweetener design brief was to make one of those cheap tube distortion paths similar to an XYZ that are selling to boys and girls who can't afford real tube gear.
Jack was already retired by that time, so don't know where they came up with that design. I don't even know the right way to design such a product. A tube path that isn't working correctly?
On a related theme, while I was working at peavey I was tasked with clearing out some slow moving inventory... Jack's guys had designed a simple several input tube mixer to use with a premium guitar path to buffer and combine some guitar pedals in front of a tube guitar amp.
Long story short, I had about a hundred of these and I couldn't give these actual tube audio products away because they were too clean,
I even tried to modify them by adding gain to make it easier to saturate, but no love as a tube effect...
Good luck but in my judgement the only thing similar between VCL.VMP, and tube sweetener is the brand, not the engineering parentage.
JR
PS: I had them put the hi Z output in the VMP so you could bypass the output transformer presumably for "lower" distortion. You can always connect the balanced transformer output to an unbalanced input.
Jack Sondermeyer was the senior engineer on the VCL and VMP. Jack was an old school tube designer from back before transistors were robust. The design brief for the VMP and VCL was to make a serious studio quality audio path.
The tube sweetener design brief was to make one of those cheap tube distortion paths similar to an XYZ that are selling to boys and girls who can't afford real tube gear.
Jack was already retired by that time, so don't know where they came up with that design. I don't even know the right way to design such a product. A tube path that isn't working correctly?
On a related theme, while I was working at peavey I was tasked with clearing out some slow moving inventory... Jack's guys had designed a simple several input tube mixer to use with a premium guitar path to buffer and combine some guitar pedals in front of a tube guitar amp.
Long story short, I had about a hundred of these and I couldn't give these actual tube audio products away because they were too clean,
I even tried to modify them by adding gain to make it easier to saturate, but no love as a tube effect... Good luck but in my judgement the only thing similar between VCL.VMP, and tube sweetener is the brand, not the engineering parentage.
JR
PS: I had them put the hi Z output in the VMP so you could bypass the output transformer presumably for "lower" distortion. You can always connect the balanced transformer output to an unbalanced input.
audiomixer
Well-known member
emrr said:
actually the 'similar topic function' has listed the relevant thread right below. great forum function by the way!
- Michael
look here:
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