Lower gain tube in distortion pedal?

I've heard of people putting a lower gain tube in a Tubeworks Realtube distortion pedal to calm it down a bit. I know there's some "silicon" in the signal path thru one of these, but before I went out and bought a tube (difficult for me to get to someplace after work, other than the guitar center, who has outragious tube prices). Has anyone tried this and if so with what kind of success?

Thanks
Jack

It's definitely worth a shot. I've used lower gain tubes to tame some high-gain amps, with sucess. One of my favorite tubes for lowering the gain is a 12DW7(ECC832) Which is part 12AX7 and part 12AU7. I've also used a JAN Phillips 5751 which works well to lower the gain a little, but it's not so great if the distortion is pretty fizzy. If you can't make it to a store to get your tubes, you could always order them from http://www.dougstubes.com/ , or http://www.eurotubes.com/index.htm . I prefer dougstubes, because he has a large selection of different brand tubes. Eurotubes is also good, but he only sells JJ tubes. These are good tubes, but I tend to like variety lol :rolleyes:

Thanks for the info. wanted to know how do-able it was before I spent the bucks. My kid's in a private school, so I'm eternally broke. I'm trying my best to keep my signal path, as well as all of my gear, all tube. Bought a 12" 4 ohm speaker out of some old tweed type cab. I built a really cool cab and use it as an extention for all of my old champs and vibrochamps. You guy's would'nt believe what 6 all tube watts sound like through a '58, old magnavox 12" alnico speaker in a relatively large cab. Made the speaker baffle removeable so I can serial 2 8" speakers. That will be this weekends project.

Finally got a 12au7 and tried in the place of the 12ax7 in my pedal. No difference at any setting. I guess I need a schematic to see whats going on in there.

That's odd. There definitely should have been a difference. I'm not ure what else to tell you know. :confused:

??? The 12AU7 typically has something like 30% less gain than a 12AX7. :confused:

hmm... some possibilities:

• The 12AX7 tube has unusually low gain.
• The 12AU7 has unusually high gain.
• The circuit around the tube socket does not apply voltages that are high enough to really make use of the tube.
• The circuit actually derives most of its sound from the transistors.

Dunno, really; just musing out loud...

Funny thing is I've read some harmony-central reviews of this pedal and it seems most of the reviewers say they put in a lower gain tube, typically 12at7 or 12au7 and got more headroom, much like a pickup boost and smoother, easier to dial in distortion levels. I"m wondering how much of this is a "placebo" effect. The tube is lower gain, so it must produce a milder effect. I went back and tried the 12ax7, 12at7, and a 12au7. Still the same results, no audible affect at the same settengs. Maybe the tube itself does nothing but glow to make us pureists think it will sound better.

My brother-in-law is a psychologist. Maybe he can cunduct a double-blind (double-deaf) study with this pedal compared to a solid-state pedal to see if this is just "marketing voodoo."

Regardless, I'm happy overall with it. With some minute fiddling with the overdrive pot I can dial it in for my taste. its also built like a tank. You could probably drop it from a moving vehicle and it would still work.