interesting.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD_0byuj0I8
https://www.gearnews.com/ibanez-nutube-screamer-released-namm-show/
Fecking hell, more than 300$ for a tubescreamer. That won't even behave or sound like an actual tubescreamer.
I love the little neon tubes, and they have their uses, but this just screams gimmick to me.
I've read a lot of very positive things about those little Vox amps that use the new tube stuff.
This strikes me as being a little gimmicky but that doesn't mean it won't sound good.
20 years old but still applicable (http://www.geofex.com/FX_images/realtube.jpg)
Quote from: Matmosphere on January 07, 2018, 01:35:45 AM
I've read a lot of very positive things about those little Vox amps that use the new tube stuff.
This strikes me as being a little gimmicky but that doesn't mean it won't sound good.
Yeah I've been contemplating getting one of the Vox's myself. I just need to find one honest review of its headphone sound. The through-cab sound is just fine, particularly for the price.
But the TS has a characteristic sound associated with the name. Swapping out an opamp may potentially make things better, but in either case it will no longer sound like a TS. If they HAD gone and named it the "NuScreamer" I would get it, but this just seems like capitalizing on the people who assume a TS actually has a tube in it.
And again, at current exchange rates its 325$ US. Thats just silly.
*Sigh...*
This pedal says so much about how gimmicky pedals need to get to draw attention to themselves, whatwith how saturated the pedal market has gotten.
I kind of want one because it looks cool, and the idea is cool. But would it sound any better, or different? Probably not. The old TS is fine and always has been.
That sounds really good, that's a lot of money for a non gigging musician though.
PedalPCB came out with this before I saw an Ibanez. I really don't think its gimmicky. I have one of the vox heads and if it had more low end umphh (common with class d amps) it would give my L5 a good run. That might be a stupid comparison but the lab is the best mix of clean and cranked I've found regardless of technology. The vox would easily do in a pinch. So I'm assuming most of the credibility is coming from the nu-tube. This is new territory for all of us but I wouldn't be too quick to judge. There's a shit ton of money tied up in r&d so you can't believe all the hype...but...this is too cool to write off.
ah, this man done that
http://drugscore.blog99.fc2.com/blog-entry-183.html (http://drugscore.blog99.fc2.com/blog-entry-183.html)
http://drugscore.blog99.fc2.com/blog-entry-184.html (http://drugscore.blog99.fc2.com/blog-entry-184.html)
http://drugscore.blog99.fc2.com/blog-entry-155.html (http://drugscore.blog99.fc2.com/blog-entry-155.html)
Don't think the idea is gimmicky, just calling it a tubescreamer.
I like the idea of infusing some new technology into the gear world. So much of what we have is 50-75 years old. The tubescreamer and memory Man both came out befor the apple ii.
Also a little surprised that it's supposed to cost 100$ more than those Vox amps.
Quote from: gordo on January 07, 2018, 03:25:12 AM
PedalPCB came out with this before I saw an Ibanez.
Hadn't spotted that one yet! Was actually looking into the technology and datasheets. You can order those nutubes for about $50. A bit steep, but doable for some experimenting.
Quote from: drog_trog on January 07, 2018, 12:14:52 AM
https://www.gearnews.com/ibanez-nutube-screamer-released-namm-show/
That video on the bottom of the gearnews article was made by Remy, local Ibanez endorsee and one of my former guitar teachers :) Real nice guy and a great guitarist. He got the scoop on this, first to post anything about this. It's silly how much his video has been copied since.
These are them aren't they £26
https://uk.rs-online.com/mobile/p/double-triode-valves/1449016/
Quote from: drog_trog on January 07, 2018, 03:00:37 PM
These are them aren't they £26
https://uk.rs-online.com/mobile/p/double-triode-valves/1449016/
Yeah, 26 pounds which converts to $35, add some shipping and you're close to the $50 ball park that I mentioned.
Quote from: Matmosphere on January 07, 2018, 01:57:05 PM
Don't think the idea is gimmicky, just calling it a tubescreamer.
Also a little surprised that it's supposed to cost 100$ more than those Vox amps.
Agreed. I think the price is the gimmick. I seem to recall cost on the nu-tube being $40-ish.
Quote from: jimilee on January 07, 2018, 02:53:45 AM
That sounds really good, that's a lot of money for a non gigging musician though.
Aren't those usually the ones who can actually afford these? As they got real paying jobs ;)
PedalPCB shows the Nu Tube PCB http://www.pedalpcb.com/product/nudrive/
I also saw this the other day - tutorial for making a PCB with the nu tubes, and they have put their gerber files up for free: https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/design-of-a-korg-nutube-amplifier-part-4-build-and-test
And now this...
http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2018/01/nuverdrive.html
In the Nuverdrive circuit, an op amp gain stage drives a NuTube gain stage into distortion, which is somewhat un-screamer-like but may sound pretty good (if the demo video is any indication). Certainly a lot of room for innovation and creativity. Of course, at $50 for a single NuTube, one would want to do a lot of breadboarding before committing the NuTube to a build. :P
PS: Will Madbean be tossing his hat into the NuTube ring?? :D
Quote from: Matmosphere on January 07, 2018, 01:57:05 PM
Also a little surprised that it's supposed to cost 100$ more than those Vox amps.
NuTube is a Korg product. Korg also owns Vox. I'm sure a big part of the cost for the Ibanez pedal is in licensing the technology from Korg.
Quote from: Muadzin on January 08, 2018, 12:00:04 AM
Quote from: jimilee on January 07, 2018, 02:53:45 AM
That sounds really good, that's a lot of money for a non gigging musician though.
Aren't those usually the ones who can actually afford these? As they got real paying jobs ;)
Ouch. Sad but true. If I could afford then what I can build now...I'd probably still have a real job...
Sigh...
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=109894.0
Some good info on the nutube here
Quote from: bsoncini on January 09, 2018, 12:57:05 PM
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=109894.0
Some good info on the nutube here
Nice. Thanks for sharing the link.
Here's a good quote from Paul Remark from that thread:
Move on. Nothing to see here. This is all VERY old-old-stuff.
It is Noritake's vacuum fluorescent display (VFD). We all know VFDs. They are/were a favorite in microwaves, VCRs, DVDs, and car-audio 1980s-2010. They were expensive but it cost very little to have special words, symbols, logos built-in. My 1994 truck heater has a VFD with little hands/feet/windshield icons. The present DVD machine here has a VFD with the counter/time and symbols for the too-many types of DVDs/CDs it can play. The X-Plod radio in the car is an eye-popper with every type of EQ (jazz/classic/rock/easy), a blazing waterfall (I guess) for volume indication, etc.
A VFD _is_ a vacuum triode, plus some glow-stuff, and recently they put dozens or hundreds of triodes in the bottle.
The main difference between an amplifying vacuum triode and a VFD (aside from the glow-stuff) is that a VFD needs very little current or gain. The geometry is optimized for low-low cost and silk-screen design, not to be an amplifier.
The original VFD is from 1959, the DM-160 from Philips. That one made you diddle the control grid directly. The up-surge of many-object VFDs in the 1980s was due to integrating a digital controller to allow a few lines to control a hundred objects (you can't diddle the grids).
You don't have to get the memos to suspect the VFD business is on a decline. New toys use LCD/Plasma displays so they can put up ANY image, not just built-in images. Cheap new toys (my 2013 microwave) fall back to digit-only green LED (to make the fancier color LCD models look better). VFD is in the crack, and the crack must be narrowing.
So some guy from Korg was crying in his beer (sake?) about the high cost and poor life of 12AX7 and similar devices. And some guy from Noritake was under the same table crying about the fade-out of VFD production and his job. Each heard the other say "vacuum", and after swapping a few curves they realized that Korg could use the mature but going-out-of-style VFD foundry to make low-performance vacuum triodes at going-out-of-business prices.
While the digital decoder would be left out, VFDs usually have a "high"(ish) voltage converter inside which avoids one issue.
It is what it is. A small to very-small vacuum triode of poor perveyance (low conductivity) but "the right curves" and proven long life (with declining brightness/current). Small bent signals should be (are) very easy. The fact that the foundry machinery now has capacity to spare is a big economic bonus.
Okay so only 50 years newer than vaccuum tubes. ;D
But who in there right mind still uses tubes for anything! :o :o
I get that this is old technology and might not end up being super exciting. But as guitarist/ builders we are using this stuff in ways that are counterintuitive to engineers. It would have been crazy expensive to launch r&d on this for a small market like guitar amps, let alone pedals which didn't even exist, when it first came about. within 10-20 years everyone moved to IC's and transistors because they were reliable and cheap by then.
Perhaps it's not jus opportunistic. Maybe the economics finally made sense to try something like this out, because they probably didn't in 1960.
Basically I'm just saying maybe we shouldn't dismiss it just yet. Maybe we should let ours ears be the judge.
Quote from: Matmosphere on January 09, 2018, 06:38:49 PM
Basically I'm just saying maybe we shouldn't dismiss it just yet. Maybe we should let ours ears be the judge.
I would agree. If it sounds good, it is good. Bonus points if it's also cheap! I prefer the sound of the NuTube Screamer to the regular 808 in demos (though, I've never liked the TS sound) and I preferred the sound of the new Vox amps to an old AC10 compared head to head (pun intended). That aught to count for something.
Quote from: Aleph Null on January 09, 2018, 09:11:21 PM
Bonus points if it's also cheap!
That is the current major issue with the things. Even in bulk the cheapest I've been able to find them is 40$ a tube. Its 50+ if you just need one at a time. I'm sure companies under the Korg umbrella source them a bit cheaper, but its still several times the price of most sub-mini tubes on the market.
Quote from: somnif on January 09, 2018, 09:18:06 PM
Quote from: Aleph Null on January 09, 2018, 09:11:21 PM
Bonus points if it's also cheap!
That is the current major issue with the things. Even in bulk the cheapest I've been able to find them is 40$ a tube. Its 50+ if you just need one at a time. I'm sure companies under the Korg umbrella source them a bit cheaper, but its still several times the price of most sub-mini tubes on the market.
So how many hours of operation are the sub-mini tubes rated for? I thought I saw the NuTubes rated at 300,000 hours (maybe 30,000?). Unless that's orders of magnitude more than the sub-minis, I don't see a reason to bother.
Quote from: Aleph Null on January 09, 2018, 10:27:11 PM
So how many hours of operation are the sub-mini tubes rated for? I thought I saw the NuTubes rated at 300,000 hours (maybe 30,000?). Unless that's orders of magnitude more than the sub-minis, I don't see a reason to bother.
If I remember right, most tubes are rated in the 5k-10k hours range, but given the nature of NOS stock things get weird at times. So, the nutube (30k) is 3-6 times longer, and costs 4-8x as much. I suppose it
Kinda evens out, but time will tell.