Torpedo CAB - few newbie questions

ecoli

New member
Hi all,

I'm thinking of caving in and getting a Torpedo CAB pedal. I watch all these youtube videos with tone I'm looking for and a common link seems to be the Torpedo. As I often play later at night at home, I really need a solution that can give me big sounds but through headphones. I do have a few questions before buying though:

1. For power, it says the CAB runs at 12V DC and 300mA. I have a CS7 power supply which has 4 switchable slots that can provide 12V DC, but only at 200mA. It also has a couple of 9V only slots that provide 500mA. Will I need to power the CAB separately from the power supply?

2. For headphone use, I have a pair of Sennheiser HS 598 SEs. My effects pedals consist of wah, modded DS1, Soul Food, chorus, and a Ditto looper. I'm wondering how I would hook up all of these with the CAB for using headphones only?

3. I'm also looking at getting a pre-amp pedal. Unfortunately the Two Notes ones are out of budget at this time (I'm looking at $650 Canadian for the CAB pedal!). Any suggestions on other reasonable pre-amp pedals? I was looking at the Behringer Vtone GDI21. Reasonable price to get me by while saving up for a better pedal and seems to provide a variety of set-ups.

4. Really still at the beginning stages of figuring this stuff out, but just a general question. What is it with this pedal that makes it sound so much better as compared to say amp and cab modeling apps on your phone? Or is it a case that the video demos I'm seeing are all products of post-recording wizardry and with headphones I'm not really going to notice that much difference?

Thanks in advance for any feedback on this. Hoping this helps quench my ongoing thirst for tone!

Chris
 
Used Bogner pedals can be found at good prices, MI audio Crunch Box is also a good one, and most AMT drive pedals are good too. I bought my torpedo cab about a month ago, found a good open box deal on Ebay. MY advise do a lot of comparison and frequently check ebay and reverb for new sale postings. I absolutely love mines, truly was the missing link in my direct tone.
 
Hi ecoli,

welcome here!

1. For power, it says the CAB runs at 12V DC and 300mA. I have a CS7 power supply which has 4 switchable slots that can provide 12V DC, but only at 200mA. It also has a couple of 9V only slots that provide 500mA. Will I need to power the CAB separately from the power supply?

i'm afraid that your PSU won't be powerful enough. CAB comes with its own PSU.

2. For headphone use, I have a pair of Sennheiser HS 598 SEs. My effects pedals consist of wah, modded DS1, Soul Food, chorus, and a Ditto looper. I'm wondering how I would hook up all of these with the CAB for using headphones only?

If you don't have a headphones amplifier and don't plan to buy one, you'll have to put all your pedals before the torpedo CAB.Which is no big deal, even if we often recommend to put the modulation and reverb/delay after the CAB, it's a matter of taste.

3. I'm also looking at getting a pre-amp pedal. Unfortunately the Two Notes ones are out of budget at this time (I'm looking at $650 Canadian for the CAB pedal!). Any suggestions on other reasonable pre-amp pedals? I was looking at the Behringer Vtone GDI21. Reasonable price to get me by while saving up for a better pedal and seems to provide a variety of set-ups.

I totally understand the budget thing, don't forget though that your overall tone will depend a lot on what you send to the Torpedo CAB. ;)

4. Really still at the beginning stages of figuring this stuff out, but just a general question. What is it with this pedal that makes it sound so much better as compared to say amp and cab modeling apps on your phone? Or is it a case that the video demos I'm seeing are all products of post-recording wizardry and with headphones I'm not really going to notice that much difference?

That's not really a question for me, but I guess that having a simpler system to set up, with a tone generator (the preamp and your guitar) that you love an know how to use is a huge part of the success. Some people can get amazing tones out of modellers but is it the tone you want, and if not how much time do you have to make it sound properly with the nearly-infinite possibilities you have?
 
Thanks so much for the speedy reply! Of course I have some more follow-up questions :)


guillaume_pille":jm6gnna1 said:
If you don't have a headphones amplifier and don't plan to buy one, you'll have to put all your pedals before the torpedo CAB.Which is no big deal, even if we often recommend to put the modulation and reverb/delay after the CAB, it's a matter of taste.

3. I'm also looking at getting a pre-amp pedal. Unfortunately the Two Notes ones are out of budget at this time (I'm looking at $650 Canadian for the CAB pedal!). Any suggestions on other reasonable pre-amp pedals? I was looking at the Behringer Vtone GDI21. Reasonable price to get me by while saving up for a better pedal and seems to provide a variety of set-ups.

I totally understand the budget thing, don't forget though that your overall tone will depend a lot on what you send to the Torpedo CAB. ;)

I do have a little Fender Mustang amp that has an auxillary line in (used normally to plug in your phone to play along to MP3s) and a headphone jack. I wonder if I could use that instead of a headphone amp to set up the signal chain a bit better? Guess it's worth a try, so maybe not so much a direct question, just something to experiment with!

My other question relates to the pre-amp. Looking further at the specs for the Two Notes pedals, I'm wondering if I'm going at this backwards, and should buy the pre-amp pedal first then the CAB at a later date? My thinking is with the pre-amp pedal (looking at Le Lead), I can use it for tube driven gain/distortion through my amp or the WoS plugin with DAW, adding in the Torpedo CAB for more options at a later date. Does this make sense?

Thanks again!

Chris
 
I do have a little Fender Mustang amp that has an auxillary line in (used normally to plug in your phone to play along to MP3s) and a headphone jack. I wonder if I could use that instead of a headphone amp to set up the signal chain a bit better? Guess it's worth a try, so maybe not so much a direct question, just something to experiment with!

If the idea is to listen with headphone, just use the CAB. It's worth a try with the mustang but it's overkill in my opinion and I'm not really convince it can sound good taht way.

My other question relates to the pre-amp. Looking further at the specs for the Two Notes pedals, I'm wondering if I'm going at this backwards, and should buy the pre-amp pedal first then the CAB at a later date? My thinking is with the pre-amp pedal (looking at Le Lead), I can use it for tube driven gain/distortion through my amp or the WoS plugin with DAW, adding in the Torpedo CAB for more options at a later date. Does this make sense?

To record at home, that's definitely a good solution to just have a preamp and go direct in the soundcard.

If you want to use the Mustang, well, the overall tone will depend a lot on its poweramp and the speaker, I have absolutely no clue if it will sound good or not. Use the FX return or the Line input as much as possible, do not put the Le Lead at the instrument input, it's not really designed to work like that (it's possible but requires some tweaking).
 
guillaume_pille":3hqv927w said:
To record at home, that's definitely a good solution to just have a preamp and go direct in the soundcard.

If you want to use the Mustang, well, the overall tone will depend a lot on its poweramp and the speaker, I have absolutely no clue if it will sound good or not. Use the FX return or the Line input as much as possible, do not put the Le Lead at the instrument input, it's not really designed to work like that (it's possible but requires some tweaking).

Thanks again for the answers! Sounds like this might be the way to go then. I have no doubt that through the amp it wouldn't be taking full advantage of the pedal given that the speaker would be the weak link. Since the pedal does include cab sims (as I understand it) through the computer may be the best solution. In the end, I see both the CAB and Le Lead on my pedal board, just a matter of what order I buy them in :)! For now it sounds like the pre-amp pedal first and expand from there!
 
Just fyi your CS7 will work as long as you haven't exhausted the full capability of the CS7. Here is a blurb from their website.

A major benefit of using a switching power supply is that it can handle far more current (power being pulled out of it) than any transformer-based power supply. Although we had to put power rating labels on each output to satisfy certification agencies (yes, we actually certified these, unlike most companies), the outputs can generally handle far more than the label shows. For example, you can connect a 300mA pedal to a 200mA output, without causing any problems. With a transformer-based power supply, you can’t get away with that. The important thing is to not exceed the total of all the labels. With a CS7, the output labels add up to 1900mA total. That means the total current draw of all your pedals should be less than 1900mA.

I have the CS12 and plug the Torpedo CAB into a 12v, 100mA slot. It works just fine as stated above. In fact, I have the AMT SS-11A preamp also in another 12V, 100mA slot and according to their website, it requires 12v at 600mA.
 
Back
Top