Fryette S.A.S. Real Tube Discharge

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stephen sawall

stephen sawall

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So I picked up the Fryette S.A.S. First impression .... I give it a big yes.

Clean boost, overdrive, distortion and fuzz all sounded better than I imagined. Actually gets more aggressive than I thought it would. Even when set to fuzz settings it has a very natural sound. Just a wall of harmonic's.
When setting up the amp clean, crunch or high gain I was able to make the pedal work with the Sig X. Even with the amp set up for poweramp distortion on the clean channel I found some great sounds.
Very surprised how versatile it is
Great dynamic and reacts with the guitar volume. The sound is full and does not cut off the bottom.
Setting the gain and bias up different changes the texture of the distortion. Small changes of either effects the sound and feel.
Setting up the pedal for a clean boost very much enhances the sound and makes it sound bigger .... not just louder. Others have mention this effect .... you just need to experience it to understand.

After messing with it only with the amp for a hour or so I plugged in my THD Quintet before the S.A.S. and my old blue MXR six band graphic equalizer after ... these are the pedals I use to shape the sound with all my OD, distortion, fuzz pedals. With these pedals added I can get a huge variety of colors and textures. The results are amazing ... the flavors and colors are almost endless...
 
Can't wait to hear some more about after you have time to use it more. I use a SD-1 with MY Deliverance. The SAS maybe be able to do more.

MrHiwatt
 
mrhiwatt":26xrp1di said:
Can't wait to hear some more about after you have time to use it more. I use a SD-1 with MY Deliverance. The SAS maybe be able to do more.

MrHiwatt
Click to expand...
I will give a more complete review when I have more time with it .... I have messed with it now about 5/6 hours so I have pretty good idea of what it can do.
... I have a SD-1 .... yes it can do a lot more than that pedal and sounds much more natural with enhanced harmonic and more dynamic feel.
 
I really like the sounds Stevie gets on the Namm vid for the pedals. The S.A.S. sounds like a beast. Exactly like he describes, "a small 5 watt amp getting the shit kicked out of it". He just nails the Neil Young vibe on it.
 
Like I said it is a lot more aggressive than I thought it would be .... the amount and flavor of the distortion very much reminds me of the few times I have seen a small amp melt. A very different voice from the Fryette amps.
 
Short review .... I like it.

Long review ...
This is one of the best distortion tools I have used. The sound is full without rolling off bass. The dynamics are much better than most pedals. The sounds are fatter and sweeter than solid state distortion pedals. It can do a over the top very aggressive distortion and is capable of softer sounds. It will do OD, distortion and fuzz. Clean enhancement, adding some grit, big distorted sounds and over the top out of control textures are all there. A variety of colors and textures that change the character of the amp. The harmonic sustain is beyond what you are accustom to experiencing. It reacts to the guitar volume to control the amount of distortion. The tone control and pick up selector are very useful with this pedal to shape the sound. Because of the nature of this pedal the guitars voice is enhanced by the pedal ... not washed out. Single coils and humbuckers both sounded great to me. I can hear some similarity's to several vintage and modern sounds. But it very much has it's own voice and vibe. This is a very different sound than the Fryette amps.

The volume control range is great for boosting / over-driving the front end of the amp. If I want to balance the volume with bypass it is small range to get the balance. It can be done, but not a lot of range on the rotation. I asked Fryette support about this and the reply ...
"The value of the volume pot has a lot to do with the tone and behavior of the circuit. If we change to a lower value, the taper smooths out but the dynamic range goes down and it doesn't sound as big. We erred on the side of sound and performance."
A small rubber grommet can be easily installed under the volume knob that will dampen the rotation enough to reduce the sensitivity of the pot. That also makes it easier to toe the knob setting on the fly.

Set the gain for the amount of distortion you want and adjust the bias to tune the tone balance and how erratic the distortion is. The entire range of the gain and bias are very usable and can be blended to control the amount of distortion and texture of the sound. No matter where the gain is set the whole range of the bias is usable. As you turn the bias knob the harmonic structure of the distortion changes. In the 10~1 o'clock range it has more bass and lower midrange giving a fuller sound / voice. With the bias set above 1 o'clock the bass becomes less and can be used to tighten up the sound. It can be used to control how tight the bass is in the sound. The voice of the distortion gets very aggressive early on with the gain control and can get very aggressive. There is a lot of gain available. Even with the gain set pretty high you can hear all of the notes and harmonics in a complex chord.
Setting the gain very low or off it adds shimmering harmonics. This effects the feel and sound. Because of the nature of this pedal it does add a very small amount of grit / color set clean. The small amount of grit I very much consider what I see as a clean sound. Kind of like if you turned up a small combo clean and it colors the sound a bit. This pedal setting can be added to a clean, medium or high gain sound on the amp.
The gain set very low or off is the only amount of gain I would use with high gain on the amp. Adjusting the bias from here effects the tone shape and feel.
For medium gain sounds on the amp adding the SAS can get some very big fat sounds. If the bass is not tight enough you can turn the bias above 1 o'clock to tighten up the sound. I do not see myself setting the gain above 1 o'clock ... and much lower depending on how much gain is on the amp. In most cases I would not set the gain above 10 o'clock with medium gain sounds.
With the amp clean the dynamics and distortion flavors are most obvious. From a harmonic and feel enhancement to angry wall of harmonic with many colors between.
I use the pedal mostly with clean and medium gain settings on the amp. Preamp, poweramp or blend. To much gain on the amp clouds up the detail from the SAS and takes away from it's best quality's.

A EF86 has much more gain available than a 12AX7, it tends to not compress and saturate as easily as a 12AX7, full and detailed, but also capable of being raw and aggressive. This creates power amp distortion qualities not available from a triode tube type and creates real amp distortion sounds similar to what you would experience with a over-driven small and larger powered vintage tube amps. This is very useful for getting the sound of a poweramp running very aggressive .... but can be done at lower or medium volumes.

Anyone else check one out ?
 
cool ! but i am not a fuzz fan ... would you still recommend someone who is looking at pure OD drive?

could you please do us a clip on how it is like running on thru a clean channel with OD drive on and then with fuzz on?

;)
 
I have no way of doing clips here at this time .... have not been in the studio in several months.

I would say it is more of a distortion than a Fuzz.
Yes it can get in that amount of overdrive range .... but it gets into distortion pretty fast with the gain. I would think the Boostassio would be better for that if you are looking for less than distortion.
I would also say the distortion is more like poweramp distortion than preamp distortion.
 
A friend came over today and we were doing some blues stuff, harmonica player. With the gain 10 o'clock and lower I was getting some pretty good OD sounds. I think I was getting the best sounds with a little grit from the amp and pushing it with the SAS.
The dynamics and controlling the sound with the guitar volume is very cool for this kind of thing. Like I said the distortion is more poweramp sounding than preamp. Works great for this stuff.
 
damn i did recieved my whole lot of pedal just few days ago and i am faced with this urge on the fryette.....

are these a keeper ? or do i have to ditch them for the fryettes ? i have a 50CL too... but i dont know if the fryette's boost would be good for gain stack....as i had experienced a bad gain stack tone that sounded "rubbery" kinda like muddy if you describe it from the usual ODs... i had my gain level for the MP SHOD turned cracked open and anyway beyond that it sounds as i described as rubbery....

i was thinking if thats the cause of a solid state drives or tube driven drives would pass this problem...
 

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:) I am not going to guess if you will like the SAS or not. We all have different taste. As always I recommend you try it before you buy.
It will do OD and fuzz textures... but I see it more as a distortion pedal than anything. Because most of the gain knobs range is in the distortion range. But having said that I very much like the OD sounds I am getting. The sound has a great cut to it.
Yesterday I was using it with clean and medium gain sounds on my amp.... I was getting some great point of break up blues, blues rock and hard rock sounds. A lot of this had to do with using the volume on the guitar and picking dynamic's. Very organic compared with SS OD pedals in my ears. Much more natural sounding.

I have not tried a Boostassio yet .... but my understanding is it is more like a overdrive than the SAS. I would say it is pretty different than any of those pedals you have pictured. Way more versatile. It has way more gain available than any of those pedals. It can get way more aggressive.
Replace those pedals ? No ~ just different. Just like I would not say any of the 3 pedals in your photo replaces each other. If you like one better that is only your taste.
The SAS does make the sound less tight in the bottom. But nothing I would call mud. It is nothing like the focused tight sound of the Fryette amps. The 50CL like the other Pitbull's is a very tight sound.
Some of the best sounds I am getting is using the SAS with medium gain sounds on the amp. I would not call it mud at all when used with medium gain on the amp. There is more sag.
If you like the sound of your amp with a pedal pushing the front end of the amp hard with volume from the pedal the SAS does that great, easy one of the best pedals I have used for that.
 
hopkinWFG":2fdqpnqm said:
damn i did recieved my whole lot of pedal just few days ago and i am faced with this urge on the fryette.....

are these a keeper ? or do i have to ditch them for the fryettes ? i have a 50CL too... but i dont know if the fryette's boost would be good for gain stack....as i had experienced a bad gain stack tone that sounded "rubbery" kinda like muddy if you describe it from the usual ODs... i had my gain level for the MP SHOD turned cracked open and anyway beyond that it sounds as i described as rubbery....

i was thinking if thats the cause of a solid state drives or tube driven drives would pass this problem...
Click to expand...

i might be interested in the timmy should you want to sell it , if that's any help lol
 
i might be interested in the timmy should you want to sell it , if that's any help lol[/quote]


lol i been waiting for timmy for long ;) TGP have good stock for used some are in real good condition!
 
stephen sawall":3i0lxb6t said:
:) I am not going to guess if you will like the SAS or not. We all have different taste. As always I recommend you try it before you buy.
It will do OD and fuzz textures... but I see it more as a distortion pedal than anything. Because most of the gain knobs range is in the distortion range. But having said that I very much like the OD sounds I am getting. The sound has a great cut to it.
Yesterday I was using it with clean and medium gain sounds on my amp.... I was getting some great point of break up blues, blues rock and hard rock sounds. A lot of this had to do with using the volume on the guitar and picking dynamic's. Very organic compared with SS OD pedals in my ears. Much more natural sounding.

I have not tried a Boostassio yet .... but my understanding is it is more like a overdrive than the SAS. I would say it is pretty different than any of those pedals you have pictured. Way more versatile. It has way more gain available than any of those pedals. It can get way more aggressive.
Replace those pedals ? No ~ just different. Just like I would not say any of the 3 pedals in your photo replaces each other. If you like one better that is only your taste.
The SAS does make the sound less tight in the bottom. But nothing I would call mud. It is nothing like the focused tight sound of the Fryette amps. The 50CL like the other Pitbull's is a very tight sound.
Some of the best sounds I am getting is using the SAS with medium gain sounds on the amp. I would not call it mud at all when used with medium gain on the amp. There is more sag.
If you like the sound of your amp with a pedal pushing the front end of the amp hard with volume from the pedal the SAS does that great, easy one of the best pedals I have used for that.
Click to expand...


Thanks pal ! you did give a very indept description to this wonderful pedal ;)
 
No problem .... because of the property's of EF86 it is a very different pedal than any other tube based pedal I have played on. It really enhances the sound of the guitar and amp. ... and very much reminds me more of poweramp distortion than preamp distortion.
 
Where did you get yours? Am I correct that street seems to be $200?
 
Tukwila GC .... I believe all the GC have some. That is the price I paid.
 
Got to demo this today at my local GC. What an interesting pedal. Definitely full on. If you want subtle, look elsewhere. I found for hard rock and metal the best settings were with the gain almost off, bias at 9-11 O'Clock and level to taste. I demoed it into an 80's JCM800. My benchmark amp for using a pedal (preamp set anywhere from 10 to 2 O'Clock). At the settings mentioned it instantly gives an increase in girth and sonic attack. Made the chicka chicka scrapes really percussive and sharp. Enjoyed this setting a lot. When you raise the gain you get into extreme fuzz territory pretty quick. At 9 O'clock or higher on the gain it gets pretty hairy. The Bias control has a lot more effect when the gain is raised. When the gain is "barely on" the Bias control is more like the voicing control on the Deliverence. Thinner and brighter to thicker and darker. When the gain is up it definitely has an intense effect on how "together" the tube sounds. You can easily set the pedal to sound like something is about to explode and even though it was fun, not all that useable for me, initially anyway. But with the before mentioned setting, Gain almost off level up a bit and Bias at just under 12 O'Clock it sound big, mean and like the amp just grew an elephant sized, pair of nuts. I'm not sure if it would work that great on a dead clean Fender but even with the gain at 2-3 on the JCM800 it could goose it into a very natural sounding, heavy overdrive. This is a cool, powerful pedal.
 
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