Who here knows about the B.K. Butler Tube Driver (pedal)

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JakeAC5253

JakeAC5253

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I own the amp, but I'm curious about the pedal. It seems the 'in' crowd is fairly small, but passionate about it as a solid piece of equipment. Naturally, this interests me. What can you tell me about the pedal?
 
All I know is that I've wanted one forever! Behringer actually makes a pretty decent sounding tube drive pedal that's similar in tone FWIW.
 
I have a vintage one. What do you want to know about it?
It is a great OD pedal that has it's own flavor comparatively to other ones out there.
I personally like it set to lower gain settings in an already dirty amp.
I don't like it as a "gain" channel on a clean amp if you know what I'm saying.
It really shines on amps like older JMP's, JCM's, plexis etc to get to that cranked amp sound without cranking the amp.
 
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=79850

thats how i use mine,

can be grainy and gritty, really rough, but in a good way. very rich harmonically, borders on fuzz depending on the eq.

very very dirty basically, makes you wonder what people are talking about when the say eric johnson gets his violin tone and DG gets his mooth sweet tone from it. and then i plugged it in after a Muff and a fuzz face.

this is where it really comes into its own, set with a touch of drive and more volume to boost the pedal, it just makes both types of the above sing. hard to describe. turns them into something that you couldnt get with a pedal on its own.

and on its own is just and exceptional raw dirt box. a lot of guys change the valve out
 
sorry i didn't see this thread sooner. i've got one of the early ones. it has a socket in it so you can change tubes any time. you can use it as a boost in the front end of a marshall ( it seems to like the tone stack a lot). lately i've been using it as a dirt box and it does that pretty well too. doesn't sound harsh like some distortion pedals. kind of raspy sounding .. almost sputtering when cranked hard.. but without the ice pick in your ear like a ds-1.
 
Should mention mine is one of the new builds, with bias control and the new ones also don't have a socket for the valve.

there's also different period tube drivers, he original BK built ones, the chandler ones which he claims no involvement in, and the new build ones which he does on ebay etc. should also say the man is super nice
 
Yeah, I basically just wanted a basic overview of the pedal. That sounds great, anyone try swapping the tube with a 12ay7 or lower gain tube and see how it sounds? I've seen the Chandler ones on Ebay go for much cheaper than the Butler ones, are they very different?
 
i haven't tried it with a lower gain tube. i've swapped out a few 12ax7's in it, but haven't really sat down and tried to figure out which one i like best yet. right now i've got a marshall labeled sovtek in it. hard to say if it's an improvement over others because like i said.. i haven't really sat down and done a comparison. might be something to try on a cold winter night! :lol: :LOL:
 
The way you guys are describing it, it doesn't really sound like it is too similar to the amp Tube Driver that I own. One of the reasons that I don't use the lead channel on it is because it basically only has one type of gain saturation throughout the entire sweep. Gain at 9 o clock is pretty much it and then from there it gets noisier but not really any more gainier or saturated. It never really gets past lightly overdriven IMO. I'll have to give it another try when I get home. Now I am curious.
 
Yes they like different tubes. I go between a jj and ruby. But I've a bugle boy at7 that's sweetens the tone, and expands the gain range.... not gritty as fast. More like an added gain stage for the VM vs slamming with signal.. now, paired with an EQ bump
:rock:
 
The Ibanez Tube King can get some similar tones, but IMO sounds smoother and more like a real tube preamp. Not grainy at all. Just thought I'd throw that out there. ;)
 
glassjaw7":j5t28uah said:
The Ibanez Tube King can get some similar tones, but IMO sounds smoother and more like a real tube preamp. Not grainy at all. Just thought I'd throw that out there. ;)
Click to expand...

Plus Mastodon uses them, so they must rool :thumbsup:
 
ConcreteVampire":3oyx70u9 said:
Yes they like different tubes. I go between a jj and ruby. But I've a bugle boy at7 that's sweetens the tone, and expands the gain range.... not gritty as fast. More like an added gain stage for the VM vs slamming with signal.. now, paired with an EQ bump
:rock:
Click to expand...

hmmm.. tell me more, sounds interesting
 
JakeAC5253":216372wc said:
I've seen the Chandler ones on Ebay go for much cheaper than the Butler ones, are they very different?
Click to expand...

well.. BK doesn't seem to reckon Chandler built them right, or that they sounded right. there's an interview that goes into it a little more,

http://home.comcast.net/~jroscoe/bkbutler.html

but apparently his 2 main figureheads (EJ and DG) only use the ones he built, including the originals. he had pics on his website of him hand delivering some to EJ so..

the thing is, i think there was a lot more chandler ones built than BK ones, so the sound most people associate with them might be from chadlers more than BK's.

Never heard a chandler one, but i know the one i have is awesome. real tone shaper that nothing else can touch for stacking, and as i say, great in its own right.
 
The links are awesome guys. Looks like this pedal needs to be on my buy and/or build list.
 
One last thing lol i know that Ron Neeley of ronsound was planning clones of the orginal version a while ago. might want to ask him what the status is as he told me his will be based on the original and will have a socketed valve
 
the tube drive control seems to be pretty much full range on the pedal. ie.. you keep on getting more gain and saturation all through the sweep range.. so it wouldn't sound like your amp's od. by the time you get to the 3 o'clock position on the pedal it can get fairly compressed and blooms.
 
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