Tube Works Tube Driver 911

[NeilStryker]

Hey folks- the recent overdrive thread got me thinking about my Tube Works Tube Driver 911 that I absolutely love, but I need to replace the 12ax7 but I'm not a tube gear guy and I wanted to pick your brains of anyone that has used this pedal and/or replaced the tube with something better.  I don't know exactly what tube is in it, I got it as a free marketing sample and fell in love with it.  I will have to have an electronics/amp repair guy fix it, but I wanted to see if you all had any thoughts? 

 

[stubhead]

Aaak - you just take the back off of it, pull out the old tube, put in a new one.... I love these things - I often use the next incarnation (the five-knob bumblebee "Real Tube") for a preamp and just apply a little stompbox reverb & compression when I'm going tiny. DOD compressor->Real Tube->Boss RV-5-> power amp. Here's a thread from the SGF about good new tubes:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=119850&highlight=

Brad Sarno builds preamps used by some of the top session guys, I trust his advice. The JJ's are easy to find, in fact the Electro-Harmonix brand 12AX7's are just re-labled JJ's.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EHXECC83
Groove Tubes are re-labled & tested Rubys, and other brands. If you know an amp guy, he''s probably got boxes of these things - there's a whole 'nother religious cult thing going on in Tubeland, there. Another cool thing is that you can change the intensity and quality of the sound by going to a different tube, I have a 12AU7 in mine and it's much cleaner and smoother - the real nasties don't come out until about "6" on the drive control. 12AX7, 12AT7, 12AY7 and 12AU7's all work, that's listed in the descending order of plate voltage. Your amp guy might even loan you a few different things to try out, the European tubes have different names, but they're equivalent - ECC83, ECC82, ECC81, ECC803 (Brad's fave), 5751 (SRV's fave)... Oh goodie, another cult to join.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12AX7
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-72524.html

 

[NeilStryker]

Nice. thanks for all that, I'll take the back off and poke around.  It was cutting in and out and bleeding a distortion sound through when turned off, and the light was being funky, so I thought there might be more of an issue than just the tube, or do you think that those things would happen with a bad tube?  I dont wanna rewire it, just wanna rock out with it, I stay out of the backs of tube amps too for my own safety, but I'll give it a shot and see about replacing the tube myself.  thanks again.

 

[ildar]

Those things probably don't have anything to do with the tube. Replacing the tube with a "good" (expensive) one is rather useless, as the tube in those pedals has little to do with the sound being produced. The tube is run on very low voltage-about 12v vs.125v or so in a regular tube amp preamp. This low voltage design is referred to as starved plate. A starved plate tube will last a very very long time since it sees so little voltage. Moreover, these so called tube circuits very often use the tube simply as a diode, which affects the sound even less. Bottom line-save your money unless you know for sure the tube is bad.