Chandler Tube Driver and 11R

[randalclayton]

Anyone know how to run 1 (or 2 in stereo) chandler tube driver racks with the 11 R. Anyone know the proper signal chain as it is different because the amps, pedals, etc are all in one on the 11R and i'm just perplexed thinking about it. Thanks!

[blewis]

Where do you typically put your tube drive in your "real" rig? The goal is to put it there on the 11R too.

Unless you put your tube driver as the first unit in your signal chain on your "real" rig, you'll need to use the 11R's FX loop to insert your tube drive into the middle of your signal chain inside the 11R.

Does that make sense?

If your "real" signal path is:
gtr --> tube drive --> pedal board --> amp

Then just plug the tube drive in the guitar input of the 11R.

As you've stated, the 11R is like the pedal board --> amp section of the signal chain.

Let's say, for example, you wanted to put the tube drive as the "last pedal" in front of the amp, then your signal route would look like:

gtr --> 11R gtr input --> 11R pedals --> 11R FX Loop --> 11R Amp --> 11R out

Now just plug in your tube drive to the FX loop, and you've inserted it just before the amp model in the 11R.

You can move the 11R FX loop block into different places in the chain to get more flexibility.

Brandon

[randalclayton]

Brandon, I was just overthinking the whole situation. It runs before the 11R. Just plugged it into the guitar input and we're golden. I was just stressed thinking about how the head and cab emulators and effects would interact with it, but like i said... overthinking. I have a switch running to the tube driver so i can either bypass or tube, and for the boost. i also have a behrenger fcb1010 for patches, wah, and volume. Once i got the chandler's, i realized how more complicated i was making it. Thanks for the reply... appreciated.

[jrockbridge]

First of all, BK Butler designed the 'Tube Driver.' I believe 'Chandler' distributed the product for a short time. BK Butler owns the rights to all those circuit designs and he still makes some of them by hand. http://www.butleraudio.com/

I agree that your 'Tube Driver' should work just fine plugged right into the front input of 11R. I have a BK Butler 'Real Tube' pedal, one of the earliest 'starved plate' tube designs. I also have a Damage Control Liquid Blues OD pedal that uses dual 12AX7 tubes at high plate voltage and it has excellent headroom as a result. I plug the DCLB OD right into the front input of the 11R.

I'm sure the loop can be made to work as well but I prefer the front input. That way, I can stack any other crunch pedals right int front of those tubes. In all my signal chain experiments, that seems to get the best results.

The main thing I learned is that setting the level too high can cause a lot of feedback and sometimes unwanted clipping. It seems to work best when the analog device levels are somewhat close to the same level as the 11R and then you adjust the gain for some nice coloring of the signal. Also, the DCLB has a 'clarity knob' which I turn up pretty high so that the signal doesn't end up muddy. I don't know if your 'Tube Driver' has a similar adjustment. Some of those types of devices will have an internal mini-potentiometer for that adjustment.