Hands off! Lab Area!
Tube-Bench | What is that ?
All guitar amps can be easily broken down into building blocks, i.e. functional units. If you take a closer look at them, you will quickly see that they are almost identical in structure for almost all amplifiers.
If you now analyze different amps and mentally trace them back to these building blocks, which I have implemented as hardware modules, we can put almost every amp together on the bench in a few simple steps.
This gives you an excellent starting point for your own further developments and gives you an impression of the sounds and playability.
What are these building blocks?
- Triode pre-amps/ cathode followers
- Phase inverter for push-pull
- Tone Stacks (Fender, Vox, Marshall, Special Versions, Dumble, One-Knob etc.)
- Overdrive Sections (Dumble, Mesa, special versions)
- Power stages (EL84, 6V6, 6L6, EL34, KT88, ..) or single ended power stages
- Hi-Voltage Power Supplies Tube / Silicon Rectifier
All these building blocks also take into account the various implementations of the different manufacturers, so that we can put together, parameterize (tweak) and "play" almost any amp on my Tube Beach!
Tweaking means, among other things:
- Change negative feedback and filters
- Adjust tonestack frequencies or topology
- Insert overdrive stages (Mesa, Dumble or Custom)
- Test pre- and post-phase inverter master volume
- Special tweaks with amazing results
- Power stages Class A, Class AB, SE or mixed 1, 2, 4 tubes
- Triode / pentode operation
- Hot / cold biasing, fixed / cathode bias, switchable
- Power attenuation
- Power sagging through tube rectifier / silicon rectifier switchable
- Sweet spot setting and much, much more!
In the end it means: Connect the guitar and guitar speaker and experience the sound!
Tube-Bench |Microcontroller, MIDI-Support:
- Special variants supported by MIDI and microcontroller
- Semiconductors do not affect the sound of the analog signal paths
- Reverb, tremolo, effect loops
- Footswitches
Tube-Bench | Building Blocks:
Tube-Bench Lab Area:
As electronics engineer, I own some professional equipment, like multi-channel oscilloscopes, signal generators, power supplies, variacs, multi meters, soldering equipment for THT and SMT.
Also I have access to a professional tube tester.
For Microcontroller development I am fully equipped with compilers and debuggers, as well as protocol analyzers.
Equipment, that is very dedicated to tube development, I was forced to develop by myself.
So I had to build a variable High voltage power supply, with B+, Bias voltage generation as well as
Heater Voltage Output. In addition I added a Silicon- to-Tube Rectifier switching, which enables old-school sagging experiences direct comparable to tighter silicon rectifiers.
