If you left the guitar lead or a pedal patch cable connected to the pedal’s input jack that probably had a lot to do with draining the battery.

They sound different.

I have a 12AX7 based overdrive and NOTHING sounds like it.

Now… that said I actually use it like a preamp into a full valve single channel amp and push it with another (solid state) overdrive or a boost pedal (depending on my mood at the day).

And the combination sounds far better than just crankin the OD pedal by itself.

So I guess it’s a matter of finding the right pedal FOR YOUR EARS that fits IN YOUR BUDGET and trying it out with other components to “carve” your tone.

I’m a TONE FREAK. I spend hours fiddling with gear to get to THAT SPECIFIC TONE. And I found out that I can only get it by playing tube amps, with a tube based pedal in front of it being complemented by other solid state pedals.

So….

DOES IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE? HECK YES.

DOES IT MATTER? Depends on your ears, your pocket, your sound, etc, etc!

It worked well without any problems in my case.

I’ve used it in the loop in two different ways:

1. Using as an additional stage through the loop.
2. Bypassing the amp’s preamp,substituting it for the Tube King and going straight intothe “return” as described before.

The two configurations gave me different sounds and differet features.

e.g.:
– When bypassing the amp’s preamp, I also lost the reverb, but had better tone (in my oipnion) and better volume contros (for bedroom volume levels)
– When using it as an additional stage (therefore fully utilizing the amp’s preamp) I could use the reverb and amp’s tone controls. The tube king would react quite well when increasing the amp’s input volume and break up beautifully, but in higher gain situations the reverb would be before the Tube King, making it a bit un-usable.

Anyway, it was a temporary solution. Nowadays you can get some pretty good valve amps for reasonable prices. Really depends on what type of music you play, your tone preferences and how loud you want to get.

Some examples:

Vox AC4-TV(H), Vox Night Train, Orange Tiny Terror, Fender Blues Junior, Fender Pro Junior, Marshall Class 5, Marshall Haze 15 and 40, and the list goes on and on and on and on………

Depending on where you live, you can probably get a Vox AC-4 for the price you wold pay for an english muffin anyway.

I tried a POG2 and was quite impressed with the “organ sounds” you can get out of it! I thought would be good to have acompressor in front of it though!

Being a pedal, it should go well with anything that takes a line ou type of signal.

Now, as a preamp into a mixer, you need to look at how your speakers will take it.

As an example, tweeters can’t handle the guitar signal very well. It will sound farty!!!

For an audio interface should be all good. I’ve done it with an Ibanez TK-999 (1 x 12AX7) as well as with several other pedals

Ed

I used an Ibanez Tube King (12ax7 based) straight into the return of effects loop on a Fender FM65R. That means bypassing preamp, reverb, etc and pretty much going straight into the power amp section of the amplifier.

Worked beaultifully.

I noticed in the past that depending on the position of my amp Iwould get a different perception of how loud it was when I engaged distortion/OD pedals.

Clean sound would be pretty much unchanged but the dist/OD sound would have a drop if the amp was placed above the ground (Like… on top of a table or another amp).

Next time you play a gig try to have your amp on a different position in relation to your ears.

Or maybe I am completely insane and the voices in my head were the problem! Either way… give it a try!