BB Preamp with the Stiletto Deuce

[srf399]

Got a BB Preamp yesterday and spent a few hours playing with it. I am blown away by the transparency of this thing. Still sounds like my Stiletto but with some very positive improvements.

Basically setting it on low gain with the Bass pushed a bit (about 2) and the Treble pulled back (about 11) with the volume at unity.... WOW

With Fat Clean set to about lower mid gain clean I
hit the BB and it's a nice warm smooth clean with a totally natural Hendrix/Eric Johnson type clip. Has a nice compression in there as well so you can get the nice scratch chording in between single note runs.

In Tite Gain I've backed off the amps gain considerably to about 10 o'clock to get a nice smooth crunch and then hitting the bb preamp (without changing the settings on the BB) it goes to a sound pretty much identical to what Tite gain did before (when the gain was set at 2) but now it has a little more smoothness and roundness and hotness. It's easier to play and has more harmonics. No pushed TS mids either... just nice.. full and a bit chewy. I am blown away. BTW... Roll back the guitar volume and it cleans up incredibly giving you every level of gain in between clean and full out as you roll off the volume. The volume on the guitar responds exactly as it did without the BB in the clain. The active eq's on this thing made the graphic eq I had in the loop redundant.

Right now with the BB set up the way it is and with a little delay and reverb in the loop... Tite Gain sound exactly like Vai's "For the Love of God"
The BB smoothed out... rounded out a bit... and warmed up this amp. The best purchase I've made since I bought this amp.

This thing didn't change the voicing of the amp... it just added some subtle improvements that really added to the sound. Amazing.

BTW I plugged in the TS 808 reissue LMAo it's back in its toy box now. Anyone want a TS 808 reissue? Maybe I'll get it Keeley modded.

 

[Riff Blister]

Thanks for the update on your search for an overdrive pedal.
I read your earlier posts on this topic and was hoping to read what you ended up with.

I’m kind of at the point where I won’t be making any major gear purchases like guitars or amps so I’m thinking it might be cool to explore some stuff for the pedal board.

A few years ago I bought ZZ Top’s Rhythmeen CD and the Rev. Billy G’s guitar tone was flat out the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.

I then read that he was using the Bixonic Expandora overdrive as a part of that sound.
I bought one new and found two more used on EBay and bought them too. I really had no idea what I was doing but I just had to try some experimenting. Right now I have two on my pedal board and one collecting dust. I got the ultimate bedroom tone when I set up at home but when I used them the first time at a gig I just could not cut through so I bailed out fast. Not to mention the tap dancing was a joke. Just another learning experience for me I guess.

These are the only overdrive pedals I’ve ever owned so I have nothing to reference as far as how they stack up. I can really get some good juicy stuff going with both of them. I have one set for a good stand alone overdrive and the other one set gain low, volume up. They seem to rob some of my amps low end.
Is that normal for overdrive pedals?

Anyway, I think I may look into something different just for fun.
Maybe the BB Preamp is one to try.
Throw money!!!!!!!!

 

[haymez]

+1 on the BB pre. I run it with my LSC and only really use it on channel one, but it sounds amazing.

 

[jab]

+1 on Xotic pedals (BB, AC, RC). AC+ on Stiletto nice and transparent and doesn't mess with the tone as long as you don't go cranking the pedal knobs. It is kind of eye opening isn't it when you find pedals like that.