Peavey Tubefex

[chuck]

i have had this Peavey Tubefex preamp sitting around for a couple of years ...
i picked it up for a few reasons ...
1. Tony Iommi used these things at one point
2. the reviews i read were thumbs up
3. i am a sucker for finding a new piece to the tone puzzle at a LOW price.

when the Tubefex arrived in the mail , i quickly hooked it up to my trusty BGW power amp to try it out ...
it was simple to use and even i could program the thing ... WOW , that IS amazing.

then for some reason , i pushed the fex aside , put the BGW in my acoustic rack and sort of forgot about my newest toy .

well , today i stuck the fex in my rack ... unhooked the Marshall 9001 tube preamp , and plugged the Tubefex into my Marshall 9100 tube power amp ...

WOW ... i am in love .... the trusty old 9001 might have lost its job as the starting preamp in my rack.

i am sorting through the effects in the Peavey , and i am liking those too ...
my ART SGE might have lost its job as well ...

have any of you fine folks had any experience with the Peavey Tubefex ?

i am wondering if there is a flaw or short coming that i have overlooked in my new gear euphoria ....

anywho .... i just wanted to share my bit of excitement for today

[greeneyezzz]

Hey Chuck,

I own an Tubefex, bought it 10 years ago used for 500 euros.
I really didn't use it that much, but liked the sounds a lot. The only thing I didn't like about it, was that when you add an effect, the overall volume in the chain becomes a lot softer. So I ended up making a patch that needed boosting, but I had programmed too little headroom for the other patches. I didn't want to change the volumes of all my sounds (being the lazy mofo I am) so i put it in my closet and where it still remains...

Maybe I will hook it up again in my setup and with the exp I have now, I can probably program it more effeciently...

Oh yeah, there was one more thing I missed (if I recall correctly) : spillover delays... and I remember it gave a glitch when going from one patch to another...


Is your enthousiasm tempered enough? ;D

[chuck]

there are updates ... new software versions that solve a lot of the annoying issues.

there are also a few mods that you can do.
the most important is getting rid of the battery that will in time leak acid , and replacing it with some doohicky .
mine had that done when i got it.

i dont use elaborate effects ... a little reverb , or chorus ... maybe some delay , or flange.
i keep it simple
a few clean channels , and a few dirty ones is about all i ever use.

i LOVE the Ultra ... it just SCREAMS.

[greeneyezzz]

oh man now I a going to hook it up too!!

If at the end it sounds great and the guilt of letting it sit in the closet starts eating me... it'll be your butt!! ;D

gonna look into the updates, are they still updating the thing or has the support stopped some time ago?

Do you also have the pedalboard? And what do you mean replacing it with a doohickey? I don't understand that expression

[newey]

greeneyezzz-

And what do you mean replacing it with a doohickey? I don't understand that expression

Sorry, we Yanks tend to lapse into American slang without thinking of our foreign friends!

a "Doohickey" is a part or piece of something, the true name of which the writer doesn't know, and so refers to it, generically, as a "Doohickey" in the absence of its real name. Synonyms are "Whazzit", "Thingamabob", and "Thingamajigger". Also "widget".

In other words, Chuck has something in there that replaced his battery, but he can't tell us what it is because he doesn't know what it is.

I imagine that it must be some other type of battery, since the purpose of having a battery in these units is so that one's patches and settings are saved when the power cord is unplugged. Nowadays, most of these types of units have a hard memory of some sort, making the battery unnecessary.

[chuck]

sorry about that ... i couldnt remember the technical name of the doohickey ... it is a mempry chip of some sort that does not require a battery.

here is a great site devoted to the Tubefex tubefex.home.comcast.net/~tubefex/

[chuck]

... i do not have the Peavey MIDI pedal , i plan on using my A.R.T. X-15 MIDI foot switch with 2 expression pedals.

if , for some reason the X15 and Tubefex do not like each other ... i will just have to track down the proper Peavey one.