Home (amp tone and effects placement)



Peavey and Rocktron preamp/processors support eq before distortion

Rocktron Prophecy, Taboo ($1000), Chameleon, and GAP1 have pre- and post-distortion EQ.

Line 6 AX2 amp has pre-eq.

Interview with Craig Anderton - excerpts focusing on eq-before-distortion and distortion voicing:

I was involved with the Peavey Profex even before it came out, because I knew the engineer who was working on it. It just blew me away, because it was the first processor where you could change the order of the effects, which was crucial to me. With the Profex, you could put together your own algorithms. I always like having EQ before distortion, as well as after distortion. ...it was the only box that would let me do that. the most important part of the sound is the distortion and the EQ. I couldn't care less about reverbs and chorus.

Between the five types of EQ and the two types of distortion, I could get the tone that I wanted. And it was programmable, with MIDI control. It was the perfect processor for guitar. I started using it back then and I'm still using it now. It became my signature sound. The TubeFex is a logical progression. Frankly, I think that people oversell what [preamp!!!] tubes can do. at one guitar seminar I had a "tube pop quiz." I had these taped examples of solid-state distortion, tube distortion, digitally modeled distortion.

[This is proof that the importance of preamp tubes is a myth and marketing scam -- power tubes and speakers are where the real Amp Tone is. - Michael]

I'd play them all for people and I'd say, "Okay, tell me, which one's the tube?" There was only one guy out of thousands of people who ever identified all four correctly. Everybody else picked the [entirely solid-state] Profex as the tube sound, because it sounded to them what a tube should sound like, because I had modeled the thing using those effects, using the EQ [before distortion], getting it right so it sounded like a tube amp [rather, specifically, a tube *pre*amp!]. So it sounded more like what people expected a tube amp [rather, a tube *pre*amp] to sound like than the tube did.

[He makes no distinction here between a tube *pre*amp and a tube *power* amp, vs. a "tube amp" as an entire package with cranked speaker.]

I like having the tube preamp in there, though. Why screw up a good thing? But the tube section has its own sound that I'm using, too. I haven't given up on the digital distortion, either, as an additional sound.


Amptone.com ultra gear-search page


Home (amp tone and effects placement)

Contact