NPD (Hermida Content)

[tronus]

So this thing uses these 2 tiny tubes made of metal. Kinda neat looking little things. Got a hold of my key player and drummer and am gonna have a jam/test sesh tonight and see how it sounds.

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii316/woohoo_its_420/Picture0021.jpg

[cubistguitar]

cool

please give thorough written report double spaced with audiovisual aides.

[tronus]

Hah, I'll see what I can do

[Last Nerve]

I too, would like to hear about the Nu-Valve.
Also, techie question - does it run off 9v, 100mA, or does it need more mA?

[tronus]

I too, would like to hear about the Nu-Valve.
Also, techie question - does it run off 9v, 100mA, or does it need more mA?

Yep 9 volts, but not sure about the current draw. It came with a 200 amp 9v negative tip power supply so I'm assuming its gonna work with your average boss type power supplys.

[tronus]

I'm gonna head over to the spot now and try it out. I'll definitely report back here.

[FenderBigot]

I saw the write up on this pedal in GP last month... how much is it?

[Last Nerve]

www.hermidaaudio.com
$250, IIRC

[fusionbear]

Great pedal, kind of regret selling it, but it compressed just a little too much for my taste...

[3 Mile Stone]

Gotany smokes eh?

[Caribou]

I've got one-- very cool pedal. Definitely look forward to hearing what you think about it. Btw, I don't think the tubes are made of metal; I think those are the shields (they're tiny).

[tronus]

Disclaimer:

Ok, heres my 2 day report. This is based on what I've heard and felt so far and I have a while before I could truly write a review. I'll say it again, this is just my impressions of things so far in my little pedal and amp world that I'm lost in ;)

First thing was my amps I tried through in this order.

1. Dr Z Jaz 20/40 (2x10 combo)
2. Matchless Avalon 30 (head into 2x12 Hellatone 30's (G12H30s) Avatar Premier Traditional Open Back)
3. Matchless Avalon 30 (head into 1x12 Hellatone 30's Avatar Traditional Open Back)

Foreward:

Before I go into it, I want to comment on the pedal. This is the second tube type pedal I've tried, the first being a current Tube Driver with bias. At first I was digging in hard and not watching my pick attack to closely. I was getting thin glassy results. I had to step back, take a breath, and surrender to the feel of the pedal :rolleyes: (seriously though!) The pedal feels a lot like my Orange Tiny Terror and a also has a similar feel to my Matchless Avalon 30.

What I mean is with these amps, and this pedal, you have a certain amount of what I'm going to call "squishy range". To me, this is the range when you pick from soft to hard. Eventually you max out the pre (and possibly the power section of the amp?) and the notes start to feel hard and glassy. I notice this on my crunchy type amps (Matchless and Orange) If you just make sure and have light picking hand and utilize your guitars knobs, you can get some nice soft sing-y notes with great sustain and also chunk out some chords for a nice crunch


On setting the pedal volume:

I had to find the spot where strumming a chord the hardest, with the pedal on, nearly matched the volume of doing the same with the pedal off. If you set the volume of the pedal playing soft then hit the amp hard, the amp "glass's" out and gets brittle. I run my amp with a decent amount of pre gain so I appreciate a pedal that has some compression, keeping the signal nice and smooth into the front of my all ready broken up amp. This pedal has less compression than my Tube Driver and I like that about it. Less of a mushy fuzz feel and more smooth, saturated (not overly), warm sustainy feel that crunch's up nicely like my amps.

On the play testing through my two main amps:

Dr. Z Jaz 20/40:

As far as playing it through the Dr. Z, I can't really comment yet. I spent a good amount of time trying it out through it, but I hadn't yet surrendered the to feel of the pedal yet heh. I can say this though, I know how the amp reacts to my picking with it's front end driven pretty hard. This pedal has a different feel, so using this pedal with that amp kind of had me changing picking technique when I flipped it on. Now, that may be due to it being the first amp I've tried the pedal with. I'm going to go back and give it a lot more testing.

Matchless Avalon 30

Next I tried the Matchless Avalon 30. (previous to this session I had swapped out my phase inverter tube for a RCA Cleartop 12au7 and my reverb tubes with a matched pair of EH 12ax7's) The amp was MUCH MUCH warmer, smoother, and less fizzy. I was also able to use the hot input with my humbucker guitar.

This pedal matched this amp great. I keep the pre pretty driven on this amp and I could never really find a good drive pedal to use with it. This pedal matched the feel of this amp. I felt like the pedal added a great warm lead channel to it. I think I like it much better with this amp because I'm already picking gently for the amp, so when I kick it on, it's a smooth transition over. This pedal is making me consider bumping this amp/pedal combo up to my main rig for the next few practices to see how it goes.

I still found my self trying to dig in really hard for a super thick saturated sound sometimes and fizzing out the rig. I just gotta keep on myself and not get overly excited.

For anybody who does the Trey Anastasio thing, with a Ross type compressor after your drive, this pedal into my Analogman CompROSSor was awesome! Let's me get that super huge sustainy sound and I can dig in as hard as I want and still sound nice and round without getting thin and glassy on the amp end.

Sorry this was so long and freaking lame; just wanted to share what I've experienced. I had so many things I wanted to say I'm not sure if I said enough, or too much. Let me know if you have any questions.

[tronus]

I've got one-- very cool pedal. Definitely look forward to hearing what you think about it. Btw, I don't think the tubes are made of metal; I think those are the shields (they're tiny).

Ohhhh hah. Just wiki'd it and you are correct. I kinda want to buy a couple matched pairs and see what rolling tubes in this thing will do.

[tronus]

Gotany smokes eh?

Hah, a few!