Bk butler s original hand made tube driver guitar pedal used by eric johnson, david gilmour, billy gibbons, joe satriani, kenny wayne shepherd, robbie krieger, and many other pros. The tube driver is a somewhat famous pedal, id guess it to be the most wellknown tubebased distortion pedal. I think its out of production now, but the bk butler blue tube was a lower gain version of the tube driver. Used bk butler tube works tube driver, vintage tube overdrive pedal from the 1980s. Butler mark, eric johnsons original tube driver, the common second version with the after driver and butler s name added, and a 1987 tube driver with mids and bias pots added as a custom option. Its supposed to sound great on bass, but i dont have any personal experience with them. It spins all the way around and pulls out some too. I wrote to butler s company and a technician there verified it as a genuine butler pedal, as opposed to the chandler fakes.
The chandler tube driver is a real tube based overdrive guitar pedal. The b k butler tube driver has been used by several of rock guitars greats david gilmour and eric johnson to name just two. It is made in the usa has a 14 inch input and output and i believe is has a 12ax7 type tube. Due to the continuing requests for my limited production original design tube driver pedal, here are the details. Bk butler is the pioneer of lowvoltage designs for. If youre wondering how these things sound heres a demo for you.
Preamp 12ax7s in my guitar amps are warm to the touch but 12au7s in my hifi preamp if i recall correctly are very very hot. The circuit layout and pathways were very similar to the 1980s circuits, but there. If you know of a tube pedal not listed here, please let me know. Those who want to reserve a unit, please contact me via email. The first, original, one was the bk butlerchandler tube driver. Butler and the tube driver, there is a good interview over on the fantastic tone from heaven website. I wrote to butlers company and a technician there verified it as a genuine butler pedal, as opposed to the chandler fakes.
But the blue tube will be part of my collection for years to come, its a great keeper the way it is stock imo. Used models are also plentiful and easy to find online. Bk butler s original hand made tube driver guitar pedal used by eric johnson, david gilmour, billy gibbons, joe satriani, kenny wayne shepherd. It was 9v powered, like most pedals, making it more marketable to a larger crowd. I have an old 3 knob tube driver by bk butlertube works which has a broken potentiometer in the tube gain position. If it says tube driver on it as a model name, its one way or the other supposed to be under the auspices of or royalties to one mr.
Butler tube driver famously used by david gilmour, eric johnson, billy gibbons and joe satriani to name a few. Forgot to mention before, if you have a chandler wall mart tube driver you can easily convert it to a authentic tube driver by rebuilding the tone stack section. I personally autograph each tube driver on the bottoms side. The tube king is reputed to be a very similar circuit design to the tube driver and the patent there certainly backs that notion up. Bk butler tube driver 1989 guitar pedals, electronics. Heres the tube driver made famous by david gilmour. Butler still makes 911 tube drivers by hand at the time this article was written through his butler audio company, here. There are many schematics out there as well as a wealth of pcb projects. When chandler copied the bk butler design they totally messed up the tone stack section all schematics to compare the different versions are here on this thread. The bk butler tube drive circuit is based on a opamp gainstage driven into two triodestages of 12ax7 tube, using low plate voltage about 16volts there are lot of similar products, such as chandler tube driver, dean markley. A hand made reissue of butlers original 911 tube driver tube works design from the 1990s.
Tube driver amps 2 pages amplifier tube works 904 owners manual. The tube driver is not an extremely versatile pedal but what it does it does very well. Lower plate voltages insure greatly extended tube life. Real tube by tube works other than one being in super cool enclosure, and the other in a buttugly enclosure, the 4 knob 911 tube drivers and 5 knob real tube versions are basically the same patented b. Bk butler tube driver page 2 joes guitars, amps and gear joe bonamassa forum the official forum for all things joe bonamassa, guitars and blues music. The tube driver td752 is a two channel 100 watt amp with spring reverb. Is there anythig similar to a bk butler tube driver and. The mosfet driver is based on the legendary bk butler tube driver. Its a great tube drive and im very happy i happened upon it, thanks duke i dont use the blue tube much for drive but i do dial a little bit of dirt into the signal. It has an effect sendreceive and a footswitch for switching between the channels and turning onoff the reverb.
Utilization the general configuration of the tube driver is really easy to follow, and it is easy to get a good sound from this. Im hand building only limited production numbers every week. It no longer functions correctly to change the gain. It definitely doesnt sound like a stock tube driver at least in terms of the amount of gain based on sound samples im hearing. Tube works and chandler tube drivers have been on the market at different times, and in different versions. It uses a 12ax7 which is pushed by a dual opamp followed by a fenderstyle tone stack. I also have a realtube bk butler driver here to compare my build to, and it is silent. Dean markley overlord to b k butler tube driver so, ive got one of these and ive got to admit i agree with the advert its ugly as sin but it does sure cook an amp nicely, but it could be better. Ive just opened mine up and the circuit board quite clearly reads patented.
The real tube overdrive is a bk butler guitar pedal manufactured by tube works back in the 70s and 80s. The tube driver is a holy grail type pedal, but many people, especially younger players, have never heard of it. I got a bk butler tube driver several weeks ago and either it just doesnt work with my equipment or ive got a bum one, i was wondering if you guys could help me decide. These pedals have to be dialed in for each individual amp and guitar combination as they are relatively low output and the tube drive tends to kick in at a lower level than some pedals.
Bk butler tube driver page 2 joes guitars, amps and. The image above shows my recently purchased real tube pedal case disassembled, because in the video below im about to show you how to clean it. I actually got it used on evilbay should have just bought a new one direct from bk. I kept the power section from john ks version of the blue tube. A bk butler tube driver fabbed board would be great handmade ones suck, really hard to get them right. Unfollow butler tube driver to stop getting updates on your ebay feed. Nov 2, 2016 bk butlerchandler tube driver current draw saved from. The bk butler tube drive circuit is based on a opamp gainstage driven into two triodestages of 12ax7 tube, using low plate voltage about 16volts there are lot of similar products, such as chandler tube driver, dean markley overlord classic tube overdrive and many others. A pair of adjustablebias mosfet gain stages take the place of the 12ax7 vacuum tube, otherwise the circuit is true to the original schematic. Chandler tube driver vs tube works 911 telecaster guitar. It might not be identical to the tube driver but its in the same sort of area. About the bk butler real tube overdrive guitar pedal. The core of the pedal is a handselected 12ax7 tube which gives you a lovely sort of fuzzdrive sound than can sound amazingly smooth and textured in the hands of masters like david gilmour who still features 2 of these within his. Overall in great shape considering the age of the pedal.
Bk butlers original hand made tube driver guitar pedal used by eric johnson, david gilmour, billy gibbons, joe satriani, kenny wayne shepherd, robbie krieger, and many other pros. Bk butler tube driver 910 schematicpot value telecaster. Check out these unsolicited customer videos on youtube. This is not a reissue of the original 1980s bkbchandler tube driver versions. Tubes typically will not have to be replaced for 23 years under normal conditions. Ive looked to compile the best and most reliable for this post.
1456 58 1312 1434 481 1249 17 527 546 952 480 65 894 1118 224 930 1053 352 1476 1361 319 668 758 446 795 1014 639 125 627 236 501 1413 124 1163 141 249 659 235 1280 665 155 100 873 1069 230