Y'all Got Some Explaining to Do: Benson Preamp

[MilwMark]

3.5 on a DR is getting pretty loud in my experience. I've played shows at that volume, with a restrained drummer.

How could the pedal not impart a flavor if it is based on a particular amp circuit?

Glad you are digging it.

 

[Wally]

There are a few Mesa V-Twins near that price range on Reverb.com. Since I have some amps with great all tube circuitry that do overdrive, such preamps don’t interest me; but I can see the attraction. I have been waiting for a V-Twin to fall into my hands....or a Matchless unit. I would be interested in hearing this Benson.

 

[theprofessor]

3.5 on a DR is getting pretty loud in my experience. I've played shows at that volume, with a restrained drummer.

How could the pedal not impart a flavor if it is based on a particular amp circuit?

Glad you are digging it.

Yes, 3.5 is not nothing. There's definitely some volume there, especially with my P-90 or humbucker guitars. It definitely imparts flavor, but it doesn't feel like a "flavor on top" as much as a "flavor from within," if that makes sense.

 

[Wally]

Ime and imho, 3.5 on a DR or any other Fender amps from that period is too loud only if the player is beating on the strings. Such playing technique is ‘too loud’ on an unamplified acoustic to my ears.

 

[Iago]

I just got a Benson Preamp today, and I am very impressed. So far, I've put it in front of a '76 Deluxe Reverb, and played it with a Les Paul with Seth Lovers and a Tele with a neck P-90. This thing is incredible. It really does sound like a cranked amp, and it responds like a cranked amp, and my DR volume is on 3.5.

I understand that this is the preamp section of the Benson Chimera, with the tubes replaced by FET's. But I am shocked at how much it behaves as advertised. By comparison, most pedals seem to impart a "flavor" to the sound of the amp, but they sound and feel just like that -- an added flavor. This doesn't.

Can y'all explain why and how this behaves so differently, beside the obvious fact that this is actually an amplifier's preamp section? That is, what is different about the circuitry here than in other overdrive stomp boxes or the like?

That's true to every JFET and Mosfet-transistor overdrive I've tried.

 

[MilwMark]

Ime and imho, 3.5 on a DR or any other Fender amps from that period is too loud only if the player is beating on the strings. Such playing technique is ‘too loud’ on an unamplified acoustic to my ears.

@Wally - I don't know about a particular number on the dial. But I sure have been working hard to turn up the amp and turn down my hands the last few months. I'm mostly self-taught and with some "habits". As one of my bands was playing ever more frequently, I started to notice that my hands were getting sore/tired/even locking up near the ends of sets.

I figured that couldn't be good, so I started working on turning up the amp and being very "gentle" with my hands. I like it much better. Notes ring clearer, sustain better. And of course my hands don't hurt. But woah boy! Once that amp is turned up, if I slip into old habits in the heat of a show, it gets LOUD brother.

 

[theprofessor]

@Wally - I don't know about a particular number on the dial. But I sure have been working hard to turn up the amp and turn down my hands the last few months. I'm mostly self-taught and with some "habits". As one of my bands was playing ever more frequently, I started to notice that my hands were getting sore/tired/even locking up near the ends of sets.

I figured that couldn't be good, so I started working on turning up the amp and being very "gentle" with my hands. I like it much better. Notes ring clearer, sustain better. And of course my hands don't hurt. But woah boy! Once that amp is turned up, if I slip into old habits in the heat of a show, it gets LOUD brother.

Amen to this. I started as an acoustic player, always trying to fill a room from the soundhole. Bluegrass and folk and so forth. I am always too hard on guitars, and I am really working to use a lighter touch, like MilwMark. The key is to keep the amp up or some kind of boost on to increase touch sensitivity. But then when you catch a string or whatever, WATCH OUT!

 

[mkdaws32]

That Benson sounds like my experience with my EXH Tortion. It’s a JFET preamp in a pedal with a built in boost and full TMB tone stack and a built in DI with speaker cabinet emulation. It is described by EXH as a tube amp with the valves replaced by JFETs. I’m not using it right now, but this thread is making me want to replace my modelling preamp with this on my board again It took me years of searching for the right “dirt box” to figure out I generally don’t like OD and distortion pedals. But this is a totally different thing. It sounds and feels like a real amp with all of the touch sensitivity and breakup qualities. And the built in boost is really more of a second channel with its own gain and level controls. I don’t know if it emulates a particular amp circuit, but it sounds very Marshally to me. It takes other boosts and pedals really well upfront and I ran it directly into the power amp of a SS combo with a 12” Eminence Private Jack. Yeah... I’m definitely going to switch up my board again and dust this off

I tried the Tech 21 and Joyo “amp” pedals and was not nearly as impressed - they sounded like an amp running into another amp with a lot of colouring I didn’t care for, whereas the Tortion just feels like it’s part of my amp.

 

[theprofessor]

It took me years of searching for the right “dirt box” to figure out I generally don’t like OD and distortion pedals. But this is a totally different thing. It sounds and feels like a real amp with all of the touch sensitivity and breakup qualities.

This is what I'm trying to say. Except that I do still like some dirt pedals, though I understand better what they are and are not, in relation to something like this.

 

[mkdaws32]

@theprofessor - yeah - the key word is “generally”. I can get along with a RAT pedal in the right context (goosing a cranked tube amp) and I do almost always have some type of cleanish boost in front of whichever preamp I’m using so I can kick up the gain when I need to. It just took me a while to realize that I don’t like to get all of my distortion from traditional dirt boxes - too boxy and compressed for me. I would categorize these JFET pedals more as legitimate pre amps.

 

[Axis29]

I like a bit of preamp to my signal. I use my Catalinbread Topanga to goose the signal right before the amp. But, sometimes I am foregoing reverb, and might stick my DOD 250 in instead. I find they both give me that extra little juice, without killing my tone. Interestingly, they don't really d anything for each other when I stack them.

But, I can honestly do a gig with one of my amps and the Topanga. If I need a little more drive, or push, I crank up the output of the pedal and it pushes the fornt end nicely.

It sounds like the Benson Preamp does this very nicely as well! Congrats on the new piece, Prof!

 

[Post-HK]

I like a bit of preamp to my signal. I use my Catalinbread Topanga to goose the signal right before the amp. But, sometimes I am foregoing reverb, and might stick my DOD 250 in instead. I find they both give me that extra little juice, without killing my tone.

Yup, that’s how I’d use my DOD 250 too - the pedal’s gain (at least set low) is more like adding grit and overdrive responsiveness than any particular flavor.

Glad the OP has found something similar in the Benson pedal.

 

[57fenderstrat]

Another thing about tweed breakup character is that there is a gradual onset of distortion characteristics that is perceived by the ear (most ears, at least) to be a not-so-clean clean rather than a breakup sound. With single-coil pickups, at least, takes the tweeds I've heard a good long while on the dial to get to full-on distortion that is recognized as something more than a frumpy clean.

That is so darn true, a really good discription and that’s why I love my tweed deluxe. That frumpy clean is my kind of “crunch” and what other people call “crunch” is what I normally would call distortion. With a strat it indeed needs to almost be cranked to get past the “clean with hair” sounds I love so much.

Not to interject on the pedal subject but that description was exactly what I liked so much but couldn’t put my finger on !

 

[Informal]

What is the consensus as far as the best demo for this pedal?

Because every one I've heard, I can simulate pretty close with the half dozen dirt pedals I have.

Not trying to pick a fight, keep in mind I'm completely deaf in one ear..And the one that works, obviously can't hear the difference.

 

[Wally]

Amen to this. I started as an acoustic player, always trying to fill a room from the soundhole. Bluegrass and folk and so forth. I am always too hard on guitars, and I am really working to use a lighter touch, like MilwMark. The key is to keep the amp up or some kind of boost on to increase touch sensitivity. But then when you catch a string or whatever, WATCH OUT!

quick aside on the acoustic.... I have shown hard hitters how there is a limit on an acoustic guitar as to how loud it will get. At some point, an acoustic runs out of ability to create more volume...in a way it is almost as if it compresses. It can be shown that a certain lighter hit will create more volume than an extremely hard hit. This may have to do with the fact that with a guitar that plays in tune, harmonic content is created when notes are in harmony. Extremely hard hits take notes sharp, the harmony is lost, and that harmonic content that creates bigger and richer sounds is lost. fwiw, this applies to amplified guitars, too...but some people fail to realize it because...well...you can turn the amp up. It will be louder....but the loss of harmony and musical harmonic overtone content is lost just as on an unamplified instrument.

 

[theprofessor]

What is the consensus as far as the best demo for this pedal?

Because every one I've heard, I can simulate pretty close with the half dozen dirt pedals I have.

Not trying to pick a fight, keep in mind I'm completely deaf in one ear..And the one that works, obviously can't hear the difference.

I'm not sure that there is a consensus on the best demo, but I've always appreciated the ones on That Pedal Show. Here is Andy Martin from Reverb visiting their show and demoing the Benson Preamp. Go to 38:00-39:42 on this one. I think it's helpful. But once again, it's not only the tonality but the responsiveness and touch-sensitivity under the fingers that I find to be so remarkable. And that's impossible to tell from a demo. Here are two demos, anyway:



And here they are again, this time demoing it themselves, more as an "always on" pedal than as an overdrive/distortion. I like this demo a bit better. Go to 31:33 and following. The evaluation at 35:10 is what I'm hearing in the room and through my amp.

 

[FenderLover]

It sounds pretty good. The schematic really reminds me of some Runoff Groove designs. Building a tone over a couple of stages with discrete components is a better game plan that producing a load of gain in one stage like so many op amp designs. Building a tone over a couple of stages is what an amplifier does, so there you go.

Still, I wonder why the Benson is so freaking big. Perhaps they didn't want it to seem like another common OD stomp box? And seeing it as a simple DIY project, the $249 asking price is a bit steep too, but cost and price are two different things.

 

[1952stuff]

I've had one for a few months myself and I also love it. I've been using it as my foundation sound and stack all other drives or fuzzes on top of it and it does a great job. It replaced the Greer Lightspeed that had been on my board for over 3 years.

I really like my LightSpeed and Harmonic Overdrive and Origin Magma57 because I like clean tone. I only use a transparent OD for some blues. Even the Greer HO pedal is usually too much. I got the Benson PA because of all the rave reviews and thought it could do something good. I'm replying to this as you said it replaced your lightspeed. I have to be missing something. All I hear is the massive inarticulate roaring that Neil Young used 50 years ago. There is no mild gain. With gain all the way counterclockwise you still get a ton of distortion. I'm returning it tomorrow. By far the worst pedal I ever used but everyone loves it. I guess nobody plays clean anymore, which is the surest basic standard of excellent musicianship i know of.

 

[paulblackford]

It looks like Jed's Peds offers a DIY kit for less than $60. I may try to build one someday.

https://www.jedspeds.co.uk/product-page/botox-bombshell?currency=USD