Mike Brown Question

Amplifiers, effects, pickups, electronic components, wiring, etc.

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Allen Staron
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Mike Brown Question

Post by Allen Staron »

Hi Mike,

I'm a new player with a ZumSteel and a Nashville 400.

Can you expound a bit on what a preamp will do for my sound?

I'm looking at Lexicon MPX-1 for effects and possibly an TubeFex or TransTubeFex for a preamp. Do both of these have built-in tuners??


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Jim Smith
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Post by Jim Smith »

Allen, you're kind of in the same boat as me. The Nashville 400 has a preamp, as does my Stereo Steel. All three of the effects units you mentioned have preamps as well. If you decide to go that route, you'll have to disable the preamp in either the amp or the effects unit. Having one preamp feed another is not good. Both of the Peavey Fex's have tuners, the Lexicon does not.
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Al Marcus
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Post by Al Marcus »

Jim-
I have the Peavey Max 100 transtube, without the Fex.
Can I plug that into my Crate amp, or into the effects jack. My reverb is out. So I got it mainly for the Delay, and Reverb, although it seems to have a lot of other effects.
I never used any effects, except my Rotary sound. I have not tried this Peavey yet. Anything I should know about it? thanks..al
Mike Brown
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Post by Mike Brown »

The Peavey Transtube Fex, Tubefex and Profex II are all preamps with built in effects. Although it might not be desirable to use these in addition to your Nashville 400 as an effects processor, it definitely won't hurt any of the gear. When you connect one preamp(for example, a Nashville 400 PRE AMP OUT) to the input of any of the above "pre amp/effects units", and then connect the output of the Profex II, etc., back into the POWER AMP IN jack on the Nashville 400, you could possibly overdrive/clip the input of that device, which could result in premature distortion. However, there are quite a few steelers doing just what I have described with no problem.

Or, it could be connected to the PRE EQ PATCH on the front of the amp, but this insert point is really supplied to patch in your volume pedal. If you need more info than this on this procedure, call me toll free at 1-877-732-8391.

The bottom line is that the 3 aforementioned Peavey processors are designed to be used with a power amp such as the Peavey DPC 1400X or equivalent. Please note that on the back panel of your N'Ville 400, there are POWER AMP IN jacks which feed a preamp signal straight into the internal power amp and speaker. This is the input that should be used with an external Preamp/Processor.

Hope that this helps.