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The concept:
We all know that good tube amps are capable of producing natural
tube overdrive. This can be generated in the pre-amp or the power
amp. While there are a huge range of amps on the market that use
the pre-amp to generate overdrive, there are far fewer designed
to produce power amplifier generated overdrive. There are even less
capable of incorporating that overdrive into a user-friendly, performance
oriented design. It is for this reason that the Kingsley Overdrive
series has been created..
Most channel switching amplifiers use pre-amp generated overdrive
and many incorporate effects loops and have the advantage of being
able to set the tone controls, gain and output levels of each channel
independently. While many great tones have been generated in this
fashion, to the satisfaction of many guitar players, other guitarists
have preffered to use the classic guitar amplifier designs of yesterday
to achieve tones that rely on a greater contribution of the power
amplifier to the sound. These classic designs have a disadvantage
however, in that to achieve overdrive in the power amplifier section,
the volume of the amplifier has to be turned up very high.While
this may not be a problem when playing with a loud band in a large
club, you are certainly limited in that the amount of overdrive
is dependant on the volume of the amplifer. Additionally, once the
amplifier is overdriving there will be no more available clean headroom
for loud clean tones. Finally, as a large part or most of the overdrive
is generated in the power amp, the use of effects such as reverb
and delay can become problematic. In an ideal situation, reverb
and delay should be patched in after the overdrive stages. In the
case of pre-amp distortion this is easily achieved with an effects
loop. However, as the power amp is the final stage (except for the
speaker) in a guitar amplifier it is not possible to place effects
after power amplifier generated overdrive.
There are ways to get around the draw backs of power amplifier
generated overdrive. One simple way is to use two seperate guitar
amplifiers, one for the clean tone, one for the overdrive tone and
to use an A/B box to switch between them. If we take a line out
signal from the overdrive amplifier and feed it into a third amplifier(or
possibly the B channel of the second amplifier), we now have a way
of adding to the volume of the overdrive tone with out changing
the overdrive amount. Re-amplifiying or "slaving" the
sound of one amplifier into another provides us with another opportunity:
run the line out signal into your time based effects such as delay,
then from the effects go into the third amplifier. Now we have a
way of placing effects after the power amplifier generated overdrive.
On the down side, the whole setup is becoming larger, more expensive
and more complicated. Also, the amplifier being used to provide
power stage overdrive is still going to be loud at all times. There
are ways of getting around this problem too. A dummy load can be
put in place of the speaker, so that the overdrive volume is now
only dependant on the volume setting on the slave amplifier. Of
course now we have to worry about the effect on the tone that the
dummy load has.
There are various ways of incorporating power amplifier overdrive
into live performance setups. Some guitar players use custom made
systems that are very ellaborate and costly. It would be nice to
have an amplifier capable of great sounding power amplifier overdrive
that was also designed at the outset to be easily incorporated into
a guitar players existing setup, was easy to setup and use and was
cost effective at the same time. The Kingsley Overdrive series
was created to fullfill these requirements.
Basic Features
The Overdrive series are all tube heads (also available in combo
form), point to point wired with top quality components and are
available in 1 and 2 channel models. The channels may be selected
with front panel switches or with the supplied footswitch. In their
simplest mode of operation, these amplifiers are great sounding
guitar amplifiers. Plug in a speaker cabinet and you are ready to
go.
In addition to the typical controls such as volume and tone there
is a slave output level on the front panel. On the rear panel there
is a slave output which can be sent to another guitar amplifier.
Turn up the Overdrive amplifier to achieve the sound you are looking
for and then set the slave level to give you the stage volume you
require through the second amplifier. There is a ground lift switch
on the back of the Overdrive amplifier, in case you encounter any
ground loops, which can be very common when connecting two pieces
of gear together. A phase switch is also provided in case the sound
coming out of one amplifier is out of phase with the other.
A switching system also comes as standard on the Overdrive series,
which acts as an A/B box between the Overdrive model and the second
amplifier. So when you want clean headroom, simply step on the switch
and your guitar signal is sent straight to your other amplifier.
In this way you can keep your original amplifier setup and its tone
will be intact, in addition to having an immediately accessible
power tube overdrive tone. If when switching to the Overdrive amplifier
you do not want to re-amplifiy this sound through your original
rig, simply turn down the slave output level.
So far we are looking at a head and cab in addition to your original
setup. Note that your guitar patch cable goes straight into the
Overdrive amplifier and another guitar patch cable runs from the
back of the Overdrive amplifier (slave out) into your normal amplifer.
Now suppose that you want to hear all of your sounds through one
speaker cabinet only. Simple - flick the speaker mute switch on
the back of the Overdrive head and a dummy load is engaged. When
run in this manner you have the possibility of a simple setup: a
loud clean amp (plus your usual pedals if desired) and the Overdrive
head sitting on top. The Overdrive head has now become a power tube
overdrive box and even sounds great at lower gain settings, where
it can be used to warm up a sterile clean tone, or to add some compression
and power tube warmth.
The Models.
Overdrive 1
A one channel, 15W design (switchable to 7W in triode mode)using
2 EL84s in push-pull configuration and a 5AR4 rectifier in the power
amplifier and 3 12ax7s in the pre-amplifier section. The power amplifier
section is cathode biased with no negative feedback. Front panel
controls include gain, volume, treble, middle, bass, tone, slave
level and slave tone, as well as bright, extra gain and EQ by-pass
switches. On the back panel are parrallel speaker outputs, slave
output, dry output, footswitch jack, triode/pentode switch, phase
switch and ground lift switch.
Overdrive 2
As with the Overdrive 1 this amplifier uses a push-pull output
section using 2 EL84s and a 5AR4 rectifier, except now it has 2
footswitchable channels. Channel one has gain, volume, tone and
slave level controls, while channel 2 has volume, tone and slave
level controls. Channel 2 provides clean tones at lower volumes
and power tube overdrive at higher levels. Channel 1 adds a gain
stage and gain control for additional pre-amp drive. Each channel
also has its own fat and bright switches for additional tone shaping.
The back panel features the same controls as the Overdrive 1. On
its own this provides the user with 2 footswitchable sounds and
when used with a slave amplifier we now have 3 footswitchable sounds:
clean and 2 levels of overdrive.
Sounds
Click on the following to hear some Overdrive Series sounds:
Overdrive 1 through Deluxe 50 mp3. 1
Overdrive 1 through Deluxe 50 mp3. 2
Overdrive 1 through Deluxe 50 mp3. 3
Overdrive 1 through Deluxe 50 mp3. 4
Overdrive 2 through Deluxe 50 mp3
Overdrive 1 not slaved
les paul blues rock mp3
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