[JonnyBoy]

HA! Vintage, I remember the buzz around Denver about this guy in the earl 90's when I lived and played there. I have used his stuff off and on over the years and he knows what he is doing. Jerry, David Gilmore, Billy Gibbons, Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, and many others have used his gear and still do. I wrote him about getting a reverb unit and he wrote back:

Sorry, those were all sold out years ago and I don't have any of the parts to make one here.
I've thought of reviving some of the old gear. Maybe later this year. Thanks for the kind words too!
Best,
BK Butler

Looks like we're going to have the chance to buy the gear NEW for those that like his stuff. Its good news to me!

[SarnoMusicSolutions]

That's funny you mention BK and his stuff. I spent this morning messing with my BK Butler Tube Driver pedal. Really cool pedal if you keep the treble knob nice and low.

Brad

[JonnyBoy]

Brad! the power of ESP. The tube driver is cool. I would think you could make one of those yourself or have a bunch of SMS custom electronics not yet made privy to the public with your setup. Cool you dig his stuff too... that's a good validation of his quality if you tinker with it. told him to check this site out that some of us here dig his stuff, he didn't say anything about that, but maybe will have another sound pro to brain pick, and take some of the burden off you and Waldo and others out there I may not know are here.
PS:
he gave me a website I failed to publish:
PS:
Will announce any new gear on my website:

www.butleraudio.com
Just don't know at this time.
BK ----Jboy

[SarnoMusicSolutions]

The Tube Driver pedal is something I had dismissed for years. I never considered it legit because it (like his preamp and tube reverb unit) operates with an op-amp doing the high gain, and then a tube run at extremely low voltage (starved plate) for the tube clipping. But the reality is that the pedal sounds fantastic and generates real tube harmonics and clipping. David Gilmour has for years gotten tremendous use out of them both as a real overdrive tone as well as a clean, warming EQ/boost to accompany a Big Muff. If you use a Big Muff and follow it with a Tube Driver set clean and with the treble back around 11 o'clock, it transforms the Big Muff into something very special. One of the coolest distortion/fuzz tones ever.

Eric Johnson has also used one for a long time also as a fairly clean EQ/driver to his amp. Lots of others have had great luck with them. BK Butler appears to be one of those geniuses of audio design. He now is making audiophile gear and also high end car audio gear.

His classic Mosvalve power amp is still beheld as one of the best sounding transistor (MOSFET actually) power amps for musical instruments. Pedal steel players love them.

I have one of his Tube Driver pedals, the white one that we see Gilmour and Eric Johnson use, and I also have one of the smaller black Real Tube overdrive pedals with a 3-band EQ. These are great pedals, and can really be tweaked by trying different type tubes in them; 12AU7 for milder tones, 12AX7 for hot distortion and overdrive, etc.

He apparently holds or at least applied for patents surrounding his low voltage tube circuits. It's pretty cool stuff.


Brad

[HeadSpace]

Well, I guess it's official. You can now order the Tube Driver per his website. Limited run. $299.

[SarnoMusicSolutions]

Yup.

He's been back on those for a while now. The David Gilmour heads are gobbling them up. They say this is the best version of them yet, but many argue that there's really very little sonic variation from the many incarnations of the Tube Driver over the years. It's really such a brilliant and simple circuit. The only thing I can say about it is that the output is a pretty high-Z and it doesn't drive long cable runs very well, and it will totally fail if you use it in an OBEL circuit with a 25k pot. If the Tube Driver sees the 25k pot, it will completely obliterate the tone circuit that hangs passively at the end of the Tube Driver. There really should be a buffer after the TD. It literally has a Fender style tone-stack at the output and that tone stack critically depends on the next device having a high Z input, like 500k to 1Meg. Placing a Boss or Ibanez pedal with their active buffers (even when bypassed) are the simplest way to buffer the output of the TD.

B

[JonnyBoy]

These are great pedals, and can really be tweaked by trying different type tubes in them; 12AU7 for milder tones, 12AX7 for hot distortion and overdrive, etc.

That's what I liked most about mine, it was my introduction into understanding how different tubes sound and beginning my interest into gear head stuff. I wonder how his high end stereo amps sound in a Jerry application. He has that one where the tubes will never die, unless you break them physically. The amps have got good reviews, he never answered me on that question when I asked if it could have an application like Jerry's rig. I guess it could, but the special circuits of the Macs are probably make the macs more desirable for us. Plus, you can score a mac cheaper. But they look super cool. He's fickle about discontinuing his projects and not having any back stock, so if you want one i'd do it. I think they make the drivers as ordered and he personally inspects and tests it, then signs it. I like how he has that new bias control knob for the tube on this batch. That makes it an ultimate tweaker.

[RiverRat]

.

[SarnoMusicSolutions]

Right on! A Gilmour head.

I find it interesting that Gilmour and Garcia both went for clean, Fender-type preamps into high power and used pedals for the lead distortion tones. David would use the HiWatt's for the high power and probably a bit of that final push where Jerry used the Mac for the same purpose.

Two absolute guitar tone gods. Both single coil guys. Very different, yet both beautifully melodic and trippy.

B

[RiverRat]

.

[JonnyBoy]

The only thing I can say about it is that the output is a pretty high-Z and it doesn't drive long cable runs very well, and it will totally fail if you use it in an OBEL circuit with a 25k pot. If the Tube Driver sees the 25k pot, it will completely obliterate the tone circuit that hangs passively at the end of the Tube Driver.

Thanks for the heads up, I took your advice from a past post where you said it made little difference to use a 500 or 25k pot with the OBEL/buffer, but was considering the switch to try and get that little bit closer in tone. I wound up making my own MOSFET buffer from a DIY website I saw. I used a radio shack bread board, It seems to be similar to what Jerry's tone is.
I wound up using two low noiseTL072 IC's in series, and it works well, no noise.

The first Jfet one I made was noisy and I used cheap/bad values caps and resistors.I am not an expert at this, but can put point a to b, and its fun too. I am sure it is not a replica of Jerry's, but its a low z buffer that's noiseless and sounds better than my boss pedal's buffer. If you have any suggestions on opamps, let me know. I put a harness in to easily swap them out. I heard different ones give different tone, and you can mix and match. I going to try some different ones, but there seems like hundreds and I'm not quite sure which would apply.

Does having a low z input do anything to the tube driver or is it the value of the pot that causes the interference ? I guess I can put it on the mono guitar cable, run it for both Obel channels (after OBEL), and put a 3 ft cord from it to the preamp/amp so the run is short. I have been so focused on the fender preamp, mods, OBEL, Buffers, Qtron, Reverb, I have forgot about the cause and effect to keep this thing sounding good. Since I made my new rig its got little attention, i'm going to change that.

Oh, I heard the chandler versions are like the HAZ mutron 3 +, from what I here they're, close but not it. I'm glad you can figure that stuff out!! I learn some of the coolest, most useful stuff here.

[RiverRat]

.

[JonnyBoy]

Plus, everything was tube buffered in the Cornish All-tube pedalboard Gilmour used in '94!

What are the differences in tube, mosfet and Jfet buffering? What does the tube do in the circuit?