Tone King Imperial Preamp pedal

[Jarick]

Yes, indeed. I've been mucking about with it for about 3 hours this morning... I'm just not 'getting it' or my current use case just isn't working. I don't understand to be sure.

I mean, if headphones are so bad, is everybody's sound quality crap when they're in the studio tracking? What about IEM's? They sound crap too? I dunno.. I guess I don't know what I don't know.

A couple thoughts:

Are you running the preamp into your interface, then plugging headphones into the interface to monitor? If so, have you tried plugging headphones into the preamp directly?

Can you double check if the IR is active on the preamp pedal? On my IR-X I can't see if the IR is active or not so sometimes I toggle this on and off to be sure, especially on the clean channel.

If the IR is active, and if the headphone output on the unit is the same as running to the interface, I'd say the pedal is not for you. There's a lot of gear that sounds good on demos but not in practice.

 

[Richard_G]

I've started putting together a small pedalboard (PT Metro 20) with the Tone King preamp pedal as the centrepiece. Work in progress, but this may turn out more than OK!

Tonal recall and M300 is in the FX loop of the Tone King, the rest in front.

(Some pedals were taken from my main pedalboard, so if the new small(er) board ends up this way I will have to revisit that one as well.)

 

[Someoldqueenorother]

I've started putting together a small pedalboard (PT Metro 20) with the Tone King preamp pedal as the centrepiece. Work in progress, but this may turn out more than OK!

View attachment 42115

Tonal recall and M300 is in the FX loop of the Tone King, the rest in front.

(Some pedals were taken from my main pedalboard, so if the new small(er) board ends up this way I will have to revisit that one as well.)

Is the effects loop post-channels and pre-reverb/trem/cabs?

 

[Richard_G]

Yes. This is (as far as I know) the pedal’s internal wiring diagram:

IN -> TO AMP IN -> FR AMP SEND -> SEND -> RET -> REV - > TREM -> TO AMP RETURN -> IR -> USB AUX IN -> XLR -> HP

 

[Someoldqueenorother]

Yes. This is (as far as I know) the pedal’s internal wiring diagram:

IN -> TO AMP IN -> FR AMP RET -> SEND -> RET - > REV - > TREM -> TO AMP RETURN- > IR - > USB AUX IN - > XLR -> HP

My dream of dropping an HXFX into that loop grows that much more solid. Thank you :)

 

[Stratzrus]

I've started putting together a small pedalboard (PT Metro 20) with the Tone King preamp pedal as the centrepiece. Work in progress, but this may turn out more than OK!

View attachment 42115

Tonal recall and M300 is in the FX loop of the Tone King, the rest in front.

(Some pedals were taken from my main pedalboard, so if the new small(er) board ends up this way I will have to revisit that one as well.)

Very nice!

 

[Whizzinby]

I've started putting together a small pedalboard (PT Metro 20) with the Tone King preamp pedal as the centrepiece. Work in progress, but this may turn out more than OK!

View attachment 42115

Damn, what a board. We need clips!!!

 

[rocknrollshakeup]

Just got one! Will be using it for DI home recording in an untreated room and traveling so I gotta rely on headphones at this point, but so far I'm very impressed, gorgeous tones!

I tried it using an RME Babyface FS Pro, a Tele with CS 51 Nocaster pickups, and Sennheiser HD6XX open back headphones.

Both channels sound super good!
I set up the Rhythm Channel to give me a slight break up/EOB tone that is pretty damn gorgeous. It could do a monster fat clean tone too. Driving the volume (and attenuating) gives all sorts of great vintage tweedy gain tones.

The surprise revelation for me though is the Lead Channel! Dialed in properly it has Vintage Marshall tones galore, to my ears! Mid Bite 3 o'clock (higher for more gain), Tone 3 o'clock, Volume at 9 o'clock -ish. I like the Attenuation off (fully CW), to on by about 2 notches.
Set like that and rolling back the guitar volume was giving me pretty much all I need from light break up to full JTM-ish glory. I could probably live on the Lead Channel like that.


Questions/thoughts:

Yes, the Editor definitely needs a Low Cut/HPF! I set a Low cut from 220 hz in my BabyFace EQ, and I still kept the Bass knob at O or just slightly on.

The HF Comp is activated when set to the Right correct? I seem to like it ON even when not Attenuating.

The Low Pass Filter Progressively cuts Highs when set toward the LEFT correct? What Frequency points correspond to the different settings, does anyone know?

The included IR's sound really good, I especially like that Class A Blue 2x12! But I am interested in checking out IR's with less bottom end. People are mentioning York IR's..I'll have to check those out. But I want to keep the great sound of the included IR's...can this be done? But EQ is my friend and ultimately I could just EQ to exactly what I need too. But just wondering.

I'm planning on connecting it up to my IRX using the amp in/etc. routing. When going DI, can I just connect the TK to my interface and have the IRX tones routed through? Or do I also need to run the IRX balanced out to my interace?

Also if I run my H9 through the TK stereo effects loop, will the IRX benefit from the TK Loop effects?

 

[gearJunkie]

Also if I run my H9 through the TK stereo effects loop, will the IRX benefit from the TK Loop effects?

Yes.

 

[gearJunkie]

When going DI, can I just connect the TK to my interface and have the IRX tones routed through?

Yes

 

[synthpenguin]

I do play with headphones sometimes, so I'm sort of curious how the headphone out sounds and "feels" vs like the Iridium with the Room turned up or the Helix with a stereo Dynamic Ambience block at the end of the chain.

I assumed it was just a basic headphone out and I'd have to turn the reverb up for it to sound okay, but Henning says 14 mins into his video (below) that the headphone output has "a little bit of room applied so it's more fun to play"... but I can't find any mention of this on the website or in the manual. Can anyone confirm if that's true?

Most people I've seen mentioning headphones seem to be running out of the main outs and into an interface first, which I guess would not have that extra effect applied if it is true.

 

[Richard_G]

There is no extra room effect on the headphones out (other than if you use the reverb or external fx).

 

[synthpenguin]

There is no extra room effect on the headphones out (other than if you use the reverb or external fx).

Thanks!

 

[Sascha Franck]

I've started putting together a small pedalboard (PT Metro 20) with the Tone King preamp pedal as the centrepiece. Work in progress, but this may turn out more than OK!

View attachment 42400

Tonal recall and M300 is in the FX loop of the Tone King, the rest in front.

(Some pedals were taken from my main pedalboard, so if the new small(er) board ends up this way I will have to revisit that one as well.)

Neat board, but the pedals to the right seem difficult to switch (not because they're rotated but because they're so close to each other).

 

[Richard_G]

Neat board, but the pedals to the right seem difficult to switch (not because they're rotated but because they're so close to each other).

I have actually slightly rearranged the board after that photo, see new layout here:

Signal chain:
Cali76 -> Sex Drive -> Turbo tuner -> Timmy -> Tumnus Ge Deluxe -> RevivalDrive Hot Rod Custom -> Tone King Imperial w/Tonal Recall and MXR M300 in the FX loop.

The entire board is powered by a Cioks DC-7 (with the Imperial running at 12V [using two outlets to handle the current draw], the Cali76 at 18V and the rest at 9V).


But yes, it’s quite tight putting all of these on such a small board…

 

[gearJunkie]

I've been experimenting with a new board using the TK pre as its centerpiece, and I have confirmed that it works flawlessly when powered by a Cioks DC7 using 2 9V (600 ma) ports and a parallel (current doubler) cable.

 

[Stratzrus]

I spent some time today using my TK Imperial preamp with two V3 Archangel Fender FR-10s and was blown away at how good it sounds.

Cleans and overdrive tones were excellent as were the Reverb and Tremolo effects.

I couldn't be happier with it. What a wonderful piece of gear.

 

[CBHScott]

I spent some time today using my TK Imperial preamp with two V3 Archangel Fender FR-10s and was blown away at how good it sounds.

Cleans and overdrive tones were excellent as were the Reverb and Tremolo effects.

I couldn't be happier with it. What a wonderful piece of gear.

I love mine - it’s all I have been playing through for the last week.

I got the lead channel dialed in, and I haven’t even messed with pedals yet.

 

[TSJMajesty]

I mean, does everyones signal sound like crap to them when they're monitoring their signal in the studio through headphones?

No. I'm not using this pedal, but I can assure you, my tones sound great using headphones. At least one person here doesn't agree with "Headphones suck" as a blanket statement.

 

[the swede]

I mean, if headphones are so bad, is everybody's sound quality crap when they're in the studio tracking?

No. I’ve used my HD600 for several years now and the only negative aspect about them is they are super open, it’s a balancing act trying to have enough volume to drown out the acoustic sound from my guitar while trying not to damage my hearing with to much volume. But I stick to them because they are awesome for guitar and pretty much everything. To me they translate very well. I rather trust them than trust affordable studio monitors in an untreated room.

So as @TSJMajesty said… headphones doesn’t suck, but not all headphones are up to the task. They need to be quite flat, transparent and preferably open or semi open. Closed isolation headphones can be problematic unless they’re really well made. I wouldn’t recommend closed headphones for guitar playing. They’re good for critical listening and when you don’t want bleed from headphones to mics, or when you don’t want to disturb people.

Name dropping an example: DT770 pro. While they’re very good and popular, rightfully so. They often make you dial in dull guitar tones because they have a strong high/treble peak. Just an example… what can happen. So DT770 Pro’s are good, but don’t trust them for fine tuning a guitar sound.