Now building Load-boxes with variable line out.

[polifemo]

Glad that your unit is fine! The problems with mine continue however...

It is impossible to get a clean sound out of the load box, unless your'e setting your amp to about the minimal volume that is needed for it to produce any sound at all.
This of course will result in a very thin and sterile tone, that is nothing "tube like" at all :-(

Here follows two clips that thru the guitar cab are TOTALLY clean, the second one being slightly louder:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6238219/Corvus Load Box.mp3

There´s no clipping going on anywhere in the signal chain, apart from the horrible distortion added by the Corvus Load Box.

I´ve tried all possible settings on the load box, but the sound remains the same no matter what I do.

When using a distorted tone the distortion/clipping added by the loadbox is not really audiable, but it is of course present within the tone.

I don´t know if the unit was ever intended to be able to produce clean sounds, but for me the warm clean sound of a tube amp is as important as the distorted/high gain one.

The unit WILL be usable for gainier stuff, but not for clean tones and if I would have been aware of this I never would have bought it.

Update: Added a couple of distorted chords - the second part being in "Boost mode", adding another gain stag - using the distortion channel of my amp:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6238219/DistChordsCorvus.mp3

Not really my "true tube amp tone" but that´s of course also due to impulses used etc.
For this type of sounds, the loadbox works better.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

That is definitely not normal to not get a clean signal. Have you messed with the saturation control? It sounds like the saturation is all the way up. Also by default, you should not be using the 26dB boost. With a clean tone the saturation should be fairly low and added if more grit is wanted. There is enough headroom on these things to cleanly clip an A/D converter with a full volume 120W amp when the saturation control is at minimum, so it should be clean if you want it clean.

Email me a gutshot and I will try to see if there is anything weird going on.

I´ve tried all possible settings on the load box, but the sound remains the same no matter what I do.

Only one component could cause the incoming signal to be hot enough to clip either the chips, saturation circuit or both.

Also be aware that you did order a 50W 8 ohm load, running a 16 ohm amp could cause some undesired effects.

 

[polifemo]

That is definitely not normal to not get a clean signal. Have you messed with the saturation control? It sounds like the saturation is all the way up. Also by default, you should not be using the 26dB boost. With a clean tone the saturation should be fairly low and added if more grit is wanted. There is enough headroom on these things to cleanly clip an A/D converter with a full volume 120W amp when the saturation control is at minimum, so it should be clean if you want it clean.

Email me a gutshot and I will try to see if there is anything weird going on.



Only one component could cause the incoming signal to be hot enough to clip either the chips, saturation circuit or both.

Also be aware that you did order a 50W 8 ohm load, running a 16 ohm amp could cause some undesired effects.

Saturation control is set to minimum and I´m running my amp* set to 8 ohm.
Trying to take a pic later, though the inside of the pedal isn´t "messed with" as the only thing I did in order to get the pedal working (instead of only delivering this loud hum) was tapping lightly on components and gently moving the wires with a chop stick (something that I´ve done a lot when trouble shooting my own builds) in order to find out where the problematic area was.

* The clips where made with my 15watt amp, that IRL sounds great, especially when you push the power amp section a bit.
I´m not at all into "Metal" and go for more traditional "Rock Tones", and I was expecting to be able to run this amp fairy loud with the load box getting this wonderful "pushed power tubes kind of sound" that is so great for clean, semi dirty and medium gain rock tones. Right now I have to run the amp set to about 0.5 on the volume...


Update: Gutshots sent to your e-mail.

Here´s what the unit looks like from the outside, for those that might be interested:

 

[polifemo]

Seems like a cold solder joint was causing the problem.
Did some resoldering yesterday, and the unit now delivers clean tones in the way I expected it to do.
Distorted tones of course also sound MUCH better, as the loadbox itself isn´t adding any clipping!

(Have removed the clips from the post above as they do not represent the sound of neither the Corvus Load Box nor my amp.)

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Pricing has changed a little bit they are a little bit cheaper now, taking a little bit of a hit on the international prices but I felt that it was more fair and kind of needed to due the fact that I started placing the loadboxes on Ebay and their shipping price options were limited so it had me rethinking and recalculating everything to something more correct and fair.

Also to anyone that has received their loadboxes want to submit demos to go to the audio samples of my pages feel free to send in the mp3s.

 

[existencedenied]

question: is the tonal difference between using a resistive or reactive load really noticeable or is it more subtle?

 

[TheWinterSnow]

I haven't made a reactive load, however the theory behind reactive loads is that they have more resistance at the speakers resonance and a high resistance shelf at the top end of the speaker. This means that the transformer from the amp will kick a little bit harder giving a slightly higher voltage to the speaker, meaning that there will be a little bit more low end around 70-80Hz and a bit more sparkle at from 5KHz onward. The impedance differences from the reactive load is still small so the overall effect will be subtle. Again though that is theoretical, as the actual difference is something I have not gotten to test. Actually I could test it with the loadbox as it can act as a DI when you are using a cabinet.

In about an hour or so I will try to upload a clip of that, I have a loadbox in my possession right now that will be sent off tomorrow so I can do a quick test.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

question: is the tonal difference between using a resistive or reactive load really noticeable or is it more subtle?

The test is right here

 

[polifemo]

Today my unit started to behave in a strange way...
The sound all of a sudden drops out making the loadbox totally unpredictable and useless for recording...

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Great news guys, prices for the loadboxes have been dropped to $150 US and Canada, $180 in the EU. This may not last long, as the margin of profit at this new price is almost non-existent. Get them at this price while you can.

 

[JeffTD]

Have all the issues with previous load boxes been resolved? The post literally right above your update is a guy saying his broke.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Have all the issues with previous load boxes been resolved? The post literally right above your update is a guy saying his broke.

Yes they have. As a matter of fact, I was going to say, in defense of the best customer service I can provide, if he was still having issues then when I had surplus profit I would send him a revised loadbox, free of charge. Because I make next to no profit on these with the cost of the newer versions well over $100, plus free shipping, I cannot say when that would be, but I will make it right.

 

[polifemo]

As I´m in europe, and as the customs in my country add up to about 40% (VAT, import tax + administrational fees) on a stated value (also on "gifts") I´ve decided not to try to have my unit fixed/replaced.

I payed some good money for something that stopped working early on, and while it did work, it didn't sound all that great IMHO. (The sound was flat and sterile, but maybe it works for high gain heavily compressed metal guitar...)

I´ll try to find a unit with a reactive load. For me a fixed resistor just doesn't feel/sound right.

Others will probably disagree.

At the moment I´m either using a tube preamp into impulses or the "good old amp sims" and I feel that I get decent tones this way.

The sounds I got using the load box was in no way superior.

Update: Decided to have a look inside the loadbox and found that some "bad connection" around the saturation knob was the problem area.
The unit now works, but I don´t know if it will be reliable or not.

Time will tell I suppose.

 

[elyptic]

Well I got my repaired unit back from him in November, this one didn't work either. It was essentially a hum box which would output a weak audio signal until it got warm, when it would start erratically dropping signal altogether. Was told to wait a few more weeks while he sold a few more units and could afford to give me a 'version 2' box, and stopped responding. Every month or so I would email him and remind him about the deal. He would give some excuse, or tell me to do some menial task like take a picture and send it back to eat up more time. Correspondence literally took this long, and for me it's time to put the issue to bed and give up.

I'm going to strip this thing down to its components and build myself one out of the existing schematics on the web for passive load boxes. I sympathize with the other people that bought this thing.