The new two-footswitch pedal splits a new-old-stock triode-pentode valve into a clean preamp stage and a mid-gain overdrive.
Hagerman Amplification has dug up a vintage TV tube for its latest overdrive, and the Vulture Skull puts both halves of that tube to work as separate stages in a two-footswitch pedal.
Released just in time for Halloween, the Vulture Skull ships with a new-old-stock 6U8A or equivalent, a valve originally made for television sets that combines a triode and a pentode in a single glass envelope. Hagerman uses the triode as a clean gain stage and the pentode as a clipping stage, and the pedal also accepts a handful of related types, including the 6EA8, 6AN8A, 6LN8, 6JW8, 6KD8 and 6GH8A, which helps given how scarce these tubes have become. It’s also why Hagerman bills it as “not your father’s 12AX7 overdrive pedal”.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
The two footswitches stack rather than acting as independent channels. Engaging the pedal brings in the triode stage on its own, which Hagerman suggests using as a clean preamp for adding harmonic warmth or taking the sterile edge off a digital rig. Hitting Boost lifts the Voice and Drive controls to ground and pushes the pentode into saturation, giving a mid-gain overdrive that Hagerman says has plenty of sag and bloom.
Four controls handle the rest. Voice and Drive are placed between the two stages, with Voice acting as a tilt-style tone control ahead of the clipping tube, while Tone and Level come after it. Because Boost takes Voice and Drive largely out of play, designer Jim Hagerman says Drive mainly matters for clean, warm sounds, adding, “Personally I always leave it cranked.” Voice, meanwhile, is best turned up for a tighter overdrive.
Guitar Pedal X’s Stefan Karlsson, who has already had one on his board, describes it as a richly textured mid-gain drive that’s slightly more potent than the tube side of his Keeley Tube Drive, though it stops short of high-gain territory.
A 66V tube supply runs from a standard 9V centre-negative adaptor drawing 380mA, the pedal is true bypass and it measures roughly 120 x 100 x 80 mm with the tube fitted.
For more information, head here
