Valve overdrive pedal??

[MSR]

Hi new to the forum

Sorry i'm in one of those creative moods again, Does anyone make a Valve overdrive pedal?
Or how hard would it be to make one? Would it be possible to rip out a valve preamp from a valve amp or buy one, connect up to a power supply, switch and jacks, box it up and done?

thanks for any input
Mike

[sir_modulus]

no, as it wouldn't work as most tubes need a B+ voltage of over 120 V. You can starve plate them, but it needs special circuitry. Read here and do not attempt the following until you have a good understanding of tubes and how they work tube effects.

[MSR]

Thanks
So do you think it'll be better if i got a solid state preamp that'll run off a 9V battery, or just leave it well alone?
Well i'm tryin to make a overdrive stompbox that has a 10band EQ. I can make the EQ easy enough, its just sorting a decent overdrive unit

[sir_modulus]

For a preamp with EQ (small) use practice man
addmore bands if you wish. for distortion, try fuzzcentral or tonepad. Both have good distortion circuits.

[MSR]

I'm going to be using a premade 10band EQ circuit board. and if i can, i'll try to get hold of a premade overdrive circuit board. I have to get them premade as i'm not to handy with a soldering iron

[chumpito]

I'm not understanding all this starved tubes sound bad stuff.  From what I understand and if you look at Kevin O'Connor's Power Scaling Kits if you lower the voltage of B+ it scales everything thing down.  So you have to drive it with much less voltage to get the same sound and of course it will output less voltage.
It's like using a Variac with a Marshall except you keep the heater grids at the correct voltage.

I might be the only one, but I think you can take a normal guitar pre and build it stompbox style with lower voltage if you don't slam it's input.