30 Pedals in 30 Days: MODKitsDIY The Persuader Deluxe

Marc Johnson | Nov 11, 2013 | Comments 0

Don’t forget to check out the video at the bottom of the page.

Learning is fun.

While many of you might be groaning right now, there are a few of you who are nodding their heads in agreement. And, to whoever agrees, you have the capability to become masters of tone. MODKitsDIY has built their company on this premise. They know that there are some of us who need to have control over every facet of our tone and the only way to do that is to learn how to build the shit that we want to use. For a special episode from 30 Pedals in 30 Days, TheToneKing.com had the opportunity to watch the guys at MODKitsDIY build the Persuader Deluxe from scratch. Then, we got to play it.

We’ve built our share of MODKitsDIY pedals before. And, in spite of having no idea what the hell we were doing, we managed to walk away with a couple of cool pedals. For this episode, we wanted to leave the pedal building to the professionals. You’ve seen us do it, now watch a guy who does this stuff for a living.

The Persuader Deluxe is the next step up from MODKitsDIY’s Persuader Tube Preamp Pedal.

The Persuader Deluxe utilizes a Darlington preamp to push cascaded triode vacuum tubes into distortion.

A Darlington Preamp is named after electrical engineer Sidney Darlington (July 18^th, 1906 – October 31, 1997) You see, Darlington came up with a transistor configuration known as the Darlington pair. This monster of a transistor is made up of two bipolar transistors. Unlike with your sister-in-law, bipolar is good when it comes to transistors. The first transistor amplifies the current that is your guitar signal, then, the second gives it a bigger kick in the ass.

DDDDDDouble DDDose!!!!

So the Darlington is like the Super Charger of transistors, driving your tubes harder by amplifying your signal.

While you do have a drive knob and a tone knob on the pedal, the biggest change in tone comes from the selection of 4 dual triode vacuum tubes that are included with The Persuader Deluxe.

JJ5751

A JJ5751 is basically modeled after the ubiquitous 12AX7 or ECC83, but has 30% less gain. So, there’s still quite a bit of bite to it, but it doesn’t saturate the same way as a 12AX7 would. It also takes better to rolling off of your tone knob than the 12AX7 would, keeping your guitar tone’s articulation without getting too muddy.

12AX7B China

12AX7B is the 9^th generation of 12AX7 tube technology. The 12AX7B’s have a bit less gain and noise than their cousins, but still retain that signature tone.

JJ 12AU7

This was TTK’s favorite! The 12AU7 is built in the same way as the 12AX7. The 12AX7 is the tube series that you will see in just about every modern rock or metal amp that’s come out within the last 20 years. If you’re looking to tear off some faces, this is your tube.

NOS USA made 12AT7

NOS stands for “New Old Stock.” Basically, these are tubes that were made back in the day and have sat in storage until now. With the 12AT7’s, you’re gonna get a richer midrange and more saturation than all the other tubes. Probably the coolest thing about this tube, though, is hearing that natural tube compression. That was something that we haven’t heard before.

MODkitsDIY pedals are a completely different game than your run ‘o’ mill pedals. Because it’s your hands that are building the pedal, you learn more about what makes up your tone. TheToneKing.com had a blast checking out The Persuader Deluxe for 30 Pedals in 30 Days. And, while checking it out, we had a chance to hear something we’ve never heard before, learning something along the way. And, as all of you know, knowledge is power.

For prices on The Persuader Deluxe or any Mod, check out: MODKitsDIY.com

Click here to enter into TheToneKing.com’s 30 Pedals in 30 Days Randall Give-Away!

Official RD1C Give-Away Page: https://thetoneking.com/gear-give-away/2013-2/randall-rd1c-give-away/

Randall Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/randallamplifiers

Product Page: http://www.modkitsdiy.com/pedal/persuader

Unboxing Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zRzLjjcT8M

Official Full-On Demo & Review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O8tTV-6r7w

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O8tTV-6r7w’]

Tiny URL for this post:

Filed Under: Featured • Pedals • 3P3D-2013

Tags: 30 Pedals in 30 Days • Marc Johnson • the persuader deluxe • thetoneking.com

About the Author: Marc published his first novel Becoming in 2010. It’s a kick-ass book with monsters and dreams and stuff, and you should buy it. Since then, he’s written thousands of articles for TheToneKing.com, many of which have been picked up for circulation by manufacturers and other news outlets. His next book, Drugs and Pancakes, should be available early 2014 if his alcoholic editor can find time to work on it in-between destroying his liver and screaming about punctuation. He graduated from Roosevelt University with honors, which means that he’s not as dumb as he looks. He’s been playing guitar for over 25 years, which is almost twice as long as most of his students have been alive.