Hot Chili Tubester Guitar World Review

by Tom Gogola

Fuzz purists and other outcasts from the Electronica age will surely take delight in the Tubester, which boasts loud and proud its pedigree of “authentic New Mexico tube distortion.” Until now, I was unaware that there is, in fact, an “authentic” New Mexico tone, but I'll take pedal designer Don McCandless's word for it. McCandless, archguru of the Hot Chili Tube Company, designed his pedal out of frustration with what he describes as the “crappy” quality of so many tube and transistor pedals on the market. And he backs his word with serious muscle: the Tubester is one tank of a pedal, weighing in at around five pounds and featuring an aircraft-quality 16-gauge steel body and a zinc-plated case. More importantly, it contains an 12AX7A tube preamp with a voltage knob to control the amount of juice that the pedal receives.

The Tubester is incredibly versatile for a tube distortion unit. With a little bit of patience and pluck, it will bring forth just about any “style” under the sun. Tested with a relentless pile of guitars ranging from cheap pawnshop prizes to pristine custom-built jobs, the Tubester was able to make sonic sense out of even the most recalcitrant and ungodly of instruments. And, whether your amp tone of choice runs Fender or Marshall, the pedal has an uncanny ability to morph itself to whatever its dynamic conditions demand. For instance, a Stevie Ray tone was just a few tweaks of the gain and voltage knob away from classic Jimmy Page bluster—and I was plugged into a freaking Pignose at the time!

The Tubester offers gain, level, voltage control, tone control and an output B, which allows you to run the pedal to two amps simultaneously and is a pretty nifty afterthought. Mind you, this is not a stereo jack, nor is it a separate gain station; your amps will be cranking interdependently, with the Tubester controlling the overall gain and output level for both of them. Our review pedal was the original DS-1 model; there's also a CL-1, which offers a Clean/Overdrive Preamp feature, and the super-fat Bass Tubester, which will probably blow your bowels out your backside if you aren't careful. The pedals all feature a simulated bypass switch (true bypass is a $50 option), a 12' foot removable power chord, an LED switching indicator (green), chicken beak- style knobs, hand-constructed point-to-point wiring and a nasty, violent little 12AX7 tube. The voltage control for the amp changes the plate voltage directly at the tube—an absolute necessity when you're talking about driving a tube to its maximum creamy crunch.

The Tubester can also be further modified with the following options: additional outputs that can connect a total of six (!!!!!!) amps to the pedal ($15 each) and LaJoie pure-silver wire ($50)—a solid-core wire that conducts more juice with low capacitance for more highs and lows without any signal loss. Finally, the Tubester techs will install a recording-style jack for direct input into a mixing board ($15). The Bottom Line New Mexico is a bizarre land of white hot deserts, forested plateaus, soaring, snowcapped mountains, prickly cacti, drunk Republicans with guns, nuclear testing history, bizarre old Indian reservations and don't forget Roswell, where strange green men landed in the Forties and spooked the bejesus out of everyone. At the turn of a knob, the Hot Chili Tubester conjures up sounds reminiscent of any of those phenomenon and more, providing considerable versatility, grace and punch for a tube distortion stomp box. Book me a ticket to New Mexico, honey!

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