Venus X - NAMM 2023 Sushi Box Sneak Peak

[vigilante398]

Well this is it, this is what I've been working on for the last two years, and it's finally done. I've spent more money on prototype PCBs for this project than I did on my first car (not an exaggeration). But after all the time and money, I have something really cool, and I'm excited to share it with people.

There's a bit of a story behind it, but long story short it's a bass preamp I designed for a big name industry bassist so he could have "his sound" regardless of where he played and what backline was provided.

• Two channel tube preamp (clean and "boost")
• dry passthrough (in case their is an amp to run through)
• 4-band active EQ
• IR-based cabsim (but not advertised as IR because it's hard-coded and not user-configurable)
• D.I. XLR output with Lightning Boy Audio transformer

I'm excited to announce it more formally at NAMM this year, and hopefully demos will come shortly thereafter.

 

[szukalski]

That's delicious.

 

[iamjackslackof]

Suuuuper cool! Is a guitar version in the works as well! I'm curious how the IR/cabsim piece works. I assume there's some digital components in there that have the IR in memory, and they process the input signal?

 

[JamieJ]

This is insane! Amazing work @vigilante398
I’m looking forward to hearing it. Hopefully you can share a sound clip/video soon!

 

[vigilante398]

Suuuuper cool! Is a guitar version in the works as well! I'm curious how the IR/cabsim piece works. I assume there's some digital components in there that have the IR in memory, and they process the input signal?

I don't plan on doing a guitar version specifically of this preamp since it was really designed from step 1 to be a bass preamp. I will eventually be doing something similar for guitar, but it will likely be a scratch design for the preamp, I'll just use the same parts for the IR section.

The IR works similarly to how FV-1 does; there is a main DSP chip that does all the real processing, and there is a custom algorithm stored in an EEPROM that tells the DSP what to do. The chip I'm using is a bit more powerful than an FV-1 and can work a lot faster (it uses a 12.88MHz clock instead of a 32.768kHz clock), but the general premise is the same.

 

[Mentaltossflycoon]

 

[dawson]

What he said

Freakin' 'WOW' dude.
I want to hear it.

 

[zgrav]

Best of luck with the roll-out! That is a really nice pedal. Are you planning to build them all yourself? Or do you have contingency plans for larger output if/when the demand hits?

 

[vigilante398]

Best of luck with the roll-out! That is a really nice pedal. Are you planning to build them all yourself? Or do you have contingency plans for larger output if/when the demand hits?

The plan is to build them all myself. Of the fabrication houses I've talked to so far they either haven't known what to do with my weird tube setup or have quoted an absurdly high price. The PCBs are all pick-and-placed at the board house, and the enclosures are all milled-coated-printed at Tayda, so it all comes down to assembly, and I design things to make them as easy and consistent to assemble as possible. I haven't timed myself putting one of these together, but over my Christmas/New Year's holiday when I didn't have to work at my day job I assembled about 100 pedals in just over a week. This is more complicated than those were, but I'm still confident I can handle this. I won't kid myself into thinking I'm going to sell thousands of these; I have a niche and I do pretty well, but I'm not a household name that everyone is going to swarm to.

 

[Silver Blues]

Another banger dude, this looks awesome. The graphics are very cool. I'm sure you'll sell more of these than you think!

 

[Gordo]

Really nicely done! Congrats and hope it sells really well.

 

[music6000]

That looks Wicked!!!.
Is that in a the same Hammond 1590Q enclosure I requested for my Black Eye build?

 

[vigilante398]

That looks Wicked!!!.
Is that in a the same Hammond 1590Q enclosure I requested for my Black Eye build?

Nope, this is a 1590XX, it's what I typically use for my two-channel builds. Nice and roomy to accommodate the tubes and a pair of footswitches while still allowing me top jacks.

 

[Feral Feline]

TOP CHICLETTE MASSAGE!

Multiple O...



This is the first non-DIY thing I've truly been enamoured with since taking up pedal-building.


Are these all spoken for? Have you got a TB-waitlist going?




GROOVY BASS-LOVE BAYBEE!

 

[vigilante398]

TOP CHICLETTE MASSAGE!

Multiple O...



This is the first non-DIY thing I've truly been enamoured with since taking up pedal-building.


Are these all spoken for? Have you got a TB-waitlist going?




GROOVY BASS-LOVE BAYBEE!

Thanks man They are certainly not all spoken for, I plan to make these a regular offering that I continue to have available until everybody that wants one has one. I'm trying to avoid waitlists, but I'm certainly stirring up interest on TB. I'm planning to have them available for purchase around mid-May as I'll be out of town for my day job shortly after I get back from NAMM and will need some solid time at the workbench to get a bunch of units built up.

 

[vigilante398]

Finally had the artist I'm working with on this fly out to finish the last few tweaks to the tone and get this finished up, so we shot a couple teaser videos. Here's the first:

 

[vigilante398]

And here's the Venus X dirt channel running into a Genz-Benz Streamliner 900 and an Eden D610XST cab.

 

[jimilee]

Nice!

 

[vigilante398]

I have to necro-bump this 5 months later because I finally got the first formal review of the Venus X and I'm SO EXCITED!!!!

 

[music6000]

Pretty impressive Bass playing on a equally impressive stompbox!