CRATE TDP SOLID STATE GUITAR AMPLIFIER - RACK MOUNT - VINTAGE - USA -

MADE BY SLM ELECTRONICS OF St LOUIS, MISSOURI. USA

IDEAL FOR JUST PLUGGING YOUR HEADPHONES INTO AND NOODLING AWAY WITHOUT NEEDING A CUMBERSOME AMPLIFIER.

HERE'S SOME INFO GLEANED FROM OUT THERE. THIS WAS WRITTEN BY ANOTHER SELLER.

CRATE T D P "Tube Driven preamp" rack mount Two channel

Made in USA

Very Rare

CRATE TDP GUITAR PREAMP

The designers of the TDP preamp have obviously adopted the 'If you can't beat them, join them' philosophy and, though there is a lot of solid-state circuitry under the lid, the important overdrive stage is based round a real, glowing 12AX7 (ECC83) valve.

Housed in a cream/grey 1U package that wouldn't look out of place alongside your Atari or Mac computer, the Crate TDP follows the conventional clean channel/dirty channel approach, with silent switching between the two channels. This may either be accomplished by means of a front panel button, or an optional footswitch which overrides the button when plugged in. There is a single input jack on the front panel, plus a headphone outlet for rehearsal, while the rear panel has jacks for the main line output, an effects loop and the remote footswitch. The line output may either be used direct or switched through the internal speaker simulator, while the effects loop can be switched to work at either line or instrument level. This is useful if you need to use pedal effects, as these nearly all work at instrument level, while standalone effects units tend to operate at studio line level. Mains is supplied via a standard IEC mains lead.

The Channels

On the left is the Lead channel, which has a fairly straightforward control layout. The degree of overdrive is set using the Drive control, while the adjacent Level control sets the channel level relative to the clean channel. A three-band equalisation system is employed, and the usual mid control has been replaced by something called Focus, which is rather more complex.

The bass control, which is labelled Sub, offers up to 12dB boost at 100Hz, while Lead (presence) can deliver up to 12dB of boost at 3kHz. Focus, on the other hand, is less easy to pin down. In the anti-clockwise position, it brings up the mid range in much the same way as a traditional mic control, but as you turn the control clockwise, the mid range seems to get 'phased' out, which produces a characteristic heavy metal tone, somewhat reminiscent of a miked Marshall. By adjusting the Drive control, the sound can be varied from a subtle blues distortion to a searing, sustaining metal crunch with lots of whining harmonics.

The Rhythm or clean channel is also fitted with Drive and Level controls, allowing a range of rhythm sounds to be set up, from clinically clean in character, via a mildly jagged edge, through to downright raunchy. This time the tone controls are labelled Low, Mid and High, offering 10dB boost at 100Hz, 18dB boost at 500Hz and 15dB boost at 7kHz. There's also a Bright button, which brings in another 5dB of boost at 7kHz, and a Master level control that affects both channels.

The Sound

Checked out with both single coil (Strat) and humbucking pickups, the unit certainly delivered a wide range of classic guitar tones. Plugging it into even a mediocre amplifier and speaker setup produces an exciting sound that is easy to record. The Focus control is probably the most flexible part of the overdrive sound, and really does turn the sound inside out, making it either thick and biting at one extreme or punchy and crunchy at the other. There is plenty of overdrive available, so that most contemporary styles can be explored without recourse to overdrive pedals, and there is a nice harmonic squeal to the tone which increases the illusion of power, even at low listening levels. Particularly impressive was the responsiveness of the circuitry to picking pressure, especially at low overdrive settings, where you can get the overdriving sustain needed simply by 'digging in' to certain notes. This is one area where valve amplifiers inevitably score over solid-state designs, but the Crate hybrid manages it with no trouble. However, it would have made more sense to provide a separate effects loop for each channel rather than a single one.

The clean channel had plenty of tonal flexibility, though why the Bright button operates at the same frequency as the High control is a little puzzling. The overdrive can be used here to recreate an authentic valve combo 'dirty-clean' sound and has enough range to produce overtly distorted sounds if required.

Used directly into a mixing console, the speaker simulator did take out quite a lot of the buzziness you expect when you DI overdriven guitar, but there was still too much left for my own taste. Judicious use of equalisation, however, improves the situation.

I decided to try plugging the headphone outlet into the mixer, but because this is designed to feed stereo phones, a mono lead should only be plugged half way in or the output signal will be shorted out. Though not radically different in sound to the line output, there seemed to be more body to the sound, so I set about experimenting further with the EQ, both on the unit and on the desk. The first step was to turn the desk's High EQ control right down which got rid of most of the fizz but also took a lot of the bite out of the sound. I found the bite could be restored by using the Focus control at or near its anticlockwise position and turning the Lead (treble) control nearly flat out. You might think that turning the Lead control up would have brought back the fizz, but, as it is centered at 3kHz, it brought up the edge and bite but without adding much at the very high end of the spectrum. The result was a very workable sound, and once a little reverb was added, I felt much more comfortable with it.

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£150 COLLECTED. POSTAGE AT COST.