It's fair to say that the Tube Zone is my personal favourite overdrive pedal. I'm sure there's a sentimental element to this. The Tube Zone, after all, was my first commercial pedal. It grew out of nearly a decade of playing around with overdrive pedal design. I built my first Tube Zone in 1995.

Original Tube Zone "Series 1"

It grew out of a few observations. Firstly, a few stacked overdrive pedals often sound much better than just one pedal with a lot of gain. Secondly, a high gain tube amp gets its sound by progressively clipping the signal through multiple gain stages. These two observations lead to the conclusion that cascading gain across multiple stages is an excellent way to get a natural sounding, tight, and touch sensitive overdrive.  So after experimenting with various configurations (from 2 to 8 stages), I settled on a design which featured 4 clipping stages. This, as it turns out, is also the number of gain stages in a typical high gain tube preamp.

The surprising thing about this design was not only how good the high gain sound was, but also just how amazing the low gain sounds were. It seems I had come up with a design which handled both beautifully. There was also no humbucker/single coil bias. Both work really well with the Tube Zone.

It wasn't just the overdrive section which attracted my attention. I also went to work on the tone control circuit. This involved designing a tone control which affected both highs and lows at the same time, to give you the same functionality a a bass/treble control, but with just one control. As the tone control is turned down, the lows increase, and the highs decrease. The reverse happens as you turn the tone control up. In the original design, a mid switch was added to allow the user to drop or 'scoop out' the mids. This powerful tone shaping was then married to an ultra quiet, single ended pure class A output section.

Second Generation

Over time, the Tube Zone design was tweaked. The second generation of Tube Zones was moved into a lower profile enclosure. A 3rd mid switch position was added, and the output volume was increased by a whopping 15db. Also, I developed a series of tweaks for controlling other pedal parameters. The first of these was an brightness trimmer for controlling the top end of the pedal (actually, it controls how far into the highs the Tube Zone's response goes). This allowed the user to tailor the Tube Zone to match bright or dark amps. The second of these controls (a unique feature available only on MI Audio pedals) was the character control. I'm really proud of this one. This control (also an internal trimmer) is effectively a pre-overdrive bass control. You see, the low frequencies are very important for controlling the character of an overdrive. It works the opposite way than expected. If you have very little low end before the overdrive, the sound stays tight and focused. More low end pre-overdrive, and the sound has more momentum, but also feels a but more elastic and mushy. So with this amazing little control, the user could dial in the exact 'character' of the Tube Zone.

Tube Zone "Version 2"

The Final Evolution

The current Tube Zone is the final evolution of this amazing design. I am extremely excited about this pedal. For starters, the two internal controls have now moved to the outside of the case. This means that it is no longer necessary to open up the pedal in order to tweak the pedal. New gig with an unfamiliar amp? Not a problem. With the new Tube Zone, you can dial in your sound, regardless of the equipment you have to work with. Also, the mid switch has evolved into a continuous midrange control. This allows perfect setting for the mids. If these 6 external controls weren't enough (Gain, Tone, Volume, Character, Mids, Brightness), a seventh 'presence' trimmer was added to adjust the overall balanace and sparkle of the Tube Zone.

Finally, the Tube Zone has received a cosmetic upgrade. The die cast enclosure is now plated in genuine chrome, for striking good looks.

I believe that this version of the Tube Zone is the best pedal I have ever made. If you're after a 'desert island' overdrive pedal, I'd seriously check out the Tube Zone.