Hello Gearheads! Welcome back to another beautiful day in the tone neighborhood. Today I’ve got the pleasure of revisiting my pals over at Keeley Electronics with their new Tube Drive! It’s Keeley’s 25th Anniversary and they’re celebrating with releasing a very cool tube driven boost and drive. The Tube Drive is essentially two great circuits in one - The drive side features Keeley’s best-sounding version of their BD-2 Phat Mod and the tube side features a Keeley-branded 12AX7 with a tone control inspired by the tone stack in the 5E3 Deluxe. Versatile and juicy circuits that can of course be stacked and flipped! You can dice it, chop it and serve up some beautiful tones!
At it’s heart, the Tube Drive is a familiar Keely Electronics voice with the drive side, reminiscent of modern blues and rock tones… lot’s of John Mayer tones to be had here. It’s a memorable tone for a reason and I liked that I was able to get more aggressive rock tones with the the ever present sweetness this drive side has. It’s fat as the history implies, but it’s also very clear and never harsh. It’s the kind of medium to higher gain tone that sounds as if it’s already given the ‘sauce’ by a recording engineer. I really love that about the drive side.
The tube side of the pedal is punchier and more open by design. You can get the tone quite open and bright to warm and even somewhat darker. I could see using the tube side as a nice jazz box enhancer or slight boost. It’s also a high voltage boost circuit pulling juice from the Keeley branded 12AX7 - so you’re gonna get punchy and bold tones as well. I tended to prefer the tube side as a boost set to color the tone a bit and when stacked it really makes the note sing.
Stacking the Tube Drive is really enjoyable and I found there weren’t any spots where it sounded too compressed or too “pedal-like”. We’ve all had moments stacking overdrive pedals that just get more compressed and undefined - this isn’t the case with the Tube Drive and it really warrants exploration on the order change options for stacking.
You can swap the order of what side stacks into what very easily. A simple push and hold of the drive foot-switch allows you to pick which side is first when combined. I found it really enjoyable and useful in layering to switch these orders, giving many gain staging opportunities, even in moments where you just needed a bit more oomph or emphasis.
Keeley also made it very easy and inclusive to swap the tube on your Tube Drive. They included an Allen wrench and tube “pusher” as I call it to make this process as quick and painless as possible. A simple push and the 12AX7 pops right out. When you put it back in you just line up the end pins, visible from the side profile of the pedal with it’s back off and boom - you’re back in biz. If you haven’t seen my video feature yet, I show exactly how easy it is!
Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the Keeley Tube Drive. If you’d like to learn more about Keeley Electronics please do check out these sites for more information.
https://www.facebook.com/KeeleyFX
https://www.instagram.com/keeleyelectronics/
Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!