Ruso wrote:taller plated tubes produce smoother "warm" sound... shorter ones seem to be producing rougher distorted sounds.
I personally prefer taller ones because you can turn up the drive knob on emx synth parts all the way and all it does is totally change the characteristics and compresses the sound without distorting it so much it not useful any more. It's almost a new effect type and it adds a LOT of dynamics to sound.
Taller plated tubes?
Yeah the MX is like a whole new instrument.Like reddone says a whole new scope..the oscillators sound better and the fx are more usable.I found myself cutting back in the fx as the oscs sound good on their own.The dual osc is perfect for phat electro house basslines.Overall the sound is much richer.Glad i held onto mine.if your thinking of selling your emx at least consider putting some new tubes in before you do.If you stil decide to sell it you can always take the tubes out..
within the tube theres those metalic parts, they can be as short as half of the actual tube to as tall as they can fit...
short:
tall:
I've messed with several different kinds and I settled with those two... the tall ones are a lot more smooth sounding and a lot more organic while short ones are more rough and distorted...
I used the shorter one on the esx cause the machine doesn't have as much overdriving and distorting capabilities on its own because of the lack of the drive button....
Ruso wrote:within the tube theres those metalic parts, they can be as short as half of the actual tube to as tall as they can fit...
short:
tall:
I've messed with several different kinds and I settled with those two... the tall ones are a lot more smooth sounding and a lot more organic while short ones are more rough and distorted...
I used the shorter one on the esx cause the machine doesn't have as much overdriving and distorting capabilities on its own because of the lack of the drive button....
Cool didn't know about that.If i get some more tubes i feel a bit more informed about my choices
I'd say my GTs are quite smooth,even with the tube gain all the way up so it would be interesting to hear the more organic sound of the taller plated tubes...
If the size of the plate is an indication of the quality then i may have to get some "taller plated tubes"
get the ones in the bottom picture... trust me they kick major arse. You'll be amazed by the quality of you can get them from eurotubes.com ECC803 S Gold Pin - 12AX7
tuning is kinda personal preference . I mentioned b4 that i tuned my tubes , but it isnt neccesry . basically its very easy but u need to listen carefully at whats happening as u tune as its kinda about finding the "sweetspot" .
What i mean is that as u press a key over n over u should be listening to hear when the tubes soundd at their best . Incremental turning of both plastic screws behind the tubes will let u do this .
but as i said , u mite not need to or even think that its important ... but , i would advise testing different settings while pressing keys so get a sound that suits u better .
honestly gold and not gold shouldn't make a noticible difference.... (although gold looks cooler ).... there are two kinds of tuning, one is simple and is done by ear by turning the knobs next to the tubes with a screw driver(carefully)....
theres a more complicated way which is the way it should be done but only service centers can do this because it requires a special smart media card.
now one thing I noticed is when you swap tubes the left and right channels become different levels.... unless you get lucky. I called a local service center which told me that you do not need to tune preamp tubes(to which I said bullshit when I read the service manual and it has a whole section on this).... he said I can bring it in but it will cost me like 50 bucks per half an hour to which I also said bullshit and decided to deal with it by panning a lil
yeah the leveling problem is kinda there for me to , but it's pretty minute really .. and i had the same problem straight outta the box on day 1 with standard ax7's !!
i just cant understand korg giving us the tubes they did tho , they mustve known what great a sound the mx produces .. but then to give it sub-standard tubes ??
Anyway ppl , there is nothing to fear and very little risk to take so , find tubes to suit and part with that cash cos the price of the mx feels ALOT more justified when u hear it correctly output
I had this levelling problem as well.The right channel was much quieter than the left..At first i thought i'd done something to the mx during the installation but i swapped the tubed and it's fine now *phew*
been reading what u said ruso bout different sizes in plates in relation to sounds , and am thinking that somehow shorter plates may offer more compression by being shorter .
basically , im thinkin the less room the freqs/sounds are able to travel around the cathode naturally there'd be more of a compression effect .
i havnt bought other tubes to use when needed cos i never feel the need , but im curious again as to what other types of tubes do to the mx.
what u think on the compression thing ?
It seems as tho that it'd work that way ...
I don't know, I don't think the tubes actually compress the sound I think a simmilar effect is acheved through natural overdriving of all sounds.... think about it all a compressor does is make the loud sounds beyond a certain threshold louder which is essentially an overdrive(compression with no threshold)....
shorter ones don't seem to add more compression but then again I try to turn the tuning knobs all the way down for least ammount of fx. I hate any form of distortion in music so even tho I like to overdrive I like warm nondistorted overdrive.
I too am not the greatest fan of distorting my sounds TOO much , but to be fair i dont find that the GT's distort very much , more like a qaulity "fizzle" at its most driven . and the warmth is really nice too .
The thing is when reading the info b4 buying the tubes it read " high gain pre-amp with midrange clarity and superb warm bass with higher comression " . I coupled that with looking at some tunes in an editor and found alot less problems with spiking of waves , so i thought somehow things are being compressed. the ax7's are taller but sound poor , so alot must simply be down to the design i reckon .
Doesnt really matter tho as i'll be getting a set of new tubes for different tones anyway .
Ruso wrote:get the ones in the bottom picture... trust me they kick major arse. You'll be amazed by the quality of you can get them from eurotubes.com ECC803 S Gold Pin - 12AX7
When i saw eurotubes i assumed they were somewhere in europe!Are they available elsewhere?
I've just ordered a pair of JJ(Tesla) ECC803-S from a company called Hot Rox UK...they didnt have the gold-pin variety however, but hopefully they'll pimp my MX sufficiently....
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).... there are two kinds of tuning, one is simple and is done by ear by turning the knobs next to the tubes with a screw driver(carefully)....