Tone Report Weekly 173 | Page 33

to work well with four different dual- triode tubes. We added a boost circuit providing eight different tube and gain combinations. The inspiration for the Persuader Deluxe was to build on the success of the original Persuader with added versatility and features. Like all MODKits, the Persuader Deluxe is built using point-to-point construction. Point-to-point is used for ease of layout and it allows the builder to experiment with different component values to modify the existing circuit to their preference. Point-to-point construction requires the use of discrete components as opposed to ICs. Both versions of the Persuader use a transistor to drive the tube into clipping. The original uses a MOSFET and the Deluxe version uses a Darlington transistor. We didn’t want to just make a few cosmetic changes to the original Persuader, but did want the Deluxe version to fit into the same enclosure layout. The entire circuit was redesigned Another design consideration was to increase the amount of gain that was available with the original Persuader. Using a high-gain Darlington preamp to push the tube into clipping worked very well. Depending on which tube is plugged into the circuit, the overdrive ranges from just a little dirt when using the 5751 to high-gain sustain-forever amp tones using several of the other dual 12A type tubes included with the kit. Interestingly, the 12AU7 provides great distortion tones even though it is has the lowest gain rating of all four tubes included with the kit. It’s counter-intuitive but it is operating way out of traditional dual triode parameters so it behaves much differently than it would in a normal high voltage environment found in a tube amp. We also had more input while working with the design of the Persuader Deluxe. Several guitarists played through a few different versions of it providing input that we used to tweak the tone before we settled on the final design. - PAT FREULER MODKITSDIY.COM ToneReport.com 33