When guitarists talk tone-shaping, the usual suspects come up first: drive pedals, EQs, amps. But there’s another, sometimes weirder, way to color your sound—and you might already own a few options.
In our latest video, Tibor digs into the world of preamps: not just dedicated preamp pedals, but mixers, tape echoes, rack effects, synths, and other gear with audio or instrument inputs. The idea is simple: if you can plug into it, there’s a chance it can add its own flavor, saturation, compression, EQ curve, or harmonic magic to your tone.
The lineup includes more expected picks, like the Boss BP-1W and SIB Echo Drive, alongside studio and oddball options like a Tascam 414, Maestro Echoplex EP-3, Roland Space Echo, Alesis QuadraVerb, and Moog Sub Phatty. Some add subtle fatness. Some push the signal into warm saturation. Some get much stranger.
The bigger takeaway: "preamp" doesn’t have to mean one specific pedal on your board. It can be a console channel, a delay unit, a cassette recorder, a synth, or whatever piece of gear makes your guitar feel more alive.
Watch the full video above to hear how each one changes the sound—and start checking the inputs on the gear you already have lying around.