Tone King Imperial Preamp – What Is It For? [Plus, Imperial MkII Amp & Kingsley Juggler V3]
Is this the perfect solution to an ampless rig?
Welcome to the show! There’s been a lot of excitement around Tone King’s Imperial Preamp. In tube amp form, the Imperial has a stellar reputation as an evolution of Fender’s genre-defining Tweed and black-panel Deluxes: 20-ish watts of utterly classic guitar amp.
However, with the increasing move towards ampless rigs for so many players, Tone King have put the entire Imperial amp’s preamp section into a pedalboard friendly enclosure and added a bunch of extremely useful features to boot. Those would be direct XLR outs with option inbuilt IRs, onboard reverb and tremolo, a separate FX loop and… what for it… some very clever switching options to enable you to run it with your main amp and FX loop, adding a two channels to your existing amp. And more. Let’s get on with it…
Enjoy the show!
Why do our PA cabs sound so different from the direct recorded sound?
It’s a great question! These are EV EKX 12P powered PA cabs and I’d always assumed them to be fairly flat sounding. (Mick here). They’re certainly set flat in terms of any on-board controls, but the guitar sound Dan and I were experiencing in the room compared to the direct pass-through sound that was recorded was radically different. We guess it just underlines the fact that all PA cabs / FRFR speakers are different… and why we ALWAYS want to hear a guitar speaker.
Pedals & Stuff used in this show
• TheGigRig Three2One
• TC Electronic PolyTune 3 Noir
• Sonic Research ST-200 Turbo Tuner
• Ibanez TS10 Tube Screamer
• Kingsley Juggler MkIII Preamp
• Tone King Imperial Tri Tube Preamp
• Source Audio Collider Delay & Reverb
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Interesting bits and go to sections…
0:00 Intro playing
1:00 What are we doing today?
2:20 Why the Kingsley Juggler?
2:55 Yeah it’s slightly confusing
4:05 Imperial amp rhythm channel sounds
5:50 Imperial preamp signal routing
7:04 Imperial Preamp into FRFR speakers & direct
9:00 Moaning about FRFR speakers and related issues
11:35 Tube Screamer in the front
14:00 Amp & preamp lead channel comparison
15:21 In built IRs on and off
16:20 It will always be EQ’d out front
17:50 Onboard reverb, tremolo & FX loop
20:15 Amp & Preamp reverb and trem compared
21:35 Does it sound like the amp?
21:55 Imperial Pre with a sizeable Marshall
24:00 Using both the input AND FX return!
26:45 Imperial Pre & Juggler explanation
29:05 Imperial Pre & Juggler comparison
31:25 The dB meter, finally
31:50 More Imperial Pre & Juggler comparison
Guitars in today’s show
• 1965 Gibson ES-345 TDS – Mick’s video here: https://youtu.be/tdYvdn7vDDE
• Fender Johnny Marr Jaguar
• Fender Custom Shop ’63 Telecaster – Dan’s video here: https://youtu.be/rnQ4OIJFTgY
Amps in today’s show
• Tone King Imperial MkII head & 112 speaker cab (standard TK speaker)
• Marshall 1987x 50-watt head
• Marshall 1960B with 4 x Celestion G12-65 speakers
• Electro-Voice EKX 12P powered PA cabs
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#Tone #King #Imperial #Preamp #Imperial #MkII #Amp #Kingsley #Juggler
Originally posted by UCnUXq8mGmoHt0e6ItuTs10w at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-k0XYPcZ64
With a considerable amount of pedals of this type, it's a shame manufacturers are not putting out valve power-amps or power-amp+cab combo, either low watt to use at home or high power to use on stage.
Does anyone know If this sounds decent with headphones for late night practice
Can this method of running the Imperial Preamp into the Fx loop work for all types of FX loops (series, parrallell, buffered, passive etc.)?
Well sorry, I had one but I didn't love it at ALL!! In 1 and a half year 3 times in the repair shop! Not reliable at ALL! And the sound mwa to much bass ALL the time and no warm sound! I got a Milkman amp instead and that amp is SO great and GREAT sounding!!! No compare XX THX anyways
Ampless stages will produce a generation of old folks with excellent hearing and they will look back on their younger years and remember TV, movies, and social media, because their music is formulaic garbage nobody remembers.
Mmm, most of us are plug in and play ,this is a lesson on tech mainly ,too much farfing around really and the cost when you get those extra flat pa speakers instead of using an amp must be enormous.Using pedals can be complicated enougth and expensive as,i said a lesson on tech only as the cost and farffing takes the fun out of it ❤
I feel really dumb because I can’t get my Imperial pre-amp to sound good through a PA in any context except for crystal clean. Any sound with gain is harsh and fizzy….cant figure out what I’m doing wrong
I just bought a Tone King Imperial Preamp based on this video. I run an Ethos Clean Fusion Deluxe preamp into powered 1-12 guitar cabs now and you demonstrated that perfectly. I love the glassy cleans of the TKIP!! Thanks!
This was immensely insightful – thanks gents. I cant financially rationalize having multiple expensive amps so I recently sold my Cali Tweed for a JTM studio combo and while I love love the JTM I really miss those warm tweed cleans and edge of breakup tones and I think you have just shown me the perfect solution. I will still one day buy another Cali Tweed because they are that good but for now I will "settle" for this
No complaints on the sounds, but where's the db meter? As a Tone King owner I'm just curious how loud you're running it.
The TK IMperial I have is one of the best amps I have ever had and still play more than any other amp. It is so good. If these pedals are good everyone should try it out
Had it for about 6 months and it’s fantastic. Prefer it over the UA stuff and I liked those a lot.
Are we the viewers listening to the mic'd up PA speakers or the direct sound of the Pedal?
Try the Fender FR10/12 sounds more guitary. Also cheats as it has an EQ for the room
When is Dan going to release an album of his noodling? OMG he needs to do it.
Feel a bit ripped off that I purchased the actual tone king imperial combo. Could have bought this and played through my FRFR.
Hi. Dan and Mick I love the Tone King Preamp since I also have the Real Amp since 5 Years.
Please help me out. My Chain is Tuner, Protein to Input of the Preamp. Mako D1 Walrus Input into Send of the Preamp and Output to Return L to Tone King . So far nice. I can use it direct Out to PA..
So when I want to use my Delay or Tremolo from the Preamp straight in my Real Amp Tone King in Bypass modus I don’t get it from the output" To Amp In." When I plug it to Amp Return it works? Why is that and is it right this way. My Idea is to use the Preamp direct out in small venues and bypass it and play with real amp in bigger venues. Other way would be to use my Delay with Stereo Output and split the chain I was considering to use is also and split the chain into preamp direkt out and second channel to the real amp.
But I still don’t understand why not To Amp in takes my Effects and Tremolo and Reverb from the FX Loop and the Preamp in Bypass mode? ????
I love this show but some very odd thoughts from the guys here. PA speakers do generally sound boomy on the floor – they’re not designed to be positioned that way. And yes, just because they are classed as FRFR doesn’t mean they shouldn’t need eq for the room and position. My bet would be if you ran white noise through and ran a spectrum analyser across you would see issues.
Got one and love it. The stock power supply humms quite a bit when using headphones (is even mentioned in the manual). A good pedalboard power supply should solve that. Any recommendations, Experiences? I have tried my Strymon Ojaj with a current doubler. Should work according to Spec (2x500mA or 9W at 9V), but the preamp pedal has problems starting up. Seems the current limiters in the Ojai oszilate at start. Relais click about every second in the preamp pedal. After about 10s it runs normal (and no humm on the headphones ????). Anyway, don‘t want to mess the pedal up with an Ojai that is working on the edge. Any proven alternatives?
If it sounds better through the DI … which we're all listening to through speakers/headphones … does that mean the PA speakers aren't truly FRFR? I know my Fender TM Pro, for example, sounds much "better" (read, thicker, less fizzy) through the dedicated FR212 cab than our bands Yamaha PA – so I've had to tweak the EQ on the mixer feeding the PA to compensate.
Quite impressive
Good demo, great tones. Have to say I enjoy your playing (both) and content, and prefer it over all the other popular/high subscriber guitar gear reviewers on YouTube, who tend to either be legato shredders with their excess reverb/delay, or simply not very good players.
Better low end in the mic amp but overall very good product.
I'm pitching it right now: Wet/Dry rig using both the Juggler dry AND the Imperial for wet.
That's gonna rock some sock off alright.
There is a quilter amp (aviator?) That has a slotted cab so you can use it like a combo amp or pop the head out. An analogue for this pre amp would be very cool! What about interchangeable cab/ power amp set: gremlin sized, imperial sized, etc
With regard to IR’s and low end issue I download the free New Vintage Audio free Celestion V30 pack today . Wow , what a difference ! Through headphones anyway . They have IR’s tweaked for live , studio , mixed ( headphones) and enhanced for clean Tones . All of them make a huge difference over the ownhaner ones ! The mixed sounds great for both clean and lead channels plus unusually the live IR too . Can’t get over it ! . They make it sound like a different pedal . Not only the low end but the lead channel now sound less congested , if that’s the right word . Less mush at higher gain too and you can hear the individual string separation a lot clearer now . I’ve kept the bass on about 10 o clock on the clean channel with humbuckers and sound fine . Think I’ve got the bug now though so will try some different IR’s in due course ????
FRFR market is -20% down after this video????????????
I could hear that tremolo swaying between my headphones in stereo.
What do you guys think of this compared to Friedman's preamp pedal versions of his flagship amps?
Here we are yet again lads, you refuse to mic' up the FRFR/PA speakers. C'mon let's hear the excuse again this time!
At 15:30 there is a very high pitched harmonic sounds like it was part of the signal, I dunno maybe it was the mic being pushed.