Crazy Tube Circuits | KILLER V | A Magnatone inspired Overdrive & Vibrato

Killer V was inspired by some very cool and unique amplifiers born in California, USA in the 50s and 60s, with a very distinct, true pitch-shifting vibrato circuit.

With every detail in mind we copied the behavior, sound and feel of the preamp, phase inverter, power amp and the compression/sag of tube rectification found in these designs. Applying all analog JFET technology and an internal voltage multiplier for high headroom and the ultimate tube-like tone we managed to recreate not only the overdriven sounds but the lower gain / clean sounds of these amps as well.

The most important part was recreating the vibrato effect. We used an all analog LFO to drive two discrete phase shift modulation stages and create a pitch modulation effect reminiscent of the real thing. This effect enhances the 3D acoustic image and musical feel. Like in most of the original designs we’ve also added the option of placing dry (unmodulated) signal in parallel with the wet (modulated) signal thus creating whirling phaser / vibe sounds.