Vox’s Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
I spent a day workshopping ideas in my studio using just the Vox Valvenergy Smooth Impact compressor and Tone Sculptor EQ, and a dash of amp tremolo and reverb to taste. In the process, I produced more arresting sounds than I had heard from my guitars in many days. There were radical direct-to-desk-style Jimmy Page/Beatles distortion tones, sun-sized, cosmic electric 12-string, Bakersfield twang that could burn through crude, and many other sweet and nasty colors. Most decent EQ and compressor combinations can achieve variations on all those themes. But the Smooth Impact and Tone Sculptor also reveal interesting personalities in unexpected places.
The individuality and energy in the Vox Valvenergy pedals is attributable, in part, to the Nutube vacuum tube used in the circuit. Though it looks little like a vacuum tube as most guitarists know them, the thin, wafer-like Nutube is, in fact, a real vacuum tube like those used in fluorescent displays. Fluorescent display tubes have limitations. A maximum operating voltage of around 40 volts means they aren’t useful for bigger power tube applications like a 6L6, which has an operating voltage of about 400 volts. But it can work quite well as a preamp tube in concert with an op amp power section, which is how the Nutube is used in the new Valvenergy pedals, as well as older Vox products like the Vox MV50 and Superbeetle amps.
Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
When you think about “cinematic” effects, you likely imagine big reverb or modulation sounds that create a vivid picture and feeling of space or motion. But narrow, hyper-focused EQ profiles can evoke very different and equally powerful images. Radical EQ settings can add aggression, claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts more evocative of Hitchcock’s Psycho than Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
Any of these moods can be summoned from the Valvenergy Tone Sculptor. Six sliders cut or boost 10 dB frequency bands spanning 100 Hz to 5.6 kHz. A seventh slider cuts or boosts the master output by 12 dB. This platter of options might not sound like much. But you can use these seven controls together to very specific ends.
“Radical EQ settings can add aggression, near-claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts.”
For example, bumping the high-midrange and the master output produces narrow cocked-wah-like filter sounds with enough push to produce extra amp overdrive—effectively turning the Tone Sculptor into a buzzy, almost fuzz-like filter effect. But unlike a wah, you can carefully scoop high end or add a spoonful of bass to blunt harsh frequencies or give the tone a bit more weight. You can also broaden the palette of an amp/guitar pairing. I matched a particularly trebly Jazzmaster bridge pickup with a very hot and toppy Vox AC15-flavored amp for this test—a recipe that can be spiky on the best days. But with the Tone Sculptor in the line, I could utilize the same sharp, fuzzy, and filtered Mick Ronson wah tones while shaving some of the most piercing frequencies.
EQ pedals exist on many points along the cost spectrum. And at $219, the Tone Sculptor lives on the high side of the affordable range. Does it offer something less expensive models can’t deliver? Well, for one thing, I found it relatively quiet, which is nice whether you’re shaping toppy high-contrast effects or performing more surgical adjustments. And the sliders feel nuanced and nicely tapered rather than like a dull axe with a few basic frequency notches. But in many situations I also liked the color imparted by the circuit—generated, presumably, by the Nutube. “Color,” in audio terms, is a broad and subjective thing, and one should not necessarily expect the warm, tube-y glow of a vintage tube Pultec. Still, the Tone Sculptor has many forgiving, flattering qualities—typical of studio EQs—that enable fine tuning and experimentation with more radical and creative applications of the effect.
Valvenergy Smooth Impact
As with the Tone Sculptor, the Smooth Impact’s use of Nutube engenders certain expectations. It’s easy to surmise that because Smooth Impact has a vacuum tube in the circuit that it will behave like a little Teletronix LA-2A leveling amplifier. That’s a big ask for a $219 stompbox. On the other hand, the Smooth Impact exhibits some appealing characteristics of studio tube compression. At lower compression levels, it works well as a thickening agent—adding mass without much additional noise. And at higher compression levels it can sound snappy, crisp, and tight without feeling like you’ve bled every trace of overtone from your signal.
The Smooth Impact’s controls aren’t totally atypical. But because it lacks some familiar features like variable attack and release, yet is more complicated than a 1-knob DynaComp, you have to trust your ear to navigate interactions among the controls. The most unfamiliar of these is the 3-way vintage/natural/sag toggle. The first two are defined by preset attack and release settings: Vintage is slow attack and long release, and natural is the opposite. The sag mode’s compression is more like what you get from tube saturation, and it’s useful for adding thickness and complexity to a thin amp tone at modest compression levels.
Though the vintage and natural modes certainly have a different feel, they don’t always sound worlds apart. And like the sag mode, the thing they have in common is the way they enrich lifeless amp output at low to medium compression, with a bit of grind from the tube gain and a little extra makeup gain from the output. At the most aggressive settings, the tube gain can get a little crispy. And really crushing the compression can flatline your tone without adding much in the way of extra sustain. These are limitations common to many compressors with similar features. But unless I was chasing very ultra-snappy Prince and Nile Rodgers fast-funk caricatures, I enjoyed the Smooth Impact most in its in-between ranges, where mass, mild, harmonious drive, and low noise showcase the pedal’s sometimes studio-like personality.
Meris’s U.S.-built LVX is a great high-horsepower evolution of this concept. While it’s a superb guitar effect—filled with heaps of complex, unusual delays; modulation sounds from tremolo to vibrato, rotary, and flange; intense filtering capabilities; looping; and more—it is clearly conceived to work effectively with other instruments and in other applications. The sounds it produces range from colorful, classic electric guitar effects to contemporary, large-scale, and filmic stereo reverbs and delays. It’s elaborate in a way that will satisfy the probing methods of game and film sound designers, synthesists, and other insatiably questing weirdos. Best of all is that the LVX makes investigating those complexities a simple, intuitive pleasure.
Utility with a Human Touch
If you are new to the world of deep programmable effects and fear you’ll be endlessly tethered to a manual, the LVX is an option worth exploring. A smart, thoughtful interface streamlines access to and control of secondary and hidden controls. It also makes the LVX a lot of fun.
A lazy side glance at the unit will probably stoke fears among digi-phobic users. The pedal has an ultra-clean—some might say antiseptic—look that’s as evocative of a lab instrument as it is a guitar pedal. When you plug it in, though, the LVX charmingly comes to life. At its heart is an LCD screen called the preset page, which is simultaneously bold, clear, and easy-on-the-eye. At the center of each preset page is a circle featuring a bold, white-on-black number and text indicating the effect type. There are a lot of variations and voices to explore: LVX comes with 81 presets from the factory that you can modify in myriad ways. The LCD screen serves other purposes. In any given preset, it also registers the level or status for two user-selected secondary functions. The status of each function is described clearly via text or simple graphical representations, which facilitates fast exploration of the pedal’s voices. Additional modes called “edit pages” and “globals” represent menus and component parts of a voice as a system of bubbles. It’s a fun, practical way to navigate a dense data set in a small place.
Pouring a nice glass of wine, clearing the evening schedule, and scanning the breadth of sounds in just these 81 presets is a sure-fire way to spark a song or riff.
In most other respects, the LVX’s controls are straightforward. Delay time, feedback, modulation intensity, and wet/dry mix each have dedicated knobs. As you adjust them, you also see a graphical readout of all four parameters on the LCD screen. The secondary controls each have knobs immediately underneath the LCD. A seventh knob just to the right of the LCD scrolls through presets and enables presets. You can scroll through presets using two of the four footswitches below. These are also used to create, start, and stop loops. There’s a lot more functionality in the LVX than we have space to describe here. And what we’ve covered so far really only scratches the surface. Diving deeper into LVX’s worlds of modifiers and processing elements enables even more surgical control.
Sounds Spanning Space
The more down-to-earth, vintage-hued effects are interesting and excellent. The Rumble preset is a super-dimensional slapback that’s a natural fit for Plastic Ono Band or Jimmy Page trips, while the Hot Plate reverb is super organic and feels like fireworks popping off the fretboard. Dream pop and shoegaze texturalists will flip over presets like Roto Pan—a swirling, slightly distorted tremolo—or the 4 Read Heads multiple-head tape-echo simulation.
Deeper weirdness is everywhere: granular synthesis; sampled, crushed, and scrambled repeats; envelope-triggered pitch repeats; mangled sitar sounds; and cassette-warble oddities. Each of these voices can be heavily altered within a huge range of variation. Pouring a nice glass of wine, clearing the evening schedule, and scanning the breadth of sounds in just these 81 presets is a sure-fire way to spark a song or riff. But there are so many thousands of possible combinations of texture here that such inspiration might occur with frequency.
The Verdict
As you peruse the ratings for the LVX, you should grade on a sliding scale. If you’re a multi-instrumentalist, multimedia artist, or just a wildly open-minded music creator, you’ll be comfortable with the way organic effect emulations exist alongside over-the-top, more “artificial,” and more mangled fare, and you’ll find inspiration everywhere. If you generally stay in the vintage lane or maintain a pretty focused sonic vision, LVX could be overkill. No matter how much it aligns with your sound-crafting needs, the LVX’s approachability and intuitive operation make it an appealing instrument for any artist that likes to move fast and intuitively—and doesn’t mind ending up at unexpected destinations.
