Crazy Tube Circuits' Crossfire Dual Channel Preamp / Overdrive Beautifully Captures Those Classic SRV and Mayer Flavours

My good friend Christos Ntaifotis of Crazy Tube Circuits has managed to capture the best of Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Mayer tones in one truly smartly configured combination pedal - which fuses an extended-range Tube Screamer style Overdrive Channel, to a full-frequency Fender Blackface style Preamp Channel. The name of course comes from the SRV song which inspired this very pedal.

This is one of the most classic of pedal-amp combinations in guitar history as it beautifully marries those richly textured and finely nuanced Fender style slightly scooped Clean Tones with the most classic of mid-hump overdrives. The Fendery side of the circuit has the exact EQ circuit of those early amps - where the headroom switch emulates the power response of a Twin Reverb in the High position, and a Super Reverb in the Low position.

This is very much a fully versatile extended-range pedal with additional voicing toggles to switch things up further. For sure there are a few Blackface style overdrives out there - but very few as smartly calibrated and engineered as here - with 3-Band EQ, and enhancements for Brightness and Headroom. The Tube Screamer side is further elevated by Clipping and Gain Boost Options.

Screamer / Right-side Controls - Volume, Gain, Clipping : Asymmetrical / Symmetrical, Tone, Gain Boost : More / Off, Footswitch to engage Screamer Channel. Internal dip-switch for additional headroom - 9V/18V - note that power supply voltage should not exceed 9V DC [-] (77mA)

Blackface / Left-side Controls - Volume, Headroom : High / Low, Bright : On / Off, Gain, Treble, Mid, Bass, Footswitch to engage Blackface Channel.

To get the extended response in highs and lows, the Blackface style circuit has an internal charge-pump which takes the voltage to 18V. Where the voltage doubling is optional for the Tube Screamer side - courtesy of the internal dip-switch. The Screamer side is of course served by the most classic of 4558 chips - that is so closely associated with with the TS808. The Asymmetric clipping option yields more dynamics - which Christos much prefers to the original smoother soft symmetrical clipping. The Gain Boost is based on SRV’s trick of having two Tube Screamers in series.

As it’s traditional to drive / juice an Amp with a Tube Screamer - there is no need for an order switch here - as naturally the Overdrive will always comes first. Both Channels can be applied independently - while they’ve of course been engineered and optimised to stack - to get those incredibly nuanced and dynamic SRV and Mayer style tones.

I feel this is very much going to appeal to a certain type of player who really loves that vintage style tonality with extra nuance and musicality that is still so very much in demand.

The Crossfire is very reasonably priced at €219, and is available for order right now on the Crazy Tube Circuits Webstore. I feel it’s going to garner quite a lot of attention - the filigree details in the design are undeniably classy and add to the appeal!

Are any of you SRV and Mayer fans tempted?