There are many digital and software plug-in emulations of valve saturation and distortion. Although they may be convenient to use in digital recording, they do not have the character, flexibility and sound quality of the devices they try to emulate. Only real valves can give you the real valve sound!

"These units are bespoke and have been designed using purely analogue components, so their construction and operation are significantly different to those of off-the-shelf effects units. You’ll be rewarded with a unique and beautiful sonic toolkit for your music. It’ll take a while to learn how you want it to work with your amplifier, but once you’ve got to know it, you’ll find it’s very easy to love.
I personally think that simply passing a signal from a digital source (like a PC soundcard or a digital synth or sampler) through AAE valve circuitry makes it sound warmer, thicker, and plummier. Even the original signal passes through some valve circuitry, and I will often record digitally generated sound through my own AAE box without any distortion to add subjective warmth to recordings. This effect works well across the board; with vocals, acoustic instruments, whole mixes, all types of synthesisers and whole mixes. Currently, valve mixers are selling for many thousands of pounds because producers want to introduce “valve warmth” to their recordings. I believe AAE products do this very well indeed."

All Valve Stereo Spring Reverb & Distortion Unit/Amplifier

User Guide

A very different sound from digital reverb, valve-driven spring reverb is one of the trademarks of the dub reggae sound, giving a very organic, 'springy' sound; still unattainable with software plug-ins or digital processing.

This unit has a selectable triode/pentode driver, able to drive all types of springs. This driver can also be used as a 'valve conditioner' to liven-up drum loops or drum machines before being processed by digital recording equipment.

A.A.E Distortion BOX 

• Switchable Triode and Cascode input stage. Cascode stage produces more harmonics, resulting in a more complex distortion sound.

• Switchable 'load' - this changes the amount of resistance in the output stage. At a high setting, subtle distortion is possible. At low settings, very harsh metallic distortion is possible.

• Also available is the 'naughty' setting with no load - this produces a very lively, punchy sound which seems to emphasise peaks in the signal.  

The distortion unit is a mini-amplifier, producing about 1 watt of output. It can therefore be used to drive a spring reverb.

From gentle warmth and fatness, to searing, grinding distortion. Switchable between pentode and triode output stages. Pentode offers a gritty, dry, distorted tone; whereas triode gives a smoother, more 'musical' effect, going from a clean to a large overdriven sound.

Active or Passive Equalizers

Graphic or parametric filters of all types can be built.

In terms of sound, the most harmonically-interesting valve circuit designed is a high-Q variable shift frequency booster, between 40-400 Hz (for bass boost effects). The frequency and amount of boost can be adjusted.

Midrange and treble boosters can also be built, to cover the full frequency range. Sweeping the frequency point with high boost results in a sweet, wah-like effect, with a distinct warm and musical sound.

Currently in development: Voltage control of frequency for connection to external control voltage, e.g. LFO or envelope generator of a modular synthesizer.

Another newly-designed-and-built circuit is a variable cut-off frequency high-pass filter, which drives a variable cut-off frequency low-pass filter. These two filters (both of the 2nd order type) can also be connected in parallel. The high-pass is a little sharper than the low-pass. There are many possible sound effects with this circuit.

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