Many times throughout the course of a year, there are certain pedals that have a TON of hype around them, that just about everyone in the industry is waiting for their release to the public. Today’s pedal might just top the list for 2020, even though we’re only halfway through (really, only halfway?). The Chase Bliss Audio Automatone Preamp MKII is not only a collaborative effort with Benson Amps, but a surge forward in how we are going to view effects pedals from now on. With its futuristic design, sliders that let you precisely dial in your sound, tons of range and sonic options and intense MIDI functionality, this is not your normal effects pedal, which is exactly why we couldn’t wait to test it out.

The Preamp MKII takes the circuit from the highly-touted Benson Preamp pedal, and incorporates it with Chase Bliss Audio‘s modern design philosophy. Adding various clipping diode modes, a low impedance silicon fuzz, a parametric midrange control and 30 onboard presets, there’s a lot to discover with this one. Let’s start with the sliding faders – these allow you to set your Volume, Gain, Treble and Bass, along with two sliders dedicated to the Midrange. The Benson Preamp circuit comes from their Chimera tube amp, but uses FET transistors in place of the amp’s 12AX7’s triode stages. This makes it possible to conjure up clean boost, overdrive, fuzz and wonderful tone-shaping EQ settings in a heartbeat. The Mids and Freq parameters come to us from the CBA Condor circuit, infusing the Preamp with an extremely versatile active parametric midrange. Boosting or cutting frequencies up to 18dB, you’re easily able to cut through the mix and make your amplifier absolutely sing.

Moving on, we take a gander at the Arcade buttons, a row of push button controls directly below the sliders. Jump lets you instantly toggle to either the 0 or the 5 preset in any banks when activated (more on the presets in a sec). Mids lets you place the parametric mid controls either before or after the Benson Preamp circuit (when Off, the Mids circuit is removed from the signal path). Q selects the “Q” for the Mids/Freq faders, providing three different resonance settings for you to choose from. Use the Diode button to select the clipping you want: stock from the Benson Preamp, symmetrical silicon or asymmetrical germanium. Finally, Fuzz lets you rock a full-on, wide open fuzz tone or a gated, sputtery version. Lots of experimenting to be had in this section, folks.

In our demo below, we’ll show you how to save presets, demonstrate how to program an expression pedal to control the sliders, use the Preamp MKII with a MIDI controller and more, so be sure to check that out to see what you can achieve with this powerful pedal. It comes loaded with some presets on the first bank, and we created some of our own to show you as well. The Chase Bliss Audio Automatone Preamp MKII packs so much into one package, it can be initially a little overwhelming, but once you sit down and start digging in, the sky opens and majestic tones begin to flood your studio, practice space or living room almost instantly. While the price tag may be a bit steep for some, it’s pretty much 5 pedals in one, so it’s not like you’re buying a one trick pony. Plus, it just might be the last Boost/EQ/Dirt pedal you’ll ever need…..until they come out with the next one. Cheers to Joel, Chase Bliss Audio, Chris, Benson Amps and everyone who helped create this beauty. A truly innovative, game-changer of an effect, we can’t wait to see where they take this concept next…

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