The Night Owl Industries Parabellum Preamp Drive Distortion is a preamp and distortion pedal built around an unusual arrangement: an all-tube EF86 preamp driving a three-stage parallel germanium distortion. It came out of a collaboration between Night Owl Industries and Dunwich Amps, and Pedal of the Day reviewed it in August 20211.
How the circuit works
The distortion stage begins with a buffer that splits the signal into three, with each path going to a different germanium distortion, and the three are then mixed back together. The three voices are described as one traditional, one higher gain, and one hybrid diode/germanium distortion. Because the stages run in parallel rather than in series, Pedal of the Day's reviewer described the result as "a dense, complex distortion not attainable through traditional, in-series processing"1.
For players used to distortion pedals that stack one circuit after another, the parallel design is the Parabellum's defining difference: the three germanium voices blend rather than feed each other1.
Controls and EQ
The pedal carries a set of switches on top of its gain section:
- Active and passive EQ for tone shaping1
- Tube boost switch1
- Master volume switch1
- Mid boost switch, which "fills out the mids for a multitude of available tones"1
- Bright and Depth switches, which "lay a perfect fourth in interval above and below the Bass and Treble controls, respectively"1
The EQ section uses the same musical interval spacing found in Night Owl's Q the EQ pedal, expanded with the Bright and Depth switches. The Depth switch is tuned very low, at 43 Hz, adding a percussive effect to lower tuned instruments and synths, which makes it relevant to bass players and anyone running the pedal below standard guitar tuning1.
What reviewers said
Pedal of the Day's review was favorable, concluding that "The Parabellum continues the fantastic work and pedals put out by our friends at Night Owl Industries"1.
Videos
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Hondo Felder Music
Questions
Does the Night Owl Parabellum use a real tube?
Yes. According to Pedal of the Day's review, the Parabellum features an all-tube EF86 preamp stage, which then drives a three-stage parallel germanium distortion section. The tube is the front end of the circuit rather than a tube-style voicing, so the preamp section is genuinely tube driven.
What does the Parabellum's Depth switch do?
The Depth switch is tuned very low, at 43 Hz, and adds a percussive effect to lower tuned instruments and synths. It sits alongside a Bright switch, with the two laying a perfect fourth in interval above and below the Bass and Treble controls respectively.
Who built the Parabellum with Night Owl Industries?
The Parabellum is a collaboration between Night Owl Industries and Dunwich Amps. Pedal of the Day's 2021 review described it as continuing the work Night Owl Industries had put out on earlier pedals.
Is the Parabellum analog?
Yes. The circuit is analog throughout: an EF86 tube preamp feeding germanium distortion stages built from discrete components, with no digital processing in the signal path.
Sources (1)
- Night Owl Industries Parabellum Preamp Drive Distortion, Pedal of the Day (www.pedal-of-the-day.com), 2021-08-01
