FERRO Preamp

(3 customer reviews)

649,00 € – 749,00 €

incl. VAT + Shipping

The new Fender Rhodes Preamp!

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Here it is: The new Preamp for your Fender Rhodes Piano. FERRO captures the famous suitcase-sound from the late 60s and 70s and transforms it into the 21st century. FERRO is easy to install into every Rhodes stage piano and converts it into a highly inspiring instrument. Unleash the potential of your Rhodes Piano with FERRO Made in Germany !

FERRO creates the desired sound of the Peterson-Preamp and adds unique features like a 2-band Baxandall-EQ, a variable lowpassfilter, an optical stereo-tremolo with switchable waveforms and a powerful headphone amp.

More features of FERRO are:

  • Matched input impedance
  • HF filter on the audio input
  • LowNoise circuit design & LowNoise opamps
  • Powersupply filtered multiple times

The power supply is included.

Standalone:
We have just announced that FERRO is finally available as standalone version which will be our standard version. Just place it on top of your Rhodes, plug it in and start playing. The housing is made from stainless steel Made in Germany.

Pre-Assembled:
We also offer FERRO pre-assembled with a mirror-namerail (see picture above or videos). You don't have to mess around with drilling your namerail. Just remove your namerail, install the new one, plug in the RCA and enjoy. The mirror namerail is mounted on black wood.

Mail-In:
Send us your namerail and we install FERRO for you without additional costs.

When developing FERRO we always wanted to create the Peterson-Preamp-Sound since this everyone is after. It had a nice soft stereo tremolo which was generated through light bulbs and was more on the darkside sound wise. We have integrated such features into FERRO and made them adjustable to ensure highest flexibility.

Powersupply

FERRO is powered through an external +12V DC powersupply. The voltage is then filtered multiple times to reduce noise. Furthermore we made a bipolar powersupply so we were able to use just very few aluminum electrolytic capacitors. To put it simple: Those capacitors have a finite lifetime. Less electrolytics mean longer lifetime.

 

Audio Input

The audio input has a bandpass filter allowing ´ only frequencies to pass which are important for our application. Frequencies below 30Hz and above 20kHz are not amplified at all. Of course the input impedance of FERRO is matched for a Fender Rhodes.

Equalizer

FERRO comes with a 2-band Baxandall EQ just like the original Peterson Preamp. The bass can be amplified / attenuate by +/- 15db, the treble by +/- 22db.

Lowpassfilter

To enhance FERROs functionality we added an adjustable lowpass filter. Just a few people know that the Peterson preamp also has a lowpass filter integrated. But that's fixed / not adjustable. This filter leads to a drastically cut at 4kHz. It has a big advantage though. Even when engaging the full treble boost, you will have this cut at 4kHz (it'll move up a little bit though) which effectively filters noise. Honestly: There is not much to be amplified from 10kHz and above except noise on a Rhodes Piano. This is why we have added this feature. You are looking for a soulful early 70s sound? Just turn this knob down. 80s are your favorites? No problem either. Adjust the knob after your needs.

Modulation

We are utilizing two optocoupler for our tremolo. These are light dependent resistors. Bright LED = low resistance and vice versa. The same principle was working in the Peterson-Preamp. We have enhanced the speed-range of the tremolo in comparison to the Peterson.

Furthermore you can flip the phase-switch and make it mono. Now you have the classic Fender Twin Reverb sound.

Weiterhin lässt sich die Wellenform der Modulation von Rechteck auf Sinus umschalten. Mit dem Rechteck lässt sich ein Ping-Pong Tremolo erzeugen, welches von einer Seite auf die andere Seite springt. Die Sinus-Modulation erzeugt ein sehr breites Klangbild und ist perfekt für atmosphärische große Sounds nutzbar. Aber wir wollten mehr. Weder Rechteck noch Sinus können den klassischen Peterson-Sound erzeugen. Denn die Glühbirnen im Peterson haben ein Auf- und Abglimmverhalten. Dadurch werden die Kanten des Rechtecks entschärft und das Ping-Pong geschmeidiger gemacht. Diese Entschärfung ist bei FERRO intern einstellbar. Auf der Leiterplatte befindet sich ein Potentiometer, welches mit RAMP betitelt ist. So kannst du selber entscheiden, ob du ein hartes Ping-Pong Tremolo oder ein weicheres Peterson-Tremolo haben möchtest. Hört selbst:

Headphoneamplifier

Last but not least haben wir einen leistungsstarken Kopfhörer-Verstärker verbaut. Die Lautstärke des Verstärkers wird mit dem Volume Regler an der Frontplatte eingestellt.

Owners manual:

FERRO Manual GER
FERRO Manual ENG

3 reviews for FERRO Vorverstärker

  1. Matt –

    Finally got my Ferro yesterday & I absolutely love it. I absolutely love this thing on my Stage so far. I’ll run it through its paces on the Valente this weekend. Seriously though, I’m stoked!
    I’ve spent the last couple years working on my Rhodes on and off, redoing a bunch of the internals and trying out a ton of different DIs, compressors, limiters, trems, and a ton of other stuff in pursuit of The Right Signal Chain, and I think this finally solved the pre side of things for good.

  2. Tonewheels (verified owner) –

    I bought the standalone version so as not to modify the front and to be able to move it and use it on several pianos. I plug it directly into the harp of my Fender Rhodes 1973 because I prefer the sound. But it also works very well connected to the passive output. The headphone jack is a good idea. With the pan tremolo you immediately have the stereo that accompanies the effect. I have the Steely Dan sound I’m looking for. The filters are very effective and subtle. No noise, no hum !! The sound is perfectly clean but retains the typical harmonics of Rhodes. This is really a great preamp, very well designed, that doesn’t need anything else to sound great. I do not regret my purchase and if I had to do it again I would buy it. The Tines & Reeds service is very responsive and helpful. Bravo for this achievement.

  3. Ralph PIP (verified owner) –

    15.01.2022
    Das MARK I (1977) klingt über den FERRO sehr sauber. Kein unnötiges Rauschen, ausgewogener Sound.

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