Thermionic Culture is celebrating its 20th anniversary with the launch of a limited edition Thermionic Culture Vulture 20A at the 2018 NAMM Show. The 20A differs from the original in that it has much lower background noise using Sowter transformers to balance line inputs and outputs and also indented pots for easy recall. The sound is nearly identical to the original except the top end is extended to far beyond audio range making it a great mastering tool. It still has the classic Culture Vulture distortion settings with an extra extreme position on the function switch.
Originally designed as a "distortion box" to simulate distortion in valve amps, the Thermionic Culture Vulture has found lots of uses beyond this. Some owners use them on drum loops, vocals, piano sounds and even across entire tracks (it is a stereo unit). Distortion figures are reduced to only 0.2% at lowest to about 99.9%. Predominant distortion can be changed from even to odd harmonics with a simple switch.
Features:
- Warm sounds gently or create a noise like a 200 watt guitar stack with all the drivers slashed
- Independent channel operation
- Odd or even harmonic distortion, or combination of both
- All valve design free from solid state additives
- High impedance line input or instrument inputs
- 4 & 7 kHz filters
- Overdrive & bypass switches