BEEKEEPER

The Beekeeper is a dual-channel D-style tube preamp inspired by those rare L.A. boutique amps everyone talks about, but few can realistically own.

The Clean channel has a Fender-style foundation, but with a gentle midrange boost. It sounds wide open, with plenty of presence and headroom at lower gain, and moves into transparent overdrive at higher gain settings.

The Overdrive channel is thick and creamy, with rich harmonics and smooth note bloom as the gain goes up.

The Beekeeper uses a cascaded channel design, where the Clean channel feeds the Overdrive channel and acts as a boost in front of it. Balancing the CLN VOL and OD controls lets you shape the feel and character of the overdrive.

Its “Skyline” EQ is an improved take on the classic passive 3-band tone stack, with better control and less interaction between the knobs. The EQ and toggle switches affect both channels.

The Beekeeper can be used into the front of an amp, into a power amp, or directly with a cab sim. A side-mounted Tone Cut switch helps roll off excess treble when used into the front of an amp. It also offers external channel and bypass switching via a 3.5 mm jack on the side next to the output jack. Tip selects the channel, ring controls bypass, and the sleeve is grounded.

The pedal runs on a standard 12VDC input, internally boosted to 280VDC to power the tubes at proper voltage. A high-quality wall power supply is included. It can also run from a pedalboard power source using a 12VDC/500mA outlet or two 250mA outputs via a current doubler.

A true-bypass switch keeps the signal path intact when the preamp is off.

The Beekeeper covers a wide range of styles, but naturally leans toward blues and jazz.