Mad Professor Super Black Mini Preamp

Sixties black panel clean and breakup in a mini enclosure, with a full tone stack and the headroom to back it up.

Most of what makes a black panel amp special happens before it starts to distort. The clean is where the character lives, all that headroom and sparkle and the way a chord opens up without smearing, and headroom is usually the first thing to go when you try to fit an amp into a pedal enclosure. The Super Black mini is built around solving that problem.

The circuit is all analog and follows the full signal path of the amp rather than approximating what comes out the other end. What you get is the clean tone those mid-sixties amps are known for, bright and punchy and quick to answer what you put into it, with enough headroom underneath that it holds together when you dig in. Push it past that and it breaks up the way the amp does, with the dynamics of a cranked amp and none of the volume that normally comes with them.

It is also flexible about where it sits. Run it in front of your amp as a tone shaper, or go straight into an FX loop return or a cabinet IR and use it as a preamp on its own. That second option makes it useful well past the pedalboard, whether you are recording direct or working with a backline you did not get to pick.