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Two high-voltage tubes running at 250 volts. Fully analog in the signal path, digitally controlled. The tone platform behind CHUCK — and everything that comes next.
ATE — the Adaptive Tube Engine. An optional booster in front of two E83CC at 250 volts, then an analog preamp with a programmable tonestack. The operating state shapes how the circuit behaves — not the tone path. No DSP between pickup and tube. Under 1 ms of latency.
More about CHUCKYour guitar volume hits the tube with no converter in the way. Turn up and it bites. Roll back and the crunch breathes away — in real time, because nothing goes digital between pickup and tube.
ATE didn't start as an engineering project. It started as a question every player has asked: what if a tube amp didn't have to be locked to a single voice? What if the circuit could stay real, responsive and authentic — and still become flexible enough to explore new personalities?
Before we were engineers, we were players. And like countless guitarists before us, we chased what might be possible.
Long before anyone said "profiling," modders sat over a Plexi with a soldering iron: swap a cap, shift the bias, rewire the tonestack. A Marshall became a Friedman. A Bassman became a Tweed Deluxe. Same transformer, same tubes — different behavior.
What they figured out: it's not just about how an amp sounds, it's how it feels under your fingers. How much sag on hard chords. Where the edge of breakup sits. How the mids move as you crank it. That's exactly the logic we built into ATE.
The circuit stays analog — the tube, the tonestack, the saturation. What changes is the control: instead of swapping components, ATE switches resistors, capacitances and operating points digitally. The result: ten different preamps, one piece of hardware.
A classic preset stores where the gain knob sits. ATE stores how the amp behaves as a whole when you crank the gain — compression, headroom, how the edge of breakup shifts. What you switch isn't a sound. It's a character.
What modders did with a soldering iron, ATE does with the voicing button. The physics stays — you just don't need the patience anymore.
Swap caps and resistors
Rewire the tonestack
Reset the bias, check the sound
An afternoon per variation. And no two are reproducible.
Hit a voicing — new preamp, right there
Dial in gain, tone and booster live
Save the preset, recall it at the next gig
Seconds instead of hours. And tomorrow it's still exactly that sound.
Great tone isn't made at the end of the chain. It starts at the source — and the word for it is older than any software.
Most systems chase what happens after the signal enters the chain — effects, models, cab sims. ATE starts at the source. When the first stage already feels alive, everything after it becomes more musical: not simply more gain or warmth, but more connection, response and interaction.
The word didn't come from software — it came from amplifier design. A different voicing meant a different analog personality: different dynamics, compression, harmonics, feel. ATE keeps that tradition — real analog personalities inside one tube platform, not simulations of other amps.
A voicing isn't a preset. It's its own analog preamp — with its own tonestack, its own compression, its own breakup point. From funky LA clean to a Marshall 800 on steroids. Pick whatever you're chasing tonight.
Smooth, funky, full of feel. Your clean tone for warm grooves, shimmering chords and playful funk vibes.
Clear, open, honest. The timeless clean tone with a warm core and a subtle twang.
Versatile, vintage, reliable. From clean to crunchy, with compression and rock character.
Stubborn, biting, soulful. A raw, mid-forward tone with just the right edge.
Open, balanced, full of classic-rock energy. Crunchy dynamics with an organic flow.
Focused, gutsy, full of character. A VOX-inspired tone with punch.
Sharp, tight, uncompromising. Modern rock tone with razor-sharp precision.
Brutal, deep, uncompromisingly heavy. Maximum punch with scooped mids and a fat low end.
Fat, jagged, pinned to eleven. Power and speed for the biggest wall of sound.
Singing, sleazy, full of drama. Creamy solos, screaming highs, endless sustain.
Voicings are the characters. Here are a few of them in real songs — band, mix, room. Best with headphones.
Long before software went adaptive, tubes already were. Two E83CC run at around 250 V plate voltage, generated internally from the 24 V power supply. Only at this real high voltage does a tube sound the way it should. Compression, sag, harmonic overtones. What modelers try to recreate happens here in real time, in the circuit itself.
The tone path stays analog end to end. Digital only steps in when you ask it to.
Your ears constantly adapt — to loudness, dynamics, the room. A tube behaves similarly: as levels rise it adds progressive compression instead of hard limiting, and its harmonics evolve as you dig in. Both are adaptive by nature — which is why players call tube gear more natural and connected.
ATE is built around the interaction of two tube stages. That interplay is where the range comes from: more room for dynamics, harmonic development, compression, gain structure and voicing flexibility — a platform of analog personalities instead of one fixed sound.
Because the tone path is real analog, CHUCK can work as a purely analog tube frontend — guitar into two tubes, out to your amp. The DSP for effects, IR, routing, MIDI and USB is still all there; it just waits until you ask. Analog first, hybrid when you need it — per preset.
In front of the tubes sits an analog booster, footswitchable. Switched on, it pushes the signal into the first tube — more gain, edge-of-breakup cleans, crunch with muscle. Off, the pickup runs straight into the first tube, no detour.
No pedal out front, no loop. It sits where it belongs: in the analog signal path, before anything goes digital.
From pickup to output, stage by stage. Filled boxes: fixed stages in the tone path. Outlined boxes: effects and user stages. The diagram shows where the signal stays analog and where DSP takes over.
In the tone path you want tubes, not math. For switching presets you want the press of a button — no channel switch that pops, no re-soldering. That's exactly where analog gets in the way. ATE keeps the two cleanly apart.
Volume pot down — clean. Volume pot up — crunch. No pedal.
Hard chords make the tube sag for a beat, soft picking breathes. That's sag and headroom, not marketing.
At higher gain, overtones stack up that the mix will love later — especially in the mids.
Switch the entire signal chain with one footstep — voicing, FX, EQ, routing.
Clone setups, build presets in the studio and take them to the gig.
Firmware updates roll in new features. CHUCK gets older and better at the same time.
Tone: fully analog through the two E83CC, no DSP between pickup and preamp output. Only after that does the 24-bit DSP kick in — for reverb, delay, IR loader, routing. Under 1 ms of latency, below the threshold of perception.
You get what tubes can do — and you no longer have to haul three amps to switch between clean and high gain.
After the tube, CHUCK models the cabinet digitally: load cabinet IRs in real time, switch cabs per preset — for silent practice, DI recording and straight to FOH.
Get back the feel only a real tube delivers — and keep the presets, the MIDI, the audio interface. No more either-or.
Drop CHUCK on your pedalboard, play it at rehearsal, run it into the PA over XLR. If ATE isn't what you were after — send it back for free, no questions asked.
Order & try it now ›
10 voicings as raw recordings — straight through CHUCK, no re-mastering. Hear how The Velvet swings and how The Tornado hits you in the chest.
Explore the voicings ›
Grab your axe, head to one of our partner dealers, roll that volume pot all the way. ATE only really sings once you play it yourself.
Find a dealer near you ›From the newsroom
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