You know that feeling when you plug in and something just sounds right? Not different. Not obviously affected. Just right — fuller, warmer, more alive. That’s the Chase Tone Secret Preamp. It’s the Wu-Tang of pedals. You don’t always know exactly what it’s doing, but when it’s gone you notice immediately.
The Origin Story
This pedal has roots deeper than most. In the 1960s and 70s, Echoplex tape delay units evolved from tube-based designs into solid state models. The EP-3 became legendary — not just for its delay, but because something happened to the signal passing through its preamp even when the echo was bypassed. Players like Jimmy Page, EVH, and David Gilmour were running their guitars through these units and their tone was getting better for reasons nobody could fully explain.
That’s the secret sauce Kyle Chase spent over a decade chasing down. The result is a hand-built, boutique-level pedal that runs internally at 22 volts — the same voltage as the original EP-3 — using vintage-spec JFETs and aged carbon film resistors. This isn’t a vague approximation. It’s a forensic recreation.
What Does It Actually Do?
This is where it gets real. The Secret Preamp is not a boost pedal in the traditional sense. It’s a tone enhancer. It adds harmonic complexity, increases touch sensitivity, fattens the midrange, and introduces a subtle phase shift that makes everything sound more three-dimensional.
The best way I can describe it — imagine your tone with its shoes on. Now take the shoes off. That’s the Secret Preamp. Everything breathes more.
The three-position toggle switch is where the character lives:
BRIGHT — early EP-3 voicing. More top end presence, glassy and open. Perfect for single coils that need to cut.
DARK — later EP-3 voicing. Warmer, rounder, more vintage. Put this on a Les Paul into a cranked amp and prepare to question every other pedal you own.
MID — Chase Tone’s own hybrid capture. Sits between the two. Most versatile setting for players who need the Secret Preamp to work across multiple guitars and situations.
From the Bench
I’ve set up hundreds of guitars and spent years chasing tone on the bench. The components in this pedal tell the whole story before you even plug it in. Orange Drop capacitors. Aged-value carbon film resistors. Switchcraft jacks. A circuit board built with plated through-holes and a pure ground plane. This is not a mass-produced pedal — it’s closer to a hand-rolled cigarette than a pack of Marlboros.
True bypass via an epoxy-reinforced 3PDT means zero tone suck when it’s off. And the internal voltage boost from 9V to 22V means you’re getting genuine EP-3 headroom, not a stripped down approximation.
Who Is It For?
Any player who has ever plugged in and thought “something’s missing.” It’s always on territory. Whether you play country, blues, hard rock, or jazz — the Secret Preamp works. It’s been spotted on boards belonging to Charlie Starr of Blackberry Smoke and G.E. Smith, and used at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals. That’s not a coincidence.
If you run fuzz or overdrive, put this after it. The Secret Preamp at the end of your chain pulling everything together is one of the great tone moves available to a guitarist right now.
Bottom Line
Street price around $159. For a hand-built, boutique-level pedal that makes every guitar in your arsenal sound better — that’s not expensive. That’s a bargain.
Enter the chamber. The secret’s been out for a while, but most players still haven’t found it.
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