Recently I was able to get a prototype pedal from my friend Bill Ferguson from Peavey Electronics. This pedal features the classic Nashville 400 preamp, in a box weighing less than a couple pounds! (How’s that for saving your back??) The 400 features all of the classic front knob controls from the Nashville 400, minus the reverb.


Peavey amps are as important to the steel guitar community as Emmons and Sho-Bud steel guitars. Without their influence in the early days of steel guitar, the sound would not have developed without their innovation. This pedal is no exception to that rule. I am glad that Peavey has started stepping back into the steel guitar community we need to let them know how appreciative we are of that.


I have a LTD 400, Sesh 400(tc electronic), and now the Nashville 400 preamp. By far, through my testing the Nashville 400 has been the cleanest and easiest to get a tone that I love. I am running from my Hilton VP, into a Benado steel dread, into the Nashville 400, a Straight Ahead power amp and then into a TT15 speaker in a cheap cabinet (eBay). This rig with the addition of the Nashville 400 is getting some of the best tones I have been able to achieve in my career. You can see above, these are the settings that I have been using so far, but that could change depending on the room size and temperature. Note also that I like to drive the Pre Gain section a little bit, this gives a really nice breakup when I lean into the volume a bit. 


Please get in touch with my friend Bill at bferguson1947@gmail.com to order one of these pedals, you won’t regret it! I will be posting sound samples soon. My studio computer is in need of repairs and I can’t record right now, but I’ll have some samples out soon as soon as that is remedied hopefully by next week.


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This is my reverb settings for the Nashville 400 pedal. I have tried to get it as close to the original reverb in the amps as I could. Of course, the Benado has a completely different design and sound as a true spring reverb, but this got me close.