Not going to be a magazine worthy article here, I'm tired, and bear in mind this is my opinion, based on my sonic preferences, using my gear - YMMV
Sorry for new thread, didn't seem appropriate to tag onto existing ones on the topic.
Basics: The clean tone I'm favoring these days is very balanced through the mids - accomplished with Schecter Stiletto Custom into Backline 600 - just on the verge of overdrive with my settings/technique.
Bought the Bad Monkey from TB'r BillySid (thanks!)
The drive character I prefer is this:
http://www.bassplayer.com/article/ho...a/Dec-06/24388 (yes, a Hematoma is on my want list - as you might guess though I like to piece together budget to mid priced gear and get high dollar sound - it can be done for those in doubt)
Back to the task at hand, expressing my opinion of the Humphrey Audio Mods Badder Bass Monkey.
The good, in addition to the standard Digitech build quality.
It sounds good at various gain settings, the drive character is pleasing with no harsh spikes or treble fizz to be found. In a word, it's smooth. To my ears, it's simply layering drive into your tone instead of piling distortion on top. This is key to a good drive pedal IMHO. It works well with an active bass - didn't bother digging out a passive since I hardly play them anymore.
The Bad of this Badder Monkey - for me - it is very difficult to dial in a balanced tone using the onboard high/low controls. (not impossible, just more finicky than I would like). What works okay for a certain gain setting is not even close for other gain settings. With the thicker mids clean tone I'm favoring, this pedal ends up over-emphasizing the low mids and leaves me with a boxy guitar like tone, or a boomy low end - hard to get a balance between the two. Sure, it can be corrected for using eq between the bass and drive pedal, but it takes a lot more correction than one might expect.
Where this leaves me - undecided really. After the revies I was hoping to be left in awe wondering how to make it sound bad and that's just not the case. I'll figure out how to make great use of it, I just get a feeling it's not going to be as simple as I would like. I'm really just wanting a pedal to insert between the bass and input of the amp that will allow my clean tone to remain unchanged, just gristled up a bit. No extra eq other than on board the drive pedal itself or a simple tweak to my onboard pre, no chaining drive pedals together - just one box that sounds great as is.
By the way, the Badder Monkey does play well in line with other drive pedals if that matters to anyone. I don't suggest it with modelling or emulating devices though. To my ears, it does such a good job of compressing like driven tubes, that it gets weird when going into modelling (ZOOM B2 for me) or emulating (BDI21 here).
Where I can see this pedal doing wonders for a live band is a pick style rock bassists using a tube amp and a slightly scooped eq structure. I'd bet this box is perfect for letting a driven bass line carry a song while filling in the space for two loud guitars (or TOO loud guitars hehe)
Hopefully this doesn't come across as being against the Badder Bass Monkey - it's a decent drive pedal and a nice tool to have, just not the end all I was hoping for.
I'm going to re-visist the OCD and TS9-DX because I don't remember them being as much of a challenge to get right - albeit with much higher gain than I'm wanting to use.
