A bass overdrive experiment - BBBOD content!

Mark Latimour · #1 01-22-2011, 04:26 AM

Okay, so I recorded (poorly) a set of 10 clips of me playing roughly the same set of riffs through the following dirt pedals:

BJFE Blueberry Bass Overdrive
Darkglass Electronics Harmonic Booster
Fuzzrocious Dark Driving
SFX Micro-Red Dragon
SFX Micro-Black Dragon
FEA Labs Dual Band Distortion

The bass I used was my Kennedy 6 string and the signal path was always: Bass (set flat, both pickups wide open) into the pedal into my Saffire LE into Garage Band. I tried to keep the pedals at unity gain and not to mess with the pedals tone controls to EQ the sound.

Now, some of the pedals got more than one track recorded with them at different gain settings, but without changing the tone.

I tried to record the same playing through each track but I was lazy so didn't re-record when I stuffed up and only made one pass through each pedal so the playing is very warts and all (sorry!).

Anyone, I've set up a poll so people can vote for which tone they like the best.

I will reveal which are which in due course.

Clips are here:
http://soundcloud.com/marklatimour/s...ips-anonymised

The results are now here: A bass overdrive experiment - BBBOD content!

Crystalman85 · #2 01-22-2011, 05:08 AM

Pretty cool clips you got there. I dig how track no.2 and track no.8 sounds. no.8 sounds like the isolated bass tracks to metallica's master of puppets. what pedals did you use on those tracks? they sound pretty cool.

Mingus Addict · #3 01-22-2011, 05:16 AM

This is awesome Mark. Can't wait to see whats what. I think I'll note my reactions as I listen to keep my thoughts organized.

1. Not feelin it. Too dark I guess?
2. I like it a bit better.
3. I like it, but it almost sounds too clean to be called OD.
4. My favorite so far, although maybe fartier than ideal.
5. Something I like about this one too. New favorite?
6. Hmm, similar to five is some ways but better still IMO.
7. Same pedal as clip 3? I do like this one, although it's very low gain.
8. Sounded good at first but then too buzzy on top
9. Another that's just too dark/dull.
10. Sounds familiar... is this the same as clip 1?

Mmmmmmm, I think my favorite sound was the way Clip 8 sounded during the first riff, but I hate how buzzy it got on higher notes. For overall sound throughout the clip I think I'm voting for number 7, although I was hoping to hear something with more gain that I liked better.

Thanks again Mark, that was fun.

Mark Latimour · #4 01-22-2011, 05:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crystalman85

Pretty cool clips you got there. I dig how track no.2 and track no.8 sounds. no.8 sounds like the isolated bass tracks to metallica's master of puppets. what pedals did you use on those tracks? they sound pretty cool.

I will publish the whole list later once people have had a chance to listen and guess at which pedal is which (or at least express their preference!).

If you are dying to know what a particular pedal is, drop me a PM!

rratajski · #5 01-22-2011, 06:16 AM

First: 2.
Second: 8.
Third: 10.

I can't wait to see which is which!!!

delta7fred · #6 01-22-2011, 06:59 AM

Mark.

Great idea, Clips on Youtube are ok but here we have the same rig, song and player with just the pedal swapped so a much better comparison is available.

No idea what the pedals are but these are my notes YMMV.

1. Too farty
2. Distant sounding (reminds me of the Banana Boat Song*)
3. Like it, very subtle OD
4. Way too farty
5. Dirty than 3 but still nice
6. Clear sounding, must have a blend
7. Like it even though it is dirtier than what I would normally go for
8. slightly over fuzzy but still ok
9. Muffled and sounds like a blown speaker
10. Must be dual band (probably wrong though)

As I don't go for the dirt sound (well not on bass anyway) I was surprised how many I actually liked.
3 and 5 favourite
2, 4 and 9 least favourite.

* I think you need to be over about 55 to remember The Banana Boat song.

Volume4 · #7 01-22-2011, 07:23 AM

I'm about to vote, a little torn which I like best

I liked in no order right now

4
6
8
9
10

3 and 5 sounded kinda clean

2 sounded good, very Ampegish. So did 7 but too thin

9 and 10 sounded similiar with 9 having more clarity but I liked both

I'm leaning towards voting 8

Great job. Thank you for this.

I'll be very curious which is the DD and the BBBOD, I'm on day 2 with the DD and love how it sounds with my rig and I've wanted a BBBOD for a long time.

oldbassplayergu · #8 01-22-2011, 07:25 AM

2 & 4 the rest sound the same to me

Hutzbordello · #9 01-22-2011, 07:30 AM

Swift713 · #10 01-22-2011, 07:56 AM

I love these kind of threads, thanks. I liked 3&5 the best with 1,6,7&8 next. 7 was a bit thin. I'm very curious which is which.

jam.majors · #11 01-22-2011, 08:09 AM

I'm VERY curious which is which! It would be very interesting if the Holy Grail (BJFE) got the fewest votes...

bassboysam · #12 01-22-2011, 08:10 AM

i voted 3. I can't see any of the other tones working in a live setting. maybe cool for the studio. But three would sound nice and aggressive and the dynamics would be preserved.

Swift713 · #13 01-22-2011, 08:36 AM

It's interesting because I can get a few of these tones (pretty much) with the Blueberry depending on gain and tone settings as well as my playing. Several of these sound more like fuzz to me (but maybe that's just my taste as I usually use fuzz with the gain way down). The Blueberry's forte, IMO, is it's dynamic response.

rratajski · #14 01-22-2011, 08:41 AM

It would actually be funniest if ALL of these were the BBBOD (I know they're not, but still...).

Mark Latimour · #15 01-22-2011, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swift713

It's interesting because I can get a few of these tones (pretty much) with the Blueberry depending on gain and tone settings as well as my playing. Several of these sound more like fuzz to me (but maybe that's just my taste as I usually use fuzz with the gain way down). The Blueberry's forte, IMO, is it's dynamic response.

Some of these pedals are "distortion" circuits rather than overdrive pedals (eg the SFX Black Dragon and the FEA Dual Band) and one is just a booster and not an overdrive pedal (the DarkGlass). However the distortion is all occuring in the pedal and none of it is the input to the Saffire (I checked that when I was recording them).

The other point to note is that all of these pedals have a variety of tones from them, but if I recorded every variation of tone there would be hundreds of options. I tried to keep the tone controls fairly "flat" (to the extent you can on these pedals) and also play a variety of places on the neck (low end and high end) chords and hard and softer to show the dynamic range, but you can't do everything. I know which pedal I would take with me if I could only take one, but luckily (for me) I don't have too!

Swift713 · #16 01-22-2011, 08:54 AM

Oh sure, for a 1:1 shoot out you could try to make two pedals sound the same. For this purpose I agree that "flat" settings are certainly appropriate. I was just thinking it's not so easy to pick out the Blueberry from the line up due to variables. I'll say that 3 & 5 sound most like how I use the Blueberry, I think.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. No Carrots?

rratajski · #17 01-22-2011, 08:58 AM

Mark, when do we find out which is which?

Mark Latimour · #18 01-22-2011, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swift713

Oh sure, for a 1:1 shoot out you could try to make two pedals sound the same. For this purpose I agree that "flat" settings are certainly appropriate. I was just thinking it's not so easy to pick out the Blueberry from the line up due to variables. I'll say that 3 & 5 sound most like how I use the Blueberry, I think.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. No Carrots?

Well the last option was meant to be carrots and I voted for that one. But thanks to the three others who picked that option!

Mark Latimour · #19 01-22-2011, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rratajski

Mark, when do we find out which is which?

Not sure. Maybe Monday?

bigchiefbc · #20 01-22-2011, 09:05 AM

1 - sounds more like you're clipping a console or something, not overdriving an amp
2 - sounds better, a little dark, makes me think it's gonna disappear in a mix
3 - very clean, almost hard to call it overdrive. Sounds close to my clean sound
4 - I like it, but it feels like it's more distortion than overdrive
5 - this is nice, I like it. Just a smidge of dirt
6 - good, Similar to 5, but higher gain.
7 - Very clean but dark, not my kind of tone, but some people would like it
8 - higher gain, I agree with whoever said it sounds good on the lower strings and bad on the higher strings
9 - very dark, I think it sounds good on its own, but would get buried in my band.
10 - much clearer, but I don't like the character of the dirt, it's not a pleasing overdrive

I think 5 and 6 are probably my favorites.