Exar Tourbox Thread

[Eric!]

I thought it might be a wise idea to have everyone participating in the Exar Tourbox Tour to have one collective thread to have all the reviews posted in or host links to.



The homepage for this (as hosted by bongomania) is right here.

Participants:
warwick.hoy --> finished!
karter2000 --> finished!
Superbassman2000 --> in possession of
Ebennetts/Eric! -->on the wait
Swift713 --> on the wait
Yakob --> on the wait
cybersnyder --> on the wait
JimmyM --> on the wait
michaelvee --> on the wait
akaTRENT --> on the wait
RFord04 --> on the wait
tigerbass --> on the wait
scotch --> on the wait
RCCollins --> on the wait
nad --> on the wait
My name is Mudd --> on the wait
TheMutt --> on the wait
Fuzzboxvoodoo --> on the wait
Cheapbasslovin --> on the wait

If this is a dumb idea, or someone has a better idea, go ahead and do that. I just thought I'd have a bit of initiative

[TheMutt]

Sounds good to me. I'll be making some clips of each with all three of my basses.

I'll also pit the distortion against my modified BOSS distortion (pending upon whether it sells or not), the Moby Dick versus my Analogman Bi-Chorus, and I'll see if I get any other octave pedals in during the interim as the PitchFactor isn't really comparable to the Octavium.

[Swift713]

Oh frabgeous day, calloo, callay!

[bongomania]

Cool beans. After a while, maybe 3 months from now, I plan to start a second tour. That one will include the taBASSco overdrive, the bass compressor, and maybe the multi-wah or the Pignose.

All your opinions are valuable to me--positive, negative, or "meh". EXAR has made it clear they are willing to work with me to improve the line for the tastes/needs of the North American market, so any input will make the product line better! For one example, I've already gotten on their case about the plastic footswitch plate. It's actually quite durable, but I know we'd all appreciate something more rugged. So they are developing a metal switch for the future editions of their pedals, probably with a stamped stainless-steel top plate.

[Eric!]

Originally Posted by bongomania

Cool beans. After a while, maybe 3 months from now, I plan to start a second tour. That one will include the taBASSco overdrive, the bass compressor, and maybe the multi-wah or the Pignose.

All your opinions are valuable to me--positive, negative, or "meh". EXAR has made it clear they are willing to work with me to improve the line for the tastes/needs of the North American market, so any input will make the product line better! For one example, I've already gotten on their case about the plastic footswitch plate. It's actually quite durable, but I know we'd all appreciate something more rugged. So they are developing a metal switch for the future editions of their pedals, probably with a stamped stainless-steel top plate.

I'd like to get on that second tour!
And trust me, I'll be honest about my opinions!!

[warwick.hoy]

Since I've figured out how to do some crude video demos I'll definitely be working on polishing that up on the pedals included in this round of the Tour Box. Based on BM's review's I really would love to give the compressor a try, but as it were I'll just have to wait on the second round.

[warwick.hoy]

I really want to hold off on any critique or review of these pedals as effects but I thought I'd offer up some thoughts on the construction and features of these pedals. Pics and Vids to come.

The EXAR pedals are slightly smaller than a Boss compact pedal. Construction is as hefty. I'm not sure how important weight is to some of you guys but I compared the Octavium against a Boss LS-2. On a digital kitchen scale the Boss pedal weighed 392 grams and the Octavium weighed in at 429 grams.

Despite it's differences there is something familiar about the Exar pedals construction. Take away the plastic footswitch and colorful knobs (these aren't toys though) it's basically a a powder coated MXR sized Hammond enclosure with an easy access battery door and large no skid rubber foot.

The footswitch action is I think a little too delicate and could possibly precipitate accidental activation with the brush of an errant tap dance on a crowded pedalboard. It lacks that reassuring snap that a 3pdt switch has or that springy feedback that you get from a Boss spring loaded footswitch.

It says "True Bypass" on the pedal and on the packaging but I don't think it's mechanical. Without power the signal does not go through. It does say "Silent True Bypass" in the instruction manual however. I'm still a little unclear on what "Silent TBP" is. I found the Bypassed tone to be clean and uncolored and no more or less noisy than without the pedal in the chain. EDIT: The bypass sounds great.

I'll get into how each pedal sounds when I have a chance to play them a bit more.

[bongomania]

The bypass system is neither a mechanical switch in the usual sense of a 3PDT true bypass, nor an electronic switch in the usual sense of running the signal through an opamp or other buffer. Instead, it is a gold-plated relay switch. It hard-wire bypasses the effect circuit via the relay, and the relay is triggered by a small electronic switch. It won't pass sound when there's no power, because the relay needs power to operate.

The idea behind this is that mechanical switches are prone to making those "pop" noises when charge builds up on one side; the relay system does not allow that charge buildup to enter the audio path--hence the "silent" TBP.

[tigerbass]

Hmmm, I contacted Bongo some time ago about the pedals and then the tour.
Maybe I can get in on the next one.
If someone could PM me their thoughts on the Phaser, I would be grateful!

[scotch]

Awwww, man! I want to play too!

[bongomania]

Oh hey tigerbass! I had sent you a couple emails asking about your new address, and didn't get a response. So I took you off the list--sorry about that. Maybe my emails are in your spam/junk folder? PM me your info and I'll fit you back in.

And scotch--you too. PM me your address, real name, and phone number. I mostly just "closed" the list for a sense of tidiness, not out of any real need for it to be closed.

[syciprider]

Are these a spin off of Jacques?

[gus1894]

Subscribed - I have been curious to hear demos and reviews on the Exar pedals - so I'm gonna have to watch the show. The Tourbox concept is a nice idea.

[bongomania]

Originally Posted by syciprider

Are these a spin off of Jacques?

Actually, EXAR makes Jacques pedals. Jacques is its own company and brand, but EXAR is the manufacturer.

[gus1894]

^^ That makes a lot of sense now, looking at the design.

[warwick.hoy]

I slept in a little bit and in between sips of coffee I setup the tripod and snapped some photographs. I want to show off the construction quality which (aside from the footswitch) is top notch IMO.

A group shot. (sorry but CGI images don't cut it for me. I don't understand why these companies [EXAR is not the only one] don't use actual photographs, are photographers more expensive than graphic designers? anyway)



It seems like EXAR uses hammond enclosures and pimps them out heavily.









I like the lack of grooves and depressions on the bottom rubber foot. Unlike BOSS pedals there is plenty of flat space to easily apply velcro.

[Smallequestrian]

Definitely interested in hearing more about the Octavium. I'm a big fan of digital octaves and wouldn't mind replacing my Ring Thing with something smaller if it tracked as good.

[warwick.hoy]

Here is a quick vid I did of the Bass Distortion. It's hard to make out the controls in the video so I'll list them.

Low-High-Mix
Level-Dist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScalYRqu40w

I do a lot of knob twiddling (I'm giggling on the inside). You should be able to tell what each knob is by listening.

Note that with the Distortion completely completely counter clockwise there is still distortion. It differs from other distortions I've played in that to get a completely clean sound requires you to turn the Mix knob counter clockwise (Dry signal). The first setting in the vid is with the Mix knob completely off. What this does is give you a completely dry signal but you can still manipulate the High and Low EQ as well as the level effectively making this a clean boost with 2 band EQ.

This is a great little distortion pedal. Aside from the Source Audio MWBDP which is more of a synth pedal to me, I've never played a distortion pedal that had any sort of EQ or mix control. These features I think are crucial to a good bass distortion pedal.

The biggest complaint I've seen with distortion pedals is loss of low end. Between the 2 band tone stack and the Mix you can dial the perfect amount of low end. It is possible to dial in too much low end.

[warwick.hoy]

Here is my quick demo of the Octavium, with some side by side with the OC-2. I'm not entirely sure if the Octavium is analog or Digital. It's tracking surely suggests digital to me but EXAR advertises themselves as an all analog company. *shruggs*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc_ppMzrrUY

Again with these vids the controls are hard to make out:

OCT +1, OCT -1, OCT-2
Direct, Tone -1, Tone-2

Basically there is an Octave up and Octave down with tone control and 2 Octaves down with tone control. The tone controls are directly bellow the octave they control.

I've never messed with any octave other than the Boss OC-2. For my purposes the OC-2 is the end all Octaver. It is the sound I'm looking for. The EXAR does not achieve that warm, phat, synthy, butteryness that you get from the OC-2.

That is not to say it isn't a good Octaver. In OCT -1 It tracks really well and has a tight, focused and punchy sound that is adjustable via the tone control.

OCT -2 tracking is good on the extreme upper registers and produces those sort of trunk lid rattling subs that you hear on all those hi dollar competition car audio systems.

I wasn't really impressed with the OCT +1. There was some distortion that I was unsure if it was normal or if I was clipping my soundcard, so I plugged into my home practice rig and indeed there it was. Perhaps they intended that to be there though. Perhaps this feature would be more useful on guitar and in all honesty,...I've never found a use for octave up on bass. YMMV.

All in all it's a great sounding octaver. Will it replace my OC-2? No, but I'd rather have one of these over a MicroPOG anyday.

[DerHoggz]

The Octavium looks/sounds nice. Is it actually tracking or is it shifting ala the POGs? Also, it is listed as an introductory price, will that increase or decrease or what?