Ended up making some trades this week for a Source Audio Multiwave Bass Distortion Pro. All in all, I'm pretty pleased. It was more of an impulse buy than a GASed after item -- I wanted a zero noise top end boost/light distortion, which this certainly does.
However, it's got a lot of depth to it. I've been fiddling around and have found sound-alikes for distortion and synthie sounds that I've liked in other boxes I didn't want to buy, plus "that multiwave sound", but here's what I want to know: what are some of your favorite sounds that you can't get by just picking a mode and turning the drive a certain way? What tweaking do you do to get... I don't even know. What are some out there tricks you've found with this box?
Is there a secret compressor in it? Have you found any doom fuzzes? Is there a way to get the gate to 'clamp harder'? Can you get close to a square wave or pulse width modulation fuzz? Can you get it to make strange noises? Etc.
To start:
One of my favorite tricks is picking one of the multiband octave settings, turning the drive up a bit, playing a chord -- 2nd, aug 2nd, min 3rd or maj 3rd work -- and hearing that beat come out just as loud as the fretted notes. Totally usable!
One of my favorite settings is the very last Multiband Foldback (#9) Drive set to noonish, EQ with the highs cut a little and maybe some boost in the lows and low mids-It creates (or at least with my pickup, preamp, etc.) this really deep resonant sound-almost like a slightly synthy low pass filter. It's a subtle, but really sublime sound. It especially sounds awesome when playing through my Ergo EUB.
The pedal can't really do any gated sounds, but because it is so clean/free of noise, I find left and/or right hand muting work a lot better for getting quick silence even on high gain levels than most distortion pedals.
Cool, thanks. Yeah, I've noticed how much preamp volume makes a HUGE difference in the gain section. I was using my active Ibanez 6-string and got very confused as I couldn't get really squishy synth sounds, then noticed my EQs were mostly turned down -- boosting gave me way more range and distortion. This could be an issue with a passive (especially as my lower gain settings sounded very similar to one another), but the issue may vanish when it isn't first in my chain.
Also tried it with my Zeta EUB last night and you're right -- that's pure win.
The built in EQ is what makes the MWBD Pro a great pedal in my book. When I first got it I was really excited by all the weird synthiness it does (and especially how sensitive these sounds could be to dynamics in my playing). This was followed by a slight dissapointment the first couple of times I played it in a band context, as I didn't feel like those sounds were coming through properly in the mix.
However, after I took the time to really fine tune the EQ and dial in some proper settings, I've regained my faith in the pedal and then some. I've modeled some "normal" settings after old dirt pedals with really cool results; try A-B-ing with another good fuzz/distortion while setting the EQ-curve for some good starting points.
My favorite setting, although I can't remember the exact specifics off the top of my head, is a preset pair starting as a slight clean boost with the highs rolled off completely, and morphing into a more opened up drive/distortion with a much higher gain (pretty sure I use one of the single band normal sounds here).
Using an expression pedal to morph between these two makes it easy to dial in just the right amount of boost and grit on the fly. Absolutely love this setup for the kind of dynamic, semi-improvised music my band plays.
Preset morphing allows for some really creative uses of the MWBD - with an expression pedal connected you could use it as a volume pedal, a sort of quasi-wah, or a whole lot of other stuff. If you haven't tried morphing yet, I highly recommend it!
Last edited by Knettgummi : 12-31-2011 at 06:23 AM.
One of my favorite settings is the very last Multiband Foldback (#9) Drive set to noonish, EQ with the highs cut a little and maybe some boost in the lows and low mids-It creates (or at least with my pickup, preamp, etc.) this really deep resonant sound-almost like a slightly synthy low pass filter. It's a subtle, but really sublime sound. It especially sounds awesome when playing through my Ergo EUB.
I think that's the setting I use for doing the intro to Birdland. On the original, Zawinul plays the intro on synth, and I like using that setting to emulate not Zawinul's sound perfectly, but a synthy sound that with the lows, mids, and highs boosted a bit gives off a nice envelope sound as well. I keep my drive about 9 oclock almost for every setting on there, though for some reason. (I'd need to try that trick Roger mentioned on another thread about checking dials presets since I haven't changed presets on the MWBD since June/July.) Below is a quick recording I did of Birdland soon after getting my BEF Pro, demonstrating the sound I'm talking about. (If you listen past the intro, I apologize for the poor demonstration of the BEF Pros sounds, I had literally gotten the pedal the day before and hadn't had time to set up any good presets, and my settings were not very good.) http://soundcloud.com/daveharryman/04-birdland
And I still think the coolest thing about this pedal is the ability to morph presets, and that allows me to take preset 1, which is a clean EQ boost, and slowly go from clean, to a bit of fuzz, to heavy fuzz, to hard normal distortion in preset 4. This is especially handy when switching an envelope filter on, because I don't have to switch settings and fiddle with knobs, just rock the expression pedal a bit and hit the envelope filter.
ETA: Also, I love sending the synthy sounds through my Bass MuRF or the BEF Pro's LFO. It creates really awesome sounds.
I love the multiwave foldback setting (one tick before the last one) with two different gains, one at 11 and one at about 3 o'clock. It can deliver very muse-esque sounds with the right EQ settings.
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Wal Bass Club Member #34, S.A.S.S. #63
I use the Moog EP-2. I may invest in one of Source Audio's new ones because I actually need to steal one of my EPs for my MuRF sometimes, and definitely never take it away from the MWBD Pro because of the morphing.
This weekend, I'm going to check my preset settings and write them down and post them, and maybe tweak some of them, one I think I'm going to outright change because I never use it, and maybe record some small sound clips of them.
