OverDrive Sickness - Help Me Help Myself

[jufros]

Gentlemen, I'm struggling in this department again. For a good while I was satisfied with my Sparkle Drive / Gemini Drive combo in front of my Sansamp RBI. I used the Sparkle Drive w/ liberal clean blended in for low gain sounds and the Gemini for higher gain sounds.

I've been tracking in the studio and two things have happened to me..

1) I don't really want to record with anything besides my double-P-bass (2nd P in the bridge) with chrome flats because I can't profoundly dominate the 250-800hz thump your house down part of the mix while maintaining excellent clarity and attack thanks to the bridge pickup @ 75%.

2) The Sparkle Drive makes my playing sound like two distinctly different layers, one clean and one dirty. The reason for this seams pretty obvious: my churns out or even specializes in frequencies that the Sparkle Drive doesn't respond to. So I wind up with a fat bottom and then a fizzy overdrive on top. Sure it's a "wide" sound but its disparate and it's anything but smooth.

So, I'm looking for a relatively smooth tubescreamer clone with perfect bass response and treble controls that are actually useful for shaping high mids or the most present high frequencies. I don't think that I want a clean blend. I have a blender, it works, I just don't think I'm going for that low-gain OD sound anymore.

The Gemini Drive is killer with its blend for higher gain applications, but its definitely not going to purr along with my playing, give me a little extra mojo, maintain note definition, and help bring out the "jazziness" in my bridge pickup without forcing me to give up favoring the neck.

Think Paul Turner tone ("Dynamite" album by Jamiroquai) BUTTTT with the flexibility to get a little harrier too and more "tubescreamer" sounding.

So.... Essentially...

I'm looking for...

-Smooth non-offensive tiger purring capabilities
-Can get a little harsher buzzier, little more highs, but they MUST be tamable and subtle. I still need to be able to get some snap out my higher register notes if i dig in (if you play funk at all you know exactly what I mean - it's all about your right hand attack and left hand muting).
-Good EQ
-No clean blend necessary
-Overdrive circuit tuned to frequencies that I care about as would any bassist in a rock/funk/dance/ambient group.
-I'd prefer it to have a smallish casing (no bigger than the Sparkle Drive and smaller if possible)


What I'm thinking about checking out...

Humphrey Audio Badder Bass Monkey - in the mail to me currently, has the whole retuning of the overdrive frequencies thing going for it

Xotic BB Preamp - I would really like to get as much info on this as possible. It sounds fantastic from clips and is certainly one of the more versatile options that we bassists have as far as I can tell.

Fulltone OCD - sounds great on guitar I know but I'm skeptical about how well it's tuned for bass

Retro-Sonic Eight-O-Eight - theoretically a nice call with a powerful high cut control, wide gain range, and an internal trim bot for bass response

CMATMODS Signa Drive - don't see this company talked about much here so I got in touch with the builder. He assured me that the overdrive was full range and had good things to say about it on bass.

Catalinbread Silver Kiss MKII - 3 Band interactive EQ, built in clean boost

Barber LTD

MI Audio Blue Boy Deluxe (features look awesome, need more info)

[dannybuoy]

I haven't tried all those you've listed, but I had the Humphrey modded Bad Monkey and now have the Xotic. They sound VERY similar, if you like the Monkey but want something smaller and true bypass (like I did), then the Xotic would be a great choice.

[thedude77md]

The Barber LTD SR is awesome. There are a couple internal trim pots as well to further adjust the EQ if needed,

[jufros]

Agreed on the Barber but I think I'm mostly interested in the Xotic BB and MI Audio Blue Boy Deluxe. I really dig the Xotic tones that I've heard. On the other hand, the Blue Boy Deluxe has a mid control, "character" control for "tightness" of low end (how much the overdrive affects your lows), brightness, and a "tone" knob that cuts highs and boosts lows (counterclockwise from 12:00) simultaneously and vice versa (clockwise from 12:00) as you move clockwise.

[Crabby]

I am loving my new OCD on bass. It has such a wonderful sounding drive with no fizzyness and no low end loss that I can detect. It won out over my Fulltone bassdrive hands down. Just a better sounding overdrive with beter low end retention.

The OCD can do a very light overdrive as well but I have also bought a Fatboost V3 which is does a perfect job of getting a warm slightly breaking up overdrive that is subtle and sweet. The pair is perfectly matched and they are both very small and reasonably priced.

[phatbass30]

tried the Barber, OCD and the BB side by side. my BB win hands down. it breaks up the way i want it to. it can be subtle or harsh. plus you got the Bass and Treble knobs to spice up your tone even more. then the Volume knob to control your total output. its very versatile. IMHO and of course, YMMV.

[JMDT]

A Way Huge Pork Loin may be worth checking out. It is a similar idea to a Sparkle Drive but sounds better in every possible way and is very adjustable. I liked it better than the Bad Monkey, Xotic type overdrives.

[jufros]

I've actually tried the Pork Loin. I loved it, but it's Way Huge... too huge for my current PT-2 setup. I've heard that the Humphrey Badder Monkey can do a decent approximation of the BB, while there's not really much information about the Blue Box Deluxe on bass. I am in love with my GI and its eq controls are very similar to those on the BBD. I'm thinking that since I've already been able to trade for the monkey, I should buy the BBD, A/B them, let you all know what the deal on the Blue Boy is, and then sell whichever one I don't like. If the Humphrey Monkey wins out but seems close but not quite it, I'll sell both and check out the Xotic. I have a really good gut feeling about the Blue Boy Deluxe though.