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Home · Search · Member List · Register   Home » Bass Effects Reviews   Aphex Bass Xciter Reviews Views Date of last review 7 11332 Sat May 31, 2008 Recommended By Average Price Average Rating 100% of reviewers $100.86 9.2 Have TalkBass search for prices on a Aphex Bass Xciter Description: Price: $139 US Controls: Four knobs (Lo Tune, Lo Blend, Hi Tune, Hi Blend) adjustable 1-10, and a stompbox-style on/off switch In/Out:1/4" in, 1/4" out, XLR out (can also be used as a DI) Power: 9 volt battery or A/C adapter Author Dave Muscato treasurejunkieband.com; Founder, Freefiona.com Registered: June 2004 Location: Missouri, USA Posts: 3639 Review Date: Tue October 18, 2005 Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: $139.00 | Rating: 10    Pros: Tone! Value Cons: wall-wart if using A/C adaptor, stompbox vs. rackmount Basics: On a 1-10 scale, this is a 10, \"Must-Have.\" I don\'t often write reviews unless something is really bad or really good, and I also have a passionate distaste for stompboxes. I have this pedal mounted in my rack because I consider it an essential piece of equipment. This pedal improves my overall sound from good to outstanding, and for $140, it\'s the best value in my rig. Quality: The unit is extremely solidly built - all-metal stompbox, metal pots, etc. My only complaint is the A/C adapter, and that is because of its shape. It doesn\'t plug into my power conditioner without bending the cord sharply, but that\'s a very minor concern that could easily be addressed with a 1-foot extension cord. Sound: Quite simply, this unit makes my bass sound awesome. The lows are tighter and fuller at once, without muddiness; the highs are clear and bright without snap. I can only describe the slap tone as \"sticky,\" and very clearly defined. It sounds like the difference after removing earplugs! Value: The list price of this unit is $199, but the street price is closer to $140. Even at $200, I would consider this a good value. I would gladly pay $250 for a rack-mount version. After hearing the difference for the first time, this pedal became an instant and permanent part of my rig. I think that this pedal is an EXCELLENT value for the difference it makes in my sound. Complaints: As I mentioned, I wish the A/C adapter had no wall-wart, but that is a very minor issue and easily resolved. I also wish this unit were rack-mounted, instead of a stompbox, since I keep it on continually and the rest of my rig is rack-mounted (Furman PL-Plus, Ampeg SVP-Pro, Crown K2). Summary: A gem at any price, a steal at $140. Rating: 1 (low) - 10 (high) 10 ------------------------------ "Mama" Dave Muscato (www.MamaDave.com) My rig My band, Treasure Junkie My record label 2 new FREE live mp3 downloads! Enjoy! Clubs memberships Wanted to buy: MTD Artist 5 fretless! Anonymous Review Date: Thu November 10, 2005 Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: $140.00 | Rating: 7    Pros: accents highs and lows, boost on signal Cons: fragile; lousy wall-wart cord too i liked the sound better than sansamp di bought it, dropped it a couple of times did not take it well (duh) but it\'s not a tube rig - it ought to take a bit of abuse, and it didn\'t also the wall-wart was really an inconvenient design. if you take excellent care of it, it\'s a very good value - i need something that can take an occasional dive from 2-4 feet frankly. does it exist? coda Registered User Registered: September 2005 Location: Riverside, Calif. Posts: 15 Review Date: Tue October 3, 2006 Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: $100.00 | Rating: 9    Pros: Price, tone ease of use Cons: nothing After reading the first posting on this I had to try one. Got a great deal on one and after taking it for a spin, I must say I was impressed with the nice level tone it produced. Turing a few knobs and slap city was perfect, no more use of the EQ now, I can adjust this for the right tone, high or low. Where the heck were these things 30 years ago? ------------------------------ When I die, I want to go out like my grand dad did, in his sleep, and not like his screaming passenger on his motorcycle! optikhog Registered User Registered: April 2007 Location: St. Peters, MO Posts: 552 Review Date: Sat November 17, 2007 Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: $57.00 | Rating: 9    Pros: Excellent non-muddy way to clarify your tone Cons: Plastic input/output ports Spent about 2 hours with this unit doing an A/B comparison between it and the preamp controls on my bass and on my rig. Discovered that it will be difficult for me to do without this unit from now on. The key for me is in the limiter for the BIG BOTTOM section - as stated previously, this allows one to add gobs of low-end without adding any mud to your mix. I'm a visual person, so I'll use the following analogy: if you envision the output of your bass as a curvy EQ pattern, increasing the bass creates a mountainous wave on in the pattern with several frequencies increasing over others. With the Aphex unit, one can create more of a sine-wave in this EQ pattern whereby very large numbers of freqencies are boosted, all without the 'peakiness' of a regular bass boost. It gives me the wall of bottom end I've been searching for. That said, the high-end control adds a nice hi-end dynamic to my playing, and with the tweaking I've done it keeps my blues-tone under control while adding wonderful clickety-clack to my slap/pop. I dunno if it's good or bad but I was able to get a perfect Flea tone out of my ATK at one point thanks to this unit. I would say this unit is most similar to a BBE Sonic Maximizer, although the BBE unit lacks the limiting function which makes the low-end boost of this unit so great. All of my testing was done using an Ibanez ATK300 into both a Sansamp RBI/Carvin rig and a Behringer V-AMP Pro/Carvin rig, each feeding a Madison 210 cab (not at the same time, of course). ------------------------------ Meteor Pilots, Lake 32 | SX Club Member in Good Standing Genz Benz Neo-Pak 3.5->Madison 210/410/115 Ibanez SR900/SRX400, G&L Tribute L2000, Line6 Variax 700, SX SPB57FL/SPB62/BG205 i2k Registered User Registered: October 2000 Location: Indonesia Posts: 257 Review Date: Fri March 21, 2008 Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: $90.00 | Rating: 0    Pros: price, sound Cons: construction This pedal is great. This can make old string sounds like almost new. Big Bottom part can provide more bass without mud or load the speaker. Almost unnoticeable hiss compared to EQ. The bypass is transparent, I can't notice any degradation. It also useful to restore the sound on a long fx chain. I never shut this thing off. But I don't like the construction. The pedal is very light and seems thin & fragile especially compared to other pedals from Tech 21, EBS or even Boss. I think this is how Aphex cut the price down. ------------------------------ Geddy Lee Jazz Club #60 Clover Club #2, Status Eclipse Artist xchristopherx Registered User Registered: March 2008 Posts: 74 Review Date: Mon April 7, 2008 Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: $95.00 | Rating: 10    Pros: built pretty solid, great for recording Cons: the design of the ac input we played with a indie band in Ohio a few years back, and thier bass player had one and it made his otherwise "boring" sounding amp sound huge. when we got home a couple weeks later i ran down to GC and picked on up. at first i wasnt entirely amazed at the pedal, and for a while i was using it for my DI tone into the house, and not on my stage sound at all. But when i tried recording with this thing i truely fell in love. it just ads the right amount of "meat" to a passive bass. the trick to this pedal is not to just crank it. this thing can add a subtle boost to your low end to beef up your over all mix, or it can be over the top and make your bass sound like its going to tear the house down. either way, i would say it is deffinately worth the money, and will make your rig sound like ten times the amp that it is. ------------------------------ Get low. Low D. Registered User Registered: July 2006 Location: Limassol, Cyprus EU Posts: 824 Review Date: Sat May 31, 2008 Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: $85.00 | Rating: 10    Pros: fat tone! Cons: Well... I dont want to write the same stuff all the other users already did, all I wanna say is that I bought this pedal from the first guy above (Dave Muscato: cheers man) and now I cannot play without it! Seriously its a bass players dream! Its almost like a compressor only NOT that noisy! What impressed me the most is that even at low volumes it makes your bass sweet and huge! Recommended all the way. ------------------------------ www.scotoma.net www.myspace.com/scotoma Powered by: ReviewPost PHP vB3 Enhanced Copyright 2006 All Enthusiast, Inc.