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Aguilar Agro vs. Darkglass B3K

#3
I've never heard the Agro, but I'm sure coming from Aguilar that it's probably good stuff. I do however own a B3K and love it. It literally can give u anything from a little bite to overdrive to all out fuzz. Well the fuzz is actually a bit crunchier and more articulate than a regular fuzz pedal. I sold my Mesa 400+ because the maintenance was just too much upkeep. I bought a Mesa M9 shortly after thy came out and the only tone you'll have a hard time finding is one with a little grind or bite to it.
 
#4
...I bought the B3K to get that bite, but it offers so much more. Now I'm in the process of buying the Darkglass Vintage Microtubes and the Duality Fuzz so that I can have the best of all three worlds.
 
#5
flygirafda3 said:
I had both the Agro and the B7k for a minute. I found the Agro to be more aggressive and have a much better high end. For myself, the Agro was the clear choice so I didn't side by side test them for very long.
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I just bought an Agro. hopefully i'll like it better than the B3K that I had (and quickly got rid of). I didn't care for the B3K at all. I keep reading that people think that the B3K sounds like a tube amp, but i'm a tube amp nut and I've never had a tube amp that sounded like a B3K.
 
#6
For me, it added the tube bite that the 400+ had and the M9 doesn't. I also don't usually run the blend past 12. I think the bite they have is what most people are talking about when comparing it to a tube amp. Not the fat sound most people think of talking about 'em.
 
#8
I had both b7k and the agro at one point and I kept the agro.. I didn't care for the b7k at all, the agro was my longest lasting pedal til I replaced it with an empress multidrive. I'd still own the agro but I needed to let something go and the empress could pull off the agro tone. I'd go for agro!
 
#12
i had both, the agro does not cut through on live mixes when i play it in the band setting, and it will feedback badly with screeching high squeal sound if you are too close to your amp/turn the gain up to high on the pedal, the B3K cut through the mix better IMHO, but i sold it away coz i prefer the sounds of the vintage which i currently use.

To be fair the agro sounds great in low overdrive settings, but its unique sounds came from its high gain which is totally unusable in a band setting IMHO,

And to JohnK yes thats the reason why i sold away my b3k the vintage however is more of tube like compared to the b3k,
 
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#13
johnk_10 said:
thanks for that link. I currently have about 250 different overdrive/distortion pedals so i'm pretty familiar with what most of them sound like.
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Oh I'm sure you do. My comment was actually meant for the OP who was the one asking ;).

willbassyeah said:
i had both, the agro does not cut through on live mixes when i play it in the band setting, and it will feedback with screeching high squeal sound badly if you are too close to your amp/turn the gain up to high on the pedal, the B3K cut through the mix better IMHO, but i sold it away coz i prefer the sounds of the vintage which i currently use.

And to JohnK yes thats the reason why i sold away my b3k the vintage however is more of tube like compared to the b3k,
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Great! The reason for the Vintage is to cover a lot of the ground the B3K doesn't.
Glad to hear you're happy with one of my pedals though ;).
 
#14
They didn't get around much before the pedal version replaced them, but I love the rackmount AGRO. A very different animal than the pedal, much more flexible and I prefer the tones you can get from it over the pedal.

John, if you like the AGRO you should consider the rackmount version in the classifieds now. I have two of them.
 
#15
thanks for the input.
i currently own an agro and this pedal totally blew my mind, imho there is no possibility to dial in a sound that's completely useless. After using several OD Pedals that were meant for guitar i was quite used to have a few of the knobs sitting in that one position where they sound good and never touching them, with the agro - feels like everything is possible.
Since my main Bass has humbuckers i don't share willbassyeah's problem with feedback
and cutting through the mix is not a problem either.

But i have a second spot for an OD on my board and the agro got me so stoked,
i'm kind of tempted to try the pedal that has got so much praise and worship over here at talkbass.
 
#17
I'm with u Guiness. I can't fully judge the Agro cause I've never played one, but based on demo vids, which is why I chose the B3K in the first place, IMO the Darkglass pedals just sound better. It really comes down to personal preference though.
 
#18
I had both and kept the B3K, as it just did it for me. The Agro is a nice pedal though, and certainly sounded MUCH better than the other 20 or so pedals I also tried.

Something about the B3K is just...'refined'. No matter what you do, it's never out of control, and unlike a lot of pedals it does not have that fizzy top end. The B3K is just solid. It sounds like your bass, only played through a cranked tube amp.

The Agro can get out of control and is much more aggressive. You may lose some of your signature bass sound through it. I think I'd actually like to get another Agro, as I don't have an aggressive pedal right now and I've got two other Aguilar pedals so they would look nice all lined up :) It would never replace the B3K for me, but I'd like to have it on tap.
 
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#19
johnk_10 said:
I just bought an Agro. hopefully i'll like it better than the B3K that I had (and quickly got rid of). I didn't care for the B3K at all. I keep reading that people think that the B3K sounds like a tube amp, but i'm a tube amp nut and I've never had a tube amp that sounded like a B3K.
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johnk_10 said:
maybe so, but none of my tube amps have the fine grained fizzy top end that the B3K does.
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yeah, sold my b3k as soon as I got a Zeke from you - didn't like the b3k fizz at all. The Zeke is much better sounding and more versatile than the b3k.
 
#20
Ive had both, Agro is a great pedal and you can get TONS of gain from it, while the b3K is more of an overdrive than a distortion, however the B3k has a blend knob and it retains low end far better than any dirt pedal ive played with Bass. The B3k tends to be a little bright, the Aguilar has more control over the higher frequencies.

Iim using the B3K now and i find it far more usable than the Agro...
 
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