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Bass FX Hot Takes

#81
1. Broughton clearly makes great pedals but the cult-like devotion to them, including people staying up for random drops at 3:30 on a tuesday morning because the guy just releases stuff whenever he feels like it, and then complaining for 40 pages on talkbass about having had their dreams crushed, is totally nuts to me.

2. Darkglass makes great-sounding and -looking stuff, "same"-ness aside, but the fact that they so obviously cut corners on power supply/voltage stuff, resulting in tons of noise and hum in anything less than ideal conditions, is completely unacceptable at their price point. I sold my B7K for two reasons - one, I'm a contrarian POS and have to sound different than everyone else, and two, no matter what I did, what power supply I used, etc, it just buzzed and hummed like crazy in a way no other dirt pedal I've ever used did, and I'm not the only one.
 
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#82
Teryup said:
I will never voluntarily purchase a pedal that I know has a blue LED on it. I understand wanting brightness for visibility on brightly lit stages, (although in ~15 years of gigging I can't think of a time I have had that issue) but blue lights are absolutely stupid. More energetic wavelengths like blue specifically mess up how well a person's eyes are adjusted to the dark, there should never be a blue light shining toward the face of anyone who has to see in the dark.

I have the same issue with cars that have blue dashboard lights.
Click to expand...

Yes! The light on my Keeley Bassist drives me crazy. It entirely obscures all the knob settings. I keep meaning to put a piece of masking tape over it, but I guess it's not high priority for a set-and-forget pedal.
 
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#83
In a world of increasingly good digital circuits.... why do we not have an EQ/preamp pedal with a button to switch eq presets? My car radio has presets, why cant an eq pedal have presets for different basses? My short scale needs a different tweak than my fretless....
 
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#85
Since we seem to be pedal venting:
I need a little toe room so the side jack is fine for me, but with top, I can space them as I need them.

Top or side? I don't care - just all do it the same!

And lights: some are just too bright. I hate getting blinded when using a pedal in a dark environment and need to try to see the words on the pedal to make an adjustment. I like the idea of a dimmable solution (but probably not willing to pay for it!) I just put some tape over the light to dim it.

In the non pedal realm:
Jazz basses - would like the option on every one to have one volume knob and one pup selector fader. I hate dual volume controls.
 
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#86
mrperkolator said:
In a world of increasingly good digital circuits.... why do we not have an EQ/preamp pedal with a button to switch eq presets? My car radio has presets, why cant an eq pedal have presets for different basses? My short scale needs a different tweak than my fretless....
Click to expand...
I don't have it myself, but I am pretty sure Source Audio has an EQ pedal that can do this.
 
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#87
Fuzzbass said:
As for FX specifically: my TB handle is Fuzzbass, but after close to two decades I realized that I don't care for fuzz! Yeah, it's amazing in the right situation (bass break in Dance to the Music), or genre, but for my ears specifically it's too compressed, and too much. Turns out I get the results I want from overdrive and/or distortion. That includes stacking OD/dist pedals, or using multi-band (crossover) distortions for lots of high end 'clang' without farty lows.

Nothing against farty lows... I love the "tuba tones" on vintage Cream, GFRR, Hendrix, Mountain (especially the live recordings)... but it's not what I'm looking for (I"m more of an Entwistle/Squire guy).
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Both on guitar and bass, but especially bass, my insane devotion to fuzz often takes a back seat when I'm gigging. I've just had too many moments when I was there for the fuzz and the fuzz wasn't there for me. The blessing and the curse of fuzz is that fuzz does what fuzz wants, so unless someone wants to indulge you while you have a musical conversation with your fuzz pedal, it's sometimes easier to skip it. And I'd like to call out my current bandmates for being little *****es about my fuzzplorations (and even worse about my dub delay digressions)!
 
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#89
Teryup said:
I will never voluntarily purchase a pedal that I know has a blue LED on it. I understand wanting brightness for visibility on brightly lit stages, (although in ~15 years of gigging I can't think of a time I have had that issue) but blue lights are absolutely stupid. More energetic wavelengths like blue specifically mess up how well a person's eyes are adjusted to the dark, there should never be a blue light shining toward the face of anyone who has to see in the dark.

I have the same issue with cars that have blue dashboard lights.
Click to expand...
The blue LED in my old MXR Analog Chorus was as bright as the friggin sun, my drummer at the time said it made me look super spooky whenever we dimmed the lights in the practice space lol
 
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#92
mrperkolator said:
In a world of increasingly good digital circuits.... why do we not have an EQ/preamp pedal with a button to switch eq presets? My car radio has presets, why cant an eq pedal have presets for different basses? My short scale needs a different tweak than my fretless....
Click to expand...

I always wanted to make a digitally controlled analog delay. Let me dial an analog delay to exactly 210ms, using a knob or even midi presets.

I think digitally controlled non-digital effects are the next thing.
 
#95
Re that programmable EQ, I was playing around with having both the Linden and the Two Stroke on my board.

I ended up with keeping just the Linden because the Two Stroke on guitar is relatively large to be on a board and I can use it in the bedio on guitar, also.

Alla that being said, I can't decide if I want it first or last as it's useful in both positions, but I'll likely keep it last ...
 
#96
Teryup said:
I will never voluntarily purchase a pedal that I know has a blue LED on it. I understand wanting brightness for visibility on brightly lit stages, (although in ~15 years of gigging I can't think of a time I have had that issue) but blue lights are absolutely stupid. More energetic wavelengths like blue specifically mess up how well a person's eyes are adjusted to the dark, there should never be a blue light shining toward the face of anyone who has to see in the dark.

I have the same issue with cars that have blue dashboard lights.
Click to expand...

I just ordered some of these to try. I agree and hate the blinding light used on some pedals. I guess there is an argument for it if used in direct sunlight but that's a rare case for me.

https://www.amazon.com/RockBoard-Damper-Jewel-inside-Diameter/dp/B08628C82W/
 
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#98
Agree totally with top mounted jacks and power in, would love to see locking knobs (but don't expect to see them any time soon) and some kind of universal mounting and powering system for pedal boards (ditto). Red lights please (ie no floodlights for 'on'). Everything 9v, no weird other voltages.
 
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#99
mrperkolator said:
In a world of increasingly good digital circuits.... why do we not have an EQ/preamp pedal with a button to switch eq presets? My car radio has presets, why cant an eq pedal have presets for different basses? My short scale needs a different tweak than my fretless....
Click to expand...
I've seen a Chase Bliss pedal with motorized faders/presets... but I don't know if it's a preamp or something different. Once I saw the $800 price tag I quit looking.
 

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