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Bass overdrive

#41
Swift713 said:
I had a Lenahan Lama Rojo (which is evidently the same circuit as the PL) for a while and it's NOTHING like the Blueberry. Sorry.
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Jared Lash said:
+1. The Polish love (and all variants of Craig Anderton's Tube-Sound Fuzz) are a completely different sound than the Blueberry. They are more raw, bright, aggressive and buzzy sounding with a wider range of gain. The Blueberry is dark and thick and sounds infinitely more tube like.
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Boy, am I glad I asked then! Jared, your description of the BB is very much what I've heard in clips and what I want out of an overdrive. Wonder how the Mad Professor CB version of the Blueberry will compare with the BJFE Blueberry. I've heard you can still order the BJFE from Bjorn, but it's something crazy like a year wait? :hmm:

Valerus said:
Maybe that's why I still own both :p
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I didn't say I got rid of my Pork Loin, now did I? ;) hehehe

5sg.
 
#42
fivestringgecko said:
Boy, am I glad I asked then! Jared, your description of the BB is very much what I've heard in clips and what I want out of an overdrive. Wonder how the Mad Professor CB version of the Blueberry will compare with the BJFE Blueberry. I've heard you can still order the BJFE from Bjorn, but it's something crazy like a year wait? :hmm:
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Yeah, the Blueberry is not transparent, doesn't have a huge range of gain and it doesn't "go from a touch of transparent grit to all out fuzz!" as many dirt pedals claim.

It rolls off your highs and pumps out dark, thick, tube like overdrive.

I suppose I got lucky. I emailed custom-sound and they happened to have a BBBOD in stock, something that I guess rarely happens. Not to mention the exchange rate was pretty favorable at that time. Mine was in my mailbox a week later.

I miss that box. I sold it when I wasn't using it for either of the bands I was in at the time and it seemed like a waste to have such a great (and expensive) pedal going unused.

It isn't for everybody, but there's nothing else quite like it.
 
#44
I often wish my Blueberry had programmable presets as I use a few different tones from it depending on my mood.
With the tone knob all the way down there's a fantastic bass boost that's warm and grunty like one of those curly horned bison looking things from one of the older Star Wars films. I like this with the gain at minimum.
With the tone at 12:00 I like the gain at minimum (this is as close to transparent as she gets but like an older tube amp I believe), about 10:30 for crunchy drive, and around 3:00 for the sort of tone I look for from a fuzz(yes, whenever I get a fuzz I tend to keep the gain at minimum). This pedal is always warm and vintage and amp like.
 
#45
I've never publicly posted this before due to fear of backlash but I had a blueberry for a couple weeks then sold it a year ago and I didn't like it. It wasn't awful, not making that claim, just in my opinion very much overrated and overvalued. Since I only have vague memories of how I would describe it I guess this probably makes me a "troll". I do have to say that it and the b:assmaster were the two biggest gear disappointments I've ever had.
 
#47
dave88 said:
I've never publicly posted this before due to fear of backlash but I had a blueberry for a couple weeks then sold it a year ago and I didn't like it. It wasn't awful, not making that claim, just in my opinion very much overrated and overvalued. Since I only have vague memories of how I would describe it I guess this probably makes me a "troll". I do have to say that it and the b:assmaster were the two biggest gear disappointments I've ever had.
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Doesn't make you a troll at all. Depending on the sound a person is looking for, I can definitely understand someone not liking or even hating the Blueberry. Someone who digs a hi-fi, modern tone might not like it at all. Or someone that wants an overdrive that doesn't color their tone as much. Or even a player who wants a cutting, aggressive OD.

Same with the Assmaster. Both are very distinctive sounds that won't work for everyone. Personally, I hate Muff based fuzzes and script circuit phasers and countless bass players love both. Different strokes.

magneezius said:
Do you have experience with this pedal?

I absolutely love the sound from the clips. Im wondering how it will compare next to my geminidrive.
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From what I understand, only a few have been made so far. The first real "production" run batch of them will be done soon. I got an email today from Douglas (the builder) who said the first pedals from that batch will be available next week. Depending on how long it takes to ship, it should be in my hands soon after that.

When it does arrive I'll definitely post my thoughts and hopefully some clips.
 
#48
Dave88 touches on a good point. Pedals have a highly custom/personalized nature to them. They have to appeal to the musician and work with the gear as well. Since we all use very different gear, from passive basses to (hyper) active instruments, from tube amps to class D wonders, from 8' to 15/18 drivers what works for me is unlikely to work for the next bass player.

I had some disappointments as well; here are some examples for hyped pedals that did not work for me:
Catalinbread SFT
Tech 21 VT
Xotic BB Bass Preamp

They’re not bad pedals, they just did not work with my gear and sound good to my ears.
 
#49
Jared Lash said:
From what I understand, only a few have been made so far. The first real "production" run batch of them will be done soon. I got an email today from Douglas (the builder) who said the first pedals from that batch will be available next week. Depending on how long it takes to ship, it should be in my hands soon after that.

When it does arrive I'll definitely post my thoughts and hopefully some clips.
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Suh-weet!

I'll be looking forward to your thoughts on it. I got high hopes on this pedal.
 
#50
Laurent said:
Dave88 touches on a good point. Pedals have a highly custom/personalized nature to them. They have to appeal to the musician and work with the gear as well. Since we all use very different gear, from passive basses to (hyper) active instruments, from tube amps to class D wonders, from 8' to 15/18 drivers what works for me is unlikely to work for the next bass player.

I had some disappointments as well; here are some examples for hyped pedals that did not work for me:
Catalinbread SFT
Tech 21 VT
Xotic BB Bass Preamp

They’re not bad pedals, they just did not work with my gear and sound good to my ears.
Click to expand...

Gear choices are a big part of it. A while back I made the switch to playing cabs without tweeters, which absolutely changes which dirt pedals I like and don't like. IMO something like the PE Depth Charge is completely unusable with a tweetered cab. And obviously tube vs SS vs hybrid amp plays a role.

I think people don't realize how much playing style and gear affect how well a pedal does or doesn't work for them. People wanting Timmy C's overdriven tone have to realize that he plucks about as hard with his right hand as any bass player out there. Likewise, Stu Brooks from Dub Trio plays very heavy gauge flatwounds on a bass tuned CGCF which absolutely affects how the Aguilar AGRO sounds.

TB is a great resource for learning about gear and trying to narrow down pedals you want to try, but the only real way to tell if a pedal works for you is to play it.

magneezius said:
Suh-weet!

I'll be looking forward to your thoughts on it. I got high hopes on this pedal.
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Me too!
 
#51
Yeah, the Blueberry has limitations. It's not clear or bright, it's dark and murky and it doesn't seem to want to be flexible. I can get a little more range by boosting the mids on my bass but it's still warm rather than bright and it never gets that certain bite that some folks like. I don't much like it on guitar either. If I hadn't lucked into a great deal on one I'd probably be using a Barber LTD SR or a Tech 21 Blonde or something.
 
#54
Well, I still love my Geminidrive. It's gotten a hell of a lot of use by me and is pretty much always on. Sure it may have so much gain on tap that its pretty close to fuzz sounding, but that's pretty much how I want my dirt to sound. Very aggressive and with plenty of oomph in the low end.
 
#55
OK, I'll play; Catalinbread Hyper Pak. Problem is finding one.

Also...

- +1 on those who +1'd the (can't)-search engine; not the site's fault per se, but a search engine that can't recognize 'bass' on a bass forum is, well...

- more +1 for the individuality of the perfect bass OD; one person's dream pedal is someone else's (sometimes expensive) box 'o crap.
 
#56
dave88 said:
Yeah I think Swift is hitting on what I didn't like about the blueberry, "murky" fits my recollection quite well. What didn't you like about the Tech VT Laurent? That's one I'm actually shopping for right now.
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Before I get thrown under a bus for not liking the VT, I should say that I love distortion and currently own 14 different pedals going from light OD to fuzz.

The first Tech 21 VT I tried came brand new from Music123 and just sounded horrible, harsh, artificial, there was too much gain too. So I sent it back.

Since there was such a disconnect between the great reviews this pedal was getting and what I heard, I tried it again in a store. This pedal sounded a lot getter and that makes me think the first pedal was defective.

However that being said, it did not sound like a tube amp (I should know I use one), it still sounded artificial, a tone was hard to dial in with the two overdrive dials, it had little warmth and I did not care for the style of distortion the pedal yields. Again, distortion is a matter of personal taste and the VT is not what I like. That does not make it a bad pedal.
 
#60
I'm a guy who mostly hates overdrive on bass. Not when other people use it in appropriate settings, but it's never really been appropriate for our alt-country Americana stuff.

But recently we've started doing some more aggressive rockin tunes, and coincidentally, I added a Durham Sex Drive to my pedal board, which I expected would take the place of my EBS MultiComp since it's got two compression modes.

What's happened, though, is that I've taken my MXR envelope off of my board (only used it on one song, so no big loss), and am now running the EBS again (I'm a junkie for the sustain) and am using the Sex Drive to add some fur for some songs and for solos. Not grit, not grind, not fuzz, not crackle, not crunch... FUR. Soft, sexy, minklike fur. With proper tweaking (including the presence control, which is labeled "Tone," turned all the way down), it gives me a kind of warm, cuddly drive that I have totally fallen in love with. It's very touch sensitive, and reacts totally differently to single-note lines than to chords and double-stop harmony things that I do on a few tunes.

I used it at a gig for the first time last night, and my bandmates were like, "What the hell is THAT?!?" They loved the sound.

For the record, I am running EBMM basses into Subdecay Baby Quasar -> EBS MultiComp -> Sex Drive -> EBS UniChorus -> VT Bass -> Markbass CMD 121P. Tone heaven.
 

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