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Bass Soul Food: Where is the Love?

I bought the guitar version on its release after reading so many great reviews and demo ing myself at Rock Block Guitars (RIP). Touted as an affordable Klon.

I was planning to get the Bass edition but so much negativity surrounded it upon release I decided against. My only effect on my bass rig is a programmable SansAmp bass driver. I may add the Bass Soul Food. I’d kinda forgotten about them.
 
I had one at one point (that statement is true about pretty much ay overdrive you're heard about here). If it's hump were a bit higher spectrally, I probably would have kept it and fallen in love. It's a good pedal, just not my cup of tea.
 
I'm a fan of the Soul.

So I have a Soul POG - distortion and octave doubling on one double-sized pedal. Don't know if it's for bass or guitar, but I think this is a great pedal. Up front, I'm not a pedal guy. But a couple of years ago my band's lead guitarist got real sick, and our material is esoteric and pan-latinamerican to boot, so not to easy to find a sub for a couple of gigs, on short notice. I bought a SoulPog on line, primarily for the "octave up" function, but also appreciating some sustain and boost from the Soul side, with the intention of covering some of the guitar solos. It worked, and it worked well! I now bring it to most gigs, for variety on a few tunes (I get to solo a lot in this band), and have a blast with it! On its own, the distortion is like what you'd hear from someone like Eric Gale or Larry Carlton putting a little bit of hair on their tone - that, and the boost when kicking into a solo, does it for me. The POG is a blast! It tracks well, and I can blend octave down, dry and octave up in a variety of ways. You also can switch the signal sequence - POG first or POG second - which can lead to some cool tones...some range toward an envelope filter effect, varying with attack. Others sound like some of the hollow, reedy, envelope-altered sounds that Hammond B-3 organ players get on certain drawbar settings. In truth, I should spend a lot more time with this unit, and master the range that it offers. All in all, a great tool.
 
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Tried it, liked it. But traded it for two reasons:
1. Very loud popping switch
2. It didn’t play well with my compressor, I had to use only one of those and didn’t like pressing two footswitches for going from clean to overdrive

I miss it sometimes.
 
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I'm a fan of the Soul.

So I have a Soul POG - distortion and octave doubling on one double-sized pedal. Don't know if it's for bass or guitar, but I think this is a great pedal. Up front, I'm not a pedal guy. But a couple of years ago my band's lead guitarist got real sick, and our material is esoteric and pan-latinamerican to boot, so not to easy to find a sub for a couple of gigs, on short notice. I bought a SoulPog on line, primarily for the "octave up" function, but also appreciating some sustain and boost from the Soul side, with the intention of covering some of the guitar solos. It worked, and it worked well! I now bring it to most gigs, for variety on a few tunes (I get to solo a lot in this band), and have a blast with it! On its own, the distortion is like what you'd hear from someone like Eric Gale or Larry Carlton putting a little bit of hair on their tone - that, and the boost when kicking into a solo, does it for me. The POG is a blast! It tracks well, and I can blend octave down, dry and octave up in a variety of ways. You also can switch the signal sequence - POG first or POG second - which can lead to some cool tones...some range toward an envelope filter effect, varying with attack. Others sound like some of the hollow, reedy, envelope-altered sounds that Hammond B-3 organ players get on certain drawbar settings. In truth, I should spend a lot more time with this unit, and master the range that it offers. All in all, a great tool.
Thanks so much. I had to look it up and I now have GAS.
 
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I have the regular Soul Food. For guitar, it does what it does extremely well. it's a GREAT clean overdrive and when pushed can get nice and crunchy, especially in front of a valve amp. I haven't really tried it on bass so won't speculate. As compared to guitar, it seems bass distortion is a somewhat elusive and ambiguous concept: words like "dirt", "distortion" or "drive" can mean very different things to different players. Just an observation, really.

I forgot to mention "hair" and "grit". :-)
 
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Tried it, liked it. But traded it for two reasons:
1. Very loud popping switch
2. It didn’t play well with my compressor, I had to use only one of those and didn’t like pressing two footswitches for going from clean to overdrive

I miss it sometimes.
That POP I get the first time I hit the footswitch after powering it on is seriously annoying. But I've gotten good at remembering to turn the BSF on and off while my amp is still muted after set up.
 
How do you set your grizzly sir? I have both, Klon type drive and CAL Grizzly on board as I couldn't see them being interreplaceable (one by another). Both fantastic though!
I don’t really use much of the Grizzly, just a touch, very mild, of the OD. I set the gain to either be unity or a slight boost depending on the band and what tunes I will use it for. Everything else is “flat”, no distortion, no mid scoop, and no treble cut. But it’s a very hifi pedal and it really brings something special to the tone. I used the Soul Food the same way, but never liked the character of the drive as much and always struggled getting the gain right without feeling like I was losing just a touch of low end.
 
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Like I said, the Soul Food is good, I just like the Grizzly better. One guitarist I play with has the Guitar Soul Food but he got his modded to improve some components and make it even more like a klon. I have thought about contacting that guy and getting mine modded too.

As for distortion, which I don’t really need in any of my current projects, I prefer the Rosenberg 808B. But I could not get the very mild OD I want from that pedal.
 
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I've just received one for Xmas to go on my new board. In short love it. Got it paired with a Behringer BDi (I think that's what it's called, the sansamp clone) and a few others I'm awaiting but, so far so good. My old Bass Metaphor is now on ebay as I find the behringer does most and the BSF gives me a bit more of a push when I need it.

Yes. It's a damn good addition imo.
 
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Has anyone tried stacking this with the EHX Hot Wax or some other EHX drive pedal? Would this work as a kind of od, dist, fuzz combo? Does anyone have experience boosting the Battallion's drive with BSF?