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Cave Passive Pedal Tour Box

#22
So far, we have one person in Canada to start the loop. From there, it will head to Cali for two different people. Then off to Louisiana, then up the east coast toward Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

And just for my sake, please leave small token of your local area inside the box. A sticker, keychain or anything else tiny that indicates your local town. My wife loves that kind of stuff.
 
#23
Alrighty everyone, sorry for the delay. It's time for the lone Canadian's review of the Cave tour box. I've been crazy busy with family, school, and band drama so bear with me. I wanted to record clips, but my recording setup is on the fritz.

All in all, I was very impressed with all three pedals. The finish and build quality were very top notch, and I've had lots of pedals to compare them to. As stated before, the controls are counter-intuitive as compared to most pedals, but I found it very easy to dial a good sound with all three. I tested each pedal with my Geddy Jazz with Dimarzio Model J's, and direct into my little "B" mixer that I use to practice with. I figured that was the most uncolored way to try them out. I'll break my review up for each pedal:

B-Drive Grunt: This one I really loved. I have a soft spot for tiny pedals, as I'm one of those who use a Pedaltrain Nano. I believe the B-Drive pulls off the natural tube drive grunt quite well. At low drive settings, it slightly warms up your tone with no grit. As the drive was increased to over half-way, the grit comes in to the point of light overdrive. It's not a heavy overdrive by any means, but what it does it does very well. As a fan of warm, light overdrive, I found it hard to put my bass down when using the B-Drive.

Octa-Bass: Like the B-Drive, I had lots of fun with this one. Like caeman states, it's not a clean octave but a fuzzy one. Has one knob (Depth) that increases as turned to the left (or counterclockwise). I could definitely hear some low octave when the depth was dimed to the left. I really liked the fuzz on the octave, as it added a nice growl to the notes. I know some people would hate that, but I thought worked for me. Like with the B-Drive, I had a hard time turning it off.

Bass Ming-Rodulator: I don't have much experience with ring mods in general, nor am I a big fan. From what I could hear, the BMR does it's job well. Other than that, don't have much else to say....

In conclusion, it was great being included on the tour box as it was cool to try a passive effects pedal. I believe Cave is really onto something with these, and I hope see more in the future. I was impressed enough with the B-Drive and Octa-Bass that I would consider buying one in the future. The interesting thing is that I did not notice much volume loss with all three even with my setup used to test them.

Thanks again!
 
#29
Hi guys,
Just wanted to apologize for the delay in posting, and for keeping the next guys in line waiting. The last couple of weeks have been mayhem here, including a flood in the basement (a mess but not a tragedy). I sincerely hope/plan to be able to get the ball rolling with these pedals tomorrow.
Thanks for your patience!
 
#31
Well... some of my pedals and gear were down there, but fortunately the recently-received items like the Caves, Swell B-Peg, and FEA DE-CL were still upstairs in their boxes. Unfortunately it seems that the B-Drive must have gotten banged around in shipping, because it is not working, sounds like a broken ground connection. I looked inside, but the guts are completely concealed by epoxy and a glued-in panel. No chance of DIY repair without major surgery. So the pedals are going back to caeman for him to check out.

The other two are just fine. In a way, they sound quite similar to each other, like a gated fuzz with some upper frequencies added; the main difference being that the "Octave" one has a softer, mellower quality while the "Ming Rod" one is harsher and more exaggerated. Just to be clear for anyone who is going by the names rather than the sound clips, the effects are like "suggestions" of octave-ness and ring mod-ness, and not to be taken as sounding like a normal octave up or ring modulator. Again these are more like gated fuzzes that happen to also have a hint of octave up, and some harsh clanginess in the Ming Rod that could remind somebody of some harsh clanginess they heard from a ring modulator once.

In both cases there is an EXTREME difference in volume and intensity of the effect depending on whether you are just connecting straight from a passive bass, or using an active bass or adding a buffer/booster of any sort between the bass and the Caves. With just a passive bass, the effects are kind of mild, without any change in volume, and a sort of softness to the gating. Add an active device, and BLAM each note is a crazy hard blast.

I can't say much more because of TB rules. However I do sincerely admire Cave for trying something different than the rest of the pedal market, and I hope they continue to develop and refine their designs, and I wish them success. And I will say the moving bead to indicate on/off on the B-Drive is sheer genius. :)
 
#39
Oh, the second question...

By being passive, that means it doesn't have a battery or 9v power connection. The Octa-Bass inverts the negative part of the signal to positive, effectively doubling the signal.

Here are two YouTube sound demos I did way back when:
 
#40
Okay, duh. Sorry, one more post. Heath sent me a repaired B-Drive. The ground has become loose, potentially due to all of the shipping miles the pedal had endured. So, if there is interest, I could box up the B-Drive, Octa-Bass and Bass Ming-Rodulator and start up the tour. Or split up the pedals and just send them out as people want to try one.
 

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