So quick question, is this a pedal for messing around at home for experimental sounds, or does it have a live application. I doubt I could use it at church, but it could be fun for at home experimentation.
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Chase Bliss
- Thread starter Calvin Marks
- Start date
So quick question, is this a pedal for messing around at home for experimental sounds, or does it have a live application. I doubt I could use it at church, but it could be fun for at home experimentation.
This is a straight answer. I'm not being flip: Habit is an audio processor with a clear main workflow plus many optional operation variables. You can use it as you would any other instrument, within the limits of your comprehension, skill, and imagination. Go for it!
Habit seems like nothing else before. Seems like more of a at home / in the studio type of pedal, but I can definitely see some live applications with it, but much like mood or any other pedal that's not obvious what it does/doing, you have to practice with it and have a very deliberate thing in mind for live...or just use it for a happy accident part/noise part.
I mean if you are an adventurous live performer who focuses on improv and the moment, then this pedal could be your full tour of new ideas.
I mean if you are an adventurous live performer who focuses on improv and the moment, then this pedal could be your full tour of new ideas.
I may be rushing to judgement, but based on my experiences with MOOD and Blooper I'm not convinced that any amount of practice will allow someone to reliably predict what Habit will do consistently (at least not once you open up the Scan can-o'-worms)
...but that's not a bug, that's a feature! This thing seems to be so targetted towards the Happy Accident/adventurous live performer who focuses on improv and the moment musician that I'm honestly a bit surprised at how many online comments I've already seen that amount to "Yeah, but I don't think this would work in my pop/rock cover band"
Law of the instrument - Wikipedia
In this case, the hammer is "pop/rock" and Habit is the nail.
This is partly what I was implying with my earlier comment:
Presumably those online comments are from people whose comprehension (of what might be done with which pedals) is limited such that Habit seems to them inapplicable to their cover band use case. Too bad if so, but typical.
Yeah, I think I need to get a habit sooner than later...and just when I was making real progress with my Beebo.
LOL! Yesterday morning I told myself I didn't need the distraction, and so I wasn't even going to check out any of the Habit videos
...by yesterday evening I'd already sat through three of them, and I watched a fourth this morning.
I'm still torn:
- One of the videos made me think "YES!!! I NEED ONE OF THESE!"
- One of the videos made me think "Huh, that's it?!?! I can already get those sounds with 4 or 5 other pedals that I already own...and those sounds suck."
- And two of the videos left me feeling exactly as I felt yesterday, which is to say: That's cool, but I don't need the distraction
...yet.
So yeah, I'm with you @cosmicevan Sooner rather than later, but probably not immediately. I'm in the process of completely re-designing my small pedalboard, and the success or failure of that experiment will probably influence how urgent my desire for a Habit is.
...by yesterday evening I'd already sat through three of them, and I watched a fourth this morning.
I'm still torn:
- One of the videos made me think "YES!!! I NEED ONE OF THESE!"
- One of the videos made me think "Huh, that's it?!?! I can already get those sounds with 4 or 5 other pedals that I already own...and those sounds suck."
- And two of the videos left me feeling exactly as I felt yesterday, which is to say: That's cool, but I don't need the distraction
...yet.
So yeah, I'm with you @cosmicevan Sooner rather than later, but probably not immediately. I'm in the process of completely re-designing my small pedalboard, and the success or failure of that experiment will probably influence how urgent my desire for a Habit is.
There is, for every human, a number of knobs and switches beyond which any electronic device is complicated enough that you'll only rarely get the tone you want out of it. As I do live gigs almost exclusively (I need my pedals to do what I want them to every time), and my number isn't that big, I admire the things that Chase Bliss does in their pedals, and ....avoid buying them.
If I were doing a lot of recording, where I could spend time tweaking to my heart's content, I'd probably own every single one of their pedals.
If I were doing a lot of recording, where I could spend time tweaking to my heart's content, I'd probably own every single one of their pedals.
In retrospect, I gotta say....chase bliss really did this release right.
When I think back to the debacle of the Bliss Factory - 1000 pedals and they didn't think it would sell out so they hyped it to the moon and it sold out as soon as reverb was able to process the orders. This one, there are thousands. TONS of people snagged em right away and although chase bliss direct sold out, dealers all over still have them. Kudos...
When I think back to the debacle of the Bliss Factory - 1000 pedals and they didn't think it would sell out so they hyped it to the moon and it sold out as soon as reverb was able to process the orders. This one, there are thousands. TONS of people snagged em right away and although chase bliss direct sold out, dealers all over still have them. Kudos...
The Condor is my favorite pedal I own. The best sounding preamp you will find in a pedal. I don’t touch the filtering options really, just use as a tone shaper. Any drive into the Condor just sounds excellent. It’s been on my board since I purchased it new - it’s a shame it’s been discontinued. It must be heard to be understood - the gain structure is super organic.
Wether or not it’s worth the inflated cost on Reverb now is another question.
Wether or not it’s worth the inflated cost on Reverb now is another question.
- Feb 16, 2008
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- John K Custom Basses
There's one you can't roll your own of. I am curious about that one too but I think the Vongon Ultrasheer is the fanciest I can get for a reverb
- Feb 16, 2008
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- 23,633
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- John K Custom Basses
yep.
well, i do already have the UA Golden Reverberator and i love it, but the old Lexicon 224's were my favorite digital reverbs that we had in our 24track analog studio and we had TWO of them. we also had two EMT plate reverbs (they were 4'x8'!) and we had a custom built remote control to adjust them and they were awesome too.
well, i do already have the UA Golden Reverberator and i love it, but the old Lexicon 224's were my favorite digital reverbs that we had in our 24track analog studio and we had TWO of them. we also had two EMT plate reverbs (they were 4'x8'!) and we had a custom built remote control to adjust them and they were awesome too.
Still I am only getting started. But here are two examples of bass guitar played with Habit:
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Nice!
It is so fun to get things repeating and collecting. It's never the same thing twice!
I love the versatility. It's SO weird and wonderful, but I'm also finding settings to use in a band context as well; more like a regular effect:
I love the Habit. Edited: I think Habit is the best version of Mood and Blooper, and it's the first CB pedal I think is a definite keeper. Here is another example:
And one with my Bugbrand Board Chirper and Mother-32:
And one with my Bugbrand Board Chirper and Mother-32:
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Keep 'em coming, folks. It relieves me of the (self-imposed) pressure to represent the bass-playing community with this pedal.
^^^That may very well be the most encouraging endorsement of the Habit I've seen to date. It's the anti-looper looper!
(I really liked your demo too.)
As someone who already owns both MOOD and Blooper (and has no intention of not keeping either), I find your assesment fascinating. It makes me wonder if adding a Habit to my rig would cause me to spend less time with other pedals...or just come up with even more crazy combinations?
(I really enjoyed your example too...but tbh it reminds me of a lot of the stuff I do when I use MOOD with a Montreal Assembly Count to 5. My biggest hesitation to grabbing a Habit is that it would mostly duplicate sounds/functions/pedals that I already own.)
Maybe this will sway you, Bob:
Habit's superior audio quality could be the differentiator for some players. I see a trend toward greatly improved audio quality among pedal makers, of which the most interesting to me are the bookends: the more straight ahead pedals and the characteristically inventive ones.
For example, have you played a Keeley Eccos? Excellent audio quality. (Useless UI, but great audio.)
How about Red Panda Particle 2? Clear to me is that Red Panda saw how limited they were by the Spin FV-1 (venerable though it is). They saw that no degree of creative algo design could yield better quality audio from FV-1; that it is what it is. I just sold my Tensor because I could no longer live with its audio limitations for my use case. So I'm waiting for a Tensor 2.
This is a loaded topic, I am aware. And don't get me wrong: I like the moody, lo-fi Pladask granular sound as much as the next person. I even like it with the full range of bass guitar. To a point. But beyond that point, when I want to hear the whole of the voices of my beautiful basses reflected in the pedals, such as Pladask will not suffice. An even more extreme example, in my experience, is Count to 5. Compared to Habit (and maybe at all), in terms of audio quality Ct5 sounds like a toy. A cool and inventive toy, but a toy.
I am of the opinion that Chase Bliss realized that by exceeding their original charter ("digital brain, analog heart") with the advent of their pedals based on digital audio processing, they were bound to improve their net audio quality, to enable their D/D pedals to have quality parity with their A/D pedals.
blooper was the first expression of this. Habit is the second. I expect that more will follow.
Although I have yet to play MOOD, I assume it is limited by its FV-1 architecture in the same way as all other FV-1 based circuits. It may sound sweet, but I will bet money that its audio fundamentals cannot match that of blooper and Habit.
Anyway, Habit's audio sounds fantastic. Like, really good.
I'll add this disclaimer before I forget: this is the first Chase Bliss pedal that I've liked immediately. I had a few others that never clicked with me (Brothers, Dark World, Tonal Recall) for whatever reason.
Also, of you're curious about the Habit, read the manual. The manual is extremely helpful, and gives you a wonderful starting point to jump in. It's layout and explanations are fantastic. It really might be the best manual I've ever seen for a pedal. Especially one with so much potential weirdness.
Also, of you're curious about the Habit, read the manual. The manual is extremely helpful, and gives you a wonderful starting point to jump in. It's layout and explanations are fantastic. It really might be the best manual I've ever seen for a pedal. Especially one with so much potential weirdness.
