I think I got lucky and never had to play inside the pedal... my Ibanez k5 can be tame or pretty hot but either way never got a bad sound out of the mbd1... I just find running my mini 66 into it is perfect distortion grind. Closest thing I had was a turbo rat but the rat doesn’t have the mbd1 blend or “fullness” to it.
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I go back and forth with the depth depending on the tone I’m gonna for in the song.
It’s cool to have options of just how much grind you want to get with moving the depth knob from CCW to 10.
Oh yeah... This is working.
What this pedal has that many dirt pedals don’t is the ability to achieve unity gain at many different levels of gain. My tonal preference, as mentioned before, is for a high gain sound mixed in relatively low to the clean (still LOVE the low passing on the clean blend). Sometimes with that kind of thing the high gain, even at low levels results in a volume bump. The MBD seems to nail unity regardless if that’s what you want. SUCH A USEFUL DIRT PEDAL!
Dude what is that dual filter thumpinator?! Never seen that, way cool.
This will keep happening as time goes on and you keep playing it. You just keep noticing cool things it does and how it does it.
It’s a custom pedal that I commissioned from Max. It’s a standard Thumpinator circuit plus a variable low pass filter with boost that acts as makeup gain. I use it when I want an instant dub/reggae tone, and the Thumpinator high passes everything after my octave pedal to keep the ultra lows out of the rest of the board.
On mine it’s very subtle. Tone dimed sounds full range and everything below rolls off. It behaves like a passive tone control or a low pass filter for the distortion side of the pedal. Definitely sounds like zero boost and zero cut in this position. Maybe @father of fires can clarify what’s going on with it. Either way I dig it like this as the tone of my basses sounds unaltered in terms of EQ.Tone dimed!!
Couldn’t get away with that on my rig.
Interesting talk here- been keeping my tone either fully dimed or very slightly rolled off as well.
Bad news, had some pedal malfunctioning at my gig tonight 
.
It was weird my mbd was on the entire set, and I hit the par drive for more gain. But when I would hit the par drive off no sound. I played out the set with both on so that’s ok. I will troubleshoot tomorrow at rehearsal.
.It was weird my mbd was on the entire set, and I hit the par drive for more gain. But when I would hit the par drive off no sound. I played out the set with both on so that’s ok. I will troubleshoot tomorrow at rehearsal.
father of fires
Commercial User
D
Dang. Keep me posted. Shoot me a message it you need help.
Bad news, had some pedal malfunctioning at my gig tonight
It was weird my mbd was on the entire set, and I hit the par drive for more gain. But when I would hit the par drive off no sound. I played out the set with both on so that’s ok. I will troubleshoot tomorrow at rehearsal.
Dang. Keep me posted. Shoot me a message it you need help.
father of fires
Commercial User
Tone is a tilt control. Depending on how you set the depth, shift, and gain, thet tone fully clockwise could be close to neutral.
My settings posted a few pictures back is definitely close to neutral. There’s a little added presence, but it’s still very smooth up top.
Used my MBD on a rehearsal with my Warmoth and Status Graphite Jazz Bass loaded with EMG JVX pickups and BTC preamp. These were the settings I landed on, which were a slight tweak from my previous photo. This works incredibly well for the pop, RnB, funk, Motown, disco, dance, soul, EDM and occasional rock tune that my corporate/wedding band does.
The midrange of the MBD drives my Chromatron in a way that makes my typical dirt-free settings on the Chromatron not work so well. As an example, when we do Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling I like to stack envelope and overdrive, but when we do Outkast’s Hey Ya I use the envelope by itself. In that case Outkast works well, but JT pushes the resonant peaks of the filter too hard due to the added presence. Just like stacking any two pedals some amount of interplay is expected and adjustments between the two will be required. A few tweaks to either pedal and I’ll be in great shape for all tunes on our gigs.
The midrange of the MBD drives my Chromatron in a way that makes my typical dirt-free settings on the Chromatron not work so well. As an example, when we do Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling I like to stack envelope and overdrive, but when we do Outkast’s Hey Ya I use the envelope by itself. In that case Outkast works well, but JT pushes the resonant peaks of the filter too hard due to the added presence. Just like stacking any two pedals some amount of interplay is expected and adjustments between the two will be required. A few tweaks to either pedal and I’ll be in great shape for all tunes on our gigs.
- May 20, 2000
- 3,200
- 1,917
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Aguilar Amplification, Spector, Dingwall, Tech 21 NYC, Darkglass
Hung out with @karter2000 and @handofseven yesterday and I got to try the DIY Parallel Drive. It sounds bad ass. I'm a lover of RATs on bass (or typically, modded RAT variants) and this has that great RAT-y style distortion but with great low end presence. I a/b'ed it with a good RAT in the Bloop (a Robopedals RAT), and while you can dial them in to be very close, I slightly preferred the DIY Parallel. Both for form factor (why use two pedals when you can use one), and it was slightly gainier/louder, likely that's down to the RATs having a few different innards. So if anyone is running a RAT in your Bloop, definitely check out the DIY Parallel pedal. I sent the link from the Dammy site to my pedal building buddy last night to show him what I'd tried. His reply to the DIY Parallel, "Oh, he's giving them away!". Yeah, yeah he is.
Get'em before common sense prevails.
Clear winner of the day with the MBD was HandofSeven's Gibson RD bass. What a match! Who prefers an active bass into their MBD? That's opposite to most dirt pedals for me but damn that RD preamp works with it.
We tried a few different pedals in the Bloop and afterwards I tried a few more. It's great for taking a classic dirt and making it bass friendly. By friendly I mean monstrous and evil, the classic definition of friendly.
But I'm going to offer a weird option for the Bloop; I LOVE the Tech 21 dUg pedal in the Bloop. Whaaa..? I know, it's a crossover distortion so that should yield diminished returns but damn it sounds good. The girth the Bloop adds and the extra bit of unaffected signal works so well with it. I tried the Bloop both after the dUg with nothing in it's loop (but a cable) as a "fattener" as the Damnation site suggests and with the dUg in it's loop. It sounds better to me with the dUg in it's loop. Try it and see. To that end, has anyone put the Darkglass X or X7 in the Bloop, or any other crossover distortion?
I also answered my own question I posted earlier, the Bloop does work great with the original EBS Sheehan pedal too.
Anyone who's ever lamented their love for a particular distortion or fuzz but "wished it had more low end" or "wished it didn't suck so much low end" needs to get a Bloop. For dirt heads it opens up a world of possibilities in a way that's different from adding a typical clean blend to try to restore lows. Bloop does it better. Put that on a bumper sticker. If pedal companies are paying attention I believe it won't be long before we start seeing other pedals copying the Bloop effect in lieu of a trad clean blend.
I hope more people get wise to the Bloop. I want a dedicated "Put it in the Bloop" thread on here to hear what effects everyone has tested in their Bloop and what pedals are sounding best with it.
#bloopnation
( @Fuzzbass I haven't tried the Oxford in the Bloop yet but I will and let you know. If anyone else owns a Tech 21 Oxford and a Bloop, please chime in about how they pair).
Get'em before common sense prevails.
Clear winner of the day with the MBD was HandofSeven's Gibson RD bass. What a match! Who prefers an active bass into their MBD? That's opposite to most dirt pedals for me but damn that RD preamp works with it.
We tried a few different pedals in the Bloop and afterwards I tried a few more. It's great for taking a classic dirt and making it bass friendly. By friendly I mean monstrous and evil, the classic definition of friendly.
But I'm going to offer a weird option for the Bloop; I LOVE the Tech 21 dUg pedal in the Bloop. Whaaa..? I know, it's a crossover distortion so that should yield diminished returns but damn it sounds good. The girth the Bloop adds and the extra bit of unaffected signal works so well with it. I tried the Bloop both after the dUg with nothing in it's loop (but a cable) as a "fattener" as the Damnation site suggests and with the dUg in it's loop. It sounds better to me with the dUg in it's loop. Try it and see. To that end, has anyone put the Darkglass X or X7 in the Bloop, or any other crossover distortion?
I also answered my own question I posted earlier, the Bloop does work great with the original EBS Sheehan pedal too.
Anyone who's ever lamented their love for a particular distortion or fuzz but "wished it had more low end" or "wished it didn't suck so much low end" needs to get a Bloop. For dirt heads it opens up a world of possibilities in a way that's different from adding a typical clean blend to try to restore lows. Bloop does it better. Put that on a bumper sticker. If pedal companies are paying attention I believe it won't be long before we start seeing other pedals copying the Bloop effect in lieu of a trad clean blend.
I hope more people get wise to the Bloop. I want a dedicated "Put it in the Bloop" thread on here to hear what effects everyone has tested in their Bloop and what pedals are sounding best with it.
#bloopnation
( @Fuzzbass I haven't tried the Oxford in the Bloop yet but I will and let you know. If anyone else owns a Tech 21 Oxford and a Bloop, please chime in about how they pair).
I got a Chicago Stompworks 80s Rat clone coming tomorrow that I bought specifically to run in the Bloop.
Currently I have my W&C 47:73 in the Bloop.
Currently I have my W&C 47:73 in the Bloop.
I’m running my Longsword and green Russian in the bloop. I think I ran my X7 in it when I first got it but then took it out thinking it would be counterintuitive it being a crossover. But I’ll try it again. And yes, I use my ATK with my MBD all the time and it rules. Sounds so good. And my geddy jazz I just got, has serious balls, but it is passive, sounds amazing through my whole board. Still pretty pumped about the new bass. I’ve probaly logged like 48 hours on it so far since this last tues haha. But yeah, I love the bloop. I love MBD. I said it before but I’ll say it again, Damnation has blasted my tone game to the next level. They’ll be staples on my board for a while I think. Now I just need my buddy to build my parallel drive out!!! Hopefully on the coming months I’ll be able to afford it. Sounds awesome. I decided to go with the LM308 too since I don’t have a rat on my board anymore. I gotta say though, I don’t miss it much. The Longsword is flippin awesome. And super raunchy. The way I dial it in is very rat like. And that boost! My God that boost. So good.
I actually prefer my active bass into the MBD which is a beautiful change. My main bass is a Wal and I’m always so bummed out when I get a new pedal and the dirt tones are better with my jazz bass or my ric. The MBD has been the first dirt pedal that I’ve preferred the active setup. It just has so much meat to it. The punchy growl of dual active humbuckers into the MBD is just heavenly.
L-2000 into the MBD-1 is one of my favorite things.
