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Earthquaker PLUMES!

#61
joel the bass player said:
Anybody else have thoughts on this new pedal?
Thanks
Click to expand...

Played with my new Plumes for a bit tonight mostly with headphones. I got this pedal mainly for guitar, with the hope that it would work well for bass too. It's a great sounding pedal, but my first impression is that the Plumes is indeed a guitar pedal. It sounds cool on bass, but I'm not sure I would go so far as to say it "works well". I still have to try it out at band practice. Modes 1 and 2 are the most viable for bass (ie: they have the most low end) and in fact I really like mode 2. They market it as clean boost but it has some dirt to it, and a killer mid boost. I can picture using it for songs where I play with a pick. The momentary switching also seems useful and I can think of several places in our set where I'd use it.

The best thing I noticed when playing this pedal is that it has a fun sort of knockabout sound and feel. It reminded me of being 16 bashing away in a garage with crappy gear and not caring about such things as low end preservation. That said, the Plumes is far from crappy. The sound of the distortion itself is really good. Not or fizzy or harsh at all. On guitar I think it will be a dream. It's got a lot of range to it and kind of a smooth sound that still has some ragged edges to it.

I shot this pedal out directly with a Boss ODB-3 just because that was the closest thing to me when I sat down. Not a particularly sensible comparison to make, and I know the ODB-3 is not exactly the most loved pedal in the world. But the Boss did win this one for me. I use it with the Gain at 0 and the Balance dimed, with the bass EQ at about 2:00 and the treble at noon. At these settings the ODB-3 actually sounds pretty good and loses no low end at all. By comparison it was hard to avoid noticing some low end dropoff with the Plumes. The Plumes is great for its uncompressed midrange boost though, which I did find very exciting when switching it on. P basses know what to do with a little extra midrange, so in some cases that's more useful than the low end you lose.

This is all more or less what I expected, so I'm not disappointed at all. I bought it for noodling around on guitar and for that I think it will be just lovely. Working on bass would have been a bonus. In fact, I may use it for bass yet. I only just got it after all. Sometimes it's not a bad thing to chop off some low end. That can be great for pickstyle. So we'll see.
 
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#62
i bought and tried the plumes. the overdriven tone is super nice and much better than a tubescreamer, but unfortunately, it lost too much low end for me to use it with a bass. with a guitar it was great, burt since i rarely play guitar, i ended up returning it.
i have the schematic for it, so i built up one for myself but modded it for no low end loss and after the mods (2 caps and 1 resistor) it sounds really good with a bass.
 
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#63
johnk_10 said:
i bought and tried the plumes. the overdriven tone is super nice and much better than a tubescreamer, but unfortunately, it lost too much low end for me to use it with a bass. with a guitar it was great, burt since i rarely play guitar, i ended up returning it.
i have the schematic for it, so i built up one for myself but modded it for no low end loss and after the mods (2 caps and 1 resistor) it sounds really good with a bass.
Click to expand...

So, the question comes natural...Which caps and resistor did you change, and to which values? I found this schematics online Perf and PCB Effects Layouts: EarthQuaker Devices Plumes, and my only guess would be increasing the value of C2, but I am lost for the rest.

-Thanks
 
#65
#67
johnk_10 said:
i'd increase C1's value and C4's too. C2 is already 1uf, so increasing that one won't do anything.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the response! Any idea what you up them to? Been talking to the people on pedalpcb re their clone and they agree on C4 as well. C4 is 100n. They didn’t seem to think the r change was necessary.
 
#70
Annnd.... turns out my pedal is mostly SMD components. The photos on the website show hole through components... that's why I thought this would be easy.

I'll still give it a go and see if I can put a regular component in its place... never done that before.

IMG_3149.JPG
 
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#73
deepestend said:
It didn't work for me. I put the large component at the spot that it seemed the SMD equivalent was. Just pushed it on hoping to at least get a sense before destroying anything! Didn't seem to work and I knew I'd wreck the pedal messing with it. Lent it to my guitar player!
Click to expand...
Thanks, that answer probably saves me from ruining one. I wish they'd make a dedicated bass version of this!
 
#74
I spent a good chunk of time messing with bass klon and bass tube screamer type pedals and came to the conclusion that they were always going to be a bit more trebly than I wanted them to be, even at their most "neutral." Made me realize that I needed to abort that line of thinking and try something else.

I ended up going back to my Wren and Cuff green russian deluxe with mids and a boost. If I turn the distortion way down on it and raise the volume, I get a nice and full OD sound. If I run my small sound/big sound overdrive after it, I can get a slightly brighter sound. That kind of captures what I was after and has enough bass.

The klon/TS circuits will always be lacking in bass even if slightly. I'm sure that there is one out there or a way to make it work, but I felt like it was time to change direction and try something else.
 
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#75
deepestend said:
I spent a good chunk of time messing with bass klon and bass tube screamer type pedals and came to the conclusion that they were always going to be a bit more trebly than I wanted them to be, even at their most "neutral." Made me realize that I needed to abort that line of thinking and try something else.

I ended up going back to my Wren and Cuff green russian deluxe with mids and a boost. If I turn the distortion way down on it and raise the volume, I get a nice and full OD sound. If I run my small sound/big sound overdrive after it, I can get a slightly brighter sound. That kind of captures what I was after and has enough bass.

The klon/TS circuits will always be lacking in bass even if slightly. I'm sure that there is one out there or a way to make it work, but I felt like it was time to change direction and try something else.
Click to expand...

i've made modified Klons for bass that sound great. I've also made bass tube screamers (by adding post treble and bass controls) and Plumes pedals modded for use with a bass but i had to crate my own PCBs for them.
 
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#77
My 2 cents:

I've recently incorporated the Plumes into my bass pedal board and while tonight will be the first time I've used it at practise, I've been very happy with it's performance through my home studio setup. I favour a mid-focused, driven tone similar to the likes of Rob Wright (NoMeansNo) and David W Simms (The Jesus Lizard) and the Plumes is great at providing me with a medium gain stage (I use an Xotic BB Preamp with the gain at 0 and treble almost maxed for my base 'clean' tone, the Plumes for my second stage and a Mantic Vitriol for full-on rage, all 3 of which go through a Sansamp BDDI V2 at the end of the chain).

I find the 2nd clipping mode on the Plumes works best for my needs whereas 1st and 3rd cut a bit more low end as others have previously stated. I was originally using an EQD Westwood but swapped it out for the Plumes as I couldn't get the desired tone I was after. The Westwood always sounded too compressed even with the gain at zero whereas the extra headroom the Plumes provides helps preserve the clarity while adding some mild dirt. Thankfully the Westwood hasn't gone to waste and has found its home on my guitar board instead, which it is much better suited to IMO.

The Plumes probably isn't ideal for those who don't go for mid-focused, attacky bass tones, but then again if you like the drive the pedal provides you could always use it in conjunction with an EQ unit and boost the lows to taste. I like the pedal a lot for bass and it's a steal at £100, so I say go for it if you're in the market for a good quality drive pedal.
 
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#78
FuzzDog's Billowing Smoke is based on Plumes. I built one and put C4 on a DPDT toggle switch with 100nF and 470nF capacitors. The 470nF cap lets more low end in and causes more distortion. I found it sounded good with silicon clipping diodes (mode 3). Didn't sound so nice with LED's or no diodes, it was too loose and flubby. Modes 1 & 2 sounded better with the stock 100nF cap.
 
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#79
I've been using my plumes a lot lately. It's really nice for giving a boost and jumping out of the mix a little bit. I don't really use it for big OD or distortion sounds, but more to make things jump a little in the mix. I have the SMD version and would love to mod it for a little more bass. Still dreaming of that, but not sure if I could pull it off with this one.
 
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