Ugly? I think mine is as sexy as hell. If I had to have just one efilter...then the BEF Pro is it.
QTron and QBalls are pretty much the "same" sounding units....also, QBalls can't do the Bassballs thing. But the BEF Pro can.
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Envelope filter...
- Thread starter Dan Bozek
- Start date
Ugly? I think mine is as sexy as hell. If I had to have just one efilter...then the BEF Pro is it.
QTron and QBalls are pretty much the "same" sounding units....also, QBalls can't do the Bassballs thing. But the BEF Pro can.
+1. The parameters, and the range of the parameters, of the Q-Balls can get the widest variety of classic envelope filter tones of any pedal that I've tried, and I've tried a ton of them. I haven't been able to get the same unique Bassballs vocal tone out of the Q-Balls, but I never really liked the Bassballs tone anyway. I get more usable filter and synth-like sounds from the Q-Balls than from any other filter.
The Q-Balls is MUCH more versatile than the Q-Tron. I've gotten my Q-Balls to virtually nail everything from original Mu-Tron III tones to MXR M-82 tones and SO many more, plus plenty of unique tones. It can't really do the Bassballs thing (which is fine with me), but the variety of great-sounding and usable tones (including synth-like, fixed filter, wah w/ exp. pedal, deep dub tones, and even solid fuzz tones, and all with clean blend) make the Q-Balls the clear winner over both the Q-Tron and Bassballs, IMO.
yah. this is some serious Eye Of The Beholder shtuff right here. i'm not a huge fan of the design or the odd shaped box (giggety), but i see what Source is going for. they DO stand out, yet all go together in a strong theme.
personally, i HATE purple, so a bud pimped mine like so.....
i'm super happy bits with the versatile little bugger now.
You're missing my point....it was said "If you like the Q-Tron and Bassballs and you must have only one pedal, why not the Q-Balls?" I took it as if the QBalls can do both....it can't. The QTron and QBalls are of "same" type of filter characteristic family. Nothing even close to the Bassballs. But, the BEF Pro does a both of them very well.
BTW, give me some settings on the QBalls that can imitate the MXR as I got rid of mine in favor of the Robo2....if you don't mind. I can get my QBalls to sound anything like the MXR.
Technical considerations set aside for a moment, I thought this was post was pretty funny.
Now back to the argument....
the line 6 fm4 is my sole pedal I use for filtering and it's amazing. It's dismissed because of horrible tracking, but that's the beauty of the beast, to me anyway.
Technical considerations set aside for a moment, I thought this was post was pretty funny.
Now back to the argument....
Now that you mention it...it is pretty funny. Went totally over my head.
It's this part of your post that I disagree with:
"QTron and QBalls are pretty much the 'same' sounding units"
The Q-Balls can definitely do the Mu-Tron/Q-Tron thang, but the feature set on the Q-Balls makes it a very different and much more versatile unit, with many more sounds. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. I haven't tried the SA BEF Pro, but from clips it seems that the core tone is pretty much like the original BEF, with I have owned. It a great unit to be sure, but I thought the GR and M82 models didn't sound like the real thing. Someone described the SA BEF as sounding "plastic-y"; I would describe it as "elastic." Very cool and unique, but IMO it doesn't nail the sounds of analog units. Not that's there's anything wrong with that!!! Anyway, here's my MXR M82 setting:
Blend - 1:30
Mode - BP
Attack - 8:00
Decay - Minimum
Start - Just above 9:00
Stop - 2:00
Q - 1:30
Sens - 9:00
Distortion - Off (but it sounds cool On, too)
YMMV; hope it works for you!
Pretty surprised no one mentioned the EBS BassIQ yet, to my taste one of the finest envelope filters around, next to the MXR. Only thing with the BassIQ is that you have to adjust the trimpot inside the pedal to really make it shine, the factory settings are pretty lame. Here's a video I'm using the ebs with medium threshold and the attack all the way down.
For versatility, the "one to cover all" it's the SA BEF or BEF Pro. I have the plain BEF, and while the presets would be nice, the normal unit is smaller, and it's not too hard to remember how to dial in 3 or 4 of your fave settings.
I have the FX-25 and also face a volume drop issue, although with even moderate filter settings it also has an explosive volume swell issue, like I could easily blow a speaker on some settings with the right (wrong?) note.
For a mellower filter sweep, which is safer, there is a definite volume drop. Especially if you want to roll the filter all the way off and use it for dub (a la Bill Laswell, although he uses a different DOD for that than either the 25 or 25B...) then you definitely need a volume boost somewhere. Either a Boss LS-2 or a comparable pedal by sfx would do the trick, and that's my plan.
I feel ya...I may have over generalized the QBalls & QTron comparison a bit.
Thanks for the setting, I will try it.
I love you guys!! So much!! Thanks for all the good discussion!! Definitely now interested in all the stuff mentioned... Keep arguing, and I'll chime in when I try stuff myself.
- Sep 9, 2007
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- Endorsing Artist: Eventide, GHS Strings, G&L Guitars, NS Design, Tsunami Cables
The times I've used it have had no issue, then again the bass I used has a super hot signal. If there's ever an issue, I'll run a compressor after it to rein it in like I've done with a multitude of other filters.
Oh yes....forgot about the BassIQ. It is fat and juicy with a small footprint. I still have it on my pedal board.
I used my FX25B with a looper that has a seperate volume for effected signal and clean signal. But the Robo2 also replaced that unit.
I dug the Agent 00Funk...but it could be because the name.
