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Ethos Clean

C

celticafro

Jan 3, 2010
71
23
Kirkland, WA
#1
Hey there folks. I've decided to order an Ethos Clean preamp, primarily for guitar, but also as a bass preamp. In the meantime, I wanted to share a couple bass samples I found for reactions/impressions, and to ask if anyone has had any hands-on/ears-on experience with the unit, all for the sake of fun and nerditry.

The clips:
For the first one, check the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] page on Custom Tones Inc website, check out the right-most column for the Clean preamp, and locate the second music clip. There are two short bass samples starting at 2:05. Sorry for the convoluted instructions; the website might need a redesign. [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

For the second example, it's a youtube video! This time the bass is in a full mix. It actually features the Ethos Overdrive's clean channel, which I believe has "less headroom" than the Ethos Clean and a slightly different overall circuit.

I believe the Clean was introduced in response to some criticism about the OD's clean channel lacking some mojo and clarity. The Clean also has an "improved" speaker sim output, yeah, cool. But take everything I say with a grain of salt and trust your own ears, obviously. Either way, I'm pretty stoked about how guitar/bass tone this appealing to me can come out of a little box costing less than 300 bucks, and wanted to trigger your GAS raise awareness this this product exists and might be suitable for some of you bassists out there.

Happy listening!

Thanks to Rodney Gene for the video
 
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#5
Very true, and it's a little frustrating. If I was trying to buy this only for bass I'd probably not pull the trigger. But I've got the benefit of having decided it's pretty much an ideal starting point for guitar tone. I mean, it's a Dumble-esque piece of gear, it'll be kind of tough to go wrong with that kind of design (in theory).

Speaking of which, I ran across a zombie thread (I almost reanimated) in the amp forum where people were discussing "who makes a Dumble-for-bass?" It seems that no one was able to come to a consensus on a maker, or even what the Dumble "thing" is all about. I think I get why, but either way, several good amp makers were mentioned, but the question didn't really seem to get a concrete answer. Would have loved to have seen a few.
 
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#8
The Ethos Clean arrived in the mail today. Lovely packing job. There was a small photo of the pedal on top of the gobs of bubble wrap, and an internal box housing the unit itself. I got unit #92C (C for "Clean", I imagine). My first impressions on guitar and on bass are VERY good, but I'm going to take a few days to familiarize myself with the quirks of this pedal and come back with a review and maybe some sound samples. Stay tuned.
 
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#11
FretNoMore said:
Looks like an interesting product, but I have to say for me the distorted sound in this video didn't impress. The jury is out until there are more samples.
Click to expand...

I believe this guy is using the speaker sim output in all his examples, but I could be wrong. I think his big sin here is leaving high-cut all the way counter-clockwise, which is no high-cut at all. This is fine for a heavy guitar distortion sound, but does not seem to play nice with bass distortion to my ear at least. I can already tell that my preference for bass is to set the high-cut fully clockwise, which is probably akin to turning your cab's tweeter off. All the distortion sounds I got with that setting sounded worlds better, otherwise you're going to hear all the third-harmonics.

For the record, I'm extremely happy with this pedal as a guitar preamp, and I think it shows promise as a "touch of dirt" preamp pedal, but it's really not meant for use as a bass preamp. I found it rather difficult to keep the various gain stages from clipping unless I found the exact right settings for everything. I'm still playing with this for now, I hope to have something to listen to by the end of the week, time permitting.

Personally I'd like to see Ethos offer something for bass specifically, maybe with 12 or 18vDC for the extra headroom some people want, but especially with high-output pickups/preamps.
 
#13
Greetings Threadwatchers, if there are any left. I dropped off the face of the earth after promising a "more thorough" review of the Ethos Clean, when several things in my life got complicated pretty fast. Now it's 6 months later, and I'm in a better position again. So, I wanted to drop in to touch base and make a promise that I will indeed make a review eventually, because I'm interested in spreading the word about this unit. Every day I use it I find yet another slight variation on a beautiful tone from earlier, and sometimes brand-new ones seem to fall out as I twist the knobs and flip the switches. In fact it's kept me playing guitar and bass for the last 6 months, at least to a small degree.

For the review, however, to do justice both the bass and the Ethos, I need a decent-to-high-quality gain stage to bring the level down prior to the Ethos Clean input. I've got my eye on both a Keeley "Bassist"/Compressor Pro, and a JHS Colour Box, for which I'm trying to save/scare up the funds right now -- both of these selections are complete overkill, but I have my reasons. If you are also interested in using the Ethos Clean for bass purposes, and your bass is passive, I would strongly recommend you have some sort of clean volume control to bring the signal level down so you can crank your pickups. Everyone else, you'll want to turn down.

If you, like me, are a guitarist or multi-instrumentalist, and want a versatile, solid bedrock to form your core guitar tone (or maybe something a little different for your wurli or rhodes), with a darn decent speaker sim output, and a very useful tonestack and suite of voicing switches, then this pedal is worthy of your consideration, despite the cost. Then again, good equipment pays for itself in terms of inspiration and personal growth, if you find a good match, and know how to use it, and then actually use it. ;)

Oh yeah, putting it bluntly, it's kind of a 'meh' for bass-only bassists. But if you have the time and motivation to work with it, I expect it will reward you. It is a really nice piece of kit, and the folks at Ethos are Super Helpful & Supportive, and make a great product and stand by it like professionals.

Thanks for your patience so far.
 
#14
One more update: I received a Keeley Compressor Pro yesterday, and that is now my gain stage between the bass and the Ethos. Now I can turn my pickups all the way up!

First observation is that this helps the tone going into the Ethos tremendously. Not because the Keeley is colored, but because I can leave the compression settings completely off and just trim the level down about 12 db. That's a huge help, in terms of getting more range out of the Ethos itself, not to mention the pickups.

Second observation is... "yep, I still don't care for the pickups in my bass in particular." I think I'm looking for something even thumpier with less sustain.

Third observation is that using the Keeley as a brick wall limiter to prevent the peaks from clipping the input sounds *very very* nice into the ethos. I like to keep the output from the Keeley gain settings around 0 or slightly less, while keeping the gain on the Ethos low. Otherwise my setup gets really "ringy" in the low end, from all the saturation and compression happening all at once.

So I'm still finding my sea legs with this, but my next toy -- a JHS Colour Box -- is already on its way, and I imagine this is going to really help push my input chain to the next level.
 

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