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Genzler 4 on the Floor

#161
My second 4OTF arrived yesterday (FedMess lost the first one--then apparently found it in Dallas after already being here in town). Had a few minutes to fool with it before practice last night. Got to use it at there and I was amazed how good a little overdrive/breakup sounds. To me, true bass "distortion" generally sounds goofy, with few pulling it off well (like Mel S.). Personal preference, I know. But I was really amazed. I left thinking why didn't I do this sooner? All settings sounded good and added a little something to the overall tone. Filled in a little. I even used the ACC 360 setting (only at about 2:00, which is what I used for the others), and that still sounded great. Really looking forward to being able to do some experimenting and tweaking, but was surprised how easy it was to get great tones. I figured I'd be a little frustrated and would feel the need to keep turning knobs all evening and still not be entirely satisfied. But I was very happy with hardly any adjustments. Great job @agedhorse ! A programable version with a couple settings would be a great next step or mod!:D But certainly not needed. Very well done indeed!
 
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#162
Jig Man said:
Your use case is obviously different than mine. I'm unable to achieve unity volume in my pedal chain while also getting the tone I'm after. I'm currently using another small pedal after it to obtain the sound I want. My experience is that just using the drive and clean knobs to get unity gain makes the pedal sound anemic. Once you start cranking those up the sound comes to life. I'm able to achieve what I'm looking for by placing a small volume pedal after to control it.

The tone does change to my ears.
Click to expand...
As I get more acquainted with mine, I noticed the same thing. The more the Drive and Clean are boosted, the better the overall sound, which is not exactly the same when those are both barely on to match bypass volumes. I intend to have it all 90% of the time so it's not a issue for me, but can great one for the sound guy who would get very different volumes when going from on to occasional bypass. I have yet to try having the Drive and Clean set to around noon live or in rehearsal, but at home there is a noticeable and better tone difference/enhancement when they are set higher. Seems like there shouldn't be but sounds like it to my ears. While this might sound a little negative, it's just an initial observation. I really love what I'm getting from this pedal.
 
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#163
dagrev said:
As I get more acquainted with mine, I noticed the same thing. The more the Drive and Clean are boosted, the better the overall sound, which is not exactly the same when those are both barely on to match bypass volumes. I intend to have it all 90% of the time so it's not a issue for me, but can great one for the sound guy who would get very different volumes when going from on to occasional bypass. I have yet to try having the Drive and Clean set to around noon live or in rehearsal, but at home there is a noticeable and better tone difference/enhancement when they are set higher. Seems like there shouldn't be but sounds like it to my ears. While this might sound a little negative, it's just an initial observation. I really love what I'm getting from this pedal.
Click to expand...
This is likely due to the pedal driving your amp's input gain stage harder. I believe we discuss this in the owner's manual, though as you mentioned, you no longer get the benefit of bypass level matching when using it as an effective OD/BOOST combination pedal.
 
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#164
agedhorse said:
This is likely due to the pedal driving your amp's input gain stage harder. I believe we discuss this in the owner's manual, though as you mentioned, you no longer get the benefit of bypass level matching when using it as an effective OD/BOOST combination pedal.
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Thank you for the explanation, Andy. That does make sense. While I'm never above 12:00, I guess that could still be enough to drive my Ampeg tube heads making things more defined and even clear. I was actually thinking it might be because it was slightly louder I was actually hearing more of what was going on that was too subtle at lower volumes. All this is just something to work with given how great the pedal sounds, not to mention it will be on most all the time anyway so it's a matter of resetting levels to the DI.
 
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#165
Hey, just got a 4OTF. This is my first bass pedal. There is a very strange tone if I am plucking a little bit harder on the strings, it gains roughly 5db on my mixer when this happens. Is there something I am doing wrong or could the pedal have been damaged previously?

Fender jazz bass (passive) -> 4OTF -> Behringer Ultra-DI DI100 -> X32
 
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#166
entryLevel said:
Hey, just got a 4OTF. This is my first bass pedal. There is a very strange tone if I am plucking a little bit harder on the strings, it gains roughly 5db on my mixer when this happens. Is there something I am doing wrong or could the pedal have been damaged previously?

Fender jazz bass (passive) -> 4OTF -> Behringer Ultra-DI DI100 -> X32
Click to expand...
You should only be heating more dist the harder you dig in. Are you compressing your signal? I like the variations in dist the harder I dig in so I run my compressor last. You may want a more constant sound so you would run your compressor first.
 
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#167
entryLevel said:
Hey, just got a 4OTF. This is my first bass pedal. There is a very strange tone if I am plucking a little bit harder on the strings, it gains roughly 5db on my mixer when this happens. Is there something I am doing wrong or could the pedal have been damaged previously?

Fender jazz bass (passive) -> 4OTF -> Behringer Ultra-DI DI100 -> X32
Click to expand...
Definitely doesn't sound right. Does it do when the drives are below 12:00? Could you maybe post a pic of how the 4OTF is set. I don't think that will reveal anything but it's all I can think of for starters right now.
 
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#168
There will be level increase as you play harder because this is an overdrive pedal and there is compliance within the signal. Depending on the gear you select, it's like a compressor with varying ratio, the lower gears have a lower compression ratios and the higher gear has the highest ratio (almost like limiting). The more clean signal you have in the blend, the lower the effective compression ratio will be too.

If you need to balance the level out for an average, the clean and O/D output level controls will do exactly that.

There are a lot of powerful functions in this pedal, I recommend reading the manual through several times while experimenting.​
 
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#172
odarellmc said:
You should only be heating more dist the harder you dig in. Are you compressing your signal? I like the variations in dist the harder I dig in so I run my compressor last. You may want a more constant sound so you would run your compressor first.
Click to expand...
I am not compressing anything. The rig is strictly fender jazz bass to 4OTH to a DI box to a mixer.

Thanks for the help.
 
#175
entryLevel said:
Hey, just got a 4OTF. This is my first bass pedal. There is a very strange tone if I am plucking a little bit harder on the strings, it gains roughly 5db on my mixer when this happens. Is there something I am doing wrong or could the pedal have been damaged previously?

Fender jazz bass (passive) -> 4OTF -> Behringer Ultra-DI DI100 -> X32
Click to expand...
Funny you bring this up, now I'm experiencing the same thing really no audible distortion, it's a little something but not much, and it's just been sitting in my studio...
 
#176
dagrev said:
Do snap a pic if you can of your settings. I was thinking maybe something was maxed out and didn't need to be, but I'm sure you've backed off the drives to see if it goes away. Does it do it in all gears?
Click to expand...




Throwing this up here because the audio is more telling. I understand a bit more about the pedal now reading the recommendations. There is the punchy bit heard in 1st and 2nd gear. I attempted to normalize the volume levels with the bypass to better help my explanations.

The rig is a jazz bass to 4OTH to behringer ultra DI box to X32 (doing the recording)

Your help has pushed me through my wall and I do heard the overdriven sound now as I am working through the settings. I understand this is more of a subtle sound than I had originally expected but glad to be able to hear the differences now. Thank again for the help. Staying below twelve really helped me set the bar appropriately.
 
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#177
entryLevel said:


Throwing this up here because the audio is more telling. I understand a bit more about the pedal now reading the recommendations. There is the punchy bit heard in 1st and 2nd gear. I attempted to normalize the volume levels with the bypass to better help my explanations.

The rig is a jazz bass to 4OTH to behringer ultra DI box to X32 (doing the recording)

Your help has pushed me through my wall and I do heard the overdriven sound now as I am working through the settings. I understand this is more of a subtle sound than I had originally expected but glad to be able to hear the differences now. Thank again for the help. Staying below twelve really helped me set the bar appropriately.
Click to expand...

I guess the difference really is it was on my board with a headphone output vs now straight to amp. It's really subtle. So much so I really don't hear much OD just really subtle harmonic it's that makes sense
 
#178
entryLevel said:


Throwing this up here because the audio is more telling. I understand a bit more about the pedal now reading the recommendations. There is the punchy bit heard in 1st and 2nd gear. I attempted to normalize the volume levels with the bypass to better help my explanations.

The rig is a jazz bass to 4OTH to behringer ultra DI box to X32 (doing the recording)

Your help has pushed me through my wall and I do heard the overdriven sound now as I am working through the settings. I understand this is more of a subtle sound than I had originally expected but glad to be able to hear the differences now. Thank again for the help. Staying below twelve really helped me set the bar appropriately.
Click to expand...

How did you record this?
 

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