I had my chain saw....errrr....ODB for a month and GAVE it to my friend's nephew. 'Nuff said.
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Help me pick a "Grindbox!"
- Thread starter CBAnaesthesia
- Start date
I had my chain saw....errrr....ODB for a month and GAVE it to my friend's nephew. 'Nuff said.
As a broke-ass high school student that just bought a gigging rig and a car, I'm not in a position right now to shell out for a blender pedal as well as the dirt box.
I'm just looking for a single-pedal solution.A popular pedal here is the Sparkle Drive. Nice OD and it has a blend knob. It's about $100.00
I am wary of QC issues though. I tried four of these in two different GCs and they were all DOA OOTB.
I am wary of QC issues though. I tried four of these in two different GCs and they were all DOA OOTB.
As a broke-ass high school student that just bought a gigging rig and a car, I'm not in a position right now to shell out for a blender pedal as well as the dirt box.
Then definitely get one of the pedals with a built in clean blend.
I use a Boss ODB-3 and at first I hated it's "chainsaw" tone. But after spending some time adjusting the gain and balance, I am quite happy with the tones I get from it. It cuts thru 2 guitarists and a heavy handed keyboard player like nothing else and has enough low end it knocks my head off my speaker cabinet!!!!
I feel the same way about this pedal. I think if more people took the time to work with the level, eq and gain they would enjoy it as well. I really like that harsh sounds it produces and if its too much for you you can always adjust it with the treble. Plus you can dial in so much low end with the eq it makes me wonder why people hate it. This pedal gets bad stereotypes all over these forums, but IMO im very happy with it.
Don't take this the wrong way, anyone - I really appreciate your input, but i guess I need to reiterate my more recent question. I'm looking for a way to get a fairly specific type of overdrive, from preferably one of the following pedals:
1.MXR M-80
2.Sansamp BDDI/PBDDI
3.DOD 250/MXR Distortion+
4.G-K Diesel Dawg
The Sparkle Drive sounds good, but the QC issues don't - I'm not in a position to try out any to find a good one, since no place near me stocks them at all. Actually, ditto for the rest of them too
I am looking for a grindy tone like Henkka from COB, Geddy Lee, This guy;Link Removed (check out "Big Brother"), this guy;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemlvcEcH2s
And this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVsn3w_PYAU
I don't want to ape any particular one, because they're all different, obviously, but I'm after something somewhat similar. Whichever one of these pedals would get me closer would be the one I would like. The Sansamp and M-80, if they can hack it, would be my first choices, because of their DI capabilities.
1.MXR M-80
2.Sansamp BDDI/PBDDI
3.DOD 250/MXR Distortion+
4.G-K Diesel Dawg
The Sparkle Drive sounds good, but the QC issues don't - I'm not in a position to try out any to find a good one, since no place near me stocks them at all. Actually, ditto for the rest of them too
I am looking for a grindy tone like Henkka from COB, Geddy Lee, This guy;Link Removed (check out "Big Brother"), this guy;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemlvcEcH2s
And this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVsn3w_PYAU
I don't want to ape any particular one, because they're all different, obviously, but I'm after something somewhat similar. Whichever one of these pedals would get me closer would be the one I would like. The Sansamp and M-80, if they can hack it, would be my first choices, because of their DI capabilities.
Chainsaw? THAT'S RIGHT!I had my chain saw....errrr....ODB for a month and GAVE it to my friend's nephew. 'Nuff said.
I'm tellin'-ya, people: I'm definately planning on having someone help me make a good quality video of my latest sound refinements. Just yesterday I was working on my newest performance number - War Pigs, solo on the RC-20 looper (I rather follow Cake's arrangement of the song).
I am absolutely thrilled with the tone I'm getting! The percussion, for example: the only tone adjustments I had to make between recording the kick, snare and hat were on the ODB tone controls (also turning on and off some boxes - like Dawg off and OC-3 on for kick; chorus on for snare and hat). Kick was muted B-string, light thumb-thumps; Bass up-full on ODB. Snare was treble up a tad, bass down a-ways, using 'flemenco brushes' on muted strings. Hat was index/middle finger taps on muted G-string; bass full-down, treble up...
Bass and power chords are done simultaniously with fretboard taps. Bridge alternates between harmonic pings and tapped bass/chords. The haunting guitar melody in the outro is 'regular' finger plucked.
THE ODB IS USED FOR EVERY PART, EXCEPT THE TWO, MAIN MIDDLE VERSES ("Politicians hide themselves away..."). For that I'm definately going with the Cake arrangement - the 'sequencer'-sounding bass line, fretboard tapped.
I NEVER use the ODB-3 all-by-itself, though.
Joe
(edit) Actually - more than 'chainsaw', I like to think of it as "bag'O glass into the wood chipper".
I put some samples of the MXR here:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=356264
Maybe they'll help you decide one way or the other. Also, this is just me talking, but DO NOT get the Sansamp BDDI. I've had the programmable one and now I have the regular one, and personally, I am astounded by how much it sucks each time I plug it in. Some people like it because it makes your sound bigger, but I simply cannot stand all of the other things it does to your tone as well.
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=356264
Maybe they'll help you decide one way or the other. Also, this is just me talking, but DO NOT get the Sansamp BDDI. I've had the programmable one and now I have the regular one, and personally, I am astounded by how much it sucks each time I plug it in. Some people like it because it makes your sound bigger, but I simply cannot stand all of the other things it does to your tone as well.
in my (limited) experience, i think the Sansamp can do a good Geddy lee impression (he uses a rackmount version, which has a mid control, which the DI serverely lacks), it'll give you as much 'grind' as u need, however i agree with assboglin in some respects that your tone its greatly coloured by the sansamp, its hard to get it to sound like your original tone at all and im having a hard time running distortion/OD pedals with it due to the colouration it gives everything (i use it as my pre-amp for my lame-ass rig and as a DIbox),
i hope that helps a little
Dosi
i hope that helps a little
Dosi
I'm going to throw the thing on my board and force myself to use it live and get the best sounds out of it, so we'll see what I find. But besides altering the original tone of the guitar in ways I don't like, one problem I have with it is that it's super ear punching bright with my playing. I have to run the treble and presence way low, down to zero, and it's still bright. I've got the bass rolled back too so the mid cut isn't as much of a concern for me, though
But my point is, as a grindbox, try before you buy. For some reason I seemed to remember liking the distortion sound out of the Sansamp a lot, which is why I bought another one, but maybe it's just my current setup but the grind I get out of the box now is farty in a bad way, and just kind of ugly and not musical. At least it's not super hissy like the drive on the programmable one I had I guess. Might be that there's some inconsistency in the units, who knows.
But my point is, as a grindbox, try before you buy. For some reason I seemed to remember liking the distortion sound out of the Sansamp a lot, which is why I bought another one, but maybe it's just my current setup but the grind I get out of the box now is farty in a bad way, and just kind of ugly and not musical. At least it's not super hissy like the drive on the programmable one I had I guess. Might be that there's some inconsistency in the units, who knows.
I've been a little wondering about this 'grindbox' definition. Just the other day I was at a music store, and a bassist/salesman told me that he had just 'discovered' the Boss Blues Driver.
He demo'd it for me, and as soon as I heard it, I thought "grindbox!". That term well describes the BD sound that I heard.
Joe
He demo'd it for me, and as soon as I heard it, I thought "grindbox!". That term well describes the BD sound that I heard.
Joe
yeah the guy from the Killers has two Blues drivers, and one is on all the time, and the other is for an added boost of grit, but i guess he probably bi-amps and avoids low-freq loss that way, but you could always get one modded/buy a modded one if you dont use two amps.
Dosi
Dosi
mxr m-80 bass di+... covers everything from clean to killswitch to cliff burton anesthesia tones
my favorite way to use is is with the blend turned almost all the way down at like 9 o clock and the gain at maybe 1030 or 11 with a slight bass boost and mid cut treble at 12 you get that ovrdriven blues guitar kinda sound out of your bass... where the bass stays nice and clean with a little extra growl down low and some serious punch and balls to the tone... and the highs will just start to break up... boost the gain open the blend and sustain for days ... it even comes with a rex brown pantera setting which is a little over the top but does sound pretty gnarly with some seious volume... clean it back up and halfway in between these two tones you can get that mike d killswitch sound maintain definition but wow that distortion sounds wicked
my favorite way to use is is with the blend turned almost all the way down at like 9 o clock and the gain at maybe 1030 or 11 with a slight bass boost and mid cut treble at 12 you get that ovrdriven blues guitar kinda sound out of your bass... where the bass stays nice and clean with a little extra growl down low and some serious punch and balls to the tone... and the highs will just start to break up... boost the gain open the blend and sustain for days ... it even comes with a rex brown pantera setting which is a little over the top but does sound pretty gnarly with some seious volume... clean it back up and halfway in between these two tones you can get that mike d killswitch sound maintain definition but wow that distortion sounds wicked
Joe - I have never heard the Diesel Dawg before. I liked it. I really liked the heavy fuzz when you turned it way up. Did not just turn in to mush.
Oh ya - I want to hear your War Pigs.
I use a pretty gritty distortion tone on a few songs (not a mild overdrive) and have owned and tried some of the pedals you asked about. (I did not, however, read the entire above thread, so sorry if i repeat at all.)
I use the DOD 250 and am fairly happy with it. It seems to do best when playing higher notes -- melodic leads and such. I tend to find it turns to poo when you hit an open E string, and I'm sure a B string would do much worse. This pedal has some low end loss, but not an extreme amount. Oh, and i tried to play a p bass with flats thru this once and decided I'd never make that mistake again. This pedal tends to excel as a Tubescreamer type overdrive / mild distortion (though a tubescreamer modded to 808 specs tends to sound better to my ear).
I also have the Behringer BDI21... I think it's great as a DI, and I really only use it to warm up recordings. I haven't bothered running it into my GK 2001RB live because I don't trust it to hold up to constant on-stage stomping, but that's just me. Additionally, the drive on this pedal (to me) sounds god-awful. It seems to sound an awful lot like a sansamp bdi, and maybe those have a terrible overdrive and maybe they don't, but the BDI21's overdriven tone to me is completely unusable.
On recordings I like to use my ProCo Turbo Rat for a very high gain "shredding fuzz" tone. That's what my band's guitarist/engineer calls it anyway. I haven't been able to get a workable tone live with it, but running it into the Behringer BDI21 and into the board we've gotten some heavenly nasty noise. See if you can test one out, you might like it. On the ProCo page they claim that this is the Rat for bassists, or at least they did until they brought out the Juggernaut, which might be something else to try (I have yet to).
And here's another vote for the Diesel Dawg. Supposedly this pedal just has the circuitry from the GK 2001RB's distortion channel in it, and I've found that when running a relatively high output bass (Stingray) into my 2001RB's distortion channel I can get a gnarly, thick, heavy distortion sound that I've really come to adore. This is what I use live when I need massive low end and plan on hitting low notes. I use the DOD 250 for slightly less intense melodic lead tone, and occasionally run both together for even more gain if I feel like getting crazy. If the diesel dawg does in fact sound exactly like a GK 2001RB, I'd recommend that. I've heard talk that the diesel dawg cuts your volume a little when you engage it though, so you may need to pair it with a clean boost pedal, but this is just speculation.
You also might consider a ZVEX woolly mammoth. I haven't played one, and they're not cheap, but I've heard them played and was quite pleased with the "woolly" tone.
RE: the sparkle drive QC issues. They had a batch of bad switches in one of their earlier runs of the pedal. The company switched to a different kind of switch and no more problems (or so I hear). I've also heard that Voodoo Labs was great about just replacing any unit that had a defect, so I wouldn't worry too much about it if you plan on buying new.
I use the DOD 250 and am fairly happy with it. It seems to do best when playing higher notes -- melodic leads and such. I tend to find it turns to poo when you hit an open E string, and I'm sure a B string would do much worse. This pedal has some low end loss, but not an extreme amount. Oh, and i tried to play a p bass with flats thru this once and decided I'd never make that mistake again. This pedal tends to excel as a Tubescreamer type overdrive / mild distortion (though a tubescreamer modded to 808 specs tends to sound better to my ear).
I also have the Behringer BDI21... I think it's great as a DI, and I really only use it to warm up recordings. I haven't bothered running it into my GK 2001RB live because I don't trust it to hold up to constant on-stage stomping, but that's just me. Additionally, the drive on this pedal (to me) sounds god-awful. It seems to sound an awful lot like a sansamp bdi, and maybe those have a terrible overdrive and maybe they don't, but the BDI21's overdriven tone to me is completely unusable.
On recordings I like to use my ProCo Turbo Rat for a very high gain "shredding fuzz" tone. That's what my band's guitarist/engineer calls it anyway. I haven't been able to get a workable tone live with it, but running it into the Behringer BDI21 and into the board we've gotten some heavenly nasty noise. See if you can test one out, you might like it. On the ProCo page they claim that this is the Rat for bassists, or at least they did until they brought out the Juggernaut, which might be something else to try (I have yet to).
And here's another vote for the Diesel Dawg. Supposedly this pedal just has the circuitry from the GK 2001RB's distortion channel in it, and I've found that when running a relatively high output bass (Stingray) into my 2001RB's distortion channel I can get a gnarly, thick, heavy distortion sound that I've really come to adore. This is what I use live when I need massive low end and plan on hitting low notes. I use the DOD 250 for slightly less intense melodic lead tone, and occasionally run both together for even more gain if I feel like getting crazy. If the diesel dawg does in fact sound exactly like a GK 2001RB, I'd recommend that. I've heard talk that the diesel dawg cuts your volume a little when you engage it though, so you may need to pair it with a clean boost pedal, but this is just speculation.
You also might consider a ZVEX woolly mammoth. I haven't played one, and they're not cheap, but I've heard them played and was quite pleased with the "woolly" tone.
RE: the sparkle drive QC issues. They had a batch of bad switches in one of their earlier runs of the pedal. The company switched to a different kind of switch and no more problems (or so I hear). I've also heard that Voodoo Labs was great about just replacing any unit that had a defect, so I wouldn't worry too much about it if you plan on buying new.
Toss in a vote for Xotic's BB Bass Preamp Overdrive/Distortion. It's my main OD for "Grind" and "light" overdrive, for which an example I use AIC's "Would?" It's true bypass, and keeps your original tone perfect. It's a bit pricey, but you can sometimes find them on eBay pretty discounted.
