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Looking for a tone sweetener

#63
dave64o said:
The only reasons I didn’t suggest it up front is that they’re discontinued and are getting harder to find now, and also because some of the pedals you listed in your original post make me think your preferred tone is a little more modern than a more vintage tone that I tend to use.
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I strongly prefer a vintage tone. I play a PBass with flats :) I strongly dislike most modern drives. Not looking to totally alter my tone, just want to spice it up a little.
 
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#64
Ah, forgot you mentioned your bass. Any of the ones I mentioned would likely fit your needs really well, at least IMHO.

Same can be said for a lot of the ones others have mentioned as well. I've never used any Sushi Box pedals, but they have several that also look like good candidates for you. And I see quite a few people already mentioned them here.
 
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#65
From what you are describing, I think the answer lay in strings and keeping them as new/fresh as possible. You said you were considering rounds but prefer the noiseless of flats. How about Pressurewounds like GHS Brite Flats which are basically rounds with a flatwound feel? By nature, they are a little darker than most roundwounds but certainly more articulate in string detail than flatwounds. I would try that first before investing in gear (although, keeping the strings new and fresh does hit the wallet pretty good over time: I use rounds and I spend a LOT of money on strings to keep them fresh. To me, its worth it
 
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#67
EHX Bass Soul Food

upload_2023-10-5_17-18-47.png


Hagerman Valve 12au7

upload_2023-10-5_17-20-12.png
 
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#71
NorthTexasBass said:
I strongly prefer a vintage tone. I play a PBass with flats :) I strongly dislike most modern drives. Not looking to totally alter my tone, just want to spice it up a little.
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I can make my Fodera Standard 4 sound like a P bass with the Barber Linden I mentioned above just by selecting the "vintage" option on the contour and input presets. It's one of the best EQ's around for making a vintage sound without investing in a tube preamp. I would definitely do a deeper dive on it if you're going for vintage tone.
 
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#73
instrumentlevel said:
Got tired of replacing the switch every 7 or 8 years, and replaced it with an Xotic Bass RC Booster this past year. Love it! Really nice sweeting and tone enhancement, plus grit if desired. And the tone controls are nicely “musical.” (That said, I am still annoyed by the Comic Sans font every time I look at it…)
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Couldn't agree more. Especially with passive basses with flats.

It doesn't have to be used as a boost. It can be set to unity and that's already enhancement enough. A seriously special tone sweetening pedal.

If you get V2, it has a secondary boost, so you can run the first stage at unity and then stomp on the second switch for a boost.
 
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#75
NorthTexasBass said:
I am not even using the cab sim at this point. If I used the modern OD channel, I probably would, but on the first two channels it is unnecessary
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The SVT and the Superbass are still very different sounding amps, provided that the simulations are accurate. I own both an SVT-CL and a vintage Marshall JMP MkII Superbass. When using them with the same cab the Superbass has a LOT more going on in the upper mids and a much more "open" tone than the SVT. The SVT is more about a lower mid growl, or maybe it's simply more linear in it's frequency response than the rather colored Superbass. These are VERY different sounding amps. Personally I massively prefer the tone of the Superbass (although I sometimes wish it had slightly more clean headroom).

If you're not using the cabsim you will obviously get more highs in the zing/fizz range above 3-4 kHz. But you will also be missing the midrange focus that a cab provides and this can make a LOT of difference to how the bass cuts through the mix. The problem is of course that the cabsim in the ReVolt is the Ampeg 810 which is an EXTREMELY mid focused cab, and not in the upper mid "presence" area that you probably need. The Ampeg 810 is more about a kinda nasal sounding "mid midrange" growl.

So basically, I suspect the 810 cabsim may not provide the open tone you're looking for but disengaging the cabsim won't give you the midrange presence of a cab.

Maybe you could use an eq to cut the lower/mid mids a bit and add some upper mid bite when you're using the SVT-channel? That could open up the tone a bit. But of course, you don't want to mess with the tone of your Superbass channel if you're happy with that tone. Any additional processing will need to be active ONLY when you're using the SVT-channel, which isn't very convenient IMO.

This of course also means that if your compressor sounds great with the Superbass-channel the problem must be somewhere else. UNLESS... Is there any chance you may be hitting the compressor harder when using the SVT-channel? That could certainly flatten your tone a bit. Even at the same perceived output volumes you could be hitting the comp harder if the SVT channel delivers more lows than the Superbass channel (which could very well be the case if these amps are modelled accurately).

I'm really just throwing out some suggestions here. It's difficult to give good advice without actually hearing your tone. How exactly do you use these two channels? Is it for clean/dirt or just for having two different flavors? What are your settings (pics)? Do you blend in some dry signal or is it 100% ampsim?
 
#76
Deleted member 271037 said:
If you're not using the cabsim you will obviously get more highs in the zing/fizz range above 3-4 kHz. But you will also be missing the midrange focus that a cab provides and this can make a LOT of difference to how the bass cuts through the mix. The problem is of course that the cabsim in the ReVolt is the Ampeg 810 which is an EXTREMELY mid focused cab, and not in the upper mid "presence" area that you probably need. The Ampeg 810 is more about a kinda nasal sounding "mid midrange" growl.

So basically, I suspect the 810 cabsim may not provide the open tone you're looking for but disengaging the cabsim won't give you the midrange presence of a cab.
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The actual cab may have the mid-sweetening properties, but I don't hear any of that with the sim. I sense a little bit of high end roll off, and that's it. I've got a pretty dark pickup and play flats, so I don't have a lot of high end to begin with.


Deleted member 271037 said:
This of course also means that if your compressor sounds great with the Superbass-channel the problem must be somewhere else. UNLESS... Is there any chance you may be hitting the compressor harder when using the SVT-channel? That could certainly flatten your tone a bit. Even at the same perceived output volumes you could be hitting the comp harder if the SVT channel delivers more lows than the Superbass channel (which could very well be the case if these amps are modelled accurately).

I'm really just throwing out some suggestions here. It's difficult to give good advice without actually hearing your tone. How exactly do you use these two channels? Is it for clean/dirt or just for having two different flavors? What are your settings (pics)? Do you blend in some dry signal or is it 100% ampsim?
Click to expand...

The compressor affects my tone very little with either channel. It just smooths things out a little bit. I am using pretty minimal compression that I doubt most people could even hear.

I use the Vintage Dirt (Marshall) channel 90% of the time, and just use the clean channel (Ampeg) on a few songs. I am 95% happy with the tone I'm getting. Just tryng to juice it up a little.

I do have a Q Strip on the way to fine tune my mids a little more, and ordered some GHS balanced nickels to see if that opens things up a bit. I am going to see how that goes while I research some of the suggestions I got in this thread.
 
#77
Well, this is embarrassing.

Had rehearsal last night for the first time in a few months. My tone sounded great, and the extra spark I was looking for was back. I thought it might have just been the different room or different PA speaker I was playing through. I got home and instead of using my normal practice room cables (Kirlin Premium) I decided to get my gigging cables out of my backpack, and voila, my tone was back. I first used my Fender Deluxe that I used at practice and sure enough I was there. I then plugged in my Pig Hog cable and it was even a little better. I 100% chose those two cables for their appearance, but it ends up that little extra cost made a huge difference in quality.

I had always kind of dismissed the importance of cables and really thought people that spend more than $25-$30 on a cable were wasting their $. A cable is a cable, right? Wrong.

Now I am researching high quality cables. Dammit.
 
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#78
Based on your initial and most recent posts I'd suggest checking out the 29 Euna - an Input Drive/Buffer pedal, with switches to engage three different EQs/Filters.
It has rendered the difference between my cheaper and more premium cables somewhat redundant, and three switches for the EQs/Filters are honestly incredible, and would very much open up your tone and give you that magic sparkle you are looking for (in my experience).
It's not cheap, it's not small, but it's incredibly well made, and I have encountered nothing else that does the whole tone magic thing as well, or as transparently or lightly coloured as you may desire.
 
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