LPB-1: Worthwhile Investment?

Depends what you mean by 'natural' crunch. The problem with describing tone is that it's different for everyone

An LPB-1 *might* push your dist more, but it might not be exactly what you want. See if you can demo one somewhere.

You might end up needing a different distortion.

 

Pretty much all pedals have a level knob, so I never really saw the use for a dedicated clean boost.
When I need one I use whatever pedal I have available, typically a Boss LS-2.

 

Read somewhere around here that if you put boost before gain you get more crunch, if you put it after you get more volume.

I've never used the LPB-1 on bass, but I use it on my acoustic guitar set-up. I have an Ibanez Montage with on-board OD and the LPB-1 gives it a warm boost when engaged. It could probably work the same way on bass, depending on the other things you have on your set-up.

 

You should put it wherever you need it in the chain. It changes level, nothing else.
If tone changes, it comes from what you feed it into.

 

If you aren't getting enough dirt with the bass big muff drive all the way up, it's unlikely that a hotter signal going into it will do anything you like. You are really looking for a different kind of distortion- try the bass driver or mxr m80 or one of many other higher gain pedals out there.

 

I'm sayin' try it, you'll see what works for you.

 

I think it is. I kinda regret selling mine

 

Be careful about the LPB-1. It rolls off the bass frequencies a bit unless you mod it to make the input and output caps larger. It will only be evident in the low lows, but some people would be bothered by this. This is the frequency response from when I modeled the circuit in Spice:

 

I have one. it is a gain stage. Maybe 30db or so. It will add distortion (clipping) if it is hitting the next thing in your signal path "too hard." if the next thing is say a guitar amp or tube preamp that distorts in a way you like it will add pleasing distortion. Putting it in front of a BBM and slamming it's front end will add some distortion sure, but probably not more of the distortion the BBM was designed for, some sort of diode clipping (someone more familiar can correct me) but instead just full on square wave no headroom splat.

 

There definitely is a bass roll off. I found it somewhat appealing though. I think the bassist of wolfmother actually said something along those lines too.

 

Volume is gain is volume. Same thing.

 

People think gain means distortion because that's what it seems like on guitar amps and distortion pedals--but really the distortion is a side effect of boosting the signal going into the device. Gain = boost.

 

I use a boss ds-2 set pretty mild (more like a boost I guess),which then runs into a big muff,boosting the input stage of the big muff.
So try putting your LPB before the big muff,set the tone on the big muff to flat,and hey presto,creamy fuzz with more snarl.
I had to use a separate bass signal with my setup to retain some lows however,so take that into account.