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MSU's Epic OD Battle: B3K, B-PEG, The Elements, Grombass
- Thread starter MSUsousaphone
- Start date
bongomania said:
Totally agree. I do not see a ton of people (or mine) sitting as a second pedal with the distortion pushing other effects (filters) into sonic bliss. At the end to add a bit more grit/OD it pretty much rules.
Don't hijack my thread into a Rusty Box thread unless someone wants to send me one to try out.
.....it really doesn't bother me...talk away...I just want to bait someone into sending me one....
ACTUALLY....I do have a Roland field recorderer thingy. I'll do two recordings for each pedal, one using my 16 tubed Mesa and the mics on the Roland and the other just bass going into competing pedal, then straight into my Roland recorder. If that sounds narsty, the Zoom B3 has a DI out I can use. Either way, I'll be able to get a non tubed out example.
Thanks for helping me look at it from a different angle. If anyone else sees something I'm missing, feel free to point it out. My point of these reviews are to try and see it from the eyes of every possible electric bass player out there.
Thanks Doug!!!
I'm really excited to get my second B3K in. I really do think it'll be the dream pedal for the Mesa Bass 400+.
.....it really doesn't bother me...talk away...I just want to bait someone into sending me one....
ACTUALLY....I do have a Roland field recorderer thingy. I'll do two recordings for each pedal, one using my 16 tubed Mesa and the mics on the Roland and the other just bass going into competing pedal, then straight into my Roland recorder. If that sounds narsty, the Zoom B3 has a DI out I can use. Either way, I'll be able to get a non tubed out example.
Thanks for helping me look at it from a different angle. If anyone else sees something I'm missing, feel free to point it out. My point of these reviews are to try and see it from the eyes of every possible electric bass player out there.
Thanks Doug!!!
I'm really excited to get my second B3K in. I really do think it'll be the dream pedal for the Mesa Bass 400+.
What about in a band mix. I am not suggesting that your band has to get on board with your reviews but at least written descriptions of how the pedals are doing in the band setting. Although it would be cool if your band would play the same passage with each pedal to hear them in action. I know for me, the B3K SHINES in a band mix. It sounds good when I play by myself, It sounds amazing in a band mix.
+1. Even at lower levels it adds a grindy character that is totally perfect for me- this is usually how I have it set, but I am convinced that this grind is still just a light distortion artifact.
bongomania
Commercial User
I can do that....it starts to add in a lot of uncontrollable variables, though. For instance, any trouble cutting through the mix could be more of an issue with the rhythm guitar.....we're starting to do a lot of writing, the singer might play some acoustic and we're auditioning a guy to do keys/ambient stuff....so all of Jet Jaguar will be trying to find a mix together....
That...and it's really hard for a pedal to make the Mesa Bass 400+ not cut through. This thing is all power. I'm definitely jam each pedal with the band but I'm not sure exactly how accurate that will correlate to other people's band situations.
I found my 400+ to be extremely forgiving of drive pedals- it even sounded good with pedals that very obviously cut out the low end when played through solid state amplifiers. My favorite drive pedals with that amp were Rat-type distortions that I have found too thin for use with my recent amps, but which brought a nice focus to the mids and lows for that amp. I will be interested to see your verdict, but I wouldn't expect it to relate to fols using solid state gear where you are relying solely on the pedal itself for most of the gain.
How dare you talk back to me and dispute my award winning ideas
Every band IS like Jet Jaguar, that is AMERICA'S BAND!!!!!!!!!
Yeah mine is, what I would consider, pretty clean too.
The live mix would be cool, though I could see difficulty in it... I used The Elements for almost every song at practice today and it was fantastic! Since recording it at a practice is tough, maybe just add your thoughts about each pedal in the mix...
Subscribed. My lovely wife is going to buy me a Swell for my b-day in Sept. Now I just have to figure out which one I want the drive, pro,or b-peg. You can't make those sound clips fast enough.
I'm letting her pick the color. I'll probably wind up with purple or plum. Which is o.k., I don't mind. She asked if I got the Raw one could she paint it like Hello Kitty. That's maybe a bit too far but if it gets me the pedal then whatever.
I'm letting her pick the color. I'll probably wind up with purple or plum. Which is o.k., I don't mind. She asked if I got the Raw one could she paint it like Hello Kitty. That's maybe a bit too far but if it gets me the pedal then whatever.
That build your own pedal feature on the Swell website is quite....Swell. Yuck yuck yuck.
Yeah. I'm thinking that's where me going straight from my bass to the pedal to the Roland field recorder will get a give a good representation on the solid state front. Hell. My Status S2 Classic practically has a preamp built into it...so it'll do pretty well.
I'm loving this 400. Such a great amp.
Hahaha. Maybe. We just started writing. Sounds very Black Keysish...but actually with a bass player....but really....do the Black Keys have a bass player? You can't tell.
The problem will be more of the other guys not meshing. Just adding that keys guy, the rhythm is just starting his pedal journey (my young apprentice), and we're foolishly getting the singer on some acoustic. Three guits and some keys. Gonna take us some time to find our mix.
Yeah. I'm thinking that's where me going straight from my bass to the pedal to the Roland field recorder will get a give a good representation on the solid state front. Hell. My Status S2 Classic practically has a preamp built into it...so it'll do pretty well.
I'm loving this 400. Such a great amp.
How dare you talk back to me and dispute my award winning ideas
Hahaha. Maybe. We just started writing. Sounds very Black Keysish...but actually with a bass player....but really....do the Black Keys have a bass player? You can't tell.
The problem will be more of the other guys not meshing. Just adding that keys guy, the rhythm is just starting his pedal journey (my young apprentice), and we're foolishly getting the singer on some acoustic. Three guits and some keys. Gonna take us some time to find our mix.
UPDATE: Just added a F*** OD to the party. Or at least, ordered one. Not having smallsound/bigsound in on this was a travesty.
The B3K and Grombass came in last week. I've been playing around with both. Making sure I've run through all of the ins and outs of the pedals before reviewing them. The Grombass is super cool and versatile....controls are a bit vague....so I'll probably do that one last. The Elements and Swell should be in, any day now.
The B3K and Grombass came in last week. I've been playing around with both. Making sure I've run through all of the ins and outs of the pedals before reviewing them. The Grombass is super cool and versatile....controls are a bit vague....so I'll probably do that one last. The Elements and Swell should be in, any day now.
Darkglass B3K:
Let's start off with the thing I like most about this pedal....it's ability to change with your playing style. You can go from no OD with light plucking, to dripping OD with aggressive plucking, all without touching the pedal. It's so intuitive. Just great.
The thing that's going to get someone to love or hate the B3K is it's characteristic tone. It's dark, a little clangy, almost compressed sounding. I'll be honest and say that I didn't notice it near as much with my Mesa rig as I did back when I had my Eden rig. Don't get me wrong. The thing has a clean blend. So you can dial in as much of "your sound" as you like. But I'm not the biggest fan of playing just a little bit of OD and a lot of clean blend.....I like my OD to coat most of my sound. Anyways, if you like that sound (reminds me a lot of the Bouncing Souls or some other punk style like that....Jason Newsted, too) you're going to love this pedal. If you're looking for something else or something that will completely retain your sound, move on. The good news for most people is that I think "that sound" is one of the most sought after by rock, punk, and metal bass players. So it fits a wide market. JMO, but I don't see it fitting in to a lot of indie, reggae, or other genres that might be looking for a more fuzzylike OD. It's also not going to turn your solid state rig into something of tube sounding goodness. You're not going to find a pedal that is amazing at everything. You have to find out what you're looking for and then find the pedal that best fits that sound/style. If this is the sound/style you're going for, you won't find better than the B3K.
It's REALLY versatile when it comes to gain. Goes from very light OD to massive distortion. If you use the thin/raw/fat knob right, it's versatile as far as EQ goes, too. I've seen comments about it "lightening" up people's tones. As heard in my clip, the thin setting certainly does that, but the fat and raw setting didn't take any lows away from my sound. If I don't want my tone "lightened up", it's very easy to keep it from happening. It tracks insanely well. I've gone down to a low A and have noodled some guitar solo stuff off on my G up the neck and never once felt the articulation and distinction get muddy or boggy.
Another cool thing is it's size. I would wager it's the smallest of all the ODs I've played in my FX journey. This didn't mean much to me a few months ago....but board space is getting limited. It's a bit high priced, coming in at about $295 and $250 seems to be the used price in the classifieds. They come up every now and then in there, but you need to be quick to grab one. It also doesn't offer much else for the price that it's at (Swell also gets a fat warm tube emulator sound and The Elements can be used as a EQ or clean boost) but what it does, it does amazingly well.
And yet one more great positive on the Darkglass line would be Doug Himself. He's here. He's very approachable. And he's VERY willing to troubleshoot with people on their pedals. I feel 100% confident that if something went wrong with my B3K (the pedal is so well built, I don't see it happening much) I could easily shoot Doug a PM and he would quickly get back to me and walk me through any process I could do to fix it.
Bottom line, it's an elite pedal. It might not be the sound you're looking, but if it is, this is all where it's at.
I'll be playing with it at a full band practice, tomorrow, so I'll come back and edit in my "in the mix" review.
Here's a sloppy demo of the B3K through my rig.
Status S2-Classic
Mesa Bass 400+
fEARful 15/6/1
Darkglass B3K
Status S2-Classic
Roland R-05 MP3 Recorder
Darkglass B3K
There's no commentary on this track....but I basically followed the same procedure. Clean sound w/ finger, clean sound w/ pick, thin setting with finger, thin setting w/ pick.....then to the raw setting and then to the fat setting.
Let's start off with the thing I like most about this pedal....it's ability to change with your playing style. You can go from no OD with light plucking, to dripping OD with aggressive plucking, all without touching the pedal. It's so intuitive. Just great.
The thing that's going to get someone to love or hate the B3K is it's characteristic tone. It's dark, a little clangy, almost compressed sounding. I'll be honest and say that I didn't notice it near as much with my Mesa rig as I did back when I had my Eden rig. Don't get me wrong. The thing has a clean blend. So you can dial in as much of "your sound" as you like. But I'm not the biggest fan of playing just a little bit of OD and a lot of clean blend.....I like my OD to coat most of my sound. Anyways, if you like that sound (reminds me a lot of the Bouncing Souls or some other punk style like that....Jason Newsted, too) you're going to love this pedal. If you're looking for something else or something that will completely retain your sound, move on. The good news for most people is that I think "that sound" is one of the most sought after by rock, punk, and metal bass players. So it fits a wide market. JMO, but I don't see it fitting in to a lot of indie, reggae, or other genres that might be looking for a more fuzzylike OD. It's also not going to turn your solid state rig into something of tube sounding goodness. You're not going to find a pedal that is amazing at everything. You have to find out what you're looking for and then find the pedal that best fits that sound/style. If this is the sound/style you're going for, you won't find better than the B3K.
It's REALLY versatile when it comes to gain. Goes from very light OD to massive distortion. If you use the thin/raw/fat knob right, it's versatile as far as EQ goes, too. I've seen comments about it "lightening" up people's tones. As heard in my clip, the thin setting certainly does that, but the fat and raw setting didn't take any lows away from my sound. If I don't want my tone "lightened up", it's very easy to keep it from happening. It tracks insanely well. I've gone down to a low A and have noodled some guitar solo stuff off on my G up the neck and never once felt the articulation and distinction get muddy or boggy.
Another cool thing is it's size. I would wager it's the smallest of all the ODs I've played in my FX journey. This didn't mean much to me a few months ago....but board space is getting limited. It's a bit high priced, coming in at about $295 and $250 seems to be the used price in the classifieds. They come up every now and then in there, but you need to be quick to grab one. It also doesn't offer much else for the price that it's at (Swell also gets a fat warm tube emulator sound and The Elements can be used as a EQ or clean boost) but what it does, it does amazingly well.
And yet one more great positive on the Darkglass line would be Doug Himself. He's here. He's very approachable. And he's VERY willing to troubleshoot with people on their pedals. I feel 100% confident that if something went wrong with my B3K (the pedal is so well built, I don't see it happening much) I could easily shoot Doug a PM and he would quickly get back to me and walk me through any process I could do to fix it.
Bottom line, it's an elite pedal. It might not be the sound you're looking, but if it is, this is all where it's at.
I'll be playing with it at a full band practice, tomorrow, so I'll come back and edit in my "in the mix" review.
Here's a sloppy demo of the B3K through my rig.
Status S2-Classic
Mesa Bass 400+
fEARful 15/6/1
Darkglass B3K
Status S2-Classic
Roland R-05 MP3 Recorder
Darkglass B3K
There's no commentary on this track....but I basically followed the same procedure. Clean sound w/ finger, clean sound w/ pick, thin setting with finger, thin setting w/ pick.....then to the raw setting and then to the fat setting.
Last edited by a moderator:
Nice review MSU! I'm looking forward to hear it in a band setting. It does seem to sound different with tubes. Are they different sounds with SS (If you can remember)?
Thanks, guys. I didn't want to post this because this is more of my musings....and could be totally wrong....but I think the characteristics of the B3K are very similar to that of the Mesa 400+....not the tube sound so much....but the tone and color. I very much remember my solid state Eden rig having a huge change from when I turned the pedal on and off but with the Mesa....there really wasn't much change at all.
I'll be doing the DI demo later today....that should give a little bit more light on that.
I'll be doing the DI demo later today....that should give a little bit more light on that.
Nice job! Pretty much the reason I don't post many thoughts/reviews of some pedals. The words in me head just don't translate well. Who knows, maybe I'll step it up.
Great job and much appreciated
Great job and much appreciated
