My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal

[just-1-more]

@el murdoque you have a way with words. Even more so given I’m pretty sure English isn’t your native language. I don’t know where you come up with all these metaphors, but they are very entertaining. Hats off to you sir

 

[OldShark]

I always discounted these because of the lost low end.

This thread seems to confirm that:

F

Thread 'boss blues driver in a bass'

Oct 2, 2006

anyone tried it?

i heard once that it's great for bass as well, but won't it eat all the low end?

hope this gets some replies. feel like trying one, but i'd like to hear some opinions first.

• farewelltowords
• Replies: 12
• Forum: Effects [BG]

• 

From that thread I'd conclude that there are several Keeley BD pedals with enhanced "phat" bass response... Ain't that your playfield?

 

[el murdoque]

@el murdoque you have a way with words. Even more so given I'm pretty sure English isn't your native language. I don't know where you come up with all these metaphors, but they are very entertaining. Hats off to you sir

It seems I'm blessed with visions ;-)
Most of the ideas actually pop into my head, at least the core - all I have to do is wrap some words around them - and you are justified in your suspicions.
I'm not a native speaker, just an enthusiastic hobbyist. If this forum was audio based, you'd spot my horrible accent from a mile off.

 

[OldShark]

I'm not a native speaker, just an enthusiastic hobbyist. If this forum was audio based, you'd spot my horrible accent from a mile off.

That's similar to what my family thinks of my English pronunciation...

 

[GrowlerBox]

I always discounted these because of the lost low end.

This thread seems to confirm that:

F

Thread 'boss blues driver in a bass'

Oct 2, 2006

anyone tried it?

i heard once that it's great for bass as well, but won't it eat all the low end?

hope this gets some replies. feel like trying one, but i'd like to hear some opinions first.

• farewelltowords
• Replies: 12
• Forum: Effects [BG]

• 

There are non-Boss versions that work well, if you like the core Blues Driver flavour. I have a DMB Stellar Drive, the 4-knob version with separate clean and wet volume controls, allowing you to have as much of your unadulterated signal as you’d like. I have a couple of pedals with this wet-dry configuration rather than a single blend knob, and it does allow for more flexibility. Sadly, the Stellar Drive (especially the 4-knob) was pretty rare even when it was being built, but since the company folded in around 2014, there aren’t many around. I don’t go looking any more, but they used to come up on Reverb from time to time.

I believe the JHS/Boss collaborative effort that resulted in the Angry Driver (part Blues Driver, part Angry Charlie, I think) can work well for bass. I saw a couple of Australian bassists review it once, and they seemed to like it, but I recall they were interested only in the higher-gain settings, in which preservation of bass signal is difficult to detect, especially on YouTube. Those definitely are available, though, if you can live with the Boss enclosure.

 

[just-1-more]

It seems I'm blessed with visions ;-)
Most of the ideas actually pop into my head, at least the core - all I have to do is wrap some words around them - and you are justified in your suspicions.
I'm not a native speaker, just an enthusiastic hobbyist. If this forum was audio based, you'd spot my horrible accent from a mile off.

The good thing about writing is the accent is much less distinct. Seriously, you write better than at least 70% of native English speakers.

 

[GrowlerBox]

The good thing about writing is the accent is much less distinct. Seriously, you write better than at least 70% of native English speakers.

I think that’s a low-ball estimate, if only because the huge majority of those who have left the education system barely write at all (increasingly, along with a sizeable minority of those still in it).

 

[just-1-more]

I think that’s a low-ball estimate, if only because the huge majority of those who have left the education system barely write at all (increasingly, along with a sizeable minority of those still in it).

You’re likely correct. I was going to put 80%, but I’m sure there are many well-educated and widely-read people I have not encountered. Still, so much of the professional correspondence I deal with at work is so appallingly worded it’s hard fathom.

 

[el murdoque]

Would you please stop inflating my ego? The SO will not be able to suffer me as is. Please no more!

 

[el murdoque]

I hope that I got two pedals incoming. One is quite small, quite cheap and even though it is named after a sportsman turned actor turned shady, it bears the same color as a certain politician who is making global news more or less daily.

The other is, boringly, a suggestion by @sloppy_phil

 

[Parzival]

Joyo OJ? Can get some good sounding drive out of that. Doesn’t rob a whole lot of lows, but enough I didn’t like it for me. I just don’t like losing any low end at all. A little extra EQ could go along way with it though.

 

[sloppy_phil]

The other is, boringly, a suggestion by @sloppy_phil

Now why on Earth would you go and do that?? I have it on good authority the guy is a total idiot, and not to be trusted....

 

[GrowlerBox]

Now why on Earth would you go and do that?? I have it on good authority the guy is a total idiot, and not to be trusted....

Shhh. He'll probably read this and go and get all offended.

 

[OldShark]

Now why on Earth would you go and do that?? I have it on good authority the guy is a total idiot, and not to be trusted....

Ah, I suspect an IdiotBox pedal incoming...

 

[el murdoque]

Shhh. He'll probably read this and go and get all offended.

Don't worry. In the short time here on TB where there was a flag displayed in the corner of the user avatar, that guy had a maple leaf on red/white/red on his.
Unless you talk dirt about hockey, decant maple juice with a wine decanter or refer to them as the 51st state, they are pretty hard to upset!

 

[el murdoque]

I FINALLY managed to play the Meatsmoke in a band mix.
One thing of concern is, of course, that the tone stack that comes into play here is unable to boost mids in any way, essentially giving you a bathtub EQ unless you run it flat. Since I did need a proper DI out, I ran the Meatsmoke into the Origin Bassrig Super Vintage with a solid boost in the mids, set to 800Hz. Pitted against hard hit drums and searing metal guitars, the behemoth is not impressed. I said it sounded organic when I played it at home and organic it stayed in the band context. The sizzle reminds of angry insects. A swarm of locusts going ape poopie. But there's more to it than just the sizzle. The sheer heft is unbelievable. You know dirt pedals that drop out the low end. Those are great for guitar players to leave us more room. The Meatsmoke creates a sonic foundation to build a skyscraper on. The booty is so fat, all the your mama jokes fade in comparison. It flaps your pants, it shakes the air, there's just so much of it. It's an unwieldy beast, not fit for the combat that is called 'cutting through the mix'. Where your average Darkglass pedal is a shiny robot, made of white plastic and polished steel, that deals strikes with surgical precision, exactly and only to the spots that deal the most damage, the Meatsmoke is a misshapen mutant of elephant, rhino and a bunch of insects that can claim no such precision. When it strikes, though, it strikes with such force and ferocious energy that after impact, it only leaves a crater. It certainly hit those parts that deal most damage, along with all the other parts as well.

 

[sunbeast]

I FINALLY managed to play the Meatsmoke in a band mix.
One thing of concern is, of course, that the tone stack that comes into play here is unable to boost mids in any way, essentially giving you a bathtub EQ unless you run it flat. Since I did need a proper DI out, I ran the Meatsmoke into the Origin Bassrig Super Vintage with a solid boost in the mids, set to 800Hz. Pitted against hard hit drums and searing metal guitars, the behemoth is not impressed. I said it sounded organic when I played it at home and organic it stayed in the band context. The sizzle reminds of angry insects. A swarm of locusts going ape poopie. But there's more to it than just the sizzle. The sheer heft is unbelievable. You know dirt pedals that drop out the low end. Those are great for guitar players to leave us more room. The Meatsmoke creates a sonic foundation to build a skyscraper on. The booty is so fat, all the your mama jokes fade in comparison. It flaps your pants, it shakes the air, there's just so much of it. It's an unwieldy beast, not fit for the combat that is called 'cutting through the mix'. Where your average Darkglass pedal is a shiny robot, made of white plastic and polished steel, that deals strikes with surgical precision, exactly and only to the spots that deal the most damage, the Meatsmoke is a misshapen mutant of elephant, rhino and a bunch of insects that can claim no such precision. When it strikes, though, it strikes with such force and ferocious energy that after impact, it only leaves a crater. It certainly hit those parts that deal most damage, along with all the other parts as well.

I recall the Meatsmoke amp I jammed on in my old rehearsal space have a lot of "pillow" down low, in fact I'd say that was its main consistent character attribute that I was able to dial in and I found it difficult to get the sharper midrange presence I sought from it (to be fair I didn't RTFM or anything so may have been missing something obvious dialing it in). In that respect it was similar to the Aguilar DB750 I owned around that time (which seemed to also have a Fender-based tonestack, at least in the Bass/Treble controls), though the DB750 felt punchier in the lows (in an almost nauseating way sometimes! there was an upper-bass/lower-mid hump in the Aguilar that could really be fatiguing to stand in front of for too long and was difficult to dial out without neutering the punch too much for my taste). "Massive and smooth" is how I recall the Meatsmoke in amp form. I do suspect that amp may have not been in the best bias/shape, as I knew the owner of that amp to be pretty uneducated and irresponsible with his gear. I'd definitely be interested to play around with the preamp version.

 

[el murdoque]

I recall the Meatsmoke amp I jammed on in my old rehearsal space have a lot of "pillow" down low, in fact I'd say that was its main consistent character attribute that I was able to dial in and I found it difficult to get the sharper midrange presence I sought from it (to be fair I didn't RTFM or anything so may have been missing something obvious dialing it in). In that respect it was similar to the Aguilar DB750 I owned around that time (which seemed to also have a Fender-based tonestack, at least in the Bass/Treble controls), though the DB750 felt punchier in the lows (in an almost nauseating way sometimes! there was an upper-bass/lower-mid hump in the Aguilar that could really be fatiguing to stand in front of for too long and was difficult to dial out without neutering the punch too much for my taste). "Massive and smooth" is how I recall the Meatsmoke in amp form. I do suspect that amp may have not been in the best bias/shape, as I knew the owner of that amp to be pretty uneducated and irresponsible with his gear. I'd definitely be interested to play around with the preamp version.

It does kinda sound like the one I got.
I tried to put in words how it occasionally sounds like a tube amp that's running a little bit past capacity, with the slightest drop when a note hits and your ear expects it to "get bigger" just after the initial hit, but it does not. As if the amp said "I know I'm supposed to do that and I really want to, but I'm running full tilt as is and this is the best I can do".

 

[sloppy_phil]

Shhh. He'll probably read this and go and get all offended.

Don't worry. In the short time here on TB where there was a flag displayed in the corner of the user avatar, that guy had a maple leaf on red/white/red on his.
Unless you talk dirt about hockey, decant maple juice with a wine decanter or refer to them as the 51st state, they are pretty hard to upset!

It's hard to be mad about too many things when you are drip fed maple syrup and legal cannabis all day every day!

The irony is you can sh!t-talk hockey all you like; it may be the only sport we as a country are consistently good at, but I just don't like it. Well, maybe if Toronto had a team that wasn't focused on milking maximum profit out of fans for a group of overpaid, primadonna players that is nowhere near ever winning anything.... eh. I'll stick to my "futbol" thanks!

So, @el murdoque the prose is full of lovely flowers as per usual, but what is the takeaway from the rehearsal? Is it gonna be worth blowing up the whole board to include this behemoth, or does the DCX appear to work better in this context?

 

[el murdoque]

It's hard to be mad about too many things when you are drip fed maple syrup and legal cannabis all day every day!

The irony is you can sh!t-talk hockey all you like; it may be the only sport we as a country are consistently good at, but I just don't like it. Well, maybe if Toronto had a team that wasn't focused on milking maximum profit out of fans for a group of overpaid, primadonna players that is nowhere near ever winning anything.... eh. I'll stick to my "futbol" thanks!

I thought that this was inbred on a level that goes deeper than mere preferences - but you learn something new every day. There are Canadians not into hockey.

So, @el murdoque the prose is full of lovely flowers as per usual, but what is the takeaway from the rehearsal? Is it gonna be worth blowing up the whole board to include this behemoth, or does the DCX appear to work better in this context?

This morning, when I stepped through the chamber where I conduct my experiments, I saw the velcro top of my Pedaltrain Nano, which was lying naked on the floor. I picked it up, wound up the power cable, put it into its bag and stored it away for later use. I think I will ride the Behemoth to battle for a while, and keep the PT Junior as my current board for the metal band.

The throaty bellow of that beast suits me just fine for the moment. I'll let you guys in on a secret:
Sometimes I work on my pick skills. I'm a finger player through and through, but playing with a pick can offer options. When you get a nasty cut or you really hit rock bottom and lose all traces of self-esteem, it might get you through the gig.
Yesterday, I realized that I have a set of fairly fresh Rotos on that bass and especially the A string is rough, which ate my fingertips faster than I thought, so I used a pick here and there to preserve my flesh - and the picking attack on the Meatsmoke is NASTY! This is the organic equivalent of the metallic Darkglass bite. It's poisonous AND venomous, and the jaws are large enough to crush.

No, this will be my ride for a while, I had too much fun not to!