I have found a local one for a good price and messaged the seller, waiting on a reply . . .
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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
It's been great! My main concern has always been longevity, and how it'd hold up under touring. But we are now 2.5 years in, and (touch wood) it's been solid as a rock. It also helps knowing you and Amy are out here keeping an eye on user experiences.
That is great to hear — we do run extensive tests on all our products for longevity and we actually made our name in the pro live sound space where rock-solid reliability is paramount; as such, our QA and testing is very rigorous simply to ensure our customer's confidence. As ever, if you need anything, please dont hesitate to let me know! Always happy to help!
I just closed the lid on the Two Notes Le Bass Preamp, so a snobbish review shall be forthcoming as soon as the device arrives early next week.
Great stuff - looking forward to hearing what you think!
I've also accepted a trade deal for the SFT, and I'm a little bit afraid of this one - luckily, the Le Bass has already been shipped this morning, while the dangerous one will be shipped in a couple of days.
This here Jounalist feels a little bit like it's X-mas.
Awesome! Glad to see it all got there safe-and-sound!
I am pretty sure that I was told something like that directly from Nobels when I researched the pedals. The new version obviously has that fourth knob. When you look it up on the German website, they write that the three knob Mini has a tighter low end.
But it might also be that they aimed for something in the middle between the two settings or some such thing. I really don't recall.
If you're looking for a mini Nobels, the Wampler Belle is also super interesting!
I own the original Mini version and, to my ears, it has all the low end one can wish for...maybe even too much of it...
YMMV
Yeah, I guess I found the website-is it this one?
Do the ODR-1 and ODR-mini sound exactly the same? - Nobels
The ODR-mini a little bit tighter than is big brother and have a different frequency range in the bass. But the DNA is the same and the basic sound very close. You will find some demos at our YouTube cannel. Nobels YouTube Channel – click here
nobels.de
Yeah same, I've never felt like I was lacking low end with the mini.
On a different topic, I rehoused my Saturn VI so it has top jacks. I bought a fancy enclosure and some nice knobs, along with a couple plain enclosures to experiment/practice on before I did the real thing. My Saturn VI was one of the handwired units. The knobs and LED are mounted to the board, with the footswitch and jacks on leads. I soldered extensions onto the leads for the jacks so I could swing them up underneath the board to the top of the enclosure, and had to shift everything down about 28mm, using the original faceplate as a templte. Made for a nice weekend project. The wife's label maker was broken so I stole one of her old labels from making candles as a placeholder for now. It slots nicely onto the cozy board, and it will eventually slot into the dirty boost position.
Very nice enclosure and work.
I stumbled across the Spaceman Effects Saturn VI myself a while ago and I have been surprised that I always find a use for it. So much so I surprised myself again by buying a second one for another project. Good stuff @tidbits
It hasn't been on the board for a while, mainly because of the side jacks - hopefully this puts it back into regular rotation.
After our next show I'm basically going to shuffle all my pedals around to try everything in different spots - I've got the Sunder Fuzz I want to give a proper go at where the Piggy is, I want to try the Piggy and the Azure in the Low Gain slot, the Saturn in the Dirty boost or Low Gain slot, the DCX in the medium gain slot, and I've got a Pork & Pickle on the bench that I haven't tried in combination with most of these. There's also a Synth Voice on the way I'm looking forward to get onto the board.
I try not to mess around too much with pedals and focus on dialing into a stable board while we have shows we're working towards, but I'm looking forward to messing around next month.
After our next show I'm basically going to shuffle all my pedals around to try everything in different spots - I've got the Sunder Fuzz I want to give a proper go at where the Piggy is, I want to try the Piggy and the Azure in the Low Gain slot, the Saturn in the Dirty boost or Low Gain slot, the DCX in the medium gain slot, and I've got a Pork & Pickle on the bench that I haven't tried in combination with most of these. There's also a Synth Voice on the way I'm looking forward to get onto the board.
I try not to mess around too much with pedals and focus on dialing into a stable board while we have shows we're working towards, but I'm looking forward to messing around next month.
Carl Martin Bass Drive:
We were off to a bumpy start here.
First thing I noticed when plugging it in was the wall of noise. Not like a drive unit with an unusual amount of floor noise. More like the instrument cable is shorted noise. I could not make it work properly and it sounded like a broken speaker at best. Troubleshooting led to the obvious answer: It's the tube. Apparently, it got shaken a bit too much in transit, although it was packaged fine.
I only had a 12AT7 lying around from the Tube Drive experiment, but I did open it up to change the tube. That device was not constructed with tube rollers in mind - but of course I managed to wriggle out the old tube and get in the new one. The noise was gone now, so that's that.
I only tested it for a minute, thought it had not enough gain and it sounded quite dark, so I set it aside.
I managed to find a proper 12AX7 tube, which came from a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, and slotted that into place.
The gain was corrected and I believe that what I'm getting now is what It's supposed to sound like, but it remained dark.
I have the feeling that when playing with headphones, my dry sound has more treble content than the wet sound with the treble knob maxed.
Then another thing demanded my attention:
Looking at the device, it says "Carl Martin"
Made by East Sound Research, Denmark
Designed by Holm Malmquist
The box, however, says
Bassdrive
by East Sound Research Denmark
Made in China
I don't know if I'm being dramatic here, but the comma makes a difference for me.
Choosing the wording "Made By <company name>, <country name>" Does imply to me that the thing was made by that company in that country.
On the box, it looks like the company name is "East Sound Research Denmark"
In the Danish Business Register, the company is named "East Sound Research", and on the Carl Martin webpage, they refer to themselves as such.
I cannot shake the feeling that they've tried to hide the fact that the device was made in the far east and trying to make it look like it was made in Denmark.
Is that Danish Audio Gear Marketing? I want to remind the reader that T.C. Electronics also hailed from Denmark before they were acquired by the Behringer Group - and most of us remember the 'discussion' about their watts.
We were off to a bumpy start here.
First thing I noticed when plugging it in was the wall of noise. Not like a drive unit with an unusual amount of floor noise. More like the instrument cable is shorted noise. I could not make it work properly and it sounded like a broken speaker at best. Troubleshooting led to the obvious answer: It's the tube. Apparently, it got shaken a bit too much in transit, although it was packaged fine.
I only had a 12AT7 lying around from the Tube Drive experiment, but I did open it up to change the tube. That device was not constructed with tube rollers in mind - but of course I managed to wriggle out the old tube and get in the new one. The noise was gone now, so that's that.
I only tested it for a minute, thought it had not enough gain and it sounded quite dark, so I set it aside.
I managed to find a proper 12AX7 tube, which came from a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, and slotted that into place.
The gain was corrected and I believe that what I'm getting now is what It's supposed to sound like, but it remained dark.
I have the feeling that when playing with headphones, my dry sound has more treble content than the wet sound with the treble knob maxed.
Then another thing demanded my attention:
Looking at the device, it says "Carl Martin"
Made by East Sound Research, Denmark
Designed by Holm Malmquist
The box, however, says
Bassdrive
by East Sound Research Denmark
Made in China
I don't know if I'm being dramatic here, but the comma makes a difference for me.
Choosing the wording "Made By <company name>, <country name>" Does imply to me that the thing was made by that company in that country.
On the box, it looks like the company name is "East Sound Research Denmark"
In the Danish Business Register, the company is named "East Sound Research", and on the Carl Martin webpage, they refer to themselves as such.
I cannot shake the feeling that they've tried to hide the fact that the device was made in the far east and trying to make it look like it was made in Denmark.
Is that Danish Audio Gear Marketing? I want to remind the reader that T.C. Electronics also hailed from Denmark before they were acquired by the Behringer Group - and most of us remember the 'discussion' about their watts.
First Impression Devi Ever Stone:
I don't know if you US people are familiar with the common European nettle (Urtica dioica). It's a plant that is covered in fine hair.Those break off upon touch and give off a substance that makes your skin feel like pink noise for a while.
If you shaved off all the hairs on a fully grown plant, then carefully insert them into a small tube, then carefully insert that tube in your ear canal and let the stuff pour out. That's what the Devi Ever Stone sounds like.
Kaputt.
A fuzz that's so loaded, it's completely over the top. The only use I found so far is to play video game melodies from the 8 bit era.
When you max it out, you get self oscillation.
I don't know if you US people are familiar with the common European nettle (Urtica dioica). It's a plant that is covered in fine hair.Those break off upon touch and give off a substance that makes your skin feel like pink noise for a while.
If you shaved off all the hairs on a fully grown plant, then carefully insert them into a small tube, then carefully insert that tube in your ear canal and let the stuff pour out. That's what the Devi Ever Stone sounds like.
Kaputt.
A fuzz that's so loaded, it's completely over the top. The only use I found so far is to play video game melodies from the 8 bit era.
When you max it out, you get self oscillation.
And finally, first Impressions of the Le Bass:
I have the feeling that the clean channel does have a baked in flavor to it. Nothing crass, but there is a difference between device on and device off with the knobs at noon. But it works for me, since it sounds pleasing to my ears. Finding a very simple, yet effective setup here, I quickly jump over to the more promising channel B. Channel B is the one that can do drive, and it starts very gentle, like a tube amp that tries to stay clean but runs just a tiny little bit too hot. Increasing the gain leads to more of that. For a long time, the feeling is that of a vintage amp that is driven into saturation.
Trying the fusion mode, I find that the red one works much better than the blue one, but I don't understand the knob. It obviously does more when you turn it up, but does it increase the level of channel A firing into channel B? I'll have to open the manual.
I have the feeling that the clean channel does have a baked in flavor to it. Nothing crass, but there is a difference between device on and device off with the knobs at noon. But it works for me, since it sounds pleasing to my ears. Finding a very simple, yet effective setup here, I quickly jump over to the more promising channel B. Channel B is the one that can do drive, and it starts very gentle, like a tube amp that tries to stay clean but runs just a tiny little bit too hot. Increasing the gain leads to more of that. For a long time, the feeling is that of a vintage amp that is driven into saturation.
Trying the fusion mode, I find that the red one works much better than the blue one, but I don't understand the knob. It obviously does more when you turn it up, but does it increase the level of channel A firing into channel B? I'll have to open the manual.
