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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
Good people of the Dirt Jounal,
I'm sorry for not having written anything in a while. I was off-grid, vacation. Italian food, beaches and no WiFi available.
When I came back, I realized that I do not have any backlog of dirt pedals that need revision, not even a half finished Jounal post for the website. I'm up to date, and that feels terrifying!
Furthermore, I do have my boards equipped and I'm super happy with the dirt sounds at my disposal - I even have a small shelf with dirt pedals that are too good to sell, yet not in current use.
Before I do crass things, like sitting down and starting to think thoughts like "Most people probably try 5 or 6 drive pedals until they settle. The more obsessive ones will go as far and try about 20. I have played well over a hundred, with written accounts of over 90. How many more will I do? Will I even find more pedals?" I will have to throw some dirt down that pedal shaped void in my soul.
What are your suggestions?
I came up with:
Lusithand Rosa: Because it's new and because how they stress that they paid attention to how the pedal feels when you play it.
Fuzzrocious Lil Fella or Dark Driving: Becaue I've always had a soft spot for Fuzzrocious pedals.
EQD Blumes. Because it exists.
I'm sorry for not having written anything in a while. I was off-grid, vacation. Italian food, beaches and no WiFi available.
When I came back, I realized that I do not have any backlog of dirt pedals that need revision, not even a half finished Jounal post for the website. I'm up to date, and that feels terrifying!
Furthermore, I do have my boards equipped and I'm super happy with the dirt sounds at my disposal - I even have a small shelf with dirt pedals that are too good to sell, yet not in current use.
Before I do crass things, like sitting down and starting to think thoughts like "Most people probably try 5 or 6 drive pedals until they settle. The more obsessive ones will go as far and try about 20. I have played well over a hundred, with written accounts of over 90. How many more will I do? Will I even find more pedals?" I will have to throw some dirt down that pedal shaped void in my soul.
What are your suggestions?
I came up with:
Lusithand Rosa: Because it's new and because how they stress that they paid attention to how the pedal feels when you play it.
Fuzzrocious Lil Fella or Dark Driving: Becaue I've always had a soft spot for Fuzzrocious pedals.
EQD Blumes. Because it exists.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on the Dark Driving. As soon as I got it I knew it wasn’t leaving my board, and I have since reconfigured my setup based around it. I use it as an always-on mildly gritty tone shaper, but it also works fantastically well as a full-on dirt. Goes from the aforementioned low gain to massive distortion/almost fuzz.
This sounds awful, are you OK!
Welcome back. I haven’t had any dirt-GAS (eeww) since the Bobs showed up, and am right now wholly focussed on my new fretless acquisition, but I do think those are some (mostly) good suggestions. Lusithand quality is excellent, if the G&P is anything to go by. I don’t know anything about Fuzzrocious except the the builder frequents the forum and seems like a good dude. The Blumes doesn’t excite me at all, but could be the start of a “best tubescreamer for bass” side gig, although to me, that’s like asking “what’s the best ketchup for (sea) bass”, i.e. a question not worth answering.
One that could pique my interest is the Very Good Amp Co EP-Drive. It looks the business, and the ability to switch the order of the EP3-style boost circuit and the low-gain drive circuit seems useful on its face.
Don't bother with the Blumes. You're better than that.
I’ll throw in some oddballs:
HandyFx Transmission. It’s a Hudson Broadcast clone but with a better (read:flat) frequency responce.
Beetronics Fatbee
Wren & Cuff Phat Phuk B (someone may have already recommended this one)
HandyFx Transmission. It’s a Hudson Broadcast clone but with a better (read:flat) frequency responce.
Beetronics Fatbee
Wren & Cuff Phat Phuk B (someone may have already recommended this one)
I really dig the Fatbee. Lovely response, great low-gain tones. I really want to use it as a dirty boost but I find it's always on.
How about Horrothia Teeth? English builder and I have their Type One Chorus and it's pretty good. Teeth demos seem pretty great for low to mid gain.
I also did the ODB-3, the Vintage Microtubes and others.
I mean, it's as much about the experience as it is about discovering hidden gems - The Blumes has become, as @GrowlerBox stated, somewhat of a staple, the Tubescreamer For Bass (by the way, I've done that. The Way Huge Green Rhino MkV is the best!). I'd like to see where it fits in my personal (read: snobbish) ranking - but TBH, I don't see a fat chance of it being a top contender.
I have had the Teeth on my list for years now. They are incredibly hard to come by on the second hand market! I will buy one at some point, though!
Here's what I wrote about the Fatbee: Beetronics FX Fatbee – The Dirt Jounal
The Phat Phuk B has always interested me because of the name and the color, but I've yet to encounter a device running on germanium diodes that I like.
Does the Transmission also run on that clever mix of Transformer and diodes like the Broadcast does?
Germ can be interesting because it’s apparently suseptible to temperature changes.
As for the Transmission, i cannot remember if it has the transformer or not. Been a while since i opened it up.
I do know that i a/b’d it with a real Braodcast, and it was suuuper close.
The biggest difference was the Broadcast has the really wide frowny face EQ that rolls off a touch of low and high end, but the Transmission is frequency flat.
(I run white noise through all my pedals into an RTA to chart the EQ response.)
I've had the Phat Phuk B, and it sounds great as a sparkle and tone sweetener, low gainish type of pedal. I didn't like it when the bias was dialed up. But as an always on low gain boost it was pretty great. If you get one, find one with an external bias pot, that way you don't have to mess with a trim pot.
If you have a DAW, you already have everything you need.
Download a white noise app. (I have one called Noise Generator.)
Use a dongle to plug your phone or iPad or whatever noise generator to your DAW, open a new session, and bring up an EQ plugin that has an RTA on it.
I use Logic, and their basic EQ has it.
From there, it’s easy.
Watch the clean signal and compare with the effected. Twiddle all the knobs and watch the squiggly line move.
It’s pretty fun, tbh.
As for using your ears, i can’t do it. My analytical mind won’t let me. It’s a problem.
If i have a pedal that sounds great but doesn’t have an EQ curve that my brain says is “usable”, then it’s gotta go.
There’s a give and take to every approach.
Do what makes you happy.
RTA frequency response won’t show you what happens when you are clipping a signal (which will add harmonics somewhere in the signal), so it is limiting anyway to describe differences between dirt pedals (though it is useful to help try to understand the internal shaping that gives you that final product of tone and clipping response)
My post in the Blumes thread
Later in the thread I explain using it as a dirty mid bump boost into a darkglass b3k, pick style only. A tone I'm certain isn't your style.
It's been replaced long ago by my odr1 which remains on my board.
Plus you have high output pickups - me too. Blumes likes a weak P bass signal. Or pick playing on rounds.
Edit: I just tried it on my BEAD with rounds, finger and pick. It gave a consistent background of mooshed middy woof that sits distinct and separate from your base tone. You can bring that undynamic blur closer or further from the foreground with the Drive knob but can't avoid it. You can have different versions of it with the Clip Select switch. Like choosing the frequency of the background road noise whir in a car on the freeway by adjusting your speed.
But I love your critique of pedals especially ones I'm familiar with, so my post isn't to dissuade you but ensure you have reasonably low expectations.
