My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal

[el murdoque]

Well, let's see about this one first.

 

[warptheory]

Had the Anadime Bass Chorus, it was great, but didn't like the side jacks. Analogman is great, but currently not on my board and replaced with the IE Polytope. Polytope can get weird real quick, but set correctly it can be bright or dark and importantly boost itself, which is nice as any modulation typically has perceived volume loss. Also have the Horrothia Type One on another board, it's a great chorus as well, just wish it had more controls than a combined rate/intensity knob. Supposedly they are working on a new version, Type Two with additional controls, they released and sold some demo units this year or last year, but haven't made the official version yet.

Curious to hear your thoughts on the Echo Fix.

 

[darev]

Can anyone remind me why I never bought a BK Butler Tube Driver?

I remember researching the pedal for quite some time. Does it suck lows?

I had to jam the bass knob to 10/full on a Real Tube, not a real Tube Driver but it worked ok.

 

[GrowlerBox]

View attachment 7355100


Well, let's see about this one first.

The Sixties Vibe arrived today, and I’ve had a few minutes to put it through its paces, and I couldn’t help but do a quick AB against the Echo Fix. The latter can do a pretty fair impression of a univibe, as I mentioned earlier, but it can’t quite reproduce what is typically and somewhat tastelessly described as “throb.” I can kind of get it with the Flanger Hoax, but don’t ask me how.

Nevertheless, the Echo Fix is way quieter (and the univibe isn’t actually that noisy), is closer to transparent than I can hear, and is much more versatile. The univibe interestingly cuts some bass as the intensity is dialled down, and also seems to add in some mid frequencies. From about halfway up on the intensity, these mids are accentuated as a wah-like “quack” as the phase-shift increases. The vibrato effect is useful at the subtler levels to add a bit of wobble, although I probably wouldn’t use it much on fretless. Overall it’s a cool effect, and I’ll substitute out the Echo Fix for a jam session or two, but I suspect it will wind up on the bigger home board, with the Echo Fix back where it belongs soon enough.

 

[el murdoque]

Chorus Sidequest:

I put the EF Chorus through the first test lap yesterday.
I personally want my chorus to do two things first and foremost.
1. That shimmery layer on top, in combination with a very mild drive and a large reverb - for picking chords high up the neck for song intros and such.
2. last pedal of the synth chain, to thicken things up and make it sound 'moar'.

My first experience with the EF sums up as follows.
The workmanship and quality are all there. These units are hard to photograph (In my humble opinion) - they look and feel better in person. Reassuring weight, good pots, great switches. First little downside: The unit defaults to the off state when powered up. Since I use mine with a loop switcher, I'd like to have it on by default - but that's a minor inconvenience, my Doom2 is the same.
Hooking it up and toying around with it, I like the LED display's concept, but the implementation is a bit of a let down. I would have thought the horizontal and vertical movement is a bit more fluid, something that looks like a motion. But that's only the outside.
What sets this pedal apart from other Chorus pedals is mainly the resonance knob and the waveshape knob. You can go seamlessly from sine to triangle. The Julia has a switch for that to change from one state to the other, on the EF, you can go just a little towards triangle to make the peaks a little sharper.
The resonance knob feels a bit like on filter pedals, and I go about it the same way. Set it all the way down, and then slowly increase it. The effect gets stronger, until I hit the point where I get this typical resonant-peak-noise. From there I back off two increments and that's the setting I use. Which leaves the two typical chorus controls. Speed and depth.
Ideally, the depth knob has so much effect on tap that you can overdo it. On the EF that's only possible in conjunction with the resonance. If you keep resonance low, you can easily dime the depth and go with that.
Moving on to what I perceive as the main problem with the unit: The speed knob. At minimum setting, the Chorus still moves a lot quicker than everything else I tried so far. Ah, and it's dead silent. None of the Bucket Brigade Hiss.

Interestingly, I wanted the super slow setting mostly because that's what works best with the synth chain.

I recorded a little lick on the quick (I placed the cuts by eye, so it's not 100% consistent) one pass with the clean sound, then a synthy sound without the chorus and then with chorus:

For my ear, there's a nice thickening of the sound. What do you think?

 

[el murdoque]

Fun fact: I'm not the only pedalboard-user in my household any more.
Mrs. Murdoque saw those social media posts with those "talking dogs" - those that press knobs with their paws and the knobs play pre-recorded samples - and she decided that el_murdoggo should learn that, too. So I found and bought a couple of these buttons. Yesterday she complained that those buttons are pushed all over the place when the dog presses them and mused about how to fix them somewhere.
I grinned, said wait a moment, and handed her this five minutes later:

 

[sloppy_phil]

Chorus Sidequest:

I put the EF Chorus through the first test lap yesterday.
I personally want my chorus to do two things first and foremost.
1. That shimmery layer on top, in combination with a very mild drive and a large reverb - for picking chords high up the neck for song intros and such.
2. last pedal of the synth chain, to thicken things up and make it sound 'moar'.

My first experience with the EF sums up as follows.
The workmanship and quality are all there. These units are hard to photograph (In my humble opinion) - they look and feel better in person. Reassuring weight, good pots, great switches. First little downside: The unit defaults to the off state when powered up. Since I use mine with a loop switcher, I'd like to have it on by default - but that's a minor inconvenience, my Doom2 is the same.
Hooking it up and toying around with it, I like the LED display's concept, but the implementation is a bit of a let down. I would have thought the horizontal and vertical movement is a bit more fluid, something that looks like a motion. But that's only the outside.
What sets this pedal apart from other Chorus pedals is mainly the resonance knob and the waveshape knob. You can go seamlessly from sine to triangle. The Julia has a switch for that to change from one state to the other, on the EF, you can go just a little towards triangle to make the peaks a little sharper.
The resonance knob feels a bit like on filter pedals, and I go about it the same way. Set it all the way down, and then slowly increase it. The effect gets stronger, until I hit the point where I get this typical resonant-peak-noise. From there I back off two increments and that's the setting I use. Which leaves the two typical chorus controls. Speed and depth.
Ideally, the depth knob has so much effect on tap that you can overdo it. On the EF that's only possible in conjunction with the resonance. If you keep resonance low, you can easily dime the depth and go with that.
Moving on to what I perceive as the main problem with the unit: The speed knob. At minimum setting, the Chorus still moves a lot quicker than everything else I tried so far. Ah, and it's dead silent. None of the Bucket Brigade Hiss.

Interestingly, I wanted the super slow setting mostly because that's what works best with the synth chain.

I recorded a little lick on the quick (I placed the cuts by eye, so it's not 100% consistent) one pass with the clean sound, then a synthy sound without the chorus and then with chorus:
View attachment 7355812

For my ear, there's a nice thickening of the sound. What do you think?

You got a killer synth sound there, man! I really dig it. Definitely thickens things up nicely. Sounded like maybe it was the P&C? Couldn't tell. It may have been the D2, too, I realize....

 

[GrowlerBox]

Fun fact: I'm not the only pedalboard-user in my household any more.
Mrs. Murdoque saw those social media posts with those "talking dogs" - those that press knobs with their paws and the knobs play pre-recorded samples - and she decided that el_murdoggo should learn that, too. So I found and bought a couple of these buttons. Yesterday she complained that those buttons are pushed all over the place when the dog presses them and mused about how to fix them somewhere.
I grinned, said wait a moment, and handed her this five minutes later:
View attachment 7355823

A pawdal board.

 

[GrowlerBox]

You got a killer synth sound there, man! I really dig it. Definitely thickens things up nicely. Sounded like maybe it was the P&C? Couldn't tell. It may have been the D2, too, I realize....

Sounds prunish-custardy to me, although I don’t really know he Doom 2. I’m clearly pretty biased towards the EF, but it’s working for me in this clip.

 

[OldShark]

Fun fact: I'm not the only pedalboard-user in my household any more.
Mrs. Murdoque saw those social media posts with those "talking dogs" - those that press knobs with their paws and the knobs play pre-recorded samples - and she decided that el_murdoggo should learn that, too. So I found and bought a couple of these buttons. Yesterday she complained that those buttons are pushed all over the place when the dog presses them and mused about how to fix them somewhere.
I grinned, said wait a moment, and handed her this five minutes later:
View attachment 7355823

So where's the according sound file? I do expect moar howling to come!

 

[davelowell2]

Yes, @el murdoque , nice slowly closing envelope. What pedal is doing that?

 

[mouthmw]

The chorus sounds good.
My pick for the pedalboard friendly solution with top jacks is Drunk Beaver Jellyfish. I personally have zero noise with it, but I don't go super deep with it (super deep sounding chorus is just muddy to me). Probably sounds similar to all other bucket brigade Small Clone clones, but I like that it runs internally at 15V for better headroom and I prefer the clarity it has compared to my previous JAM Waterfall Bass. It's just a great chorus.

 

[el murdoque]

Yes, @el murdoque , nice slowly closing envelope. What pedal is doing that?

@GrowlerBox and @sloppy_phil are excellent cork sniffers.
The former because a Kiwi knows a Kiwi and the latter because he has an ear of solid gold.


I did put an ad for the Analogman in my local classifieds and it already sold, giving the situation some more gravity.
The EF does not fit my current board layout, but I'm already quite set on replacing the D2/101 combo with the Prunes & Curstard, because the synth sound in the clip above does it nicely for what I need.

 

[el murdoque]

So where's the according sound file? I do expect moar howling to come!

We're still fine tuning the samples.

 

[el murdoque]

I just remembered that this here thread should follow a certain topic. This topic is bass dirt.

I did buy another pedal, more or less snagged it up in passing.




Any guesses?

 

[el murdoque]

Of course, that was way too obvious. Every geoguesser worth their salt immediately recognizes this colossal mound of dirt as the Storm King Mountain, and from there it's rather obvious that I could mean no other thing than the very small pack of dirt that Aguilar named after that very mountain.



Proper analysis pending, but I love that little thing!
Every single video I saw about it, they were ripping hard with the gain wide open, then comment that it also sounds great with the gain down, play a few notes with that very promising low gain growl, and then immediately push the gain wide open again.
Yes, it can do that ripped speaker roar very well, but when you turn the gain down, it gets really magical.
There is an organic quality here, once more one of these that don't sound metallic at all. This one has a rough texture.

 

[warptheory]

Of course, that was way too obvious. Every geoguesser worth their salt immediately recognizes this colossal mound of dirt as the Storm King Mountain, and from there it's rather obvious that I could mean no other thing than the very small pack of dirt that Aguilar named after that very mountain.
View attachment 7357272


Proper analysis pending, but I love that little thing!
Every single video I saw about it, they were ripping hard with the gain wide open, then comment that it also sounds great with the gain down, play a few notes with that very promising low gain growl, and then immediately push the gain wide open again.
Yes, it can do that ripped speaker roar very well, but when you turn the gain down, it gets really magical.
There is an organic quality here, once more one of these that don't sound metallic at all. This one has a rough texture.

I might need a demo of this guy in low gain. Always frustrating when they go straight from no gain to 3 oclock and blow their load, like warm me up first and get me interested before you climax with your nasty grind.

 

[jcburn]

Of course, that was way too obvious. Every geoguesser worth their salt immediately recognizes this colossal mound of dirt as the Storm King Mountain, and from there it's rather obvious that I could mean no other thing than the very small pack of dirt that Aguilar named after that very mountain.
View attachment 7357272


Proper analysis pending, but I love that little thing!
Every single video I saw about it, they were ripping hard with the gain wide open, then comment that it also sounds great with the gain down, play a few notes with that very promising low gain growl, and then immediately push the gain wide open again.
Yes, it can do that ripped speaker roar very well, but when you turn the gain down, it gets really magical.
There is an organic quality here, once more one of these that don't sound metallic at all. This one has a rough texture.

This guy has always intrigued me as I remember reading (or maybe hearing on a YT clip) that the gain engine was based of the AGS circuit, with more gain available and a few other tweaks possible.

And then every demo clip is high gain :-(

Would love to hear how clean this can get, and then some low gain with fingers and a pick.

 

[projectapollo]

I've been eager to find the Tone Hammer AGS thing in a separate pedal to pair up with the DCX Bass. I hope this Storm King is the answer. Curious about comparison to the Aguilar AGRO, as well.

 

[el murdoque]

I might need a demo of this guy in low gain. Always frustrating when they go straight from no gain to 3 oclock and blow their load, like warm me up first and get me interested before you climax with your nasty grind.

This guy has always intrigued me as I remember reading (or maybe hearing on a YT clip) that the gain engine was based of the AGS circuit, with more gain available and a few other tweaks possible.

And then every demo clip is high gain :-(

Would love to hear how clean this can get, and then some low gain with fingers and a pick.

Yeah, Aguilar says that the Storm King is their standalone version of the Tonehammer pedal's AGS circuit.

And I'm glad I'm not the only one who experienced that YT problem with the constant Hi Gain sound and next to nothing with low gain.



Here's some more on the pedal, based on one evening of playing it.

The controls are simple and even something of a straightforward thing.
There's a Master volume that does volume.

Then there's Gain and a knob for tone, and a push button labeled kick.

The gain knob will pass signal at zero - the Tonehammer amp has a gain and drive knob and will also pass signal with those at minimum, I can't remember, but I think the pedal was the same. There is, as you all know, a lot of gain on tap. It's somewhere between a distortion and a fuzz when you crank it.
The tone knob is something of a treble blend. My ear tells me, you get a bit of a boost of the treble when you dime it, but the main function of that knob is to tame the sizzle. When you ride gain high, you get so much sizzle up top, it feels like some low end is dropping out. It's not cutting lows, but boosting the top has the same audible effect. I have yet to try it in a mix, but I predict that you get a clearly audible drive sound with a good ability to come through.
The Kick knob is another boost in what most people would call high mids and I call treble. Your finger noise gets a little more and clanking frets get more audible, but it is aptly named - there's a certain kick to it when you press that knob.
The grit size is very large. This is a bass pedal. There's nothing creamy about it. You're shoveling gravel here, not sand. I like that a lot.