Me living in Luxembourg, we experience the same thing with gas (fuel), alcohol, tobacco products and coffee with people from France, Belgium and Allemania. ... AND we accept german Euros as well.
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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
Me living in Luxembourg, we experience the same thing with gas (fuel), alcohol, tobacco products and coffee with people from France, Belgium and Allemania. ... AND we accept german Euros as well.
It would be a bit of a hassle to keep the German and Luxembourg Euros separated, would it?
Here, the larger super markets have double cash registers, and when you plan for a party and go to buy a ton of booze, they will ask you (often in Danish or English) if you want to pay in Danish Kroner or in Euro.
That's the fun bit about the EU. I'm pretty sure there are laws regulating how much of the stuff you're allowed to take across the borders, but the borders are, more often than not, only a line on a map with no visible fences, walls or other means to block off wild crossings -- and no one really cares, either.
News from my neighbors to the south:
Becos has just sent me an email, reporting that the assembly of my unit has hit the "75% assembled" mark.
Whatever that means
Becos has just sent me an email, reporting that the assembly of my unit has hit the "75% assembled" mark.
Whatever that means
...and the 100% mail came in.
The 75% mark was hit 9:58 and the 100% mail came in 11:12.
My advanced math skills (counting on fingers until 10, then keeping the number in mind while counting on fingers again) tell me that Becos needs 74 minutes to complete 25% of the pedal, so about five hours work for the whole thing.
The 75% mark was hit 9:58 and the 100% mail came in 11:12.
My advanced math skills (counting on fingers until 10, then keeping the number in mind while counting on fingers again) tell me that Becos needs 74 minutes to complete 25% of the pedal, so about five hours work for the whole thing.
They have to, with two fingers' clearance on the rear shock absorbers .. .At least they could expect their roads to be better than in Germany...
Those people at Becos.
Not only do they attach a small flag to their pedal that says Becos on it, no they also boast the vanity of screen printing the company name on the top, along with the comp name. I mean look at it:
They could easily have had added knobs to control attack and release, but instead of giving the world a fully featured comp pedal in a small form factor, they'd rather opt for one with just a few dials and their name written on it.
Of course, that was a humorous form of sarcasm.
I'm looking at a 1590A enclosure that houses a compressor that offers rotary controls for
Ratio, Threshold, Gain, Dry/Wet mix and Side Chain filtering, plus switches for hard/soft knee, Fast/Slow timing and some obscure function that determines the direction of the side chain feed that I don't understand at all.
But why stop there? They also added LED metering and LED status.
Sitting on my desk, this thing is incredible.
Let's hope my ears dig it as much as my eyes do.
Not only do they attach a small flag to their pedal that says Becos on it, no they also boast the vanity of screen printing the company name on the top, along with the comp name. I mean look at it:
They could easily have had added knobs to control attack and release, but instead of giving the world a fully featured comp pedal in a small form factor, they'd rather opt for one with just a few dials and their name written on it.
Of course, that was a humorous form of sarcasm.
I'm looking at a 1590A enclosure that houses a compressor that offers rotary controls for
Ratio, Threshold, Gain, Dry/Wet mix and Side Chain filtering, plus switches for hard/soft knee, Fast/Slow timing and some obscure function that determines the direction of the side chain feed that I don't understand at all.
But why stop there? They also added LED metering and LED status.
Sitting on my desk, this thing is incredible.
Let's hope my ears dig it as much as my eyes do.
Lucky for you I'm not a comp nerd.
Here's my full review:
I tried the Becos. It's good. I'll keep it.
Zero noise, good limiting capabilities, no dip&swell.
Here's my full review:
I tried the Becos. It's good. I'll keep it.
Zero noise, good limiting capabilities, no dip&swell.
I said "I think" I have that sorted out. Something is on its way to be tested, and I think I'll approve of it, But I'm going to keep my mouth shut until I'm sure about it.
NPDNPDNPDNPDNPD.
Hungry readers of the Jounal, feast your eyes on this:
The post man came today and boy, did he deliver!
Left to right, let me introduce:
1. The long awaited Tubedrve. I got this from @gillento , who lives in a neighboring state, but drove it across the border to post it from Germany for a quicker and smoother shipping.
There's this Guy in Germany who goes by @disssa . He actually lives quite close to me, and I want to call him the German JohnK, because he also builds pedals he finds interesting, which has developed into quite the professional thing, with screen printing, and a distinct design for his builds.
This is the man who solved my preamp issue, because
2. on the list is a pedal called Toolbox, which is incredibly close to the Broughton Messenger Jr. Three Band EQ with parametric Mids, HPF and LPF, as well as a DI out, and all in standard pedal format.
3. A pedal named Dynamic Overdrive, which is his interpretation of the VFE Dragon. Looking at the VFE website, I learned that the VFE guy works as a teacher full time these days and is more into pedal DIY.
4. The pedal named Volt is a copy of the Dunwich Volt Thrower, with the HPF and LPF knobs on the outside instead of on the inside.
5. Leo is a copy of the Schmumann Lion Overdrive.
I have some work to do.
Hungry readers of the Jounal, feast your eyes on this:
The post man came today and boy, did he deliver!
Left to right, let me introduce:
1. The long awaited Tubedrve. I got this from @gillento , who lives in a neighboring state, but drove it across the border to post it from Germany for a quicker and smoother shipping.
There's this Guy in Germany who goes by @disssa . He actually lives quite close to me, and I want to call him the German JohnK, because he also builds pedals he finds interesting, which has developed into quite the professional thing, with screen printing, and a distinct design for his builds.
This is the man who solved my preamp issue, because
2. on the list is a pedal called Toolbox, which is incredibly close to the Broughton Messenger Jr. Three Band EQ with parametric Mids, HPF and LPF, as well as a DI out, and all in standard pedal format.
3. A pedal named Dynamic Overdrive, which is his interpretation of the VFE Dragon. Looking at the VFE website, I learned that the VFE guy works as a teacher full time these days and is more into pedal DIY.
4. The pedal named Volt is a copy of the Dunwich Volt Thrower, with the HPF and LPF knobs on the outside instead of on the inside.
5. Leo is a copy of the Schmumann Lion Overdrive.
I have some work to do.
....but before I can do anything Dirty, I need to get that pedalboard build off my chest. Here's my first shot at this:
And I must say, the pedals riding the test bench here are a very nice team.
Left to right, the Toolbox, the Becos Comp, the mystery pedal that is my second Fuzzrocious BDPG, obviously the older, three knob version, and the Tubedrve.
All I can say at this point is that I seem to have to developed the talent of planning something in my head - and when it comes to life, it's exactly as I thought it would be.
The Toolbox is boring. So is the Becos. Both are strictly necessary, both do a great job, but the jobs I have them doing are not the most exciting things in the world. They provide the ground for others to shine on. Their flavor is .....
...but with all the important, yet gloryless stuff taken care of, the other two pedals are free, nay invited to lift their legs and mark the territory.
BDPG: This one gets an instant old school vibe, a bit like the slightly evil little brother of a B15. There is a harsh roll off in the treble department, a significant raise in the bass department and those frequencies that hit your chest when you play staccato notes are particularly fierce. It's not exactly clean, but it's also not that dirty. Feels like running a mean amp into a vintage 2x15 that has seen better days.
Tubedrve: Your magic tone sweetening highly polished tube sound with just a hint of drive (did I imagine that?).
I'll start by rigging the board as pictured and then gather some data on the next jam.
And I must say, the pedals riding the test bench here are a very nice team.
Left to right, the Toolbox, the Becos Comp, the mystery pedal that is my second Fuzzrocious BDPG, obviously the older, three knob version, and the Tubedrve.
All I can say at this point is that I seem to have to developed the talent of planning something in my head - and when it comes to life, it's exactly as I thought it would be.
The Toolbox is boring. So is the Becos. Both are strictly necessary, both do a great job, but the jobs I have them doing are not the most exciting things in the world. They provide the ground for others to shine on. Their flavor is .....
...but with all the important, yet gloryless stuff taken care of, the other two pedals are free, nay invited to lift their legs and mark the territory.
BDPG: This one gets an instant old school vibe, a bit like the slightly evil little brother of a B15. There is a harsh roll off in the treble department, a significant raise in the bass department and those frequencies that hit your chest when you play staccato notes are particularly fierce. It's not exactly clean, but it's also not that dirty. Feels like running a mean amp into a vintage 2x15 that has seen better days.
Tubedrve: Your magic tone sweetening highly polished tube sound with just a hint of drive (did I imagine that?).
I'll start by rigging the board as pictured and then gather some data on the next jam.
My first and spontaneous reaction was "Yeah, as if".Let me know if you let the tubedrve go
Then I thought back to the scores of pedals that I vowed to keep forever, yet sold at some point.
Sure can do!
Done.
I was a bit worried when I found that the Tubedrve requires 300mA and the Cioks I got mounted there only offers 250, but then I thought that the pedal will probably only pull that much while warming up the tube, and even then the draw might be a bit less than that and that Cioks probably also is conservative with their numbers to err on the safe side, so it'll probably do a bit more than 250 ... long story short, it runs fine.
My Nano still has the old bag that fits to your gig bag like the Mono Tick does, so for the next jam session, I can travel light.
Test driving the Tubedrve.
The manual says that the bias turned all the way to the left yields asymmetrical clipping where the waveform clips more when the wave goes up and less when it goes down. This creates a more fuzzy, broken, spluttery sound. The manual further says that the opposite is true and turning it towards the right side yields symmetrical clipping and a smoother sound.
I personally say the smoothest experience is to be had in the area between 10 and 2 o'clock.
I did cruise aimlessly through the limited options the pedal holds in stock, trying out different combinations of gain and bias, then flipping the switch from triode to pentode and repeating the process.
The first sweet spot I discovered was not far off from the default "Everything at noon and the switches in up position". Indeed, all I did was set the bias just a bit past noon and it was all there. My favored bass with its rather low output triggered the light inside the pedal only on harder hits, but what oozed out of the speaker system caressed my ears in a most seductive way. This is magic tone sweetening done right.
The pedal runs on a tube, but its operation is silent as a Ninja in the night, sneaking up on you from behind. Its tonal manipulation is oh so subtle, but noticeable nonetheless, and only in a good way. The dirt is also subtle. It's not your default grit underlining everything, but it's much rather the powdered sugar sprinkled on top, to accentuate the peaks in a luxurious manner that just made your kit sound twice as expensive. On the clean parts of the notes, there is some harmonic enrichment that I know from the Noble preamp - of course it's not as pronounced here - but it's there nonetheless and that's impressive.
I'd say you can slap this pedal with those settings into any given signal chain that consists out of boring utility pedals and has zero magic tone sweetening going on and it'll instantly sound better.
The manual says that the bias turned all the way to the left yields asymmetrical clipping where the waveform clips more when the wave goes up and less when it goes down. This creates a more fuzzy, broken, spluttery sound. The manual further says that the opposite is true and turning it towards the right side yields symmetrical clipping and a smoother sound.
I personally say the smoothest experience is to be had in the area between 10 and 2 o'clock.
I did cruise aimlessly through the limited options the pedal holds in stock, trying out different combinations of gain and bias, then flipping the switch from triode to pentode and repeating the process.
The first sweet spot I discovered was not far off from the default "Everything at noon and the switches in up position". Indeed, all I did was set the bias just a bit past noon and it was all there. My favored bass with its rather low output triggered the light inside the pedal only on harder hits, but what oozed out of the speaker system caressed my ears in a most seductive way. This is magic tone sweetening done right.
The pedal runs on a tube, but its operation is silent as a Ninja in the night, sneaking up on you from behind. Its tonal manipulation is oh so subtle, but noticeable nonetheless, and only in a good way. The dirt is also subtle. It's not your default grit underlining everything, but it's much rather the powdered sugar sprinkled on top, to accentuate the peaks in a luxurious manner that just made your kit sound twice as expensive. On the clean parts of the notes, there is some harmonic enrichment that I know from the Noble preamp - of course it's not as pronounced here - but it's there nonetheless and that's impressive.
I'd say you can slap this pedal with those settings into any given signal chain that consists out of boring utility pedals and has zero magic tone sweetening going on and it'll instantly sound better.
