I know it's a smartphone camera that's somewhat on the brink of being overwhelmed, but I really dig the bass sound. Rich and deep, with just enough edge not to drown into low end rumble.
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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
I know it's a smartphone camera that's somewhat on the brink of being overwhelmed, but I really dig the bass sound. Rich and deep, with just enough edge not to drown into low end rumble.
While I did buy the Toolbox from him, the other devices were sent over for testing only.
AFAIK, he does not do this as a business but much rather a hobby,
but everyone I know that did buy stuff off him has given positive feedback regarding the business practice and the workmanship.
I am entirely happy with the Toolbox purchase and I feel like I have gotten more than my money's worth in pedal.
I'm pretty sure that when it comes to discontinued products that are hard to find, I'd not hesitate a second to contact him.
One more time, I want to inspect "clean blend" part of a dirt pedal.
When I started out, I thought these were immensely important because you'll loose the low end.
Then I discovered pedals that work totally fine without one and at some point, the clean blend issue completely escaped my attention, for a long while.
I just tried pedals, one after the other, and some I liked and kept around, while others I sold, and in that process, at one point, I looked at my collection and realized that nearly all of the pedals that managed to stay with me had no clean blend feature.
Since that particular part of the pedal was of no concern to me and I did not pay it any particular attention, this seemed like pure coincidence.
Of my pile of pedals I own and keep, only two pedals have a blend knob, and those are both preamps. The Bassrig SV and the Sansamp. And I run them 100% wet at all times.
However, looking at how this can be incorporated into a pedal in multiple ways.
For demonstration, some thoughts on some pedals:
The Doom2 hides the blend in the "Bass" knob and a switch. You can select between full range and a highpassed version on the switch, and the bass knob does integrate that signal seemingly seamless into the output of the pedal. It feels like this was designed from the ground up with that kind of blend in mind.
The EHX Bass Soul Food OTOH feels like a regular Soul Food with a clean blend slapped on top as an afterthought. Take a pedal that's not too good for bass and slap on a clean blend, solved. Add the word 'bass' to the name and charge extra.
When I play that pedal, I can hear how the dirt and clean signal refuse to mix, and it sounds like ... exactly what it is. A guitar pedal with a clean blend slapped on.
@sloppy_phil 's A Farewell To Cleans on the other hand, is quite literally what I just described above. It's a homemade pedal, where someone handy with a soldering iron took a guitar dirt pedal and manually added a clean blend circuit. That pedal, however, really worked extremely well while I had it. The clean blend signal blended in without problems.
When I started out, I thought these were immensely important because you'll loose the low end.
Then I discovered pedals that work totally fine without one and at some point, the clean blend issue completely escaped my attention, for a long while.
I just tried pedals, one after the other, and some I liked and kept around, while others I sold, and in that process, at one point, I looked at my collection and realized that nearly all of the pedals that managed to stay with me had no clean blend feature.
Since that particular part of the pedal was of no concern to me and I did not pay it any particular attention, this seemed like pure coincidence.
Of my pile of pedals I own and keep, only two pedals have a blend knob, and those are both preamps. The Bassrig SV and the Sansamp. And I run them 100% wet at all times.
However, looking at how this can be incorporated into a pedal in multiple ways.
For demonstration, some thoughts on some pedals:
The Doom2 hides the blend in the "Bass" knob and a switch. You can select between full range and a highpassed version on the switch, and the bass knob does integrate that signal seemingly seamless into the output of the pedal. It feels like this was designed from the ground up with that kind of blend in mind.
The EHX Bass Soul Food OTOH feels like a regular Soul Food with a clean blend slapped on top as an afterthought. Take a pedal that's not too good for bass and slap on a clean blend, solved. Add the word 'bass' to the name and charge extra.
When I play that pedal, I can hear how the dirt and clean signal refuse to mix, and it sounds like ... exactly what it is. A guitar pedal with a clean blend slapped on.
@sloppy_phil 's A Farewell To Cleans on the other hand, is quite literally what I just described above. It's a homemade pedal, where someone handy with a soldering iron took a guitar dirt pedal and manually added a clean blend circuit. That pedal, however, really worked extremely well while I had it. The clean blend signal blended in without problems.
New dirt from JHS and Broughton. The new Morning Glory with clean been and low drive gain may be better adapted for bass. The Broughton Evergreen Overdrive is out today and is another tubescreamer variant. Curious if anyone tries these out.
I use a Blumes for my dirty-ish sound, so I've got an Evergreen on the way to A/B it with.
It's not a "fancy" pedal, and I don't love it on its own, but the Blumes stacks really well with the other dirt I'm running - I run a DCX bass always on, EQ mode, med rolloff very light breakup, lots of highs. The Bright DCX bass feeding the Blumes is a much different affair, and it is the first pedal that stacked with every other dirt that I was running in a usable way. The dirt chain is now DCX (always on) > dirty boost > distortion > Blumes.
I did get a 1 of 1 holo sparkle Blumes from Chicago Music Exchange, so that counts as "fancy" enough for me
Haha, perfect timing for me to post about blends added to pedals - JHS brings out the fourth? Fifth? revision of the Morning Glory and it has a clean blend.
The Broughton concept, I'll have to admit, is too interesting to pass. I've ordered one.
A Tube Screamer that is tailored for bass and comes with a Blueberry'esque bass knob that sets the amount of low end that gets fed to the clippers?
Yes, please!
I similarly run the DCX always on, pretty bright, plenty of EQ mode drive. This arrangement seems ideal for pairing with a P Bass.
I'd love a non standard Blumes. The Plumes was done in every color there is. It might even be that one or two colors were actually invented because EQD ran out of available ones to make more shades of Plumes - but all the Blumes I ever found for sale were yellow.
I'm glad they do these other color enclosures, b/c I hate the yellow so much I might not have ever tried it.
Same. I've been looking for a Blumes for a while now. Not exactly because I want to have one, but much rather because I feel like I should at least have tested it because it's something of a standard. Every Time one pops up, I click on the link going "Please look nice, please look nice, pleasepleaseplease arrr no! Another yellow one. nope."
Which, I admit is in itself stupid because when I anticipate that I would not keep it and only acquire one to test it out, I should not care about the color at all.
But if both me and the other beings contributing to this thread, at least those that have similar pedal habits, do think they are driven by rational causes, they REALLY need to do some introspection.
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Report, sound snippets and frequency graph of the Tubedrve are uploaded to the website now.
thedirtjounal.com
Singular Audio Tubedrve – The Dirt Jounal
thedirtjounal.com
I'm not one to post social media links, but this one nearly had me falling off the potty this morning.
A few words on the Disssid Dynamic Drive.
It is, as already mentioned a copy of the VFE Dragon.
The control layout is a bit weird.
You get your typical gain and level knobs that act as expected.
On top of that, you get a HPF and LPF knob, as well as another one called Clip and a switch labeled boost.
The knob labeled Clip is an internal trimpot on the original design, but Disssa decided that it's easier to access on the outside.
This knob is a bit weird. VFE claims that the knob fine tunes the amount of compression on the gain stage.
Disssa said the knob controls MOSFETs that overdrive, so he's labeled it Clip.
I say when playing around with it, it feels like a BIAS knob. When you turn it low, you get more distortion in the signal and when you run it high, you also get more distortion - but both sound a bit off. I turned it up and down a lot, but always ended up around 1 o'clock and found that this sounds best.
Next, the "Boost" switch. I could not figure out what it does, so I measured it.
Apparently, this does influence the filters, and in the down position they do 12dB/Oct and in the up position they do 6.
The filters. As I already said before, you might wonder where in the circuit they are located and what magic they do, and I say: These are regular high and low pass filters and there's no side chain or dry/wet system of any kind. Close the filters all the way and the pedal output is zero, because they overlap.
Here's the filters open, three quarters open, and half open, all other knob positions remaining the same, both with the switch in the up and down position :
It is, as already mentioned a copy of the VFE Dragon.
The control layout is a bit weird.
You get your typical gain and level knobs that act as expected.
On top of that, you get a HPF and LPF knob, as well as another one called Clip and a switch labeled boost.
The knob labeled Clip is an internal trimpot on the original design, but Disssa decided that it's easier to access on the outside.
This knob is a bit weird. VFE claims that the knob fine tunes the amount of compression on the gain stage.
Disssa said the knob controls MOSFETs that overdrive, so he's labeled it Clip.
I say when playing around with it, it feels like a BIAS knob. When you turn it low, you get more distortion in the signal and when you run it high, you also get more distortion - but both sound a bit off. I turned it up and down a lot, but always ended up around 1 o'clock and found that this sounds best.
Next, the "Boost" switch. I could not figure out what it does, so I measured it.
Apparently, this does influence the filters, and in the down position they do 12dB/Oct and in the up position they do 6.
The filters. As I already said before, you might wonder where in the circuit they are located and what magic they do, and I say: These are regular high and low pass filters and there's no side chain or dry/wet system of any kind. Close the filters all the way and the pedal output is zero, because they overlap.
Here's the filters open, three quarters open, and half open, all other knob positions remaining the same, both with the switch in the up and down position :
So much for the nerdy stuff.
At first glance, that pedal looked absolutely boring to me and I did not know what to do with it.
I watched a video about a guitarist who loved the filter idea because he could make his humbuckers sound more like single coils or something guitarists can get happy about.
I did not watch a video of a bassist being happy with it because there were none. Not a good sign.
Well, I started playing around, with the filters wide open and the Bias control in the sweet spot, essentially treating the thing like a bog standard overdrive with just a gain knob and level control.
And what can I say, it is surprisingly good! The dynamic range of that thing is remarkable. The organic timbre of the low gain sounds are commendable.
I found myself enjoying myself more than I should, playing a pedal in its simplest setting, completely ignoring the party tricks up its sleeve.
It feels like a rubber band that is incredibly stretchy. One that stretches so much, you don't think you can easily break it because your arms are too short to get it into any kind of danger, and it's super soft, not much force against you. There is a slight characteristic of an amp-like drive feeling, but the push back is so gentle, you can easily miss it and say the pedal has no direction of its own. The easy flow and the huge dynamic range let your fingers decide how little or how much breakup is going on, and the breakup itself has a texture that totally works for tone sweetening.
Playing that thing, I kinda wish for the bias to be fixed to the point I chose, and the HPF can go, and the now vacant two knobs could become an active two band EQ, post drive, and that thing might actually become something incredible!
At first glance, that pedal looked absolutely boring to me and I did not know what to do with it.
I watched a video about a guitarist who loved the filter idea because he could make his humbuckers sound more like single coils or something guitarists can get happy about.
I did not watch a video of a bassist being happy with it because there were none. Not a good sign.
Well, I started playing around, with the filters wide open and the Bias control in the sweet spot, essentially treating the thing like a bog standard overdrive with just a gain knob and level control.
And what can I say, it is surprisingly good! The dynamic range of that thing is remarkable. The organic timbre of the low gain sounds are commendable.
I found myself enjoying myself more than I should, playing a pedal in its simplest setting, completely ignoring the party tricks up its sleeve.
It feels like a rubber band that is incredibly stretchy. One that stretches so much, you don't think you can easily break it because your arms are too short to get it into any kind of danger, and it's super soft, not much force against you. There is a slight characteristic of an amp-like drive feeling, but the push back is so gentle, you can easily miss it and say the pedal has no direction of its own. The easy flow and the huge dynamic range let your fingers decide how little or how much breakup is going on, and the breakup itself has a texture that totally works for tone sweetening.
Playing that thing, I kinda wish for the bias to be fixed to the point I chose, and the HPF can go, and the now vacant two knobs could become an active two band EQ, post drive, and that thing might actually become something incredible!
Rant!
Canada Post shipping times. I did pay $40 (US) to Broughton Audio for shipping the pedal over the pond to Europe, and obviously, they did so.
However, as soon as the parcel showed up in tracking, they told me the expected delivery is Feb, 16 - a running time of a fortnight.
I mean yes, Phileas Fogg took 80 days to travel around the world, and Canada to Germany could be considered half the world (only if you're generous),
but Mr. Fogg did so well before the brothers Wright got it right, and also more than a decade before Bertha Benz did the first joyride in the Patent-Motorwagen III. We do have different means of transportation these days, and there's no reason to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a canoe or a steamboat.
I hope I'm not turning into an old fart that constantly complains how things were better back in the day, but back in the day ... I think the last pedal I bought before I officially started the Dirt Bender, was the Heather Brown "The Blessed Mother". That was sent from the US in two days, and the shipping cost was the exact same - shipping for $25 was what got you two weeks of waiting.
I guess I'm just overly excited about the Green Pedal and completely ran out of patience.
Canada Post shipping times. I did pay $40 (US) to Broughton Audio for shipping the pedal over the pond to Europe, and obviously, they did so.
However, as soon as the parcel showed up in tracking, they told me the expected delivery is Feb, 16 - a running time of a fortnight.
I mean yes, Phileas Fogg took 80 days to travel around the world, and Canada to Germany could be considered half the world (only if you're generous),
but Mr. Fogg did so well before the brothers Wright got it right, and also more than a decade before Bertha Benz did the first joyride in the Patent-Motorwagen III. We do have different means of transportation these days, and there's no reason to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a canoe or a steamboat.
I hope I'm not turning into an old fart that constantly complains how things were better back in the day, but back in the day ... I think the last pedal I bought before I officially started the Dirt Bender, was the Heather Brown "The Blessed Mother". That was sent from the US in two days, and the shipping cost was the exact same - shipping for $25 was what got you two weeks of waiting.
I guess I'm just overly excited about the Green Pedal and completely ran out of patience.
@el murdoque Im excited for the green Broughton, as well.
In the meantime, I’ve got a Mr. Black Bass OD on the way, supposed to be great. Have you tried it?
In the meantime, I’ve got a Mr. Black Bass OD on the way, supposed to be great. Have you tried it?
Supposed to be great? That's the best Overdrive/Preamp available for your Bass.
Southampton ON to NY should be a short ride, even by canoe - so I hope you get yours quick!
Mine was sent out on Monday (Yesterday), but I think I bought the last one still available - at least they were sold out after I checked out and paypaled the money.
