Sweet that sounds great, and sounds like it would be a very fun group to play in!
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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
Sweet that sounds great, and sounds like it would be a very fun group to play in!
Thank you. It is a fun project. I entered in as some sort of sports for me. Having played primarily funk, soul and reggae for the last decade or so, it was quite hard getting up to speed again, because chugging out those notes in the required speed was nothing my body was used to, but I really like the contrasts.
The reggae band rehearses in a big and open room, lots of light, big windows and space - in a place you'd normally not have a band rehearsal room - only possible because we use electronic drums and a complete ampless IEM setup. Pristine analytical sound and every instrument perfectly balanced.
The Metal band plays in a dark and crammed room, a mattress nailed to the door and the windows boarded shut, amps and speakers everywhere and SPL to cause lasting damage.
Replace metal with rock and this describes all but one band I was ever a part of. The other practiced in a proper studio. I loved all of them.
First impression of Mr. Black Bass OD are good. It definitely holds the low end together, something not a lot of drives do. Shoutout to @kazuhank for the recommendation. I’m tempted to send this to you, @el murdoque.
I once was in a band that rehearsed in an old dairy plant. The room we rented was the ex bacteria lab. That room had an ancient but trusty heating system that could not be tempered with in any way, and it was precisely 20.5°C at any given time. Furthermore, there were power sockets ... so many of them. Basically every foot or so, along each of the walls. Humidity? As constant as the temperature. The drummer was raving about this. He would fine tune his drums to a degree no one else bothered with because they stayed like that.
I hadn't thought of this in years. I was facility manager of a chemical company R&D lab. We had a couple of rooms that could be kept within .02 degrees F and .05 percent RH. They were a pain to keep calibrated though.
No need @davelowell2 - I have three of the Mr. Black Bass ODs, and would happily send one to @el murdoque if he wants to try one.
That's the one dirt box that I have been unable to bump from my board.
Well shoot, as a local to Mr. Black, I feel compelled to try one now. Wish they brought back the Gilamondo Phaser though...
@davelowell2 @kazuhank
Thank you guys for such a generous offer, which I would love to take up - I feel like at this point, I am continuing with this dirt bending to keep the journey alive, since I already have more "you can pry it from my cold, dead hands" pedals than I have use for - and being sent a pedal is a great thing for I don't have to hunt one down, buy it and then sell it on once I'm done. On top of that, it's an astounding token of appreciation for what we're doing here!
You might already taste it on the air, there is a latent "but" lingering.. .
But!
If I'm reading your profile data right, and your profile data is correct, both of you live in the US.
As you might know, I'm located in Germany, and it is a lot harder than one might think to send a pedal from the US to Germany and back.
As an example calculation:
Sending with USPS or FedEx, neither the cheapest option nor the super fast one, a 2lbs parcel from New York to Germany would be roughly $30.
When packing such a parcel, you will have to specify the contents and their worth. You can play it low, but for a Mr. Black Bass OD second hand
you'd have to claim a worth of $130.
6-10 days later, a parcel arrives at my door, and the post person
will ask for roughly €35 to hand over that parcel. That's around €29 for VAT on $160 plus €6 for the cash transaction.
On the way back, it would be subject to nearly similar cost under ideal circumstances, but there is this ..... elected official that will not be discussed on Talkbass, who does certain things that have a direct monetary impact on goods being imported from other countries that will also not be discussed on Talkbass, that might or might not come on top of that, so taking possession of the return parcel will cost roughly $20-$40 yet again.
On top of that, I usually feel obliged to stuff €20 worth of German candy in the return parcel.
So doing some quick math here, we're looking at roughly €65 from my side and $60 from the US side to make that happen - excluding the candy.
With current exchange rates, that roughly translates to €117 total expense getting a pedal to and fro.
There is this pedal on Reverb:
https://reverb.com/p/mr-black-bass-od
Which is €180 plus €35 shipping from Italy (Italian shipping rates are no joke!), so €215. If I bought that and then resold it for €100, we'd be looking at roughly the same expense, minus the international shipping shenanigans, but also minus the awesome community experience.
Sending with USPS or FedEx, neither the cheapest option nor the super fast one, a 2lbs parcel from New York to Germany would be roughly $30.
When packing such a parcel, you will have to specify the contents and their worth. You can play it low, but for a Mr. Black Bass OD second hand
you'd have to claim a worth of $130.
6-10 days later, a parcel arrives at my door, and the post person
will ask for roughly €35 to hand over that parcel. That's around €29 for VAT on $160 plus €6 for the cash transaction.
On the way back, it would be subject to nearly similar cost under ideal circumstances, but there is this ..... elected official that will not be discussed on Talkbass, who does certain things that have a direct monetary impact on goods being imported from other countries that will also not be discussed on Talkbass, that might or might not come on top of that, so taking possession of the return parcel will cost roughly $20-$40 yet again.
On top of that, I usually feel obliged to stuff €20 worth of German candy in the return parcel.
So doing some quick math here, we're looking at roughly €65 from my side and $60 from the US side to make that happen - excluding the candy.
With current exchange rates, that roughly translates to €117 total expense getting a pedal to and fro.
There is this pedal on Reverb:
https://reverb.com/p/mr-black-bass-od
Which is €180 plus €35 shipping from Italy (Italian shipping rates are no joke!), so €215. If I bought that and then resold it for €100, we'd be looking at roughly the same expense, minus the international shipping shenanigans, but also minus the awesome community experience.
Oh, got it! Sorry, the formatting made it look like a quote of a TalkBass post.
I've got an Ei and a Mullard in there. I played around with the tube sequence as well, finding the order which sounded best to me.
I must admit that I did open up the unit when I received it, to take a peek inside, but then carefully closed it up again and never did anything else with it.
Probably not too bad of an idea to try my hand at tube rolling.
Tube rolling and me ...
Last night, I saw the Effectrode Tube Drive from the corner of my eye and it did not look right, so I focused on it, and there was a weird trick of the light. One of the tubes looked like the top was milky white instead of silver - that trick of the light would not change when I changed position. The tube WAS milky white.
I asked google what that meant and google said the vacuum is compromised and the tube is ruined. This was a JJ 12AT7 I bought from Tube Amp Doctor that had maybe twenty minutes of play time. Dang.
So I tried to remove it, but when I touched it and started wiggeling, I felt the telltale sign of broken glass rubbing. I managed to pull the tube free - but about half of the base with half of the pins remained seated. This looked like a bad case, but I could grab one of the pins with my Leatherman and pull the entire thing free without showering the insides of the Tube Drive in broken glass.
In other news:
Tracking on the Broughton has last updated on Feb, 3.
Tracking on the Broughton has updated while I wrote the paragraph above, less than two minutes ago. It has arrived on German soil, but is in the hands of the German Customs Office.
The parcel with the mystery pedal from the UK has not been sent out yet, the seller contacted me and said he'll be home Friday but won't know if he can make it to the post office in time, then contacted me again, telling me that he'll have to send out on Monday, which is today.
So I guess the Broughton might make the race after all.
Last night, I saw the Effectrode Tube Drive from the corner of my eye and it did not look right, so I focused on it, and there was a weird trick of the light. One of the tubes looked like the top was milky white instead of silver - that trick of the light would not change when I changed position. The tube WAS milky white.
I asked google what that meant and google said the vacuum is compromised and the tube is ruined. This was a JJ 12AT7 I bought from Tube Amp Doctor that had maybe twenty minutes of play time. Dang.
So I tried to remove it, but when I touched it and started wiggeling, I felt the telltale sign of broken glass rubbing. I managed to pull the tube free - but about half of the base with half of the pins remained seated. This looked like a bad case, but I could grab one of the pins with my Leatherman and pull the entire thing free without showering the insides of the Tube Drive in broken glass.
In other news:
Tracking on the Broughton has updated while I wrote the paragraph above, less than two minutes ago. It has arrived on German soil, but is in the hands of the German Customs Office.
The parcel with the mystery pedal from the UK has not been sent out yet, the seller contacted me and said he'll be home Friday but won't know if he can make it to the post office in time, then contacted me again, telling me that he'll have to send out on Monday, which is today.
So I guess the Broughton might make the race after all.
Tube Drive Milky White:
insert mild swear word here:
insert mild swear word here:
Movement: German Customs has released the parcel and tracking updated the ETA to Wednesday (tomorrow).
I remember seeing a TV sketch about this guy that has not seen yesterday's game yet. He video taped it and the plan was to watch it after work, so he needs to make it through a full day in the office without spoilers, which leads to all kinds of absurd situations.
The moment I ordered the Broughton, I stopped looking at any Broughton related content. I was even hesitant to click around on Youtube for fear of being spoilered anything about it. I wanted a fresh experience with nothing spoilering my expectations.
The package was typical Broughton. A white cardboard box with nothing but the pedal inside.
All Info I have on that pedal at this moment has been gathered from the description on the Broughton website and my unboxing experience.
Since it's a slow day and I'm the boss, I'll close shop now and head home to play it.
I'm pretty sure the TV sketch ended with the guy getting confident about having managed to get through the day, only to run into a massive spoiler on the last leg of the journey, from a super unlikely source.
In my case, I'll hit send, log out and then be offline until I reach home and play the pedal. The way home is about six hundred meters by foot. I feel confident that I'll experience the Evergreen Overdrive without finding out anything about it beforehand.
I've not seen @sloppy_phil in a while. Being from Canada, he might have gotten first hand info on the pedal and since we did that episode with his A Farewell To Cleans pedal, he knows my address. I sincerely hope that he does not hide in the bushes and jumps me on the way home. It's not impossible but calculating how unlikely it is might break several skilled mathematicians.
The moment I ordered the Broughton, I stopped looking at any Broughton related content. I was even hesitant to click around on Youtube for fear of being spoilered anything about it. I wanted a fresh experience with nothing spoilering my expectations.
The package was typical Broughton. A white cardboard box with nothing but the pedal inside.
All Info I have on that pedal at this moment has been gathered from the description on the Broughton website and my unboxing experience.
Since it's a slow day and I'm the boss, I'll close shop now and head home to play it.
I'm pretty sure the TV sketch ended with the guy getting confident about having managed to get through the day, only to run into a massive spoiler on the last leg of the journey, from a super unlikely source.
In my case, I'll hit send, log out and then be offline until I reach home and play the pedal. The way home is about six hundred meters by foot. I feel confident that I'll experience the Evergreen Overdrive without finding out anything about it beforehand.
I've not seen @sloppy_phil in a while. Being from Canada, he might have gotten first hand info on the pedal and since we did that episode with his A Farewell To Cleans pedal, he knows my address. I sincerely hope that he does not hide in the bushes and jumps me on the way home. It's not impossible but calculating how unlikely it is might break several skilled mathematicians.
I am SUCH a nerd.
Here's what the tone knob does:
As you can clearly see, it has the tiniest amount of tilt EQ character baked in. Tone at noon and tone at max cross paths at exactly 200Hz, with tone at max having the weakest bass response and tone at noon the strongest.
Here's what the tone knob does:
As you can clearly see, it has the tiniest amount of tilt EQ character baked in. Tone at noon and tone at max cross paths at exactly 200Hz, with tone at max having the weakest bass response and tone at noon the strongest.
It must have been a general Idea, recycled multiple times because I've never seen an episode of How I Met Your Mother.
That's really nice, it's so minimal that I'd barely call it "tilt". I really like what it's doing above 800hz though.
I haven't got to play with mine yet, but I'm looking forward to it! Especially doing the A/B against the Blumes.
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