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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
And now it gets a bit weird.
I plugged it in and picked up my Le Fay, you know, the bass with the low output. And I absolutely loved and adored the pedal.
Then I tried it with the Fakenbacker and it sounded terrible. Fizzy and artificial.
Then I tried the P bass and it was great again.
But it loves the Le Fay most.
The controls are:
Saturation (which is a normal dry/wet blend)
Gain Stage which is not exactly gain, but the closest thing to gain.
Clipping which goes from hard to soft and does just that
Volume which does volume
and Breath as a switch, which will give you a little more treble.
With the Le Fay, I set mix to wet, gain to full and clipping to soft, which means I turned all the knobs all the way up, and I was immediately hit by this sound that makes an old flatwound string sound sharper, hotter and more defined. There's also a little bit of a growl at the back of the throat when playing easy, but more of it when plucking harder.
A very thin layer of harmonic dirt drapes itself over double stops, joining the notes without blending them together.
I did not have time for proper testing yet, more later.
I plugged it in and picked up my Le Fay, you know, the bass with the low output. And I absolutely loved and adored the pedal.
Then I tried it with the Fakenbacker and it sounded terrible. Fizzy and artificial.
Then I tried the P bass and it was great again.
But it loves the Le Fay most.
The controls are:
Saturation (which is a normal dry/wet blend)
Gain Stage which is not exactly gain, but the closest thing to gain.
Clipping which goes from hard to soft and does just that
Volume which does volume
and Breath as a switch, which will give you a little more treble.
With the Le Fay, I set mix to wet, gain to full and clipping to soft, which means I turned all the knobs all the way up, and I was immediately hit by this sound that makes an old flatwound string sound sharper, hotter and more defined. There's also a little bit of a growl at the back of the throat when playing easy, but more of it when plucking harder.
A very thin layer of harmonic dirt drapes itself over double stops, joining the notes without blending them together.
I did not have time for proper testing yet, more later.
you would not believe how many reviews there currently are on the dirt jounal website if I told you right now.
I'm so glad it's all written down! I've made the mistake of not keeping notes on pedals I move along, then decide I should try it again, then remember the issues I had.
This is truly something that happens. When I browse the second hand markets, I sometimes see a pedal I've owned but sold and then I'm tempted, because I remember good things about it. Reading its entry in the jounal will usually refresh my memory and I suddenly also remember why I sold that pedal, which often makes a second purchase unnecessary.
Okay. Forget everything I wrote yesterday about the Teeth.
I plopped it into an experimental signal chain and the tone got some unexpected treatment between the pedal and my ears.
Let me start again.
With the Teeth in the right position, hooked up to a proper pedalboard with, excepting the Teeth, only well known components between my fingers and my ears, starting with the same settings, I get audible drive from a situation that yielded only the slightest hint of grit yesterday.
Here's a quick rundown of the controls:
Gain is split between the dry/wet knob (labeled Saturation), where you not only set the dry wet mix, but at the same time increase the gain while going for a wetter signal, and Gain Stage where you set the maximum of gain available for the Saturation knob.
There's the Clipping knob that goes from hard to soft, and the Volume knob which does only volume.
With the Clipping knob, you also get more audible grit in the sound when you dial towards hard, while the texture of the grit changes.
A beach full of rounded pebbles at one end and freshly ground rocks with nothing but sharp edges on the other end.
The switch boosts upper mids/lower treble - in a good position if you ask me.
That means you get a set of three controls to set the amount and intensity of the added harmonics and only a single switch to influence the tone.
The one pedal I feel reminded of in more than one way is the Way Huge Pork Loin.
It's a pedal with a learning curve, because the three knobs interfere with each other.
Every single knob is capable of raising or lowering the amount of grit in the signal, but every single knob does it somewhat differently.
That makes you scratch your head at times. Sitting there, feeling like the amount of dirt is a little too high, you can try to lower the wet/dry ratio because that will decrease gain at the same time - but you can also limit the gain on the Gain Stage knob to reduce it a bit - or you can go for a softer clipping. All three will result in less grit in the signal, but all three will leave you with a different sound.
I feel that the pedal is capable of the vibe that is done by the Pork Loin / Pork side of the P&P or the SolidGoldFX Beta series. A softly clipped mild drive that sits well with flatwounds and works great in a mix - but where the Pork Loin is limited to soft clipping, the Horrothia can show its Teeth when you dial back on the clipping knob.
I had a few problems balancing the drive, when I felt like the lows get a bit too much while the treble side could still use more - but I am fairly sure that is a matter of finding the right settings.
I plopped it into an experimental signal chain and the tone got some unexpected treatment between the pedal and my ears.
Let me start again.
With the Teeth in the right position, hooked up to a proper pedalboard with, excepting the Teeth, only well known components between my fingers and my ears, starting with the same settings, I get audible drive from a situation that yielded only the slightest hint of grit yesterday.
Here's a quick rundown of the controls:
Gain is split between the dry/wet knob (labeled Saturation), where you not only set the dry wet mix, but at the same time increase the gain while going for a wetter signal, and Gain Stage where you set the maximum of gain available for the Saturation knob.
There's the Clipping knob that goes from hard to soft, and the Volume knob which does only volume.
With the Clipping knob, you also get more audible grit in the sound when you dial towards hard, while the texture of the grit changes.
A beach full of rounded pebbles at one end and freshly ground rocks with nothing but sharp edges on the other end.
The switch boosts upper mids/lower treble - in a good position if you ask me.
That means you get a set of three controls to set the amount and intensity of the added harmonics and only a single switch to influence the tone.
The one pedal I feel reminded of in more than one way is the Way Huge Pork Loin.
It's a pedal with a learning curve, because the three knobs interfere with each other.
Every single knob is capable of raising or lowering the amount of grit in the signal, but every single knob does it somewhat differently.
That makes you scratch your head at times. Sitting there, feeling like the amount of dirt is a little too high, you can try to lower the wet/dry ratio because that will decrease gain at the same time - but you can also limit the gain on the Gain Stage knob to reduce it a bit - or you can go for a softer clipping. All three will result in less grit in the signal, but all three will leave you with a different sound.
I feel that the pedal is capable of the vibe that is done by the Pork Loin / Pork side of the P&P or the SolidGoldFX Beta series. A softly clipped mild drive that sits well with flatwounds and works great in a mix - but where the Pork Loin is limited to soft clipping, the Horrothia can show its Teeth when you dial back on the clipping knob.
I had a few problems balancing the drive, when I felt like the lows get a bit too much while the treble side could still use more - but I am fairly sure that is a matter of finding the right settings.
With the Teeth set more to a subtle postition, the Frequency response looks a little milder, but still quite similar:
Here are two sound snippets from these exact settings.
Here are two sound snippets from these exact settings.
Half praise half rant:
I realized a while ago that my DCX is acting up, and not in a good way. It sounded thin and farty, and suddenly, it sounded extremely thin and extremely farty, and lightly tapping the volume knob made it sound well again - until it didn't.
I contacted Origin about it, and, as I presumed, they told me that the unit should still be under warranty from Thomann. I had bought it second hand, though.
Nonetheless, I asked Thomann and they told me they needed the original invoice, which I did not have - and they told me they can do nothing for me without it. Back to Origin, they offered to look at it, but said I'll have to send it to the UK at my own expense, and also that I will have to pay the import tax upon return. I did just that, sent them the pedal on January 30th and they took less than a week to look at it, decide that it was not working properly, then found the issue was quite intermittent and decided to swap out the entire PCB and return it. It hit German customs on Feb, 11th and has not moved since.
So a huge thumbs up to Origin Effects for a great customer service, taking care of a second hand unit free of charge, and a mildly annoyed "could you please process this parcel anytime soon?" towards the German Customs Office.
I realized a while ago that my DCX is acting up, and not in a good way. It sounded thin and farty, and suddenly, it sounded extremely thin and extremely farty, and lightly tapping the volume knob made it sound well again - until it didn't.
I contacted Origin about it, and, as I presumed, they told me that the unit should still be under warranty from Thomann. I had bought it second hand, though.
Nonetheless, I asked Thomann and they told me they needed the original invoice, which I did not have - and they told me they can do nothing for me without it. Back to Origin, they offered to look at it, but said I'll have to send it to the UK at my own expense, and also that I will have to pay the import tax upon return. I did just that, sent them the pedal on January 30th and they took less than a week to look at it, decide that it was not working properly, then found the issue was quite intermittent and decided to swap out the entire PCB and return it. It hit German customs on Feb, 11th and has not moved since.
So a huge thumbs up to Origin Effects for a great customer service, taking care of a second hand unit free of charge, and a mildly annoyed "could you please process this parcel anytime soon?" towards the German Customs Office.
News update: The Greer Lightspeed is becoming a popular drive pedal among contemporary worship bassists here in the US. I picked one up and used it yesterday. It is very very good. Great low end retention, transparent overdrive, can do light saturation or act as a second level drive.
Points deducted for placing the tuner on the floor.
And you really bought a Mantle? Fifteen too cheap and Noble takes too long to build?
Yeah, I should have cropped the tuner out...LOL.
I like the Mantle. The Fifteen is a character pedal and my FOH guys prefer the DCX Bass to the Fifteen.
They seemed to like the Mantle a lot. My IEMs sounded very good, could hear every note.
I have a Noble ordered, ready in September, but I wanted something in the meantime.
I did my own preamp shootout and ended up here for now.
A bunch of us got the Mantle with a 20% discount so that made it much more attractive. A little cheaper than the Fifteen delivered cost USD.
In the US, most internet retailers are supposed to collect sales tax for the state you live in, in my case that is a huge 9.25% extra. But you can find smaller retailers that don't collect those out-of-state taxes. I got the Mantle discounted, no tax, free shipping - so it was affordable at $600 USD delivered. When I tried the Fifteen from Sweetwater, it was $625 delivered. I presume Sweetwater had to pay some import fees on the Origin gear, while the Walrus is made here in the US.
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Ze German Customs Office finally released the Kraken DCX Bass. It should arrive back with me on Tuesday, or Monday if I'm lucky.
I really am looking forward to having it back and I feel like I have to re-evaluate that pedal.
I really am looking forward to having it back and I feel like I have to re-evaluate that pedal.
Well, my experiences with German Customs have been better: Ordered a SushiBox pedal by the guy himself on last Tuesday, and it arrived exactly one week later via Standard UPS. At the weekend I was informed how much tariffs to pay, and could do so online, so the UPS delivery went unexpectedly fast.
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I think this Origin parcel holds the record for being stuck in customs for 17 days - my guess is that the paperwork was a little more complex since it is the return of a repaired pedal.
The positive record holders with me are Hologram Electronics and Heather Brown. They both had the ordered pedal delivered within 48 hours. In both cases via UPS.
Okay, this is a first.
After getting the tracking update that the parcel has been released from customs, there was one more update, stating that it is due Monday. Monday's postman came, and only brought a letter. This morning, I checked tracking once more, and now we're back at "Your parcel is stuck in Customs".
After getting the tracking update that the parcel has been released from customs, there was one more update, stating that it is due Monday. Monday's postman came, and only brought a letter. This morning, I checked tracking once more, and now we're back at "Your parcel is stuck in Customs".
I can imagine a customs officer jamming with your stuff between two stacks of boxes right now, he won't let it go
