My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal

[GrowlerBox]

This can go off the rails quickly so why not expedite the derailing with an AI take in the voice of Norm MacDonald on the Empress review. Sorry in advance Mr. Murdoque, but this made me laugh too much not to share:

"Yeah, so I’m reading this Empress Drive review, and, uh… this isn’t a pedal, it’s a mid‑life crisis with a VU meter.

This guy sees one photo in 2025 and immediately decides, “I must own this.” Then the pedal doesn’t even come out for a year and a half. By the time it ships he’s forgotten it exists, sees it again, and goes, “Oh wow, what a coincidence, I want this completely different, totally new thing.” That’s not gear acquisition, that’s early‑stage amnesia with a credit card attached.

My favorite moment is the BassTheWorld video. The demo is four minutes and fifteen seconds long. At 3:30, he gets the “Incoming mail” sound. That’s not a reaction, that’s a reflex. He literally ordered the thing before the demo ended. The pedal could’ve burst into flames in the last 45 seconds, wouldn’t matter. “Eh, it’s boutique flame, probably sounds organic.”

Then he proudly explains the layout like he’s walking us through a nuclear reactor: nine knobs, two footswitches, a VU meter that goes from “Lite” to “Distortion.” You know, for when you need your bass to visually confirm it is, in fact, making noise. He even calls the meter “a completely useless feature that’s purely there to add bling”—and then immediately wants an internal trim pot so he can dial in the optimal level of uselessness. That’s the mindset: “This does nothing. I’d like a little more control over how it does nothing.”

The boost section is beautiful. Post‑drive, it’s a simple volume boost. Pre‑drive, it secretly eats your low end through a baked‑in high‑pass around 500 Hz. He measures it, graphs it, listens to it, concludes, “Yeah, this pretty much ruins the bass if you try to use it as a second drive sound.” So the “Boost” footswitch, on a bass drive pedal, is basically there to demonstrate why you shouldn’t push it. It’s like buying a sports car where the turbo only works in reverse.

And he’s not angry about it. No, no. He’s… cautiously hopeful they’ll maybe someday make a “Bass Drive” version that doesn’t sabotage bass. Meanwhile, Empress support hops into the discussion like, “We’re not planning that.” Perfect. The one feature that doesn’t help bass players is the one they’re committed to.

The comparisons are where it really gets poetic. This pedal “makes your rig sound $1000 more expensive.” That’s the nicest way I’ve ever heard anyone describe a €299 box that makes polite farting noises. He lines it up with DCX Bass, Verellen Meatsmoke, Audio Kitchen Fake Plastic Trees—like a little Overdrive G20 summit. And the verdict? They’re all “all‑time favorites,” they all live on the “top shelf,” and somehow this one is a “silver medal at the Olympics.” No losers, just increasingly pricey ways to slightly rearrange midrange.

He says the gate is “as useful as indicator lights on a BMW,” which, if you don’t know, is a very polite way of saying: technically present, morally absent. But he also admits the pedal is dead quiet in low to medium gain anyway… so the gate knob is just there to occasionally remind you: “Things could be worse.”

And the language for the feel of this thing—“like ripping very expensive cloth,” “it’s not a fight, it’s a dance,” “wooden, organic quality”—you’d think this was a tasting note for a rare whiskey, not a circuit full of silicon and Schottky diodes. At some point he basically says, “It doesn’t replace anything I own, I don’t know what I’ll do with it… I’m keeping it.” That’s not a review, that’s a confession.

So, after 15 minutes of reading, the message is:
Here is a pedal for bass that has a boost you shouldn’t use, a gate you don’t need, a VU meter that does nothing, an EQ that bakes in treble roll‑off, and… it rules. It’s an “instant classic.”

Only in pedal world can you say, “It has several weaknesses for its intended instrument, but I am deeply in love,” and everyone just nods and goes, “Ah yes, very musical.”

This should be pinned somewhere, if only as a warning. AI isn’t going to end us by means of some sort of Armageddon, it’s just going to confront each of us with our own very particular brand of absurdity.

 

[dedpool1052]

This can go off the rails quickly so why not expedite the derailing with an AI take in the voice of Norm MacDonald on the Empress review. Sorry in advance Mr. Murdoque, but this made me laugh too much not to share:

"Yeah, so I’m reading this Empress Drive review, and, uh… this isn’t a pedal, it’s a mid‑life crisis with a VU meter.

This guy sees one photo in 2025 and immediately decides, “I must own this.” Then the pedal doesn’t even come out for a year and a half. By the time it ships he’s forgotten it exists, sees it again, and goes, “Oh wow, what a coincidence, I want this completely different, totally new thing.” That’s not gear acquisition, that’s early‑stage amnesia with a credit card attached.

My favorite moment is the BassTheWorld video. The demo is four minutes and fifteen seconds long. At 3:30, he gets the “Incoming mail” sound. That’s not a reaction, that’s a reflex. He literally ordered the thing before the demo ended. The pedal could’ve burst into flames in the last 45 seconds, wouldn’t matter. “Eh, it’s boutique flame, probably sounds organic.”

Then he proudly explains the layout like he’s walking us through a nuclear reactor: nine knobs, two footswitches, a VU meter that goes from “Lite” to “Distortion.” You know, for when you need your bass to visually confirm it is, in fact, making noise. He even calls the meter “a completely useless feature that’s purely there to add bling”—and then immediately wants an internal trim pot so he can dial in the optimal level of uselessness. That’s the mindset: “This does nothing. I’d like a little more control over how it does nothing.”

The boost section is beautiful. Post‑drive, it’s a simple volume boost. Pre‑drive, it secretly eats your low end through a baked‑in high‑pass around 500 Hz. He measures it, graphs it, listens to it, concludes, “Yeah, this pretty much ruins the bass if you try to use it as a second drive sound.” So the “Boost” footswitch, on a bass drive pedal, is basically there to demonstrate why you shouldn’t push it. It’s like buying a sports car where the turbo only works in reverse.

And he’s not angry about it. No, no. He’s… cautiously hopeful they’ll maybe someday make a “Bass Drive” version that doesn’t sabotage bass. Meanwhile, Empress support hops into the discussion like, “We’re not planning that.” Perfect. The one feature that doesn’t help bass players is the one they’re committed to.

The comparisons are where it really gets poetic. This pedal “makes your rig sound $1000 more expensive.” That’s the nicest way I’ve ever heard anyone describe a €299 box that makes polite farting noises. He lines it up with DCX Bass, Verellen Meatsmoke, Audio Kitchen Fake Plastic Trees—like a little Overdrive G20 summit. And the verdict? They’re all “all‑time favorites,” they all live on the “top shelf,” and somehow this one is a “silver medal at the Olympics.” No losers, just increasingly pricey ways to slightly rearrange midrange.

He says the gate is “as useful as indicator lights on a BMW,” which, if you don’t know, is a very polite way of saying: technically present, morally absent. But he also admits the pedal is dead quiet in low to medium gain anyway… so the gate knob is just there to occasionally remind you: “Things could be worse.”

And the language for the feel of this thing—“like ripping very expensive cloth,” “it’s not a fight, it’s a dance,” “wooden, organic quality”—you’d think this was a tasting note for a rare whiskey, not a circuit full of silicon and Schottky diodes. At some point he basically says, “It doesn’t replace anything I own, I don’t know what I’ll do with it… I’m keeping it.” That’s not a review, that’s a confession.

So, after 15 minutes of reading, the message is:
Here is a pedal for bass that has a boost you shouldn’t use, a gate you don’t need, a VU meter that does nothing, an EQ that bakes in treble roll‑off, and… it rules. It’s an “instant classic.”

Only in pedal world can you say, “It has several weaknesses for its intended instrument, but I am deeply in love,” and everyone just nods and goes, “Ah yes, very musical.”

This legit made me lol.
Now, someone should do an AI video of Norm MacDonald doing a stand-up bit.

 

[el murdoque]

If I was listening with my eyes ...

 

[Zbysek]

If I was listening with my eyes ...

Tell us more about the Toolbox...

 

[sunbeast]

Tell us more about the Toolbox...

Exactly my thought! I don’t recall seeing such a thing

 

[el murdoque]

...what Do you guys thinks the bassist is using, starting at the 1:30 mark?

 

[el murdoque]

Tell us more about the Toolbox...

It's a German made clone of the Broughton Messenger Jr.
I have tried to get my hands on a Messenger Jr. for months - finding ads for three pedals, but either shipping proved impossible or the seller did not reply at all, and I gave up upon finding a remark on a thread on TB, stating that the last drop of them was more than a year ago and that at this moment, no future drops for it were planned. At that point I decided that the Messenger Jr. can be considered a discontinued model and in my book, cloning discontinued gear is okay, so I commissioned it.

It is, essentially, a very boring utility pedal. In a pedalboard friendly size (with top jacks), it has LPF and HPF plus a three band EQ with parametric mids and balanced XLR output.

No tonal magic. It's essentially a channel strip.

 

[Zbysek]

It's a German made

Who made it?

 

[gillento]

Who made it?

Sent a DM

 

[triviani]

If I was listening with my eyes ...


View attachment 7511374

Empress into DCX and not the other way around?

 

[el murdoque]

Empress into DCX and not the other way around?

Yes. The DCX in this configuration acts as the poor man's Noble preamp - I only use the bass and treble knobs, not the drive.

 

[el murdoque]

...but in case you have not spotted it, I went for themes here:
-Red lights
-Silver/black pedals only
-A total of 27 knobs on a Nano, including a knob-less tuner. I was clearly aiming for complicated pedals.



Is there a super complicated tuner pedal that's black/silver with red lights?

 

[GrowlerBox]

...but in case you have not spotted it, I went for themes here:
-Red lights
-Silver/black pedals only
-A total of 27 knobs on a Nano, including a knob-less tuner. I was clearly aiming for complicated pedals.



Is there a super complicated tuner pedal that's black/silver with red lights?

You could try commissioning one from Fairfield Circuitry that tells you what note is most outside the key you're in.

 

[el murdoque]

You could try commissioning one from Fairfield Circuitry that tells you what note is most outside the key you're in.

That sounds like a very Fairfield thing to do.

 

[jcburn]

...what Do you guys thinks the bassist is using, starting at the 1:30 mark?

I'm not sure but cool song and great bass tone.

 

[el murdoque]

I'm not sure but cool song and great bass tone.

On the album version, they use a guitar track for that part, but in that video, you can clearly see the two guitars continue their fiddling while the bass does the heavy lifting and the bassist is kicking in that one pedal. Sounds massive to my ears.

 

[ra0ulduke]

Sent a DM

I'd like a DM too. Thanks in advance!

 

[el murdoque]

 

[el murdoque]

The Genzler 4 On The Floor.

I've seen this one recently on the local second hand market for an acceptable price, but did not pull the trigger. @gillento did, though. He bought and tested it, and then offered to send it over for me to do my thing with, which I gladly accepted! Thanks, mate!

 

[el murdoque]

This is the Genzler 4 On The Floor. You could say it's four drives in one. Or can you?
The control layout is somewhat unique: You get a switch that seems to act as an input pad to tame high output basses. Then you get a Gain knob and two volume knobs, one for clean and one for the dirt engine. The dirt engine has a four way toggle, ranging from the imitation of a tube amp's clean channel to full-on overdrive. In the top row, there are high- and low pass filters. The high pass is located before the clipping happens, while the low pass comes after the clipping stage. Both filters only affect the drive part of the signal and leave the clean signal as-is. You do not really get any tonal options here, but a lot of knobs to shape and fine tune the drive that's happening. By balancing dirt and clean signals and using the filters, you can dictate the frequency range in which overdrive happens and the frequency range in which it does not. With the low pass on the drive section, one should also be able to use the 4 On The Floor running directly into a PA system without the need of a cabinet simulation.

Printed on the enclosure, you'll find the words "Designed and Inspected in the U.S.A.", while a sticker on the bottom proclaims that it was made in Taiwan.
The chassis is not your standard Hammond 1590 format, but something Genzler came up with. Fit and finish remind me of the Strymon pedals, the execution certainly is nearly as flawless.
Also a bit unusual is the dual LED setup. One LED lights up when the pedal is in bypass, the other lights up when you engage it. Even though the bypass has an LED status, it is a hardwired true bypass. The pedal lights up as soon as power is connected, even with no audio cables connected - and there is no battery option.

Measuring Gears 1 through 4, I get the following graph:

This is with the filters wide open, the clean signal turned off and the Gain at noon.
Not much to report here. This looks fairly flat, with a slight accentuation around 400Hz. The fourth gear did a little less on the meter, which is probably due to heavier compression.

I found that unity on this pedal is not noon, but closer to 2 o'clock on both the drive side (with Gain at noon) and the clean side.

So what's the path to tackle this pedal? I try to walk myself through the thought process behind the pedal and how the makers might have envisioned the sophisticated bassist of today might go about setting it 'just right'.
First in line is the switch. I do treat it like any input pad switch on anything: Leave it on the sensitive setting and ignore it unless you run into problems that are a result of feeding the unit an input signal that's way too hot. My input signal is not, so ignore it is.
Drive and Drive Vol are a couple that will determine the output level of the drive part of the signal, Clean Vol is the single knob that determines ... you all are smart enough to figure that. Drive does work in conjunction of the gearbox, though.
At this point, I need to expand my horizon in the English language. I do assume that Jeff Genzler is, to say it with the presidential vocabulary, "A high-IQ person", because his designs in the amp world suggest that either he's a brilliant engineer or he can tell a normal engineer from a brilliant one and hired the latter. Why am I writing all this? Well, in my limited understanding of American English, the term "4 on the floor" refers to a drum beat, a 4/4 in which all four measures are played with the kick drum. An okay name for a pedal, but somewhat weird on a pedal that uses car-terminology. Lo and behold, there's another explanation, though. In automotive context, the late sixties and early seventies saw a relocation of the lever that shifts gears. The olden days, the cars had three forwards gears and the lever was mounted on the steering column, which was referred to as "Three on the tree". The new cars that came out found the lever mounted between the driver and passenger seat, on the floor, and guess what? They expanded the amount of forwards gears by one, to a total of four.
Americans did abandon manual transmission shortly after and never cared to update the term to modern cars, where 5 and 6 gears became the standard, because driving stick is for Europeans.
However, in the Genzler pedal, the 4 On The Floor surely refers to the automotive origin, with a tip of the hat towards the drum beat to connect the world of cars to the world of music. I'm no expert in cars, but I'm pretty sure I've heard the term overdrive used there, too.
Sadly, there's no little lever that can be cranked into position to select the gear the overdrive is in - it's done by a four way rotary switch. The switch travels easily and with not much friction, which feels surprisingly good. I would have thought that I strongly prefer a rotary encoder that snaps over with considerable force and comes to rest with a satisfying click, but this smooth operation totally works for me.
Let me quote the scripture:

1st GEAR: Reminiscent of a tube amp’s clean channel (including natural harmonics) with a bit of overdriven tone when driven hard. A nice “always-on” selection.

2nd GEAR: Emulates a tube amp’s mildly overdriven tone, with a small amount of dynamically compliant clipping asymmetry. This is a natural feeling, touch sensitive algorithm with very mild compression that responds with more texture and complexity, the harder you dig in.

3rd GEAR: A more aggressive up-shift from 2nd gear, this moderate, asymmetrical overdrive is less compliant, with greater compression for a tighter feel.

4th GEAR: This is the most aggressive gear of all — a heavier, symmetrical, low compliance overdrive that can enter distortion territory when driven hard. While there are a lot of harmonics and compression present, this gear does not give up tone or feel.

This sounds like this might actually be the place to start. Envisioning a tone, or the nature of the tone I'd like, I put the pedal in gear, and then use the Drive dial to set the RPM, then balance the drive and clean volume and listen to unwanted frequencies in the drive itself, so I can tackle them with the filters.
High pass goes from 30 to 200 Hz, while low pass goes from 14k to 1kHz. While the range of the low pass seems fine, I might have wanted the high pass to reach a bit higher than that - but that's still making assumptions without having played a lot.