My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal

[StayLow]

I've been known to tolerate them if and only if the result more than makes up for the pain of side-jacking a pedal.

View attachment 5267879

Here you see it pictured with its side jacked friends that somehow made the cut even though they also have the same terrible design flaw. IIRC, the BB Preamp (that hides in the lower tier of my Schmidt Array and is therefore not pictured) has the same problem.
For a passionate side jack hater, I have accumulated quite a stock of tolerance to endure so many of them in my presence.

White Saturn VI!

Internet: The name Bjorn is a boy's name of Swedish origin meaning "bear".

Your descriptions of the sounds and feel are right on the mark. Punching of sponges & silk sacks it is. Definitely has a feel - I think a wonderful natural compression.

Am jealous you can max the gain when using your passive bass. Are you playing with a light-to-moderate touch? If not, then I wonder if yours offers more grace at lower drive settings than Blueberry is typically known for.

“Lower left, labeled B: Now we're getting to the less obvious. Just from listening, I would suggest that this knob decides how much low end is fed into the clipping stage - or how hard the low end is allowed to make the clippers clip. When you have everything about halfway up and then sweep through the B knob while playing an open E, it acts a bit like a gain knob, CCW is clean and CW is distorted. The distortion gets a bit unpleasant within the last quarter of the turn, quite fizzy and artificial sounding.”

Similarly, I wonder if this may be a “N” (Nature) control wired opposite / more intuitively; meaning appearance of “more bass” to the right, whereas the typical Blueberry has “more bass” to the left (and it’s actually a tilt EQ of some form).

If the former we can easily understand it to indeed be “a Blueberry with a post-Drive treble knob”, though only @el murdoque can understand what that actually sounds like.

If the latter, only Bjorn understands. That’s OK, and probably is as it should be.


“I wonder what it would have been like if I'd bought it very early, on page 1 or 2 of the Jounal. Would I have gone "okay, this is it" and quit?”

No. The advantage to starting early is you’d have more Blueberry variants in the pile. Make sure your shrine building leaves room for those.

 

[el murdoque]

mans soon you will decry things like the source audio aftershock… you will go ooo it’s 99% of the way there. And in a blind test probably can’t spit the difference… but the feel and extra layer of goodness sometimes just wins out with a boutique pedal that’s tailored to perfection… it’s like the mastotron… nothing feels or sounds EXACTLY like it except a mastotron (or a clone of one in a proper regular vertical box )…
I dare say you are now ruined and cannot go back now your palate has been experienced

I have a love/hate relationship with a C4. I don't like the software and I don't like tinkering with it at all. I don't like how I have to use that Neuro Hub thing. However, to get two of the sounds I use it for, I'd have to use four or five pedals and since I don't use these sounds often, the C4 stays.
With drive pedals, it has proven time and again that I strongly prefer one trick ponies. The Aftershock can copy many pedals, and you can even create your own - and if it is anything like the C4 software-wise, you can also browse the thousands of user presets to find patches others created. Apart from the fact that I'm not a fan of doing it digital, this easily leads to an overwhelming avalanche of options and I'd never be able to set on one sound and roll with it. I'd program a hundred in there and spend the majority of my time scrolling through MIDI presets to find the one that suits the current mood.
Even the Hamstead Subspace is a pedal I like for its tone, but despise for its versatility.

I think I only recently discovered that there is that extra layer of how a pedal feels while you play it (versus how it sounds when you do so) - and currently, the Blueberry and the FPT win that race against all others hands down.


There is a purge coming up where I will part with a basket full of dirt pedals, and I most likely will use the money to purchase more, but I currently am all out of ideas.
What's up with that Free the Tone Bass Blaster?

 

[TwototheValley]

There is a purge coming up where I will part with a basket full of dirt pedals, and I most likely will use the money to purchase more, but I currently am all out of ideas.

What's up with that Free the Tone Bass Blaster?

It’s pretty versatile in terms of range…I haven’t played it recently to compare, but might dust it off on the weekend if I get time. At one stage Dirty Duke hailed it as his desert island pedal, and he’s tried a lot. I agree with several others on here that I much prefer it to their Black Vehicle.

As to other dirt pedals, there’s still a lot out there….

 

[el murdoque]

White Saturn VI!

I know, right?
With all that space theme, I think white suits their pedals very well. I also loved the look of the Redstone (I went for the yellow one), but I learned that I hate germanium diode clipping, so it went back.

Internet: The name Bjorn is a boy's name of Swedish origin meaning "bear".

It was quite the mind blowing experience looking up bear and berry in Swedish, to find out if the German pun potential translates.

Your descriptions of the sounds and feel are right on the mark. Punching of sponges & silk sacks it is. Definitely has a feel - I think a wonderful natural compression.

Am jealous you can max the gain when using your passive bass. Are you playing with a light-to-moderate touch? If not, then I wonder if yours offers more grace at lower drive settings than Blueberry is typically known for.

I will have to take some of that back. My passive bass does not have a lot of output. I do play with a light touch and have a comp doing peak limiting early in the chain, but usually use a touch sensitive drive pedal before the comp, and that's where I put the Blueberry. However, the sweet spot I found for me is/was that point where you have only a hint of drive. In low notes, the fundamental keeps its integrity and authority, basically overwhelming the drive. In the middle of the fretboard, you have that thing happening to your mids that sits front row in a mix, the thing I thought I needed way more of not to be swallowed by the other instruments but actually found that I needed to dial back a bit - and in the top end, your double stops start singing in that super musical way that makes you stop, turn off the backing track, play that same double stop again, then switch off the pedal and play once more, because you're not sure if you're imagining things (you are not).
It has a certain quality of saturation that I know of the JPTR FX Jive, but the Blueberry gets you there in a mix.

“Lower left, labeled B: Now we're getting to the less obvious. Just from listening, I would suggest that this knob decides how much low end is fed into the clipping stage - or how hard the low end is allowed to make the clippers clip. When you have everything about halfway up and then sweep through the B knob while playing an open E, it acts a bit like a gain knob, CCW is clean and CW is distorted. The distortion gets a bit unpleasant within the last quarter of the turn, quite fizzy and artificial sounding.”

Similarly, I wonder if this may be a “N” (Nature) control wired opposite / more intuitively; meaning appearance of “more bass” to the right, whereas the typical Blueberry has “more bass” to the left (and it’s actually a tilt EQ of some form).

If the former we can easily understand it to indeed be “a Blueberry with a post-Drive treble knob”, though only @el murdoque can understand what that actually sounds like.

If the latter, only Bjorn understands. That’s OK, and probably is as it should be.

I do agree that it probably is as it should be, and I want to go with N is a backwards wired Nature knob.
Maybe I should try the pedal straight into DI without a ton of compression and EQ, to discover what it does raw. I have the feeling that we're tilting stuff, but not in the classical "left is bass boost and treble cut, right is treble boost and bass cut, center is flat" manner.

I have no clue how a Blueberry circuit looks at all. I could also imagine that you have a clean signal that bypasses the clipping stage and there is a crossover somewhere in the lows, and with the B knob you select the cutoff frequency of that crossover. So with B at CCW, all the bass is bypassing the clipping and with B fully CW, all the bass is fed into the clipping stage.

“I wonder what it would have been like if I'd bought it very early, on page 1 or 2 of the Jounal. Would I have gone "okay, this is it" and quit?”

No. The advantage to starting early is you’d have more Blueberry variants in the pile. Make sure your shrine building leaves room for those.

Yeah, I'm sensing a problem coming up here.

 

[HoochfromP]

@elmurdoque Nicey one, reading your review of this Blueberry, which i spent some time with, had the Bass Blaster recommandation in mind ! Could be right your alley. Breakup isn't as silky smooth as the BBOD, smooth it is though. Prefer it over the BBOD in a band setting situation, breakup went easier through a pop-rock mix, and the low-end, which can be huge if it's your thing, felt heftier and more defined imo. The 4-knob BBOD though in bedroom situation (and home recording as well) got some pretty unique charm. Somehow feels like if a big tube head was crammed into a tiny pedal. It got this massive amount of thick lows at the edge of breakup thing.

 

[el murdoque]

As to other dirt pedals, there’s still a lot out there….

Such as?

 

[StayLow]

Such as?

One Control Sonic Silver Peg, though ask Bjorn first if he can 1. change the gain side switch to a knob and 2. whete things sit with his Deluxe version or prototypes of same that may be available… please?

Fuzzrocious Dark Driving V3 Blueberry variant (so I’d read, and it sounds very promising).

I’d also been thinking to suggest, and have wondered about, the FTT Bass Blaster.

 

[el murdoque]

I do agree that it probably is as it should be, and I want to go with N is a backwards wired Nature knob.
Maybe I should try the pedal straight into DI without a ton of compression and EQ, to discover what it does raw. I have the feeling that we're tilting stuff, but not in the classical "left is bass boost and treble cut, right is treble boost and bass cut, center is flat" manner.

I have no clue how a Blueberry circuit looks at all. I could also imagine that you have a clean signal that bypasses the clipping stage and there is a crossover somewhere in the lows, and with the B knob you select the cutoff frequency of that crossover. So with B at CCW, all the bass is bypassing the clipping and with B fully CW, all the bass is fed into the clipping stage.

I'm sometimes surprised at the quality of my ears - especially when you ask the SO about that ;-)
Björn confirmed what my first impression told me. He used big words, but in a nutshell:
The knob labeled B controls how much low frequency content is fed to the clippers.
The intended use is to balance things. When the open E string distorts too hard, turn it down - and when you want more grind 'down there', turn it up.


What I exerienced yesterday was some kind of P-bass phenomenon:
I dialed the Blueberry in so it would sit just right in a mix. My aim was to find a sweetspot where the bass gets a little extra, but does not sound grindy, farty or .. well distorted. Something you could use in an oldschool funk track as well as a modern rock track. When I found it, I dropped the mix and listened to the bass soloed, and like a well set P bass, id did not sound like much. Sure, there was some texture added, but it did not really sounded like a choir of angels descended from heaven (or a choir of demons ascended from hell, whatever your stance is on these things). Put the mix back on and there it is.

I really like what this pedal does for me up to this point.

 

[sloppy_phil]

When I found it, I dropped the mix and listened to the bass soloed, and like a well set P bass, id did not sound like much. Sure, there was some texture added, but it did not really sounded like a choir of angels descended from heaven (or a choir of demons ascended from hell, whatever your stance is on these things). Put the mix back on and there it is.

I've been trying to make my pedal selections based on this particular phenomenon. It's generally easy with a solo bass to be able to dial in some gnarly tones that we can gleefully picture fitting into various sonic environments. And sometimes crushing those environments! It's much more difficult to dial up a tone that crushes in the mix. And given I earn a significant chunk of my income by playing/recording with bands, I only use pedals (especially dirt) which I know will allow the bass to shine, blend, or cut in the mix as needed.

 

[el murdoque]

I've been trying to make my pedal selections based on this particular phenomenon. It's generally easy with a solo bass to be able to dial in some gnarly tones that we can gleefully picture fitting into various sonic environments. And sometimes crushing those environments! It's much more difficult to dial up a tone that crushes in the mix. And given I earn a significant chunk of my income by playing/recording with bands, I only use pedals (especially dirt) which I know will allow the bass to shine, blend, or cut in the mix as needed.

For me, it usually is the second step. First, I listen to the pedal and to what it can do for me, twist the knobs a bit, try different positions in the chain, get acquainted.
Then, with certain sweet spots in mind, I try it in a mix.
For some reason, I've not had the phenomenon that solo playing is sounding a bit poor, but in the mix it's golden. I know the phenomenon where you play solo and think "Oops, who bumped the gain" and dial back - then play with others and gradually raise the gain (because it's not coming through) until you're back at the Oops position, because the mix masks a lot of the dirt.

 

[sunbeast]

For me, it usually is the second step. First, I listen to the pedal and to what it can do for me, twist the knobs a bit, try different positions in the chain, get acquainted.
Then, with certain sweet spots in mind, I try it in a mix.
For some reason, I've not had the phenomenon that solo playing is sounding a bit poor, but in the mix it's golden. I know the phenomenon where you play solo and think "Oops, who bumped the gain" and dial back - then play with others and gradually raise the gain (because it's not coming through) until you're back at the Oops position, because the mix masks a lot of the dirt.

I’ve found that particularly true of recorded bass. In my main band in LA I played through a Mesa Prodigy tube head with some mild power tube saturation/crunch happening in rehearsals and live and it sounded perfect in the mix. When we recorded, I ended up cranking my amp basically to the max and reamping my takes that way in order to get the same kind of feel in the mix that my more mild settings generally had in a live environment. Soloed those recorded tracks sounded way too gainy, but in the mix it was just fat and aggressive

 

[sloppy_phil]

@sunbeast is making the same point I was attempting to, but with more clarity I think. It was with regards to recorded bass tone that I was making the most immediate reference; there's times where you are boosting or cutting frequencies in a pretty heavy handed way that doesn't sound terribly great on its own, but sits with perfection in the final mix. And even for 'clean' and 'fat' tones, you actually end up dialling in quite a fair bit more top end content than you'd expect.

Don't get me wrong, I love just setting up and running some crazy stuff over here that I'd never use with any band; stacking my drives and pushing signals that would scare young children, and upset dogs living in units within earshot of our apartment. And I don't have a particularly large budget for music gear, so when I do buy something, I make sure that I learn all of its ins and outs. The stuff it's meant to do, and then perhaps the things they weren't intended for, but still manage! So many fun little surprises to be had while on the hunt.

 

[StayLow]

Wish more engineers, bassists and bands understood these nuances. Live too.

In studio I like to have 3 tracks for bass at minimum. 1 clean DI or a comp DI & rig, 1 for rig or effects, 1 mic on the bass itself to pick up attack, clank and finger noise. If need be 1 more EQ’d in whatever way works to make the “too many cooks in the kitchen” nod happily at the huge / brutal toanz and exit the control room. Maybe 1 more, not labelled, for comp’d track or for whomever might have to play the parts properly.

Same for guitars. The better and more experienced the musicians, engineer / producer, etc. are with the gear, room and genre, and if proper pre-production was done, the less tracks or possible subterfuge required.

 

[TwototheValley]

Such as?

For starters…

 

[el murdoque]

View attachment 5271700

For starters…

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but could you spill a few on the Japanese pedals up top?

I know the Nobels, and I'm not sure whether I need to revisit the bass specific version. I let one pass right under my nose a few weeks back, it was not even expensive.

The Bass Blaster will have to come to my place eventually.

And the Sexdrive has been mentioned here and there.

 

[el murdoque]

The Katana looks like a K-Type ?!
There are multiple versions, according to Reverb - is the pictured 20th anniversary version the one a bassist should aim for?

 

[TwototheValley]

Humster - “20th anniversary, limited order production model. It is a high-quality overdrive built with point-to-point coupling of parts.

Based on HUMSTER Ultimate, the circuit is designed to maximise the potential of each part configuration by narrowing down the variable range of "DRIVE" and "TONE". Both guitar and bass provide the best tone, but it especially matches single coil PU guitars and passive type bass.

A drive pedal with a rich midrange and thick tone.”

Their description…I think it’s based on a tube preamp, but as you can see they substitute an IC (of a kind I can’t identify, the numbers have been removed) in a modified tube socket. The rest is point-to-point wired with PIO vintage capacitors.

Sounds warm and vintage, but not a huge amount of headroom, and saturates very quickly. I find the first third of the travel of the gain knob to be where most of the utility is to be found. Tone seems like a semi-tilt….turning CCW rolls off highs but also seems to add low mids to a lesser degree at the extreme. Highs are rolled off in any case, even with the tone fully CW and gain at minimum. There seems to be a gentle low-mid hump in the EQ, and it excels at “thickening” these and getting compressed, providing a vintage tubey tone, but not much beyond that. Looking at their description, that seems to be their objective, narrowing their focus on a quality build and one particular tone. Definitely doesn’t need to be used with a compressor, even a very clean VCA type.

The Wild Stomp goes for the “tubey” vibe as well…with mode footswitch off it’s supposed to give a tube flavour, although this is more subtle, cleaner, and the Bottom control fills out the lows in a far less obvious way. The mode switch adds another gain stage….Bump is the gain control but I find it can get buzzy pretty quickly. Kick-up seems to be a form of contour, determining the proportion of mids feeding into the gain stage. A nice implementation, but doesn’t feel as “organic” or touch sensitive as the Humster. There are a few YouTube demos of the Wild Stomp.

I’ve discussed the ODR-B elsewhere, and there’s a good review on YouTube by The Wetter Bass. It also has a more “vintagey” overall tone and cuts highs even with the treble control at max. It can do low gain quite well but this requires some very gentle adjustment in the first quarter of the gain knob. It’s also quite compressed. However, the strength of this pedal is the useful sweep of the gain, as even when cranked it still sounds good, unlike other low gainers which when pushed hard over-saturate and fart out. You can even get a passable fuzz tone at the extreme. Plus you can tweak the character of the distortion with the onboard EQ.

The Sex Drive has been discussed at length elsewhere. It’s VERY clean and good at providing a hint of hair. Not good for thickening…in fact, almost the opposite of the Humster as it can compress gently, and add a bit of tasteful clipping as well as top end sparkle from the tone control, which really seems more like a presence control. I tend to think of it like a “hi-fi tube” emulator, rather than a vintage tube amp pedal. Not really a dedicated drive, but a “tone polisher”.

The Bass Blaster is even more versatile than the ODR-B….not as compressed, given the internal voltage is boosted to 15V. I think from memory it’s based on a modified tube screamer circuit. It can achieve the highs the ODR-B can’t, plus the gain control sounds good throughout the full range. In particular, it’s probably one of the best at doing low-gain stuff of all the non-“specialist low gain” bass pedals, which probably accounts for its popularity. If you just wanted a single bass overdrive, it’s a pretty good pick. However, I find it still has a modern edge and I can’t completely dial out some of the highs as much as I would like.

 

[HoochfromP]

Following this thread is dangerous for the wallet but it might help trying tasty stuff as well.

This one ain't cheap but def worth considering. Had a few noodling time with it today, with an optical comp beforehand. Won't add much to what @el murdoque and @Charlie Tuna already said, just works brillantly with a bass.

Both Root and Branch do wonders. Root adds tons of heft and as it's pre-drive, pushing it above what's already not necessary overloads the circuit and drifts to very compressed lows and resonance stuff. Might be somehow related with the comp beforehand, but a synth vibe is to be found here indeed, a bit before and after this threshold if it's your thing, very nice ! Branch knob is neatly tuned, with high-mids in spades. When using a pick, dig how it cuts through while providing tight but strong low-end, great breakup texture on the attack as well. Amazes me how lows are bouncy and hefty when finger-playing with the same setting. Keeper, that's for sure !

As sidenote, pairs really nicely with the Dunwich ODB.

 

[el murdoque]

Following this thread is dangerous for the wallet but it might help trying tasty stuff as well.

When you think you're done exploring, you'll find more. It's like the Mini in that regard.
Welcome to the club! And a green leafed one, too! @Charlie Tuna had to make do with a red one, the poor fella!

 

[TwototheValley]

Following this thread is dangerous for the wallet but it might help trying tasty stuff as well.

View attachment 5272296

This one ain't cheap but def worth considering. Had a few noodling time with it today, with an optical comp beforehand. Won't add much to what @el murdoque and @Charlie Tuna already said, just works brillantly with a bass.

Both Root and Branch do wonders. Root adds tons of heft and as it's pre-drive, pushing it above what's already not necessary overloads the circuit and drifts to very compressed lows and resonance stuff. Might be somehow related with the comp beforehand, but a synth vibe is to be found here indeed, a bit before and after this threshold if it's your thing, very nice ! Branch knob is neatly tuned, with high-mids in spades. When using a pick, dig how it cuts through while providing tight but strong low-end, great breakup texture on the attack as well. Amazes me how lows are bouncy and hefty when finger-playing with the same setting. Keeper, that's for sure !

As sidenote, pairs really nicely with the Dunwich ODB.

Yes, been meaning to try it one day….my wallet will need to recover from some recent purchases though, it’s true.

I see a glimpse of yellow there Hooch…your mention of it in another thread caused me to pull out the LBA Thunder Knob again….forgotten how nice it sounded. Haven’t tried it with a 12AU7 though. It might also be a contender for meeting the @el murdoque criteria for this thread, but unfortunately isn’t easy to track down.