When will you be back from your EU trip and able to share what that pedal does to your signal chain?
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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
When will you be back from your EU trip and able to share what that pedal does to your signal chain?
So, fellow Blueberry fans: Where do you stick yours into the signal chain?
For me, there's two options:
1. Pre Comp - very early, so it basically gets the raw bass
2. Post Comp, where it sees a leveled signal that is much stronger.
I've tried both and for the moment, lean towards option 2, because I feel that this pedal does a lot when you hit the sweet spot just right, and dynamics are not that important, especially in a mix.
For me, there's two options:
1. Pre Comp - very early, so it basically gets the raw bass
2. Post Comp, where it sees a leveled signal that is much stronger.
I've tried both and for the moment, lean towards option 2, because I feel that this pedal does a lot when you hit the sweet spot just right, and dynamics are not that important, especially in a mix.
I quickly pulled the trigger since it was the only reasonably priced one I've seen in months, but I had the seller send it to the place I visit for the holidays, since I was not sure it'll arrive here before I leave - the seller was really fast and the Spark has already arrived - so I'll collect it in a couple of days and will be able to try it out when I'm back.
These are not only rare in Australia, but also in their home country as well.
It seems there were not many made to begin with and since they are something of a special thing that no one else does in that way, people seem reluctant to let them go.
Depends on how hot the bass, and how wide my performance dynamics in the music I’ll be doing.
With Blueberry it’d be comp before.
I’ve finally accepted it’ll save me a LOT (more) of time and money to accept using two pedals - clean comp before drive - than searching forever for a magic single drive box that doesn’t exist.
I took possession of the Sonic Spark and we had a first date, just a few minutes of playing.
First impressions:
The pedal is smaller than I thought it would be. It feels and looks high quality. What I really like is the recessed knobs - a thing that should be more common. What I don't like so much is that the lower knob row is rotated 180°. Also, the pedal lights up white when power is connected and blue when it is engaged - it's a bit weird and you have to remember white is off and blue is on. The gain knob seems to control the (surprise!) gain - but it is the only knob that does volume, too. So if you want "high gain" you'll have to compensate for the bump in volume.
The other knobs will require some reading into, but I turned knobs until I liked what I heard.
With the pedal switched on, you get a kind of dirt, but I will have form some very weird couples with words here.
The added dirt gives a certain warmth, by adding harmonics and overtones. The overall sound gains a colder sounding surgical precision.
It feels modern and vintage. Imagine a vintage style bass sound that sits perfectly well in the mix and then imagine what was considered ultra modern in the 90's, like a dual humbucker active 5 string played into a solid state amp and a cab with a tweeter.
Now take what makes out these two tones, snip off all the rest and then mush them together.
Does that make any sense?
Play a double stop in the 12th fret - there is that singing voice with the notes clearly audible and separate, but the dirt content hovering above, blending into a single note with that pleasant warmth.
Go down the fretboard and play a lick, there's less audible dirt and the highest mids/lower highs are quite pronounced and there is a certain dry'ish voice enhancing the bass registers. It has that while at the same time it tries for a warmth in between.
Does it make dead flats sound more lively? It absolutely does.
I'll have to try it in a mix next, but so far, I really like what I'm getting here.
My understanding is that the "Enhance" control is the one that adds harmonic overtones (the dirt equivalent of "gain"), and the Gain is just a volume control. I tried one of these a long time ago and stupidly should have bought one (back then I was looking for less subtlety, today I think it would really hit the spot!). Shame they were discontinued
Thank you for the review on this one. This pedal has always intrigued me - especially the last few years. 15 years ago I was all about having some nasty overdrive very present in my bass tone, but last 5 years or so I really appreciating a much cleaner/natural bass tone with enough breakup just to sound "muscular" when solo'd. It does help to sit in a mix, but ultimately its a clean, EQ'd bass tone with fur. Sounds like the Sonic Spark will do this.
I'd love some sound clips if you have the time and ability? The Ed Freidland demo kinda got the job done but I couldn't really hear what the pedal was doing. All the other Youtube clips are fairly useless.
The naming of the knobs does not follow the usual conventions.
Luckily for me, I bought a complete one.
The manual says that Gain is basically the master knob. The boost on tap is strong enough to drive a power amp and noon is neutral.
So we still have Enhance, Intensity and Bright/Deep.
Rename these to Gain and Mix and it's smooth sailing.
Enhance does set the amount of sonic sparks, Intensity is a dry/wet blend. Dry/Deep seems to be a tilt EQ, which needs further inspection since I doubt at this point that it works after a linear fashion.
Avid sonic spark user here. Gain still can get into break up, enhance is indeed an overtones generator, not your typical bedroom sound - you might think it adds middy crap but in the mix it's blissful and makes notes fall into place evenly across the fretboard.
Bright/deep is indeed EQ with intensity driving amount of it. Can be used to offset the middy-ness of Enhance knob or just for general EQ purposes.
Bright/deep is indeed EQ with intensity driving amount of it. Can be used to offset the middy-ness of Enhance knob or just for general EQ purposes.
How do you think it works exactly? Does it cut highs/boost lows towards deep and the opposite towards bright?
Here's a quick one.
Music Man Bongo 6 H (flatwounds) into Cali76 -> Empress Para EQ Deluxe -> Zero Five Low Rider -> Effectrode LA-1A.
First pass is clean, second pass is the Sonic Spark at the beginning of the chain, the Gain knob around noon, Master to unity, Mix 100% wet and EQ slightly tilted towards deep.
After that, I threw in half a pass with the Blueberry for good measure.
I just had what I call the standard Reddit experience, by the way.
When you are in certain bass related subs there, you will run across a "Help, my bass was playing fine for a year, then it started distorting and now it has no output" post at least once per day.
I heard the telltale signs of dying batteries in my Music Man this morning, then went and got a pack of batteries from my gig case. These usually were fresh ones, because one of the singers in my band used 9V in their IEM and always forgot to bring some, so they bummed one off me and returned them next practice, but we swapped out that IEM sender for one that runs on AAs and we have rechargeable AAs in our IEM rack.
Well, I popped in the new batteries (sealed pack), and the bass was dead. I tried again, no dice.
Then I put in the dying ones and I got signal. Then I looked around, found another pack, popped them in and everything is fine now.
However, I can see how a beginner would give up after changing the battery for a fresh one that came out of a sealed pack. I guess 9V batteries are not in high demand in this modern world and when you get a fresh pack from the store, these have been lying around for a while already. Carrying them around in your case for another ... year? .. does not help in the process.
When you are in certain bass related subs there, you will run across a "Help, my bass was playing fine for a year, then it started distorting and now it has no output" post at least once per day.
I heard the telltale signs of dying batteries in my Music Man this morning, then went and got a pack of batteries from my gig case. These usually were fresh ones, because one of the singers in my band used 9V in their IEM and always forgot to bring some, so they bummed one off me and returned them next practice, but we swapped out that IEM sender for one that runs on AAs and we have rechargeable AAs in our IEM rack.
Well, I popped in the new batteries (sealed pack), and the bass was dead. I tried again, no dice.
Then I put in the dying ones and I got signal. Then I looked around, found another pack, popped them in and everything is fine now.
However, I can see how a beginner would give up after changing the battery for a fresh one that came out of a sealed pack. I guess 9V batteries are not in high demand in this modern world and when you get a fresh pack from the store, these have been lying around for a while already. Carrying them around in your case for another ... year? .. does not help in the process.
I posted a reply in that thread. Simply, it’s a very small volume bump as I’m using it for mild OD.
While most people praise touch sensitivity in drives, for me that’s usually the problem. If the drive is OK for double-stops, slaps or chords it’s inaudible playing regular finger style. If it’s OK for finger style, it’s a fuzz factory on chords or dynamic flourishes.
As I wrote just a few days ago in this thread, I’ve become resolved to using a comp pre-drive in order to stop my own dirt bender. I have several drives I love, most of those being of the ‘Berry or Bee variety, and those work well enough as stand-alones for my range of dynamics though much better with a clean comp in front.
If I set this Ampeg box so the drive is listenable on bigger inputs it still sounds present on regular playing while not getting too buzzy. Much more easily set than most, with more leeway in dynamics, and the drive doesn’t sound terrible to me, or kazoo-like, when I do slam it.
Even if I decide to use a 2nd device after it to attenuate its output, though I don’t forsee a need, I’d be at “square 1” anyway since most of my fave drives need a comp in front for my preferences. So for me the question is whether I like it as much as those others. So far, after the first few hours of using it as a drive, and very much to my surprise, yes!
No matter what, for me this is not an EQ pedal that can happen to drive; it is a drive pedal and that’s its fundamental feature since for me it’s only useful, if at all, as a drive pedal.
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A reader of the Jounal sent me a surprise pedal in a return parcel.
This arrived:
I must admit that I am a wee bit scared. I tried to familiarize myself with the manual, but it IS quite complicated. A joint venture by Chase Bliss and, of all brands, Zvex.
I will install a couple of emergency circuit breakers and bring the dog over to theneighbors next village before plugging it in.
I guess I'll find out if that reader is a benevolent spirit or an evil one,
but I suspect they have their fingers in a steeple and are cackling with mad laughter by now.
This arrived:
I must admit that I am a wee bit scared. I tried to familiarize myself with the manual, but it IS quite complicated. A joint venture by Chase Bliss and, of all brands, Zvex.
I will install a couple of emergency circuit breakers and bring the dog over to the
I guess I'll find out if that reader is a benevolent spirit or an evil one,
but I suspect they have their fingers in a steeple and are cackling with mad laughter by now.
If you are in/near the Greater Sinsheim region (that's an official designation, surely), chuck your neighbours in Dietmar Hopp's soulless bowl of an arena; from my understanding, its capacity is more than 10x of the actual village population. Plenty of room to hide from whatever sonic waste you are laying over there!
