My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal

[butterfingers1]

This looks fairly interesting!
Post Drive Baxandall EQ. Not as a cheap option though.
I'm really thinking Donner or something like that.

SolidGoldFX, which owns Diamond, makes the BetaV, which can be seen as the bass version of this. They look similar but the BetaV has the added LPF switch and dial, which makes this pedal special for bass guitar, it’s designed with the Ampeg B15 in mind.

 

[el murdoque]

On the Diamond Website, they have this one photo where the drive is surrounded by headstocks - and there are basses among them.

 

[butterfingers1]

Redemption!
View attachment 6994253

Diamond Drive

Drenched in classic Diamond DNA, the next-gen Diamond Drive is built on a foundation of signature drive and EQ soundblocks. Distilling the most desirable and functional elements of the original J-Drive, Blaze and Fireburst pedals, the Diamond Drive combines a warm and wide-ranging overdrive...

www.diamondpedals.com

Used may be in a good price range

Big Diamond fan, I’ve been resisting getting this, almost never mentioned on Talkbass. Have you tried it?

 

[Charlie Tuna]

Big Diamond fan, I’ve been resisting getting this, almost never mentioned on Talkbass. Have you tried it?

I have not tried it. I cheated and asked ChatGPT () for pedals with the specs The Murdoque wanted and this was one of them.

 

[jcburn]

That is good to know. Maxon has a new version of their bass overdrive, but I don't think it sounds all that great from what I've heard.

The Maxon BD10? I owned one a few years ago and thought it was OK. Supposed to be based on a TS, but then again that doesn't mean much.
I can't remember why I got rid of it. I remember the Bass and Treble knobs not having much effect on tone/different sounds.
There is a Mr. Excane demo still on YT that shows high gain settings. From memory I dont think I dug the lower gain setting - the overdrive always came off sounding a little harsh.

Maybe...

It was years ago and my brain cells are depleting....

 

[el murdoque]

Fellow Dirt Enthusiasts,

what about pedals that claim to do Sunn)) ?
Is this worth exploring?

 

[el murdoque]

Inbox empty. Those Dark Glasses should have arrived today, but no cigar. Tracking updated to Monday - nonetheless I cross my fingers for tomorrow.

In absence of fresh dirt, I played some more with the Pastfx PX-101.
I toyed around until I had a halfway decent synth sound, then I switched off everything pre filter.
Proceeding from there, I hunted a funky quack, which was surprisingly easy to dial in. It really helps having that master volume knob so you can go nuts with the drive knob and adjust.
However, that four pole filter thing is working so well, I get quack out of a flatwound loaded bass - quack that's audible in a mix - Woo Hoo!
Neither my C4 nor the filters in the Mobius can get there.

While quacking around happily, I stomped the synth stuff back in and holy smokes, this thing ripped.

I have owned a Meatball Clone, the OG MF-101, the Dr. Scientist Dusk, the MXR Bass Envelope, the Maxon MF-09, an Agent 00Funk clone,
and at least two or three more that I cannot recall due to drugs or old age. None delivered like that.
Imagine Envelope filter heaven. That guy there, smiling, in the middle of the picture. That's me!

Now I'm really contemplating taking the C4 and the Mobius off the big board and replacing them with the FPT, PX-101 and a chorus.

 

[Parzival]

Just saw another pedal in the TB classifieds that is not too expensive and has the 4-control configuration

 

[arepa_funk]

Just saw another pedal in the TB classifieds that is not too expensive and has the 4-control configuration

View attachment 6996400

I'm surprised not to see a lot of Mr Black pedals on bass boards. A lot of his pedals are up there in best in class for me: Fwonkbeta filter, Gilamondo phaser, Shepard's End flanger, Supermoon Chrome bright reverb. Can't say I know anything about this overdrive, but that crew produces real quality stuff to my ears.

 

[Parzival]

I'm surprised not to see a lot of Mr Black pedals on bass boards. A lot of his pedals are up there in best in class for me: Fwonkbeta filter, Gilamondo phaser, Shepard's End flanger, Supermoon Chrome bright reverb. Can't say I know anything about this overdrive, but that crew produces real quality stuff to my ears.

Heard good things about that overdrive, but I’ve never been able to find a vid on it.

 

[el murdoque]

Darkglass.
Let's start at ... the beginning.
I got myself a vintage Vintage Microtubes.
The seller also had a vintage B3K and was willing to give me a discount for taking both off his hands.

Let's see about "That Darkglass Sound" I repeatedly have claimed to dislike.

However, summer flu is a thing right now and I'll have to cover another shift at work, so the testing will take place much later today.

 

[el murdoque]

I plugged in the Vintage Microtubes and sat there for a moment, clearing my mind of all prejudice as good as I could.

The Mix knob was what I touched first, to determine which way is which and set it to 100% wet.
Then I started playing. And what can I say? The first thing that hit my ear, the first thing that came to mind was:
"Yup, that is it. The Darkglass sound I dislike so much".
[Determined Darkglass fans might want to stop reading here because this might turn into a rant]
Luckily, I had bought the unit with the Era knob as was recommended to me in this very thread. This one sat there, at noon, untouched. The manual told me that turning it down gets me 70's rock while turning it up gets me the metallic clank of the 80's and 90's, so there surely will be some wriggle room.
One thing I want to say about the Mix knob is that while I generally don't like mix knobs, this one is very well done. You don't really hear where the clean signal ends and the driven signal starts, it's blended perfectly.
The gain knob starts (in my setup) clean as a bell and audible distortion starts around noon. The pedal is touch responsive and will give you a slight crunch when digging in but stay mostly clean when playing softer. With the knob dimed, I get a solid drive sound.
The texture of that drive is, to my ears, best described as two dimensional, flat, bland and boring.
There is very little dynamic, I get the feeling that the signal gets compressed like in a higher gain distortion pedal. What I am missing is upper harmonics that come in a musical way. I kinda feel reminded of one of those 8" guitar amps that come with a beginner's set, but do have a drive channel.
So there still is that Era knob. I kinda feared that it is a simple treble cut, getting you the mostly tweeterless sounds of cabinets in the 70's when turned down and keeping the trebly bite of more modern cabs when turned up. But there's more to that switch. The annoying bite that I associate with Darkglass products seems to shift its presence down into the upper midrange when you turn Era down, plus you lose most of the treble. Turning it up opens up the top end and shifts the annoying clank up a few notches.
I quickly tried to play through the Blueberry, which I kept in the signal chain, and instantly was rewarded by a much richer sound with lots more going on, dynamic and grainy. Back to the VM, it was flat again. The connection between my ears and my fingertips feels numb. While the pedal does react to touch and I can clearly hear that, I can't feel it in my fingers like I do with other pedals.
To me personally, this feels like a puddle of mediocrity with a brass umbrella stuck in it that has loose parts and makes annoying clanky noises when you touch it. The pedal seems to work well when you play fresh rounds with a pick, I can guess that the amount of compression that is going on can really help even out pick attack, but I'm a fingerstyle player whose hand rarely ventures south of the neck pickup. I am fairly sure that Darkglass has hit a nerve with lots of other players, hence the popularity. Today, I read on the internet that someone called Darkglass "The iPhone of bass playing" and I really felt that. I don't have an iPhone, don't particularly like iPhones and don't want to have one. Even though they are pretty popular with a lot of people, I am firm in my belief that they are not for me.

 

[el murdoque]

In a way, the B3k gave its best to make up for that disappointing session with the VM.
Those switches give you a different kind of control over your tone. The treble switch has a choice between flat or two different treble boosts, while the bass switch can boost, cut or leave raw. Those are located before the clipping stage, but the bass boost is quite massive, so lots of low end comes out the other side of clipping. I liked playing with the bass flat and the treble boost in the upper position, which gave a nice punch to the sound of my fingers leaving the string when plucking, as soon as I plucked harder, the also touch sensitive B3k (I'd even say it's the more touch responsive of the two) would start clipping and present me with .... that annoying Darkglass sound already described in the post above.
There is a bit more texture to the drive, and when I balanced it carefully, I could get a useful tone out of it. Changing over to another drive pedal was like stopping to try to ride a unicycle across a slackline and instead getting on a bicycle to drive down a paved road.

All in all, the B3k feels like a slight variation of the same story, no plot twists in sight.

 

[Sugarbear08]

I plugged in the Vintage Microtubes and sat there for a moment, clearing my mind of all prejudice as good as I could.

The Mix knob was what I touched first, to determine which way is which and set it to 100% wet.
Then I started playing. And what can I say? The first thing that hit my ear, the first thing that came to mind was:
"Yup, that is it. The Darkglass sound I dislike so much".
[Determined Darkglass fans might want to stop reading here because this might turn into a rant]
Luckily, I had bought the unit with the Era knob as was recommended to me in this very thread. This one sat there, at noon, untouched. The manual told me that turning it down gets me 70's rock while turning it up gets me the metallic clank of the 80's and 90's, so there surely will be some wriggle room.
One thing I want to say about the Mix knob is that while I generally don't like mix knobs, this one is very well done. You don't really hear where the clean signal ends and the driven signal starts, it's blended perfectly.
The gain knob starts (in my setup) clean as a bell and audible distortion starts around noon. The pedal is touch responsive and will give you a slight crunch when digging in but stay mostly clean when playing softer. With the knob dimed, I get a solid drive sound.
The texture of that drive is, to my ears, best described as two dimensional, flat, bland and boring.
There is very little dynamic, I get the feeling that the signal gets compressed like in a higher gain distortion pedal. What I am missing is upper harmonics that come in a musical way. I kinda feel reminded of one of those 8" guitar amps that come with a beginner's set, but do have a drive channel.
So there still is that Era knob. I kinda feared that it is a simple treble cut, getting you the mostly tweeterless sounds of cabinets in the 70's when turned down and keeping the trebly bite of more modern cabs when turned up. But there's more to that switch. The annoying bite that I associate with Darkglass products seems to shift its presence down into the upper midrange when you turn Era down, plus you lose most of the treble. Turning it up opens up the top end and shifts the annoying clank up a few notches.
I quickly tried to play through the Blueberry, which I kept in the signal chain, and instantly was rewarded by a much richer sound with lots more going on, dynamic and grainy. Back to the VM, it was flat again. The connection between my ears and my fingertips feels numb. While the pedal does react to touch and I can clearly hear that, I can't feel it in my fingers like I do with other pedals.
To me personally, this feels like a puddle of mediocrity with a brass umbrella stuck in it that has loose parts and makes annoying clanky noises when you touch it. The pedal seems to work well when you play fresh rounds with a pick, I can guess that the amount of compression that is going on can really help even out pick attack, but I'm a fingerstyle player whose hand rarely ventures south of the neck pickup. I am fairly sure that Darkglass has hit a nerve with lots of other players, hence the popularity. Today, I read on the internet that someone called Darkglass "The iPhone of bass playing" and I really felt that. I don't have an iPhone, don't particularly like iPhones and don't want to have one. Even though they are pretty popular with a lot of people, I am firm in my belief that they are not for me.

I adore this thread and your descriptive ability.

 

[Parzival]

I had the VMT and loved it. Different tastes and all. But, I got the VMT Deluxe, a vintage one with Era knob, and it elevates it by having the additional preamp controls. To me it’s like the VMT but more alive and more in your face. I keep the Era around 9 o’clock but then dial in a bit more mid and highs on the preamp eq. Blend about 12 to 1 o clock and drive at about 11 or 12 o clock.

Sounds damn good in the mix. That’s where it really shines.

And, I have an iPhone and iPad

 

[OnlyFlats]

That was a nice read @el murdoque thanks for the write up.

The b3k v02 is my pick tone (rounds or flats) and feels like it was designed for that. It takes other drives pre and post well too. I need that baked compression it provides when I pick play (I'm not very good at that compared to finger style). Which might be another clue to it's popularity...

I mostly agree with you on your conclusions with b3k finger style. When I've trialled it, the trial never lasts long, due to your description of the 'finger-feeling disconnection' effect.

I get that yuck effect the most with my tc mojo mojo.

Thanks for keeping this journal thread going.

 

[sunbeast]

I plugged in the Vintage Microtubes and sat there for a moment, clearing my mind of all prejudice as good as I could.

The Mix knob was what I touched first, to determine which way is which and set it to 100% wet.
Then I started playing. And what can I say? The first thing that hit my ear, the first thing that came to mind was:
"Yup, that is it. The Darkglass sound I dislike so much".
[Determined Darkglass fans might want to stop reading here because this might turn into a rant]
Luckily, I had bought the unit with the Era knob as was recommended to me in this very thread. This one sat there, at noon, untouched. The manual told me that turning it down gets me 70's rock while turning it up gets me the metallic clank of the 80's and 90's, so there surely will be some wriggle room.
One thing I want to say about the Mix knob is that while I generally don't like mix knobs, this one is very well done. You don't really hear where the clean signal ends and the driven signal starts, it's blended perfectly.
The gain knob starts (in my setup) clean as a bell and audible distortion starts around noon. The pedal is touch responsive and will give you a slight crunch when digging in but stay mostly clean when playing softer. With the knob dimed, I get a solid drive sound.
The texture of that drive is, to my ears, best described as two dimensional, flat, bland and boring.
There is very little dynamic, I get the feeling that the signal gets compressed like in a higher gain distortion pedal. What I am missing is upper harmonics that come in a musical way. I kinda feel reminded of one of those 8" guitar amps that come with a beginner's set, but do have a drive channel.
So there still is that Era knob. I kinda feared that it is a simple treble cut, getting you the mostly tweeterless sounds of cabinets in the 70's when turned down and keeping the trebly bite of more modern cabs when turned up. But there's more to that switch. The annoying bite that I associate with Darkglass products seems to shift its presence down into the upper midrange when you turn Era down, plus you lose most of the treble. Turning it up opens up the top end and shifts the annoying clank up a few notches.
I quickly tried to play through the Blueberry, which I kept in the signal chain, and instantly was rewarded by a much richer sound with lots more going on, dynamic and grainy. Back to the VM, it was flat again. The connection between my ears and my fingertips feels numb. While the pedal does react to touch and I can clearly hear that, I can't feel it in my fingers like I do with other pedals.
To me personally, this feels like a puddle of mediocrity with a brass umbrella stuck in it that has loose parts and makes annoying clanky noises when you touch it. The pedal seems to work well when you play fresh rounds with a pick, I can guess that the amount of compression that is going on can really help even out pick attack, but I'm a fingerstyle player whose hand rarely ventures south of the neck pickup. I am fairly sure that Darkglass has hit a nerve with lots of other players, hence the popularity. Today, I read on the internet that someone called Darkglass "The iPhone of bass playing" and I really felt that. I don't have an iPhone, don't particularly like iPhones and don't want to have one. Even though they are pretty popular with a lot of people, I am firm in my belief that they are not for me.

The Vintage for me really hits its stride in a mix, as @Parzival mentions- and also as an always-on tone (I don't find any of the DG dirt pedals to work very well as occasional dirt pedals, they are all too strongly voiced IMO). I got a Vintage right when they were first released when I was sculpting tones for the Deep Purple-ish band I mentioned previously preceding our first recording dates. So I was trying a number of different amps and pedals to find "the tone" to pair with my flatwound-equipped Rickenbacker (songs using about a 40/60 split of pick and finger style). Before the Vintage was released I had a B7K and a Tronographic Rusty Box on my little board as contenders and had played most of the bass stuff around at that point (including an original Blueberry that I probably would enjoy much more now than when I tried it, though it would not have fit in that band as I verified later with different Blueberry variants). The Tronographic was too tight down low for my tastes and the B7K too compressed and scooped in the mix (both got lost in different ways). My first test of the DG Vintage was in a band rehearsal alongside those other pedals and after that rehearsal I never played another set with that band (including recording) without some iteration of the Vintage in my signal chain. It made and otherwise too smooth Aguilar DB750 punch and cut, then later softened some of the uglier edges of my Mesa Prodigy while adding a nice low-mid punch (the Prodigy + Vintage combo ended up being "the sound" I was looking for).

Having played the Vintage a number of times now without a band mix to blend in to, I can agree that on its own it is not the most inspiring dirt tone. Having put up a number of different TB-favorite dirt pedals against it in in the band mixes over the years since (as I am always trying to find something even better!), at least in that band and a few others I played in concurrently the Vintage fit the bill noticeably better than multiple Blueberry variants, Fairfield Barbershop, MBD-1, and quite a few others that I tried and moved on. Many (most?) of those sounded nicer solo but got totally lost in my dense mixes.

When you say that you find the drive tone to seem pretty compressed, I would suspect its that there is actually more gain happening than you think at given settings- as I mentioned earlier, only my Rickenbacker and a few other low-output basses could get mostly clean with the Gain turned all the way down on the Vintage pedals. Even my vintage-y P-bass gets pretty noticeable grit with the Gain rolled off, and that was with all of my different Vintage pedals (including 2 of the small ones as you have). Part of the voicing of the pedal tends to mask the drive (there is a scoop of mids in a different frequency center than the B3K), so what may sound like low-gain and compressed is actually more mid-gain (hence the compression). For me, the best tones are all found with the Gain between 1-3 out of 10 for what I want to hear- it responds to me similar to a mostly clean tube head at those settings, adding mids and light compression via the clipping rather than obvious grit. I also virtually never used the Blend control with the Vintage, as I find it is the punchiest without any clean blended in.

 

[GrowlerBox]

It’s funny, Darkglass is the one brand of pedal that has never tempted me. Was never sure why, but maybe I was hearing (or failing to hear) what @el murdoque is describing above.

I also have an iPhone and an iPad, but you have to draw the line somewhere

 

[el murdoque]

When you say that you find the drive tone to seem pretty compressed, I would suspect its that there is actually more gain happening than you think at given settings- as I mentioned earlier, only my Rickenbacker and a few other low-output basses could get mostly clean with the Gain turned all the way down on the Vintage pedals. Even my vintage-y P-bass gets pretty noticeable grit with the Gain rolled off, and that was with all of my different Vintage pedals (including 2 of the small ones as you have). Part of the voicing of the pedal tends to mask the drive (there is a scoop of mids in a different frequency center than the B3K), so what may sound like low-gain and compressed is actually more mid-gain (hence the compression). For me, the best tones are all found with the Gain between 1-3 out of 10 for what I want to hear- it responds to me similar to a mostly clean tube head at those settings, adding mids and light compression via the clipping rather than obvious grit. I also virtually never used the Blend control with the Vintage, as I find it is the punchiest without any clean blended in.

I suspected the same. My uneducated guess would be that feeding the pedal a flats-through-neck-pickup signal results in drive that is happening, just not audible. The somewhat weak upper harmonics and strong low end push the pedal, but while a roundwound string would ring out with much more treble content to fetch the distortion, the flats gets zilch.

 

[sunbeast]

I suspected the same. My uneducated guess would be that feeding the pedal a flats-through-neck-pickup signal results in drive that is happening, just not audible. The somewhat weak upper harmonics and strong low end push the pedal, but while a roundwound string would ring out with much more treble content to fetch the distortion, the flats gets zilch.

Yeah for me with flats that low-gain saturation molded my bass “just-so” in a mix that with either tubes or a hybrid amp I say right where I wanted in the band mix- the VMT tightens the lows a bit, brings out the punch in the low mids, and accentuates attack to poke through without sounding harsh. In a way it really did what I often use a colored compressor for these days (but back when I used the Vintage all the time I never used compressors and always played at least mildly dirty).

I actually just saw this Amos Heller (bassist for Taylor Swift and many others) demo of the VMT posted in a TB thread and thought he did a great job of showing its mix abilities (though usually with higher Gain and Blend settings than I tended to use):