My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal

[el murdoque]

Please take my rambling utterances about both the Capo and the Bass Blaster with a pinch of salt cerumen.

I did try to re-calibrate my senses by switching over to a dirt pedal I know I love and this sounded a bit on the side of excrement, too.

Either there is something wrong in my signal chain or the meds stopped working.


I will approach this scientifically and rig a proper testing setup, test the test setup and then run various dirt through it until satisfied, then bring in the new guys once more.

This may take a bit since we host guests over the weekend, stay tuned.

 

[el murdoque]

Okay, revision time.

Here's what I did: Instead of the test bench, I hooked up the two drive pedals into the dirt spot of my real pedalboards.

One is the big Schmidt Array that has the Xotic BB Bass in that position and the other is the Origin Fanboy Nano with the DCX, Cali76 and Super Vintage.

I was able to approximate the sound of the Xotic with both pedals. In fact, I got so close you'd be hard pressed to tell them apart in a blind test.
Neither pedal was able to get me more of the same, but that bit of touch sensitive dirt that's just enough to be noticed in a not-so-dense mix and makes notes played higher up the neck bloom in a very gentle and musical way was something all three managed. One thing I did not understand about the Capo in that scenario was that as soon as I added the B side for more gain, it sounded like the lower mids dropped out.

Is this verdict good or bad? Honest question, I can't tell.
I used to say I'm a simple man. I drop the pedal in the slot, turn it on, twist some knobs and when the result sounds better than it did before, I'm happy.
Now I dropped them in the slot, twisted some knobs and got slightly different flavors of the same thing - tiny differences that are so hard to make out, it's barely worth mentioning.
The Capo offers some more tweakability, because you can use the EQ to shape the nature of the drive, but it seems my imagination is at its end, because what the BB does is bring me to my happy place - so when I had the Capo going there, it felt like the goal was achieved and I could not make it better than it already was.

So I switched over to the metal band board.

Here, I'm not gunning for a mild organic tone with singing overtones. I want something that rips and roars angrily.
So the gain knobs went up a fair bit. On this board, I'm currently using the DCX Bass into the Super Vintage. The gain on the SV is just on the brink of breakup, so there is something going on there as well when I hit it with a hotter signal with more gain.

The Bass Blaster does not get overly bright even with the treble knob running high, and there is a metallic clank in the upper registers, not unlike the Darkglass Vintage Microtubes with the Era knob turned down. I was annoyed a bit at first, but I quickly realized that I'm not as much opposed to that than I was on the Darkglass. It's actually quite pleasant and lends a certain heft to finger attack that smacks your ear in a good way.

The Capo worked better for me when I activated the B side and fed a little more drive into the already driven A side. It's lively and feels like dirty putty, ready to be shaped.

 

[el murdoque]

Let me remind you: That small board only runs a short signal chain that goes tuner -> dirt pedal -> comp -> chorus -> preamp
I play a Precision bass with Chromes, tuned to D.
The comp is set to limiting, which makes things a little bit complicated for the dirt pedal.
I do want to have the whole range of dynamics available to play into the pedal, so I can have a fair bit of grind when playing normal but full on chainsaw to the face when digging in. The problem is obvious: Getting a drive sound that does not drop back in the mix because the comp will not allow much of a jump in volume.
The Origin Fanboy Board works surprisingly well in that regard, the DCX adds dirt but does not really take away perceived volume in the mix.

The Bass Blaster has that clank, which certainly helps. It kinda resides just below the cymbals in the frequency spectrum.
Imagine a Darkglass pedal has that artifact in the driven part of the signal that is a lump of hardened metal with jagged edges.
The Free The Tone version of that artifact is not exactly polished smooth, but when you get it full on in the face,
it's only gonna bruise while the DG breaks the skin and leaves you bleeding.
You know my personal opinion about Darkglass pedals in my personal signal chain.
That's why I want to say Free The Tone managed to polish a turd - to mirror brightness.

You don't really get to influence the nature of the drive, but you don't have to.
I realized when I was A/B'ing the pedals that I used the EQ a lot on the Capo, especially the bass knob. Not to shape the sound, but much rather to get a balanced response across the fret board. The BB did give me an even response at all times, so while I was not really able to customize that with the knobs at hand, I did not need or want to, either.

 

[Ritter667]

Try the EHX English Muff'n, but swap the stock EHX 12AY7 tubes for EHX 12AX7 ones, this obviously will give more gain, but also a tighter tone, and with all EQ controls turned down bellow noon position (my preferred settings are: Gain: 9 o'clock - High: 10 - Mid: 11 - Low: 10), which again gives it a tighter, but also less clanky, and slightly more mids focused tone.

Best damn bass drive I ever tried.

And it looks pretty special too:

It unfortunately has been discontinued, but is fairly frequent to find for sale used, and for quite reasonable money too, compared to what you get.


Edit:

I should probably add that despite the Muff moniker this is in no way a fuzz, it's a genuine tube overdrive, that can go all the way from low gain overdrive (almost clean with stock tubes, and I would think with even lower gain tubes you can get it to clean, but as said it does sound best with 12AX7 tubes) to full blown distortion, and is based on the early Fender inspired Marshall amps.

And that the tubes run at proper high 300V plate voltage.

 

[el murdoque]

Try the EHX English Muff'n, but swap the stock EHX 12AY7 tubes for EHX 12AX7 ones, this obviously will give more gain, but also a tighter tone, and with all EQ controls turned down bellow noon position (my preferred settings are: Gain: 9 o'clock - High: 10 - Mid: 11 - Low: 10), which again gives it a tighter, but also less clanky, and slightly more mids focused tone.

Best damn bass drive I ever tried.

And it looks pretty special too:
View attachment 7008131

It's unfortunately has been discontinued, but is fairly frequent to find for sale used, and for quite reasonable money too, compared to what you get.

The one thing that creates a stiff upper lip is the "AC" requirement.

 

[Ritter667]

The one thing that creates a stiff upper lip is the "AC" requirement.

Yes, it requires a special 12V 1000mA AC power supply, and with a unique tip/plug too (so you can't even use a standard 12V AC power supply, unless you mod the pedal), that though is included with the pedal (and that EHX still produces and sells),

The tubes run at proper high 300V plate voltage.

Also I should probably add that despite the Muff moniker this is in no way a fuzz, it's a genuine tube overdrive, that can go all the way from low gain overdrive (almost clean with stock tubes, and I would think with even lower gain tubes you can get it to completely clean, but as said it does sound best with 12AX7 tubes) to full blown distortion, and is based on the early Fender inspired Marshall amps.

 

[el murdoque]

Yeah, I can see that, there are bass demos on the tube.
I do fear that I get to like it enough to mount it to a pedalboard - and none of my available power supplies can handle AC.

 

[Mr. voodoobass]

So…from what I can read. Combinations of the BB, cali76, dcx and super vintage are still the winners? Capo can get there, but is a struggle to set just right, and is really not worth all the hype?
Such a long time ago since I played a BB, might just have to get me one again. Had other things that took its place at the time(mesa flux drive).

 

[el murdoque]

So…from what I can read. Combinations of the BB, cali76, dcx and super vintage are still the winners? Capo can get there, but is a struggle to set just right, and is really not worth all the hype?
Such a long time ago since I played a BB, might just have to get me one again. Had other things that took its place at the time(mesa flux drive).

The Xotic BB is a light drive that adds harmonics and does so in a very musical way. A soft and smooth drive.

The Cali is dear to me. It does something to my sound that I don't want to miss out on, so I have two of them.

The Super Vintage is Super Useful to me, and it's not only an extremely versatile drive pedal, it's also a preamp - or analog amp sim and currently, I use it as such.

The DCX is the pedal that will most likely stay on my metal band board.

 

[schaechtele]

The DCX is the pedal that will most likely stay on my metal band board.

Speaking of the DCX, I want to throw the Cornerstone Gladio SC into the ring.

I read about it in the Worship thread on TB and since it was readily available here in Germany, I just ordered one.

To my ears it sounds more fine grained than the DCX in OD mode and I like it better. Haven‘t played around much with the compression switch but for me it‘s really easy to dial in a tone that I like.

 

[el murdoque]

More on the Capo:

In my first post about it, the first thing I remarked upon was the suspected learning curve.
That is very true. I had a bad day when I gave it the first test drive and it did not instantly blow me away, and I did not give the pedal the time it deserves before I hopped on the internet and started ranting about it.

I tried copying the sound I got from the Bass Blaster, and let me talk you through the process:
The Bass Blaster was set with the gain super high, lots of treble and a good bit of bass boost. Roaring chainsaws grinding on the exhaust pipe of a running Harley.
To get there, I needed gain. The A side by itself falls short. The B side by itself falls short, too. So these two will have to be combined.
I ran B into A, so I had clipping stage, then EQ, then another clipping stage. In that setting, B can influence A in two ways. You can raise the gain to get more of the B clipping and send a heavier driven signal, or you can raise the B level, to boost harder into A to raise the A gain. I now had enough gain, but I felt the bass frequencies were lacking, it was not ground shaking enough. The problem here is that when you raise the bass knob, the bass frequencies clip more, but you don't really get a more bass heavy sound. The remedy for that is using the third preamp via the blend knob, by raising the bass and dialing back on the blend to get some 'clean' signal in there. Also, the Deep switch helps. satisfied with that, I tried to get the sizzle right, by using the treble knob and the Bite switch.
To get the clank right, I also needed to push the upper mids north of 1k a bit with the parametric mids controls. I was not getting the exact same sound I got from the Bass Blaster, but I was very close now.

Leaving the route of copying what's easier to get by simply using the pedal I try to emulate, you really get a sandbox to toy around with to shape your sound to whatever occasion you find yourself in that requires overdrive, EQ, or both.
I felt a bit reminded of the Subspace, but the Subspace is a bass dirt sandbox that feels most at home in the distortion category but will do both overdrive and fuzz if you ask it, the Capo is only capable of overdrive, which is not a bad thing. You get even more options to shape overdrive sounds.
Whenever you pluck a note and something hits your ear that is not to your liking, a little thought followed by a little experimentation will most likely lead to a way to shape the drive differently, so you can either get rid of the offending signal part or reshape it into something more pleasant.

 

[el murdoque]

Speaking of the DCX, I want to throw the Cornerstone Gladio SC into the ring.

I read about it in the Worship thread on TB and since it was readily available here in Germany, I just ordered one.

To my ears it sounds more fine grained than the DCX in OD mode and I like it better. Haven‘t played around much with the compression switch but for me it‘s really easy to dial in a tone that I like.

Okay.
I'm getting one now.
I ran across that name multiple times and I think it looks sweet.
As soon as someone has mercy on me and buys my Darkglass pedals, I'll put out an order.

 

[GrowlerBox]

I ran across an interesting looking pedal while browsing YouTube for low-end dirty content … That didn’t quite come out right, but I trust I’m among friends. Anyway, the JHS PG-14 sounds very interesting. It has what appears to be a clean preamp-EQ based on a semiparametric mids control feeding (and boosting, if desired) a gain stage with its own drive, volume and tone controls. There’s a lot of guitar content (including from JHS himself) but one pretty decent bass demonstration video. It sounds very versatile, and I think the mids control feeding into drive could be where it’s at for dialling in pretty precisely the particular flavour you want.

I may pick one up myself at some point, but it won’t be soon. I’ve had one major new arrival today (Echo Fix spring reverb) and a couple of other things to get first (a new small board and power supply among them), so I’m a little tapped out for the minute.

 

[Ritter667]

JHS PG-14

Except if it is the video I found he plays just about all the way through with absurdly scooped mids.

Sounds as horribly farty as any bass or guitar with the mids scooped out as I ever heard.

 

[GrowlerBox]

Except if it is the video I found he plays just about all the way through with absurdly scooped mids.

Sounds as horribly farty as any bass or guitar with the mids scooped out as I ever heard.

It probably is that one, and I agree about the big mid-scoop, but you can see how extreme his mid-cut setting is, and if you can cut it that much, you can put it back and boost besides. And while one man’s fart is another man’s … well … fart, the fine distinctions can be meaningful. I will leave it to our own fart cork sniffer, @el murdoque to parse that further.

I don’t think YouTube is a particularly good place to listen for fine sonic details, especially on bass. If the pedal demo doesn’t have too much low-end cut (I have my own HPFs for that) and it’s coming from the general region of the tone-time continuum that I’m interested in, I’m prepared to give it a try. Demos on synths and keyboards are probably more useful in the end, I think. Or, I think I think, anyway.

 

[el murdoque]

I see I have overused analogy from the world of rectal exhausts when @GrowlerBox already has freudian slips about farts.

Let me get back to the Bass Blaster for a quick moment. This little gem has been overshadowed by the Capos fall from grace and crawl back up.

Some things the Bass Blaster does exceptionally well:
Balance. When you set it to hover just on the edge, which makes it possible to get clean notes through with enough volume but it emits a solid growl when you play hard, you get the same result on the B string and when playing chords beyond fret 12. It really is completely balanced to perfection.

The texture seems to change a bit when you turn up the gain. As long as you're in that mostly-clean-with-some-harmonics-and-saturation area of the dial, you get pea gravel mixed in. Nice and smooth, easy on feet and tires. When you get towards Moose-In-Heat, the texture gets much rougher.
However, as stated before, the top end never gets really harsh. It is a drive that is designed to sit IN the mix, not to cut through.

 

[Charlie Tuna]

I see I have overused analogy from the world of rectal exhausts when @GrowlerBox already has freudian slips about farts.

Let me get back to the Bass Blaster for a quick moment. This little gem has been overshadowed by the Capos fall from grace and crawl back up.

Some things the Bass Blaster does exceptionally well:
Balance. When you set it to hover just on the edge, which makes it possible to get clean notes through with enough volume but it emits a solid growl when you play hard, you get the same result on the B string and when playing chords beyond fret 12. It really is completely balanced to perfection.

The texture seems to change a bit when you turn up the gain. As long as you're in that mostly-clean-with-some-harmonics-and-saturation area of the dial, you get pea gravel mixed in. Nice and smooth, easy on feet and tires. When you get towards Moose-In-Heat, the texture gets much rougher.
However, as stated before, the top end never gets really harsh. It is a drive that is designed to sit IN the mix, not to cut through.

How’s a BlueBerry vs Bass Blaster comparison pan out?

And maybe you’ll do a mini board with all BB named pedals…

 

[el murdoque]

BlueBerry into BassBlaster into BB Bass Preamp is a little small, but I might acquire some more BB named pedals.


Comparing BlueBerry to BassBlaster is BBapples to BBoranges.

The BlueBerry has not as much gain on tap, plus it does that mid exciting thing that is absent in ... any other pedal I played - even the Bearfoot BlueBerry version.
The Bass Blaster gets more gravelly, and it has an active, post drive EQ, where the knobs on the BlueBerry work completely different - with one controlling how the low end distorts and the other being essentially a passive treble knob.

 

[Charlie Tuna]

Sounds like the only rational thing to do is acquire both.

 

[el murdoque]

Sounds like the only rational thing to do is acquire both.

The rational thing is to Josh H. Scott it and get ALL of them.