My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal

[el murdoque]

When you put the Green Rhino in its preferred habitat - playing with ripping guitars, it has an effect on the mix. The settings I used are quite simple. I set level to get unity and dimed everything else, with the switch on the inside set to 100Hz. Think of a very large specimen of a full grown grizzly bear. A male one, a little bit past his prime with a graying muzzle. Now take that bear and imagine him being in a really foul mood. The bear equivalent to a human that got news yesterday, news that made that human so angry that the only short term remedy was getting black out drunk, but the mid term effect is a thoroughly installed hangover, on top of the anger that has not subsided, but gets fanned on because it now rests in a body that shows poisoning effects and aches. Keep the picture of that foul tempered bear in mind. Now imagine a professional grade grater. Those things that feel entirely too sharp, so when you use it to grate cheese, you will not go all the way to the end because then your pasta will get a topping of human skin and flesh on top of the Parmesan. Use that grater to demolish a hand full of Jamaican scotch bonnet chilis, so that it is dripping with the red-hot juice of those. Now take that grater to the bear and slowly drag it over the scrotum.
The noise that bear will make is what the Green Rhino adds to your bass signal. It's an angry roar, with spittle forming bubbles on the vocal cords before being ejected violently by the sheer force of that primal mix of a scream, a howl and a growl. Earth shaking thunder, the unstoppable power of a large and heavy beast in full battle array, charging. It's too angry to drown in a mix. It fights claw and tooth against anything the guitars want to claim in its sonic territory. What a mean creature. I love it.

 

[Charlie Tuna]

Nobel Prize in Literature incoming

 

[sloppy_phil]

When you put the Green Rhino in its preferred habitat - playing with ripping guitars, it has an effect on the mix. The settings I used are quite simple. I set level to get unity and dimed everything else, with the switch on the inside set to 100Hz. Think of a very large specimen of a full grown grizzly bear. A male one, a little bit past his prime with a graying muzzle. Now take that bear and imagine him being in a really foul mood. The bear equivalent to a human that got news yesterday, news that made that human so angry that the only short term remedy was getting black out drunk, but the mid term effect is a thoroughly installed hangover, on top of the anger that has not subsided, but gets fanned on because it now rests in a body that shows poisoning effects and aches. Keep the picture of that foul tempered bear in mind. Now imagine a professional grade grater. Those things that feel entirely too sharp, so when you use it to grate cheese, you will not go all the way to the end because then your pasta will get a topping of human skin and flesh on top of the Parmesan. Use that grater to demolish a hand full of Jamaican scotch bonnet chilis, so that it is dripping with the red-hot juice of those. Now take that grater to the bear and slowly drag it over the scrotum.
The noise that bear will make is what the Green Rhino adds to your bass signal. It's an angry roar, with spittle forming bubbles on the vocal cords before being ejected violently by the sheer force of that primal mix of a scream, a howl and a growl. Earth shaking thunder, the unstoppable power of a large and heavy beast in full battle array, charging. It's too angry to drown in a mix. It fights claw and tooth against anything the guitars want to claim in its sonic territory. What a mean creature. I love it.

Yeah, that prose is flowery and all... but is it the best Rhino for metal?

I assume the LDP isn't gonna do that same bear scrotum cheese grater thing you describe here. Lol.

 

[el murdoque]

Yeah, that prose is flowery and all... but is it the best Rhino for metal?

I've yet to meet a better Rhino for metal.

I assume the LDP isn't gonna do that same bear scrotum cheese grater thing you describe here. Lol.

You assume correctly. The LDP kinda vanishes in the mix, making way for the other instruments without putting up much resistance.

 

[el murdoque]

I've made it a habit to bring one new drive pedal to each practice of the metal band. My board is still unchanged, a Nano with the Origin Trifecta (Bassrig, Cali76 and DCX), Tuner and Julia chorus. The signal path is tuner - DCX - Cali76 - Juila - Bassrig.

When I brought the Green Rhino and unleashed that beast on the sonic spectrum, played a bit, then switched to the DCX mid song, it was the first time since starting this habit that the switch did not feel like going from the bad pedal to the good one, but more like having two different flavors of awesome.
The Rhino would also sit really well in stoner/sludge/doom. The DCX sounds like you're beating a sheet of stainless steel with a whip made from frayed elevator cable, but still has that blubbering quality of a low rpm V8 engine instead of that mean Darkglass bite.
I would imagine that the organic, no-metal alternative to a V8 engine is a Rhino. It sounds a little more warm. But not that warmth you get when you come in from snow shoveling your driveway and sit in front of the hearth. That warmth you get when you stand right in front of the bear while I grate ursine scrotum, so the spittle hits you along with the beasts breath.

It's the first pedal in a long while that can actually rival the position of the DCX.

 

[Ritter667]

I've made it a habit to bring one new drive pedal to each practice of the metal band. My board is still unchanged, a Nano with the Origin Trifecta (Bassrig, Cali76 and DCX), Tuner and Julia chorus. The signal path is tuner - DCX - Cali76 - Juila - Bassrig.

When I brought the Green Rhino and unleashed that beast on the sonic spectrum, played a bit, then switched to the DCX mid song, it was the first time since starting this habit that the switch did not feel like going from the bad pedal to the good one, but more like having two different flavors of awesome.
The Rhino would also sit really well in stoner/sludge/doom. The DCX sounds like you're beating a sheet of stainless steel with a whip made from frayed elevator cable, but still has that blubbering quality of a low rpm V8 engine instead of that mean Darkglass bite.
I would imagine that the organic, no-metal alternative to a V8 engine is a Rhino. It sounds a little more warm. But not that warmth you get when you come in from snow shoveling your driveway and sit in front of the hearth. That warmth you get when you stand right in front of the bear while I grate ursine scrotum, so the spittle hits you along with the beasts breath.

It's the first pedal in a long while that can actually rival the position of the DCX.

I seriously need a DCX!

The demos I have heard of it match your description very well on higher gain settings.

Just exactly my kind of favorite drive!

And the Joyo Orange Juice I use for that kind of drive currently really would be no match to the DCX as far as I heard, for warm creamy drive though I have a hard time imagining anything better than the EHX English Muff'n genuine tube overdrive that I use currently (it can get nasty and grindy too, but not the nice kind of nasty and grindy in my opinion).

 

[el murdoque]

I do think the next step in that particular direction would be to actually buy a Way Huge Green Rhino MK IV, just to find out if having access to 500 and 100 Hz at the same time could bring something more to the table. I found one, but will not be able to properly test it before Christmas - so I'll order it to arrive after the holidays.

 

[el murdoque]

I seriously need a DCX.

The demos I have heard of it match your description very well on higher gain settings.

Just exactly my kind of favorite drive!

And the Joyo Orange Juice I use for that kind of drive currently really would be no match to the DCX as far as I heard, for warm creamy drive though I have a hard time imagining anything better than the EHX English Muff'n genuine tube overdrive that I use currently (it can get nasty too, but not the nice kind of nasty in my opinion).

Once again, in a nutshell:
Use it in Preamp mode and you will get a device that makes your gear sound more expensive. I want to call it a tone enhancer instead of a tone shaper.
The LF and HF knobs are not your linear shelving EQs, they work differently.
Quoting the Manual:

EQ CONTROLS:
The DCX Bass’s EQ controls give precise control over bass and treble at frequenciesspecifically chosen for bass guitar. These controls have been specially designed to deliver powerful EQ shaping, without sacrificing low-end clarity or overemphasising upper harmonics.

L.F:
Reduces low frequencies when turned counterclockwise, boosts low frequencies when turnedclockwise. The low frequency response is completely flat when this control is in the noon position.Due to the design of this circuitry, high levels of boost can be used in conjunction with overdrivensettings, without the tone becoming mushy or indistinct.

H.F:
Reduces high frequencies when turned counterclockwise, boosts high frequencies when turnedclockwise. The low frequency response is completely flat when this control is in the noon position.Due to the design of this circuitry, high levels of boost can be used without overemphasising the upper harmonics of overdriven sounds, which might usually result in a harsh tone.

In preamp mode, the dynamic range is insane. You can have it set so you can comfortably access completely clean, slightly driven and audible drive with your plucking strength.

Flip the switch to overdrive and the sophisticated British gentleman grows a leather jacket and long hair.
It's really an overdrive pedal then, not just the same pedal but with +20dB gain. It moves forward with you instead of pushing back and has a much meaner and less cultivated nature.
This is a pedal you really could buy twice and put on the same board. So get your first one now ;-)

I will have to buy that Orange Juice, though.

 

[Ritter667]

Once again, in a nutshell:
Use it in Preamp mode and you will get a device that makes your gear sound more expensive. I want to call it a tone enhancer instead of a tone shaper.
The LF and HF knobs are not your linear shelving EQs, they work differently.
Quoting the Manual:

In preamp mode, the dynamic range is insane. You can have it set so you can comfortably access completely clean, slightly driven and audible drive with your plucking strength.

Flip the switch to overdrive and the sophisticated British gentleman grows a leather jacket and long hair.
It's really an overdrive pedal then, not just the same pedal but with +20dB gain. It moves forward with you instead of pushing back and has a much meaner and less cultivated nature.
This is a pedal you really could buy twice and put on the same board. So get your first one now ;-)

I will have to buy that Orange Juice, though.

Just to give you an idea of how the Orange Juice sounds, here are some samples that I just recorded.

Mind this is one setting, and it is recorded with my cheap budget 28.6" scale 5 string Ibanez Mikro Bass, with the low output stock bridge, but actually surprisingly great sounding, J pickup wired directly to the output jack socket, and it is tuned in G# standard tuning (that is as one half step bellow the upper 4 strings of a 6 string bass in regular B standard tuning), also I got a 1 octave up effect on the whole time (for sort of a faux 8 string bass effect, if dialed in a bit more subtle), and a subtle reverb, cause that is kind of just my sound, and my entire amp-less setup is kind of adjusted for that, also note that on the first sample there is some tape delay as well, and I am just using the one single same setting on the Orange Juice all the way through all 4 samples (but as you can hear it responds very well to playing dynamics).

Also excuse for my crappy playing, but I suffer from performance anxiety every time I try to record something (which effects my performance badly in general, and cause me to stumble a lot, and run, as in not keeping time properly).

Anyway, this should still give you a fair idea about its basic character:

 

[el murdoque]

Just to give you an idea of how the Orange Juice sounds, here are some samples that I just recorded.

Mind this is one setting, and it is recorded with my cheap budget 28.6" scale 5 string Ibanez Mikro Bass, with the low output stock bridge, but actually surprisingly great sounding, J pickup wired directly to the output jack socket, and it is tuned in G# standard tuning (that is as one half step bellow the upper 4 strings of a 6 string bass in regular B standard tuning), also I got a 1 octave up effect on the whole time (for sort of a faux 8 string bass effect, if dialed in a bit more subtle), and a subtle reverb, cause that is kind of just my sound, and my entire amp-less setup is kind of adjusted for that, also note that on the first sample there is some tape delay as well, and I am just using the one single same setting on the Orange Juice all the way through all 4 samples (but as you can hear it responds very well to playing dynamics).

Also excuse for my crappy playing, but I suffer from performance anxiety every time I try to record something (which effects my performance badly in general, and cause me to stumble a lot, and run, as in not keeping time properly).

Anyway, this should still give you a fair idea about its basic character:
View attachment 7104006
View attachment 7104008
View attachment 7104007

How high did you have the Gain in those recordings?

 

[Maxi Funkl]

DCX BASS I use it on the Pre-amp side 95% of the time. I agree in preamp mode it refines your tone in such a way it's instantly noticeable when turned off. I only use it occasionally as a dirt pedal. Mainly as a different type of dirt than my MBD3. It is one of the few pedals I've purchased that lived up to the TB hype machine.

 

[Ritter667]

How high did you have the Gain in those recordings?

Gain/Drive at 3 o'clock, plus I had the pre gain stage Voice knob, 400Hz broad cut bellow noon/800Hz broad boost above noon, at about 1 o'clock, Tone at about 11 o'clock, so it is not capable of insane amounts of gain, but still a fair bit more, especially if you crank the Voice knob, which of course though will effect tone and character of drive, since it is pre gain stage, on the other hand it is capable of pretty much clean tone as well, and have a very broad and gradual sweep of drive, which responds very dynamically to your playing all the way.

 

[Mr. voodoobass]

Ok, had to test the dcx first in chain. Instead of after cali76, as i’ve mostly used it for higher gain and really loved the grind it puts out.
Oboy, it sure does shine at milder settings and always on.
I can see how people buy two of them…
Gotta 2nd what stated above that the dcx is one of few (also cali76)to live up the hype!

 

[dedpool1052]

I've made it a habit to bring one new drive pedal to each practice of the metal band. My board is still unchanged, a Nano with the Origin Trifecta (Bassrig, Cali76 and DCX), Tuner and Julia chorus. The signal path is tuner - DCX - Cali76 - Juila - Bassrig.

When I brought the Green Rhino and unleashed that beast on the sonic spectrum, played a bit, then switched to the DCX mid song, it was the first time since starting this habit that the switch did not feel like going from the bad pedal to the good one, but more like having two different flavors of awesome.
The Rhino would also sit really well in stoner/sludge/doom. The DCX sounds like you're beating a sheet of stainless steel with a whip made from frayed elevator cable, but still has that blubbering quality of a low rpm V8 engine instead of that mean Darkglass bite.
I would imagine that the organic, no-metal alternative to a V8 engine is a Rhino. It sounds a little more warm. But not that warmth you get when you come in from snow shoveling your driveway and sit in front of the hearth. That warmth you get when you stand right in front of the bear while I grate ursine scrotum, so the spittle hits you along with the beasts breath.

It's the first pedal in a long while that can actually rival the position of the DCX.

IIRC, I had the mkv Green Rhino (the smalls version)
Instead of setting the internal slider switch to 100hz, I set it to 500hz and cut.
To my ears, it gave a more natural sounding breakup, compared to the artificial "plumpness" of boosting at 100hz.
It also reduced that typical mid-bump associated with a TS circuit.
So I guess that's why it sounded more natural to my ears.
Should've kept that pedal, but gave it to a buddy who also loves dirt pedals.
I think I'll repurchase it some day.

 

[el murdoque]

IIRC, I had the mkv Green Rhino (the smalls version)
Instead of setting the internal slider switch to 100hz, I set it to 500hz and cut.
To my ears, it gave a more natural sounding breakup, compared to the artificial "plumpness" of boosting at 100hz.
It also reduced that typical mid-bump associated with a TS circuit.
So I guess that's why it sounded more natural to my ears.
Should've kept that pedal, but gave it to a buddy who also loves dirt pedals.
I think I'll repurchase it some day.

Of course did I also loosen the screws and pry the back plate off to access the switch and flipped it to see what would happen.
Here's my short summary: When I boost just a hair, I gain definition in that frequency range and make the bass come through a mix a bit more easily.
When boosting more than just a bit, I'm riding the honk bus to honk-town while firmly pressing down on the knob that controls the vehicle's audible warning system.
However, that knob goes two ways. You can also use that thing to cut.
When you do so, your tone gets elegant and crisp. The hole in the middle leaves more room for both the low and high end to shine.
It really feels more sculpted and beautiful, like the marble statue of one of the old masters.
However, when you throw yourself thusly equipped into a mix with ripping guitar tones, your bass sound has the buoyancy of a marble statue, too.

 

[mouthmw]

I had a Green Rhino Mk II over a decade ago. I remember linking it a lot but I eventually moved to other dirt pedals. I would most likely appreciate its tonal character more today than back then.

 

[warptheory]

I'm assuming that the Green Rhino doesn't have any low end loss, maybe perceived with a mid/treble boost in some settings, but is a totally usable drive for bass?

I've tried the JHS Moonshine v2 which is a tube screamer clone with a clean blend in the past and couldn't get along with it, but it didn't have any controls for 100/500 cut/boost. I actually think I prefer drives that don't need a clean blend, they just sound more natural to me.

 

[el murdoque]

I'm assuming that the Green Rhino doesn't have any low end loss, maybe perceived with a mid/treble boost in some settings, but is a totally usable drive for bass?

The full review is here:

The Dirt Jounal - Green Rhino

I've tried the JHS Moonshine v2 which is a tube screamer clone with a clean blend in the past and couldn't get along with it, but it didn't have any controls for 100/500 cut/boost. I actually think I prefer drives that don't need a clean blend, they just sound more natural to me.

I think I said it before, but that's how I feel about many pedals, too.
However, there is an important difference between designing a dirt circuit for bass with a form of clean blend and doing it well and taking a guitar pedal that does not work for bass because it's cutting lows and just slapping a clean blend in there.

Most of the pedals I like have no clean blend, though.

 

[OnlyFlats]

Clean blend slapped in - I agree!
I always find myself falling out of love with pedals with standard clean blends.

The Idiotbox blowerbox deluxe has a clean blend with lpf. That was the first time I liked a clean blend. Note: I'm not suggesting that pedal for your low gain journey el murdoque, it's a rat so is ratty.

And even though it's fun to use blenders/fx loopers to add in a low passed clean, which opens up dirt options to everything, on a working gigging pedal board it's just too much stuff. I'm appreciating this thread that keeps that option off the table.

 

[EncoremMP]

So I’ve been finding great satisfaction with the Tech 21 Street Driver 48. Just seems to work on so many levels. And paired with a Zio, I just can’t get enough.