....and suddenly, a few days before my ad expires, someone gets in touch, offering a SS/BS Mini.
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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
A compact was agreed upon the monetary compensation. The Mini shall be here by the middle of next week.
The 'middle' of the week arrived, and so did a parcel. Odin be praised.
I do know what I will do this evening.
I had one that looked just like that! Still regret selling it- not even really sure why I did, since it sounded great.
Same- it is the closest I’ve ever gotten to being able to nail good overdrive, distortion and fuzz tones from one simple circuit. I wanted mine to have more brightness on tap at the time and sold it, but now I think it’d be great in my rig.
Agreed on all points. Used it as a gated fuzz for a long time, now it's overdrive only, and it checks every box for me. Have loved other overdrives (Pork Loin, Lucydreamer) and still use the Lucydreamer on the small board, but the Mini is just about perfect for my needs.
Hands down a desert island pedal for me.
I'm really glad I scored the two I did when I did because prices have gotten out of hand. I still really want top mount jack versions of the Mini with the triangle graphic but not bad enough to pay $300+.
Hope you enjoy!
I'm really glad I scored the two I did when I did because prices have gotten out of hand. I still really want top mount jack versions of the Mini with the triangle graphic but not bad enough to pay $300+.
Hope you enjoy!
Here's my first impression after about an hour of playing around with it.
I set everything to noon and plugged in. Then I set the gain to the point where light strumming is clean but heavy playing is not and the volume to unity. Then I basically turned the bass and treble up a bit and the bias (what does that do exactly?) to around one o'clock because I felt there was something resonating at that spot.
The next half hour I just noodled around on those settings, happy as a fish in ... the freshest mountain spring water you can imagine. Oh my. This pedal. After I realized that I completely lost myself, found myself again and brought me back into the present, I thought about the many people saying that it is a gnarly fuzz if you let it be, so I just dimed it. Woooo hooo! I love my OBNE Haunt as a gnarly fuzz, but this is close when it comes to gnarly, but much more user and ear friendly. When you set the Haunt to unleash the wolf pack, it's like a frenzied bloodlusty assault on everything you hold dear (and your ears) and you feel like on the back of a horse in full gallop, minus the reins. And the stirups. Like wielding a burning sword, only it's not one of those where the blade bit is burning but one of those where everything from pommel to point is ablaze.
The Mini is tame compared to that - but still packs a massive punch that means business.
But now comes the good bit:
My board is quite full and I was worried that I might not get another pedal with side jacks on there. It turned out that there is just a bit of room missing to arrange the jacks of the C4 and the Mini - and as luck would have it, there is a wee gap between the UA and the BlueSky, which allows for a perfect fit with not a hairs' breadth to spare when I snuggle them against each other. That sorted out I tried how well it might integrate the Mini with the other pedals.
The MBD-2 which was occupying that space had two issues:
1. When I turned on MBD-2 and UA together I would get a whining noise (which was weird because the UA is powered from the Noble's power supply while the MBD-2 is powered through the Cioks).
2. There was a phase issue with the BDPG and the volume dropped when both pedals were engaged.
Dropping the Mini into that slot eradicated both.
Having the Mini set to the position I started out on gave me a sweet tone as described already. Kicking in the UA at the same time felt like two soulmates embracing each other in a loving hug. They compliment each other really well, one is strong where the other is weak and their means of overdriving the signal . . .
You know it's called a good cocktail when the cocktail mixer manages the balance so well that the drink does not taste like its components but like a new thing. Mini and UA sound like that.
Everyone here that has had some experience with the BDPG will agree that it can be a wildcard with dirt effects. Feed dirt in the BDPG and get different dirt out. Sometimes it's awesome, sometimes it's gruesome. The Mini is in team awesome (pun intended). All this happened with about 30 seconds of knob tweaking on the Mini and not touching anything else on my board. Do you think the universe is trying to tell me something?
Well, my dear universe. I hear you. This looks a lot like the end of the journey. Could be. If only you had factored in my scatterbrained way of organizing things. I made a mental note to cancel the order of the Jam Pedals Lucydreamer Bass, but that particular supplier has not upgraded their tech enough to receive those.
Had I sent them an email or given them a call, they would surely have cancelled it, but now it's on its way. I guess it'll be here on Friday. I'll play with a band tomorrow, so I'll put velcro on the Mini now.
I set everything to noon and plugged in. Then I set the gain to the point where light strumming is clean but heavy playing is not and the volume to unity. Then I basically turned the bass and treble up a bit and the bias (what does that do exactly?) to around one o'clock because I felt there was something resonating at that spot.
The next half hour I just noodled around on those settings, happy as a fish in ... the freshest mountain spring water you can imagine. Oh my. This pedal. After I realized that I completely lost myself, found myself again and brought me back into the present, I thought about the many people saying that it is a gnarly fuzz if you let it be, so I just dimed it. Woooo hooo! I love my OBNE Haunt as a gnarly fuzz, but this is close when it comes to gnarly, but much more user and ear friendly. When you set the Haunt to unleash the wolf pack, it's like a frenzied bloodlusty assault on everything you hold dear (and your ears) and you feel like on the back of a horse in full gallop, minus the reins. And the stirups. Like wielding a burning sword, only it's not one of those where the blade bit is burning but one of those where everything from pommel to point is ablaze.
The Mini is tame compared to that - but still packs a massive punch that means business.
But now comes the good bit:
My board is quite full and I was worried that I might not get another pedal with side jacks on there. It turned out that there is just a bit of room missing to arrange the jacks of the C4 and the Mini - and as luck would have it, there is a wee gap between the UA and the BlueSky, which allows for a perfect fit with not a hairs' breadth to spare when I snuggle them against each other. That sorted out I tried how well it might integrate the Mini with the other pedals.
The MBD-2 which was occupying that space had two issues:
1. When I turned on MBD-2 and UA together I would get a whining noise (which was weird because the UA is powered from the Noble's power supply while the MBD-2 is powered through the Cioks).
2. There was a phase issue with the BDPG and the volume dropped when both pedals were engaged.
Dropping the Mini into that slot eradicated both.
Having the Mini set to the position I started out on gave me a sweet tone as described already. Kicking in the UA at the same time felt like two soulmates embracing each other in a loving hug. They compliment each other really well, one is strong where the other is weak and their means of overdriving the signal . . .
You know it's called a good cocktail when the cocktail mixer manages the balance so well that the drink does not taste like its components but like a new thing. Mini and UA sound like that.
Everyone here that has had some experience with the BDPG will agree that it can be a wildcard with dirt effects. Feed dirt in the BDPG and get different dirt out. Sometimes it's awesome, sometimes it's gruesome. The Mini is in team awesome (pun intended). All this happened with about 30 seconds of knob tweaking on the Mini and not touching anything else on my board. Do you think the universe is trying to tell me something?
Well, my dear universe. I hear you. This looks a lot like the end of the journey. Could be. If only you had factored in my scatterbrained way of organizing things. I made a mental note to cancel the order of the Jam Pedals Lucydreamer Bass, but that particular supplier has not upgraded their tech enough to receive those.
Had I sent them an email or given them a call, they would surely have cancelled it, but now it's on its way. I guess it'll be here on Friday. I'll play with a band tomorrow, so I'll put velcro on the Mini now.
Be warned as soon as you think you found your go-to setting with the Mini you will find one you like even more.
Conversely, when you think the Mini isn't delivering in some capacity and decide to shelve it - you will be back and realize you just had to approach it another way.
It's worth noting the Bass is pre-gain. Meaning the more you dime the bass the more you'll push things to overdrive. Treble is post gain and can be used to tame and shrill high end you might experience with lower bias settings. There are a ton of sweet spots to be found as the bass, gain, and bias are all very interactive.
Zippy gated fuzz with the gain high and the bias low. Gnarly distortion with gain and bias maxed out. Overdrive with a AM radio sounding decay with bias and gain just below noon. Good luck!
Conversely, when you think the Mini isn't delivering in some capacity and decide to shelve it - you will be back and realize you just had to approach it another way.
It's worth noting the Bass is pre-gain. Meaning the more you dime the bass the more you'll push things to overdrive. Treble is post gain and can be used to tame and shrill high end you might experience with lower bias settings. There are a ton of sweet spots to be found as the bass, gain, and bias are all very interactive.
Zippy gated fuzz with the gain high and the bias low. Gnarly distortion with gain and bias maxed out. Overdrive with a AM radio sounding decay with bias and gain just below noon. Good luck!
- Feb 16, 2008
- 21,240
- 23,638
- Disclosures
- John K Custom Basses
i've had a couple of minis and love them (still have a top jack 125B version (that's going nowhere). i just decided that i wanted a 1590B version with top jacks so i ended up cloning one for myself.
Awesome.
I've started to see some clones popping up. I think the only change to the circuit would be increased headroom. IME the Mini can't handle too intense of an incoming signal.
I've started to see some clones popping up. I think the only change to the circuit would be increased headroom. IME the Mini can't handle too intense of an incoming signal.
Fwiw, my favorite setting on the Mini is Gain between 10 and 11:30, Bias around 130. Bass and treble I have close to 3pm, sounds good with my setup. This is the overdrive sound in my mind. I've got it running into other effects and eventually ending up at the Broughton Fliptop and it's as spot on as my imagination put into reality can get. Settings change if I go with a dirtier preamp, but for "clean tone," that's it for me.
Curious to hear your thoughts on the Lucydreamer if you end up trying it out before returning it. I still dig it and have it on my small board, very different to the Mini but still very good imo.
Curious to hear your thoughts on the Lucydreamer if you end up trying it out before returning it. I still dig it and have it on my small board, very different to the Mini but still very good imo.
Considering my bass has a relatively weak output because of which I'm running more gain, the settings I ended tonight's session on were quite similar. I started out with the Bias at 3 o'clock, EQ at noon and very little gain. The pedal did not sound like it was doing much when I matched the output to unity.
I took it from there, but ended up with those settings again. I'll experiment some more, but I'm already glad that I have found two settings that are fun. Gain and EQ maxed and the bias around noon is the other setting that makes me grin.
I think that's one of those settings that are forbidden, though.
When you hit that pedal mid song, with a nice bump in volume, the guitarist will immediately unplug, pack up and leave, crying while doing so.
I've made up my mind about the MBD-2 and the Barbershop (that was quick). Those two can go. I'll hang on to the BETA DLX - for the following reasons:
I bought the MBD-2 via Reverb from the US and sold it with a profit, after listing it for three hours.
Should I get sellers remorse, I can simply do it again.
The Barbershop is an older version, serial starting with 2. If memory serves correctly, the newer versions come with an internal trim pot for gain. I could coax a little more fun out of that pedal when using a bass with higher output. Should I want the Barbershop back, I'd like one of those newer versions - and they are easily available at thomann.
The BETA DLX is the only one that can't be replaced easily since they have been out of production for a while and as far as I gathered, not many were produced when they were produced.
And don't fret. I will not be able to return the Lucydreamer unopened.
It will have to go through its paces, I'll see to it.
Can you tell me if the enclosure is wider than the Mini? I fear so.
It is, pic here:
Might not be perfectly aligned, but you can see a few mm width and height larger. It does have a secondary footswitch tho, so perhaps that's why.
Thanks for that. Tracking says the parcel will be here on Friday - and recent changes in Covid policy might make it possible that the post-person is able to do cash transactions again (if they have implemented that already), so with a bit of luck I can claim the parcel directly without waiting another day.
I gotta hand it to the good people of Jam Pedals: They know how presentation works.
After reading the manual, I have something for every pedal builder to notice:
When you add a manual that follows the lines of:
Just save the trees and don't print it out. It is utterly worthless. Those that seek specific information will be disappointed and no one else will look up what the gain knob does.
Please go to EBS and check out the way these people document their pedals. They know how to do that.
This is what they have to say about the knob labeled 'Bass' on their MicroBass3 Pedal:
They even add a circuit diagram at the end.
Their manuals are superb.
I don't need a small cloth bag. That's a nice touch for the unboxing - but it's for the unboxing only.
