Being honest with myself, I'm a fickle b!tch.
Sometimes I may not get along with a pedal initially.
It may take either time, or actually selling it off, and reacquiring it to fully form an opinion.
And sometimes that second chance is worth it.
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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
Sometimes I may not get along with a pedal initially.
It may take either time, or actually selling it off, and reacquiring it to fully form an opinion.
And sometimes that second chance is worth it.
I run mine right now as a preamp (in opamp mode), but if I'm going for this description, its gotta be LED mode, as I feel it's much more open sounding and less compressed than silicon. Silicon being the standard rate, and LED being the fat rat, IIRC.
I know the recent focus has been the DOD but as long as we’re talking Josh and his videos influencing us - has anyone here spent time with the JHS Moonshine or Morning Glory?
I spent a long time with a Double Barrel and it did quite well for me. I got into it after watching his videos about stacking different drives and how they combine and I ran it in front of a Pork and Pickle for a good while. Prior to starting this journey I was running a Sansamp Programmable Bass Driver DI and it was great, but I had no way to stack my different settings.
Then I found this thread (whoops) and now I’m rotating through drives to try things out, but I feel like I might be seeking out a Moonshine in the future…
I spent a long time with a Double Barrel and it did quite well for me. I got into it after watching his videos about stacking different drives and how they combine and I ran it in front of a Pork and Pickle for a good while. Prior to starting this journey I was running a Sansamp Programmable Bass Driver DI and it was great, but I had no way to stack my different settings.
Then I found this thread (whoops) and now I’m rotating through drives to try things out, but I feel like I might be seeking out a Moonshine in the future…
- Feb 16, 2008
- 21,240
- 23,638
- Disclosures
- John K Custom Basses
i had a morning glory V4 but it cut too much low end for me so i sold it
Yeah, that’s probably the main reason for taking the Double Barrel off the board for me. I liked the presence and light bit of grit and sparkle it added and I REALLY liked the red remote gain switching for punching into the Pork Loin. Tilt EQ isn’t my favorite control - I think it could work if I was using the EQ tilted to the bass side but I was trying to add a bright crunch very mild OD to contrast with a darker clean tone.
On that note I’m trying out a Fairfield Barbershop and it’s hitting the spot so far. Also have a Saturn VI on the way to try in that role or as a harmonic booster to layer onto the downstream pedals.
Both pedals are great for that IMHO.
Also, as a somewhat cheaper alternative, the JPTR FX Jive - although I preferred running other dirt into the Jive. I set it up so it would add just a touch of harmonics, somewhat hard to spot when playing softly, but play a drive pedal into it and your sound is sprouting chest hair in alarming quantities!
Oh gosh. Even though I spread my purchases over several days, it seems like all pedals will arrive on Thursday. The Rat seller lives close by - and I purchased the Pedal last Wednesday, but he only managed to ship it a few minutes ago. The D+ is incoming from Slovenia and has arrived on German soil, but the tracking is vague about its whereabouts, and the 250 is coming in from Austria, tracking claiming that it'll be with me on Thursday.
So much for getting one of them, bringing it home, have a nice time together and then getting the next one.
So much for getting one of them, bringing it home, have a nice time together and then getting the next one.
Just a mere hour after I accepted the sad truth, the Postman came round and dropped the MXR onto the counter.
I did buy it from Slovenia, with only one shaky photo. It has those rubber pot cover things that are probably meant for changing the knob position with your foot, and it is from the Dunlop era. So It's most llikely the current version.
Why has Josh never made an exhausting video on all the MXR D+ pedals?
It is surprisingly heavy, too.
I did buy it from Slovenia, with only one shaky photo. It has those rubber pot cover things that are probably meant for changing the knob position with your foot, and it is from the Dunlop era. So It's most llikely the current version.
Why has Josh never made an exhausting video on all the MXR D+ pedals?
It is surprisingly heavy, too.
First sonic impressions:
This is hard clipping in a very pure form.
Does an oldschool device such as this cut the lows? It does. Does it matter? I want to say no.
After playing around a bit, I hooked it up to the Broughton FX Loop and tried to blend in some clean signal, but I had the feeling the device is fighting tooth and nail against such misuse.
My first few minutes of testing with headphones suggest that the MXR does cut a little bit of the sub bass frequency range, plus it pushes the upper mids a fair bit.
Googling around for frequency response graphs yielded quite a few results, and they all looked similar:
With increasing gain, the bass drops out - or the area around 1,5k gets a hefty push - which leads to the same impression.
However, the MXR Distortion + is not a pedal that aims to shake your gut.
It's totally, completely and full on in your face. I can imagine that the hard clipping device is great to push a tube amp when playing a guitar solo.
I can also imagine that it is capable of helping the bass not getting completely lost in a mix. However, I feel like you need to want some serious distortion to enjoy it. I will have to play around with the lower gain settings, but that will be tomorrow.
This is hard clipping in a very pure form.
Does an oldschool device such as this cut the lows? It does. Does it matter? I want to say no.
After playing around a bit, I hooked it up to the Broughton FX Loop and tried to blend in some clean signal, but I had the feeling the device is fighting tooth and nail against such misuse.
My first few minutes of testing with headphones suggest that the MXR does cut a little bit of the sub bass frequency range, plus it pushes the upper mids a fair bit.
Googling around for frequency response graphs yielded quite a few results, and they all looked similar:
With increasing gain, the bass drops out - or the area around 1,5k gets a hefty push - which leads to the same impression.
However, the MXR Distortion + is not a pedal that aims to shake your gut.
It's totally, completely and full on in your face. I can imagine that the hard clipping device is great to push a tube amp when playing a guitar solo.
I can also imagine that it is capable of helping the bass not getting completely lost in a mix. However, I feel like you need to want some serious distortion to enjoy it. I will have to play around with the lower gain settings, but that will be tomorrow.
Here it is.
For the uninitiated, a small history lesson:
Before DOD did the old grey box Overdrive Preamp, they did an even older one, but these are quite obscure.
Josh from JHS managed to get two of them in his hands, and they sound quite different. That stems from the building process of DOD in the early seventies. They sourced their parts from ... wherever they could find them. And they did not insist on building every single pedal with absolutely identical parts, but went with whatever was at hand that got the job done.
One of these pedals Josh found is serial number 75, the other is unknown. He decided, as an homage, to build a pedal that faithfully reproduces the sound of both units - hence the switch between the two knobs.
It is a fairly simple circuit, but the gut shot is a bit. . . well, look for yourself:
Eddie Rifkin's Klaren Highly Unprofessional Drive has called for the Manager!
I decided to try another of Eddie's offerings to the Lords of Crunch after having experienced the Karen Speaker Manager this time the Klaren Highly Unprofessional Drive, his take on the notorious KLON/KTR pedal circuit. Controls are pretty straight forward with Krunch, Klean, K-Tone and K-Loudness in an appropriately "All that Glitters is Golden" finish with that Karen as Centaur Graphic complete with cell, emotional support doggie and latte. Are you not amused? With this control set the Klaren can be used as a boost to nicely crunchy overdrive with the ability to add Klean and throttle as desired with the nicely voiced K-Tone that affects both the Klean and Krunch. Beware Loudness has a lot on tap so it can easily drive the front of an amp or other pedals very hard if needed.
While not a bass specific pedal it does offer control over Klean and Krunch so finding the right blend is easy for us and offers a sweet tone for bass whether you are looking to use it an a tone enhancer or adding the right touch of crunchy overdrive that retains a harmonic sweetness with clarity and bottom that may be a bit too hard to switch off. Perfect for an always on tone I really liked Klaren on fretless especially for bringing out harmonics that punch nicely in a mix.
On piccolo bass, electric guitar and steel this pedal really comes alive so it will likely find a home in that set up. It is very easy to see why this circuit is so popular for tone chasers and Eddie Rifkin has done it up right.
I decided to try another of Eddie's offerings to the Lords of Crunch after having experienced the Karen Speaker Manager this time the Klaren Highly Unprofessional Drive, his take on the notorious KLON/KTR pedal circuit. Controls are pretty straight forward with Krunch, Klean, K-Tone and K-Loudness in an appropriately "All that Glitters is Golden" finish with that Karen as Centaur Graphic complete with cell, emotional support doggie and latte. Are you not amused? With this control set the Klaren can be used as a boost to nicely crunchy overdrive with the ability to add Klean and throttle as desired with the nicely voiced K-Tone that affects both the Klean and Krunch. Beware Loudness has a lot on tap so it can easily drive the front of an amp or other pedals very hard if needed.
While not a bass specific pedal it does offer control over Klean and Krunch so finding the right blend is easy for us and offers a sweet tone for bass whether you are looking to use it an a tone enhancer or adding the right touch of crunchy overdrive that retains a harmonic sweetness with clarity and bottom that may be a bit too hard to switch off. Perfect for an always on tone I really liked Klaren on fretless especially for bringing out harmonics that punch nicely in a mix.
On piccolo bass, electric guitar and steel this pedal really comes alive so it will likely find a home in that set up. It is very easy to see why this circuit is so popular for tone chasers and Eddie Rifkin has done it up right.
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First impressions on the JHS Overdrive Preamp.
1. It somehow weirds me out that the knobs' travel is labeled 1-10, with 1 actually being 0. Noon position is not 5, its between 5 and 6 and that feels just wrong.
2. In solo playing, I like it a lot more than the MXR D+.
The switch lets you choose between a tone that feels like it cuts a bit of bass and emphasizes the top end more, bringing out the harmonics in a shrill and offensive manner - and a tone that is a bit more relaxed (relaxed for a hard clipping device, that is) and features more bottom end. I like the shrill tone better than the D+ even though there are lots of similarities - and I like the mellow tone best of them all.
I tried around a bit with different basses in different configurations, here are some random observations:
-The Level knob on the D+ feels a bit weird. There's not much boost in there and it does not feel like other gain/level combos I have used.
-The Level knob on the JHS has more boost - and I think that is something that Josh put in there himself, calling it a 'correction' of the circuit. It feels right, though.
-The gain on the JHS in the mellow setting has a lot of tone sweetener style breakup from 1 to just past noon, and the nasty distortion like breakup starts just past 8 on the dial.
-Maxed out, the amount of gain is comparable between the MXR and both switch positions on the JHS.
-There are absolutely no cozy bedroom bassist settings in the D+, but the JHS can deliver in that regard.
- I really would like to try the D+ in band context, but there will be no rehearsals in the next two weeks.
1. It somehow weirds me out that the knobs' travel is labeled 1-10, with 1 actually being 0. Noon position is not 5, its between 5 and 6 and that feels just wrong.
2. In solo playing, I like it a lot more than the MXR D+.
The switch lets you choose between a tone that feels like it cuts a bit of bass and emphasizes the top end more, bringing out the harmonics in a shrill and offensive manner - and a tone that is a bit more relaxed (relaxed for a hard clipping device, that is) and features more bottom end. I like the shrill tone better than the D+ even though there are lots of similarities - and I like the mellow tone best of them all.
I tried around a bit with different basses in different configurations, here are some random observations:
-The Level knob on the D+ feels a bit weird. There's not much boost in there and it does not feel like other gain/level combos I have used.
-The Level knob on the JHS has more boost - and I think that is something that Josh put in there himself, calling it a 'correction' of the circuit. It feels right, though.
-The gain on the JHS in the mellow setting has a lot of tone sweetener style breakup from 1 to just past noon, and the nasty distortion like breakup starts just past 8 on the dial.
-Maxed out, the amount of gain is comparable between the MXR and both switch positions on the JHS.
-There are absolutely no cozy bedroom bassist settings in the D+, but the JHS can deliver in that regard.
- I really would like to try the D+ in band context, but there will be no rehearsals in the next two weeks.
No, but that and the Violet are intriguing. If I remember it right, Hard Drive is more of a Distortion and Violet is more of an Overdrive, but dial up the gain and they start to enter fuzz territory. I'm starting to really value parametric mids, it really lets you dial in your desired tone.
- Feb 16, 2008
- 21,240
- 23,638
- Disclosures
- John K Custom Basses
i bought one but quickly returned it. i didn't like the sound of the distortion at all. I do have his Colorbox v2 and prefer it of the hard drive by a lot.
