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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
Okay, that did not last long.
It's a bit of a side effect, when the dam breaks at the precise moment the volcano erupts, yet you're not really concerned about either because you're standing in the middle of a sand storm that is also a blizzard.
Drop a brick on the gas pedal and hold onto the wheel. There is no holding back.
With the gain at zero, the "F it, we ball!" channel passes no signal. With the gain at .001, you get audible distortion.
And while it felt like you have to push the normal channel into drive, the boost channel drives you. The tone stack is the same, but the gain is a different beast entirely. As I wrote earlier - if I understood the whole thing right, the signal passes stage one of tube one and stage two of tube two in the normal channel, while it passes both stages of both tubes in the boost channel, so it's probably picking up twice as much gain - it certainly feels like the gorilla inside who runs things had just received a certain dart in the neck.
It also does not sound like you've just dumped a bucket of dB on the same circuit. It sounds like you turbocharged it along the way and fed it nitro instead of air. There is a completely different flavor to the nature of the drive. I'm tempted to use the word "timbre", but that's inappropriate. It's more like Josh Homme played bass and someone dropped the voltage to his pedalboard to 5V.
When you manage to create an ultra silent chainsaw, one that is made of chitin, even the chain, with organic forms, like someone paid HR Giger money to design such a thing. Since it's running on magic insect power, it emits no sound whatsoever, besides the soft whirring of the chain. Use that chainsaw to cut a sail on a boat in a soft breeze. That gorgeous sound of strong fabric tearing under relentless assault, that sits on top of a slightly mushy cauldron of driven bass that boils angrily below, on top of a crackling fire.
I will hopefully have band practice on the weekend. They meet up to track the drums for a demo tape and if they finish early, we'll meet up and play together.So … is it any good?
I want to have band practice because I want to see how it fares.
Going from memory alone, I cannot compare the Smoke Signal to the Meatsmoke, for the simple fact that I sold it mere weeks after it was released.
However, there are more pedals that are tube driven and feature something resembling a Fender tonestack.
From the top of my head, There is the Sushi Box FX Underground Accelerator, the Particle Accelerator, the AMT A-Bass and O-Bass, the EBS thing,
to name a few.
And there are non tube devices like the Spaceman Redstone, the Origin Bassrig '64, the Broughton Scorpion, among others.
I want to say this about the normal channel: While most of the aforementioned devices are absolutely capable of giving you a gentle and cultivated drive tone, something that could work well in ... is there such a thing as white collar blues music?
I want to say the Meatsmoke sounds a little more ballsy. It's not in the EQ, it's in the nature of the breakup.
While the tone stack says Fender, the balls have a strong smell of ampeg SVT if that makes any sense.
This is your clean tone when your clean tone is slightly dirty. I still don't have another explanation apart from the feeling of a stressed amp I'm getting. And of course, it's a little more grindy and a little less smooth than most others.
If you want a (tube driven) Fender tone stack pedal that delivers a smooth drive with a pearly texture and rich bottom end, then take your pick.
If you want a tube driven Fender tone stack pedal that kicks ass, then the Meatsmoke does things the others dream of.
....and I still have not said anything about the boost channel.
I think it's called Joe Bonamassa.
{I've played some of his songs and enjoyed it but the emotional level was white collar}
The EHX English Muff'n (I already mentioned it once in this thread), which by the way is an awesome sounding tube overdrive for bass, and has nothing to do with a Big Muff, features a Fender style tone stack as well.
I thought the English Muff'n comes with the Marshall tone stack which is, IIRC, also passive and cut only, but works a bit differently from the Fender version.
What kept me off buying one of these was the simple fact that they run off AC voltage and my Cioks PSUs can't supply that. I feared that I might like it enough to want it on a board ...
You are probably right, since it is supposed to emulate a Marshall style preamp, but yes it is passive, and sounds best with everything beneath 12 o'clock, in my opinion.
I've personally found I liked it with the Bass and Treble around 10 o'clock, and the Mids control around 11 o'clock. or so.
I also preferred it with both stock tubes, I forget which, but lower gain than 12AX7, replaced for 12AX7 tubes, and then just dial down the Drive, though it does sound great at pretty much its entire range of gain.
And it's still capable of low gain overdrive tones, even with 12AX7 tubes, just not the very light, near clean, sort of drive.
But I feel it is more defined and articulate with those tubes.
A shame about the dedicated AC power supply scaring you away from buying it, I would have loved to hear your take on it.
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The original Marshall Plexi was based around the same basic preamp topology as the classic Fender amps, in fact it’s fair to say that most of the classic tube guitar heads used that same basic passive EQ topology with different component values and sometimes slightly different routing that shifted the size and location of the frequency curves. I think I posted the link to a website that simulates the EQ curves of most of the classic guitar amp stacks when we were talking about he Broughton Scorpion.
I used to share a rehearsal space in Los Angeles with a guitarist who owned the big 300 tube watt Verellen Meatsmoke amp (I think it was still called the Meatsmoke in amp form?). He let me play through it whenever I wanted and I did experiment with it a bit when we were self-recording an album there. I was never really able to find the high-midrange edge I favored then, probably because it was up against my Mesa Boogie Prodigy that was like a scythe in that frequency area. It was a massive sound though!
@el murdoque, maybe put this one on the list for exploration since you seemed to like the original JPTR Jive. I think Deluxe Jive is really the limited edition Bass Jive with some rebranding.
JPTR FX DELUXE Jive - Reel Saturator Overdrive
JPTR FX DELUXE JIVE – 10 YEARS IN THE MAKING, NOW REIMAGINED The JPTR FX DELUXE JIVE – a decade in the making, now refined with even more headroom, dynamics, and tone-shaping capabilities. Originally conceived as the Bass Jive, this circuit was designed to give bassists the ultimate saturation...
jptrfx.com
@el murdoque, maybe put this one on the list for exploration since you seemed to like the original JPTR Jive. I think Deluxe Jive is really the limited edition Bass Jive with some rebranding.
JPTR FX DELUXE Jive - Reel Saturator Overdrive
JPTR FX DELUXE JIVE – 10 YEARS IN THE MAKING, NOW REIMAGINED The JPTR FX DELUXE JIVE – a decade in the making, now refined with even more headroom, dynamics, and tone-shaping capabilities. Originally conceived as the Bass Jive, this circuit was designed to give bassists the ultimate saturation...jptrfx.com
Yeah, we’ll get a review like 2 years from now
This thread is one of the most enjoyable and informative threads on Talkbass, but I would never want to smell the balls of an SVT!!!! We will live this experience vicariously through you @el murdoque ;-)
Well, our boy is in Germany after all, so lets say 22 months.Yeah, we’ll get a review like 2 years from now
When I bought my Jive, I did so through a retailer.
When the issues with the new models have been fixed and they are available through retailers in Germany, I'll consider getting one myself,
but I must admit that for some reason I cannot specify, I'm not super hyped about that pedal.
That might change when the reviews pop up. We'll see.
When the issues with the new models have been fixed and they are available through retailers in Germany, I'll consider getting one myself,
but I must admit that for some reason I cannot specify, I'm not super hyped about that pedal.
That might change when the reviews pop up. We'll see.
Regarding JPTR FX:
Did I get that right, that they retired the regular Jive, then came out with a Bass Jive and did some preorder deal, and there was some issue with it that got discovered while the first few units were already sent out, so some are in the wild while the others are still waited for and in this whole process they decided to rename the pedal to Jive Deluxe instead of Bass Jive ?
Did I get that right, that they retired the regular Jive, then came out with a Bass Jive and did some preorder deal, and there was some issue with it that got discovered while the first few units were already sent out, so some are in the wild while the others are still waited for and in this whole process they decided to rename the pedal to Jive Deluxe instead of Bass Jive ?
It hasn’t exactly been the game plan for a pedal lunch you’d want to copy. Not quite as bad as the GFI Solis Ventus, but far from ideal.
Yeah, something like that. They decided to retire the old Jive and turn the Bass Jive into Deluxe Jive as it works great with guitars too (and why wouldn't it). Bass Jive will stay as a "limited run" with what is basically just a different enclosure.
A "subscriber to the channel" just sent me this:
....you have your iconic design nailed down when a blank pedal without any writing, graphics or anything else on it needs no further explanation.
I tip my head to you, Mr. Bill Finnegan.
This one is called "The Aluminum Falcon" and was made by Piedmond Custom Electronics.
....you have your iconic design nailed down when a blank pedal without any writing, graphics or anything else on it needs no further explanation.
I tip my head to you, Mr. Bill Finnegan.
This one is called "The Aluminum Falcon" and was made by Piedmond Custom Electronics.
