NPDx4: MXR Dirt, Aftershock, and a Colour Box

[moon-bass]

So picked up two MXR distortion pedals - the M85 and the M89.

The M89 was an accident. I swear. But, it was definitely a happy accident. It sounds great. The test of a really good OD pedal, for me, is if I can get a nice touch sensitive response - where if I dig in, the pedal breaks up but I der normal playing it doesn't. The M89 delivers in spades. It has a very natural break up and zero loss of low end. Reminds me of a FTT Bass Blaster

The M85 is the same but crunchier. The silicon diode setting reminds me of the Damnation Audio MB2. Very crunchy and no loss of low end there either.

The Aftershock - I need to get into the setting more, but on the surface it is great. Again, very flexible, the tube OD setting sounds very natural. Gonna spend some time with this one next week.

Finally, the JHS Colour Box. It's a Never console clone box and it has that nice, smooth console tone. I was surprised as to how punchy it was, with little tweaking. Clarity and punch! I need to mess with the clipping - it's not the most musical sounding. - I bought this to compare with the Black Mountain Signal - its very different, a completely different take on the 60's console vibe.

 

[GMC]

Congratulations with your new dirt boxes.
I can't comment about your JHS pedal as it's not one that I've tried.
However the MXR M85 Bass Distortion is an excellent bass pedal. It has a true clean blend and the red LED diode options is a really nice sounding clipping circuit. I've modded a lot of overdrives for bass and I tend to find that red LED clipping diodes tend to sound best. It's based on a customised RAT, so it's a fuzz box primarily. However, it has a number of sweet rat tricks that work well. Max out the Distortion / grit knob to max and then really pull back your bass' volume knob to find the gentle overdrive creaminess. It really mellow out, it's an old counter intuitive RAT trick.
The MXR M89 Bass Overdrive was a bit of a disappointment for me. It sounds great and it's a nice sounding OD. However...it could have been a much better pedal. The drive knob doesn't ever go to truly clean. So there's a massive tonal foot print between the on/off foot switch. The pedal has a baked in Overdrive and EQ sound that can't be dialled out. That said, the The "on" sound is very nice but it is far from transparent. A truly dynamic pedal can dial in really subtle levels of grit, which sound like your bass with a bit of hair through to full breakup and then into distortion. Something like a Fairfield Barbershop does this amazingly well. The other issue with this pedal is that "Clean" knob isn't a wet / dry control but a baked in EQ Curve that the "Clean" knob dials in.
Ahh...the Source Audio Aftershock, one of the modern miracles of bass dirt. This is one of my treasures and it literally kicked about 8 dirt pedals off my board (including the two MXR's above). This one pedal can literally cover nearly every bass dirt situation that you could throw at it, except for some of the Gated 2 transistor fuzzes (like the Woolly Mammoth or Titan II). It's been on my board since it was launched and I can't see that it will be pushed off any time soon. The user Community patches are vast and there is everything you could want in there. The pedal has 6 user preset slots and you will find that the quantity of available patches on the cloud is be overwhelming and choosing your 6 can be hard. But stick with this pedal because it is super easy to dial in and mega versatile.

 

[shwashwa]

the drive on the jhs is different than what most pedals are going after. i love it as a clean tone, or just on the edge of breakup. but then again, i'm a huge fan of the neve tone. i use it as a mic preamp too and love it for that

 

[kevmac]

So picked up two MXR distortion pedals - the M85 and the M89.

The M89 was an accident. I swear. But, it was definitely a happy accident. It sounds great. The test of a really good OD pedal, for me, is if I can get a nice touch sensitive response - where if I dig in, the pedal breaks up but I der normal playing it doesn't. The M89 delivers in spades. It has a very natural break up and zero loss of low end. Reminds me of a FTT Bass Blaster

The M85 is the same but crunchier. The silicon diode setting reminds me of the Damnation Audio MB2. Very crunchy and no loss of low end there either.

The Aftershock - I need to get into the setting more, but on the surface it is great. Again, very flexible, the tube OD setting sounds very natural. Gonna spend some time with this one next week.

Finally, the JHS Colour Box. It's a Never console clone box and it has that nice, smooth console tone. I was surprised as to how punchy it was, with little tweaking. Clarity and punch! I need to mess with the clipping - it's not the most musical sounding. - I bought this to compare with the Black Mountain Signal - its very different, a completely different take on the 60's console vibe.

Bro , I got nothing on you.We gotta be related.I spent today also.I sell then buy,but you know that.I had the M-85 and it's brutal.I have the Aftershock also,it does everything. As always,have fun!

 

[moon-bass]

the drive on the jhs is different than what most pedals are going after. i love it as a clean tone, or just on the edge of breakup. but then again, i'm a huge fan of the neve tone. i use it as a mic preamp too and love it for that

Yeah, so far I'm not a fan of the breakup on the Colour Box at all. I'm definitely not going to get a useable dirt sound out of this box. I'm digging the punch and clarity, but it's also got a little too much top end for my tastes. That being said, I'm going to pair it up with the Fatdrive at some point and see how well those two play together.

 

[shwashwa]

Yeah, so far I'm not a fan of the breakup on the Colour Box at all. I'm definitely not going to get a useable dirt sound out of this box. I'm digging the punch and clarity, but it's also got a little too much top end for my tastes. That being said, I'm going to pair it up with the Fatdrive at some point and see how well those two play together.

Yeah I think Josh originally developed the pedal to get that Beatles revolution guitar sound, which I don't think is even a universal guitar distortion that would be loved by everyone, it's kind of a niche thing, but if you use it as a tool like a studio channel I think it's great. For me the magic is in the gain staging and getting those transformers to run hot but not breaking up. Transformer distortion is much different than tube distortion I think. Also I would think you'd be able to get a pretty dark sound out of it especially with the sweepable treble frequencies. I usually just run it flat and like to get that Neve sound which I think is partly made up of some slight transformer saturation and compression. I've been loving it as a mic preamp when recording upright Bass.

 

[kevmac]

Yeah, so far I'm not a fan of the breakup on the Colour Box at all. I'm definitely not going to get a useable dirt sound out of this box. I'm digging the punch and clarity, but it's also got a little too much top end for my tastes. That being said, I'm going to pair it up with the Fatdrive at some point and see how well those two play together.

I bought the Hudson Broadcast recently and it supposedly is modeled after a 60s British board input so it's a bit similar in this regard, although it does get dirty.Sometimes you gotta find it's nitch.It's like how I wasn't crazy about certain records at first.Then they turn into a fave after a bit.

 

[the low one]

So picked up two MXR distortion pedals - the M85 and the M89.

The M89 was an accident. I swear. But, it was definitely a happy accident. It sounds great. The test of a really good OD pedal, for me, is if I can get a nice touch sensitive response - where if I dig in, the pedal breaks up but I der normal playing it doesn't. The M89 delivers in spades. It has a very natural break up and zero loss of low end. Reminds me of a FTT Bass Blaster

The M85 is the same but crunchier. The silicon diode setting reminds me of the Damnation Audio MB2. Very crunchy and no loss of low end there either.

The Aftershock - I need to get into the setting more, but on the surface it is great. Again, very flexible, the tube OD setting sounds very natural. Gonna spend some time with this one next week.

Finally, the JHS Colour Box. It's a Never console clone box and it has that nice, smooth console tone. I was surprised as to how punchy it was, with little tweaking. Clarity and punch! I need to mess with the clipping - it's not the most musical sounding. - I bought this to compare with the Black Mountain Signal - its very different, a completely different take on the 60's console vibe.

I'm with you on the M89 overdrive.
I found it hard at first dialling in the amount of drive because when you play solo it sounds too much but in a band setting, and especially in FOH it cuts through well, and what sounds like too much gain when solo works in FOH.