+1 for the Pork Loin.... Based on what is being asked and the amount you wish to spend. You can find a Pork Loin in that ballpark and it will likely do the job for you.
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This is good advice. I think maybe a little tone-shaping might be necessary? Once the tone starts including drive, I might need a little color to make it work in a mix properly.
I am going to give my Cusack another go at rehearsal this week. I will try to quantify how far off it is from what I want.
for me when it came to dirt, inexpensive pedals ended up costing me more in the long run because I went through so many trying to find stuff I liked. I'd recommend saving up a little and getting a darkglass b3k or darkglass vintage microtubes depending on which one is more appropriate for the music you play. If you're playing modern stuff maybe the b3k, if you're more into old school tones the vintage microtubes. If you spend $100 on a pedal now and hundred on another later you'll have already spent more than what you can get the b3k of vintage microtubes for.
It isn't really a question of "saving up," it is more a question of what it is worth to me. I agree with your thoughts here, but I could easily go through as many $250 pedals as $100-or-less pedals. Maybe the odds go up of finding what I want in a little higher price range, though.
I've been all through that. I've also been through PYPB threads looking at what people are using, favorite effects threads, YT and other sound clips/demos, etc.
I went through this same thing looking for an envelope filter. I don't remember what all I've tried, but I kept three. The most expensive is my least favorite.
Keep in mind that the nature of overdrive is harmonic excitement. This emphasizes overtones, meaning mids and highs will be accentuated and enhanced. The resulting clipping is a form of compression, which can tend to emphasize mids, rolling off the lows, and rounding off the highs.
Ive never heard the Pork Loin as being "voiced" certainly not in the same way the darkglass pedals are. To my ears it's very transparent. That's me though ymmv.
The pork loin has a "curve function" control that is really a mid control.
It also has a nice range from subtle to pretty hairy. Tim Lefebvre used it with an OC-2 and a chorus pedal to get the synth drum'n'bass tones on the song "Sue" from David Bowie's last album Blackstar.
I had the darkglass vintage side by side with the loin and felt there was much better low end with the loin so sold the darkglass. The clean knob allows you to dial in some hefty low end. Sometimes I use it as bass boost for reggae tunes.
I have the unmodded version.
The pork loin has a "curve function" control that is really a mid control.
It also has a nice range from subtle to pretty hairy. Tim Lefebvre used it with an OC-2 and a chorus pedal to get the synth drum'n'bass tones on the song "Sue" from David Bowie's last album Blackstar.
I had the darkglass vintage side by side with the loin and felt there was much better low end with the loin so sold the darkglass. The clean knob allows you to dial in some hefty low end. Sometimes I use it as bass boost for reggae tunes.
I have the unmodded version.
Fender Blender!!!
Hands down!
I can't promise you you'll get a transparent overdrive sound out of it, actually it is not very likely, unless someone by accident swapped the components with another pedal, but you will get the most nasty, brutal, harsh, ugly, over the top out of control fuzz sound ever heard on planet earth.
Sorry for not being of any help here, I haven't really been much into overdrives for bass, least of all subtle transparent ones.
I am planing to get Behringers SansAmp clone the BDI21 however to run my active PA speaker with disabled horn with a bit of low end grit, bi amping with my real bass amp staying clean.
But I wouldn't exactly advice that for you either, since the whole purpose of a pre amp is to color the sound.
A wild guess though: Maybe a Joyo American Sound, though that is actually a pre amp too, so I guess it will color the sound as well?
I must admit I don't quite understand the concept of transparent overdrive, isn't the purpose of overdrive normally to color your sound?
Maybe run whatever pedal you end up chocing as overdrive in a loop connected to for example the Boss LS-2, so you have the option of balance the sound of your overdrive unit with the clean sound.
Hands down!
I can't promise you you'll get a transparent overdrive sound out of it, actually it is not very likely, unless someone by accident swapped the components with another pedal, but you will get the most nasty, brutal, harsh, ugly, over the top out of control fuzz sound ever heard on planet earth.
Sorry for not being of any help here, I haven't really been much into overdrives for bass, least of all subtle transparent ones.
I am planing to get Behringers SansAmp clone the BDI21 however to run my active PA speaker with disabled horn with a bit of low end grit, bi amping with my real bass amp staying clean.
But I wouldn't exactly advice that for you either, since the whole purpose of a pre amp is to color the sound.
A wild guess though: Maybe a Joyo American Sound, though that is actually a pre amp too, so I guess it will color the sound as well?
I must admit I don't quite understand the concept of transparent overdrive, isn't the purpose of overdrive normally to color your sound?
Maybe run whatever pedal you end up chocing as overdrive in a loop connected to for example the Boss LS-2, so you have the option of balance the sound of your overdrive unit with the clean sound.
I wondered about that one. It is definitely cheap; I just wonder about the low gain settings. Still, for $50, how wrong can I go? I am curious about how its low gain settings compare to the spark booster.
I think I owned a Fender Phaser once. The pedal case was definitely cool, but I must not have cared for the sound, because I don't own it anymore.
I was curious about those, but had read the low end retention could be suspect. What's your experience there?
I wondered about that one. It is definitely cheap; I just wonder about the low gain settings. Still, for $50, how wrong can I go? I am curious about how its low gain settings compare to the spark booster.
Cool I know those, with the big food pad control knob sort of thing to adjust the rate with, right.
I know we are going off topic, but I actually had the chance to try out a Fender Blender a couple of times, and they sound amazing, if you are into out of control noisy harsh and ugly stuff.
Unfortunately they are out of production, both the original and the reissue, which goes for insane prices used.
As far as I know no one is building clones either officially, though there have been some available on the market at a point.
So the only option left is to use the schematics you can find on the web, and build one yourself or have someone to do it for you.
And I simply wont ever be able to make one myself, as I understand it is not a beginner build as the circuit is fairly complex, and pared with the fact last time I had an electronic lesson was in public school and I forgot most of what I learned then, I think I might as well giving up straight away ever getting to build one my self.
Luckily I know someone who is an electronics engineer, so plan on trying to convince a him it would be a good idea to build me a clone, of course me paying for the components and a minor economical compensation for lost time and as a thank you.
I haven't had any problems with low end loss, but I use mostly fenders in standard tuning with an emphasis on midrange. I did notice that it was pretty unimpressive at bedroom volume, but really comes to life at band volumes. I had great results using it in a band with 2 loud and heavily effected guitars. It'd still be on my board if I hadn't fallen into a used Pike Vulcan. That said, I'm not getting rid of it!
Southampton 5th gear. Surprised nobody has mentioned one here yet! I use with my passive P-bass, does exactly what you describe. No low end loss at all. Touch sensitive OD, Can be set to not even be noticeable until you dig in. I have the older single knob version I picked up used for about $100.
Others I had my eye on, Grizzly, Barbershop, way huge pork loin, In that order. But the 5th gear halted my mild OD search/GAS on the first try!
Others I had my eye on, Grizzly, Barbershop, way huge pork loin, In that order. But the 5th gear halted my mild OD search/GAS on the first try!
Useful video showing several of the boxes noted here.
I haven't listened to either of these. I'll check out the video above. I was just reading a JMJ thread where he liked the spark booster, the Bearfoot Blueberry, and the Suppa Phat Phuk. Listening to samples, the SPP is definitely phat. The Bearfoot pedal sounded surprisingly good in the low register, but was reported as not doing extremely low gain settings.
Off to do more listening. Thanks all for the input so far!
