Reiner Amplification Gasoline Bass Overdrive

[monsterthompson]

...and JGR knows how to do manuals right!

Dang. Now I've got GAS.

 

[Fuzzbass]

I lucked into another three-gigs-with-three-bands weekend: Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday noon. I hope to use this pedal for all three.

I'll post 3 gig reports when I get a chance! Maybe one each for Lean, Stoich, and Rich?

 

[JGR]

I'll post 3 gig reports when I get a chance! Maybe one each for Lean, Stoich, and Rich?

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Which bands/gigs you got lined up Ken? Glad you will be able to put it through it’s paces!

 

[Fuzzbass]

Which bands/gigs you got lined up Ken? Glad you will be able to put it through it’s paces!

Ok, since you're twisting my arm...

8:30 tonight: playing with Well Hello There at Ellie's Place in Millersville (fairly close to me but I've never been there before). Well Hello There is the same personnel as Radio Monkey, but we've subtracted the cool metal songs and added radio rock (e.g. Tom Petty!) because this isn't a hard rock bar. So maybe this will be a "Lean" night.

9pm tomorrow night: my main band Nitro Crush is back at Perry's in Odenton. I will try to bring the NV610 for this gig and the next because they are easy load-ins. This will be a "Rich" setting gig.

Noon on Sunday: my second sub gig with Whiskerfish. Same as the first, it's at Harley-Davidson of Baltimore. The coolest thing about this gig is that my brother will be subbing on guitar!! He's the musician of the family, and I haven't gigged with him in years. It might be an interesting gig because the drummer won't be the same one as last time... but no big deal, if he knows how to listen then he can follow my brother and me. Might as well go with Stoichiometry for this one!

 

[Fuzzbass]

Noon on Sunday: my second sub gig with Whiskerfish. Same as the first, it's at Harley-Davidson of Baltimore. The coolest thing about this gig is that my brother will be subbing on guitar!! He's the musician of the family, and I haven't gigged with him in years. It might be an interesting gig because the drummer won't be the same one as last time... but no big deal, if he knows how to listen then he can follow my brother and me. Might as well go with Stoichiometry for this one!

@kjones -- I'm sure you'll be gigging at church, but if you happen to be off, then bring your bass and sit in!

 

[JGR]

Ok, since you're twisting my arm...

8:30 tonight: playing with Well Hello There at Ellie's Place in Millersville (fairly close to me but I've never been there before). Well Hello There is the same personnel as Radio Monkey, but we've subtracted the cool metal songs and added radio rock (e.g. Tom Petty!) because this isn't a hard rock bar. So maybe this will be a "Lean" night.

9pm tomorrow night: my main band Nitro Crush is back at Perry's in Odenton. I will try to bring the NV610 for this gig and the next because they are easy load-ins. This will be a "Rich" setting gig.

Noon on Sunday: my second sub gig with Whiskerfish. Same as the first, it's at Harley-Davidson of Baltimore. The coolest thing about this gig is that my brother will be subbing on guitar!! He's the musician of the family, and I haven't gigged with him in years. It might be an interesting gig because the drummer won't be the same one as last time... but no big deal, if he knows how to listen then he can follow my brother and me. Might as well go with Stoichiometry for this one!

Nice! And just to confuse the situation, I’m thinking in reverse of you with the Rich mode and lower gain for more classic tones and the Lean mode with some Octane boost for the harder stuff! Stoich for either! I’m sure you’ll figure it out!

 

[kjones]

@kjones -- I'm sure you'll be gigging at church, but if you happen to be off, then bring your bass and sit in!

Aww, it's killing me because as you know, I am a HUGE fan of Tyrone and to hear the two of you guys play together would be fantastic.

However, you got it right, that is right at the beginning of my church work this Sunday. Then I run to rehearsal for Dave's and my show which opens next week. Five gigs per week to the end of the month--you know I love that!

 

[Fuzzbass]

Nice! And just to confuse the situation, I’m thinking in reverse of you with the Rich mode and lower gain for more classic tones and the Lean mode with some Octane boost for the harder stuff! Stoich for either! I’m sure you’ll figure it out!

Great ideas!

 

[Fuzzbass]

Aww, it's killing me because as you know, I am a HUGE fan of Tyrone and to hear the two of you guys play together would be fantastic.

However, you got it right, that is right at the beginning of my church work this Sunday. Then I run to rehearsal for Dave's and my show which opens next week. Five gigs per week to the end of the month--you know I love that!

It's always a pleasure to play with David K. It's killing me that Too Many Daves gets so few gigs, and I missed a good one this year because of a conflict. Dave and my brother Robert are my favorite guitarists. I envy that you're doing shows with Dave.

And I knew you'd be busy, but it would have been great to hear you play with Robert too.

 

[kjones]

It's always a pleasure to play with David K. It's killing me that Too Many Daves gets so few gigs, and I missed a good one this year because of a conflict. Dave and my brother Robert are my favorite guitarists. I envy that you're doing shows with Dave.

And I knew you'd be busy, but it would have been great to hear you play with Robert too.

I enjoyed very much the Blues Therapy calls I did with him, but I really loved the times he did fill-ins with Crewe because he really shines in that more free-form setting. I think he quoted Hendrix and Schoenberg in the same song one time.

Look forward to seeing both you guys soon.

 

[Fuzzbass]

Quick report: great pedal. The manual posted on the previous page explains operation more succinctly than I can.

I put this pedal in the same league as the Damnation Audio MBD-1 for a few reasons. Lesser reasons are that both builders are in Maryland, both boxes are larger than usual, and have top jacks and power. Better reasons: both boxes are high quality, highly usable, don't add a lot of coloration to your tone except at extreme settings, yet still are versatile. Differences: the MBD-1 is all about phat low end: the Clean channel begins rolling off above 1k, and the Depth adds lows to the OD circuit. OTOH, the Gasoline emphasizes midrange: the OD works on the mids thru low treble, and the Octane knob adds a mid bump somewhat reminiscent of the Ashdown Hyperdrive. Also, the MBD-1 OD has a somewhat rougher texture than the Gasoline -- both textures are cool, I have no preference.

Love both pedals, and I believe they would complement each other beautifully when stacked, but I haven't had a chance to do that. At my gig last night I decided to go with the Gasoline by itself, partly because I didn't have much room. I thought it was going to be an all radio rock gig, but the band had some friends that wanted to hear the heavy tunes so in the 3rd set we played Priest, Maiden, Sabbath. That was fun! The downside was that acoustics in the bar were not good, but the Octane knob helped me cut through at first. By the 2nd set I used the EQ on the VHF700 to tighten my tone, so I kept Octane closer to flat. I love the range of OD, from gentle to fairly heavy.

Again, the Gasoline has tons of versatility and I'm still learning my favorite settings, but it's super easy to great tones. I like JGR's slightly counter-intuitive suggestion to use Lean for harder rock and Rich for radio rock, but it makes sense when using more gain for metal and less for classic. As he said, Stoich is in the middle... but really, any of the three will work for any music, just depends on what you like.

I have to prep for tomorrow's sub gig, but I'll be back at some point to report on that and tonight's gig with my loud rock band. Definitely gonna use the NV610 for both!

In the meantime, here's a few pix from last night:

 

[monsterthompson]

Alright. I'm in for one.

 

[Fuzzbass]

Oh jebus, someone posted a vid on Facebook. The performance isn't terrible for a band that has never rehearsed. Audio ain't great (partially b/c of room acoustics) so it doesn't really count as a demo but I'll post it anyway:

 

[Fuzzbass]

I'm crashing hard from my crazy weekend. Really quick: I played Saturday night with my #1 band in a room with nice acoustics. My favorite tone chain for them has been Darkglass B7K into Reiner amp (currently VHF700 of course) into NV610. The B7K is almost always on because the sizzle is just perfect for the NV610. Last night the Gasoline worked perfectly stacked into the B7K! It also sounded great by itself for less sizzly tones, and with the Damnation Audio MBD-1. The Gasoline is in my top tier, I'll use it for any style of music, whereas the B7K is mainly a hard rock machine.

Oh: my Sunday noon gig? Oy. This was my second gig with the band... the guitarist's first... and the drummer's fourth. The drummer had good meter but didn't own any of the songs; he was green and couldn't follow some obvious signals from the guitarist. In short, it was too much work keeping the train from falling off the rails to enjoy the very cool tone coming from my rig.

A few pix, and I'm off to bed.

 

[monsterthompson]

Killing me. I'm excited to get one under foot.

 

[Fuzzbass]

A couple quick followups. The Sunday gig wasn't all bad: there were some cool moments and we got compliments from the organizers. I was just frustrated because of the unnecessary confusion, and that I had so little time to tweak the Gasoline. And again, Saturday was the BOMB: I played with my #1 band in my favorite regular venue, and the Gasoline made everything better. I was able to try a bunch of settings -- I think I wound up favoring Lean with just a touch of Octane, but there's tons of goodness.

Through the mid-focused NV610 I kept Blend between 11 and 1 o'clock to ensure that lows were solid. Interestingly, Gain seems like another Blend: when it is zero, the pedal is transparent -- that might be true even with Octane dialed past flat (ccw) but I'm not certain -- @JGR ? Bottom line is that the Gasoline won't hijack your tone. Don't get me wrong, coloration can work great -- to me, NV610 plus B7K (both colored) is like chocolate and peanut butter -- but I only use the B7K for harder rock, and as noted I'll use the Gasoline at any gig.

 

[JGR]

Through the mid-focused NV610 I kept Blend between 11 and 1 o'clock to ensure that lows were solid. Interestingly, Gain seems like another Blend: when it is zero, the pedal is transparent -- that might be true even with Octane dialed past flat (ccw) but I'm not certain -- @JGR ? Bottom line is that the Gasoline won't hijack your tone. Don't get me wrong, coloration can work great -- to me, NV610 plus B7K (both colored) is like chocolate and peanut butter -- but I only use the B7K for harder rock, and as noted I'll use the Gasoline at any gig.

The transparency/dynamics aspect was really important to me, and a big part of that is the buffer/mixer circuit in conjunction with the headroom and voicing of the drive circuit. As you have found out, your original tone is nicely preserved even when you set the Gain very low or completely off. It also helps keep the overall presentation coherent at low and high Blend levels.

One thing I didn't put in the manual, but exploits this aspect, is that you can get some cool sounds setting the Gain very low or off, and then cranking up the Octane control for some different tone shaping options. The Octane is a bit more subtle with the Gain off, but can be largely dialed in using the mix control. It can be used to add a "weighty" sort of presence and modern tonality to the mix even if you are keeping things clean.

 

[Fuzzbass]

The transparency/dynamics aspect was really important to me, and a big part of that is the buffer/mixer circuit in conjunction with the headroom and voicing of the drive circuit. As you have found out, your original tone is nicely preserved even when you set the Gain very low or completely off. It also helps keep the overall presentation coherent at low and high Blend levels.

One thing I didn't put in the manual, but exploits this aspect, is that you can get some cool sounds setting the Gain very low or off, and then cranking up the Octane control for some different tone shaping options. The Octane is a bit more subtle with the Gain off, but can be largely dialed in using the mix control. It can be used to add a "weighty" sort of presence and modern tonality to the mix even if you are keeping things clean.

I've been doing some tweaking at home, and this is all true. Transparency is the name of the game, and I love the Gasoline for barely-there OD as well as heavier saturation. "Presence" is a great word.

I'll add that the Gasoline is ridiculously quiet. I also love the obvious quality. I once bought a $400 boutique OD that had nice tone, but I wasn't happy with a couple of details, including the fact that the jacks had a weak grip. The jacks on the Gasoline feel great, and even the power input has a nice firm grip.

 

[Fuzzbass]

This is quickly becoming a favorite combo of dirt pedals: B7KU for sizzle, Gasoline for presence, and MBD-1 for phatness! I set up all three for low/medium gain, and they worked together beautifully in any/all permutations.

 

[JGR]

This is quickly becoming a favorite combo of dirt pedals: B7KU for sizzle, Gasoline for presence, and MBD-1 for phatness! I set up all three for low/medium gain, and they worked together beautifully in any/all permutations.

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It’s in good company for sure!