Reiner Amplification Gasoline Bass Overdrive

[monsterthompson]

Looking forward to your thoughts...

My first one is: Which pedals am I going to consider selling for GAS money
The AO is probably in the most danger. My Dunwich collection isn’t going anywhere.

 

[Fuzzbass]

I recently got a Dunwich -- its debut gig was earlier this evening, in fact. I played a holiday party gig in a mostly-glass atrium with boomy acoustics, so the Gasoline was MVP because of its mid presence, but I love all three pedals.

 

[monsterthompson]

Well. This is an interesting box. It’s got lots of range, and the controls are fairly interactive, and it’s sensitive, and “transparent” in many ways. I’m not sure what I expected it to be is what it turned out to be. I’m also not 100% sure what I expected it to be

I ran it through my new Quilter BB800, and then my Demeter VTBP M 800D, into a Barefaced BB2. I tried my Ric 4003, Spector Euro 5, and StingRay 4 H.

The Quilter really leaves me scratching my head. I like the clean tone, though it’s a tad “dull” in the sense that it isn’t sparkly bright, though it isn’t really dark. Something about the voicing really shuts down my Darkglass AO’s toothy attack. I find it did the same with the Gasoline (though my Volt Thrower still cuts pretty easily). I really needed to run the Gasoline in lean and bright settings to get some edge out of it. I think in a loud band mix, it’d either be something that can’t be noticed, or it could turn into a point of frustration, but I can’t be sure which (hoping to jam next week).

Running the Gasoline into the Demeter really showed the versatility of this pedal, and the tone didn’t have any of the dampened quality it did with the Quilter. It could go from adding just a subtle but effective dab of gritty sheen and edge to the top end, or make a clean tone really growl. I’m finding the low to mid gain sounds are coming the easiest to dial in. The higher ones aren’t quite coming through the way I hoped. I think the blend and octane settings are really influencing the result. I’m finding some more “extreme” settings can seem like the distortion layers on top of the clean sound, but if I back off the gain, and tweak the octane and blend, it becomes more unified and cohesive.

I’m also finding that a pick works better than fingers, with my technique, to my ears. YMMV

All just my initial 30-45 minutes with the pedal, spinning the knobs and flipping the switch. I’ve got some recording to do, so I’m hoping I can do some DI work tonight with it. While this isn’t the Cinderella slipper, right out of the box, I can hear some things that have me thinking it’s just a matter of getting familiar with a new tool. I stumbled across a few setting which gave me some ideas.

Edit - The sweet spots I found felt very pushed-amp like. Not exactly the EQ I wanted, but still quite “natural.”

 

[monsterthompson]

Dang. Perspective is everything. Doing some DI experimenting, and the tone in my head was way off the mark on this project.

Going fretless into the Gasoline, the an OmniCabSimD, through the Demeter for some Jensen tube DI, then Logic.

Edit - I had started with the StingRay, but the sound wasn’t right for this track. I landed on the Spector Euro 5 being the best fit, so far. Still working at it. Little tweaks are going a long way.

 

[monsterthompson]

Got a few more minutes in with the Gasoline. Played the StingRay into the Darkglass. Really liking the results here.

Starting to get a feel for the controls. Realizing that the Level doesn’t change the dry signal output. This changed how I set the blend and I liked the results. Sorry for not being more specific. I’m still getting my ears around this thing. I’m finding myself liking the lower gain settings with the Rich settings and higher gain with the lean. There’s some frequency threshold where I don’t like to hear distortion. Not quite sure what the numeric value is, but I know it when I hear it.

 

[monsterthompson]

Ooh. I knew it. Spector Euro 5 into the Gasoline into the DG 900 with the B3K engine mildly engaged. That’s gonna get nasty. Ran it lean at mild gain and moderate blend. It made the DG head come alive in a more organic way, but still with some brutality just around the corner. It passed the “came up with a new riff while playing it” test, which is a very useful measure

 

[XXL]

It passed the “came up with a new riff while playing it” test, which is a very useful measure

Yup, that is always a good sign!

 

[JGR]

Got a few more minutes in with the Gasoline. Played the StingRay into the Darkglass. Really liking the results here.

Starting to get a feel for the controls. Realizing that the Level doesn’t change the dry signal output. This changed how I set the blend and I liked the results. Sorry for not being more specific. I’m still getting my ears around this thing. I’m finding myself liking the lower gain settings with the Rich settings and higher gain with the lean. There’s some frequency threshold where I don’t like to hear distortion. Not quite sure what the numeric value is, but I know it when I hear it.

Yup, the dry signal stays at unity. Unity for the overdrive is around 1 o'clock give or take, depending on Gain setting. There is still plenty of clean boost available if you want to goose the front end of an amp a bit, which can work especially well with a tube front end. However, there isn't an excessive amount of additional level over unity available, which I have encountered with a lot of pedals - I have always found that too much level tends to add a lot of noise and make the pedal touchier to dial in. The goal was to make the controls useful throughout the majority of their sweep. With the inherent transparency of the pedal, you can set the Gain control to off, or just a little above (crank the Blend to the dirty side, and Octane to the minimum setting to hear how close it is to the bypassed tone), and then use higher Level settings to boost the signal - the Octane control will be less noticeable at lower Gain levels, but still works to add some interesting emphasis when used for clean boosting. I think I mentioned this in the manual.

I'm a fan of crunchy mids and lower treble, but I don't like the rougher texture or synthy effects that a distorted low end can bring, so the Rich setting was as low as I felt I could bring the overdrive into the midrange without the aforementioned artifacts when running really high Gain levels. The Stoichiometric setting was where I found the most balanced sound that worked for just about anything, and the Lean setting turned out be really useful IMO for adding a nice modern bite to the tone. YMMV of course.

 

[Fuzzbass]

Got a few more minutes in with the Gasoline. Played the StingRay into the Darkglass. Really liking the results here.

Starting to get a feel for the controls. Realizing that the Level doesn’t change the dry signal output. This changed how I set the blend and I liked the results. Sorry for not being more specific. I’m still getting my ears around this thing. I’m finding myself liking the lower gain settings with the Rich settings and higher gain with the lean. There’s some frequency threshold where I don’t like to hear distortion. Not quite sure what the numeric value is, but I know it when I hear it.

I've been sitting on the sidelines, not wanting to influence your opinions... and I still don't. I'll just agree with what you've been saying. There's a bit of a learning curve with the Gasoline, in part because the controls are pretty powerful. It's easy to dial up lots of gain, or mid boost via octane, and as you noted, you have to remember that Blend is your friend. Same as you, I prefer to use Lean at higher gain and Rich at lower, with Stoich being kind of all-purpose as JGR just said.

 

[JGR]

Ha! And here I thought it was easy to dial in! Just kidding of course, all gear takes some getting used to. Hopefully the (my) logic becomes apparent as you become more familiar with it.

 

[Fuzzbass]

Ha! And here I thought it was easy to dial in! Just kidding of course, all gear takes some getting used to. Hopefully the (my) logic becomes apparent as you become more familiar with it.

Overall it is easy, and as you said it won't kill you with excessive output boost which is great feature. The issue for me is having too much fun with Gain and Octane... I just have to remember to fill out the lows via Blend. The other surprise for me was that the Octane voicing filter only works when Gain is up... but I shouldn't have been surprised: you called it Octane for a reason!

And I'm totally with you about the synthy sounds that come from distorted low end: for me, it's only useful when I want fuzzy/synthy tone, and that's rare. That's why some of my favorite pedals have been the Brimstone XD-2 dual-band, which I use for clean lows and dirty highs (but in a radical way, sort of like dUg Pinnick). I can kind of do clean low/dirty high with the B7K, by using the low-cut setting on the Grunt switch, which happens pre-OD. I then fill out lows with the Bass EQ knob which is post-OD. With the Gasoline, I love the overdriven mids/presence, and filling out lows with Blend.

I'll add that the Gasoline fits in perfectly with my pedal palette. It adds killer mid presence to my B7K for hard rock, and to the Damnation Audio MBD-1 for classic genres... and the great thing is that I can use the Gasoline by itself for any genre: I prefer Lean for harder rock, and Stoich/Rich for everything else, but there's no right or wrong.

 

[Nunovsky]

@JGR is on fire!

Man, I love that song exactly because of that big fat overdrive!
This pedal is giving me major GAS just because of this...

 

[dukeorock]

Ha! And here I thought it was easy to dial in! Just kidding of course, all gear takes some getting used to. Hopefully the (my) logic becomes apparent as you become more familiar with it.

I find it ridiculously easy to get going on, but there are lots of tweaking options, so I can see how getting lost down the rabbit hole would happen

 

[JGR]

I find it ridiculously easy to get going on, but there are lots of tweaking options, so I can see how getting lost down the rabbit hole would happen

Roger that. I spend most of my time down in the rabbit hole!

 

[Matt Dean]

I think distortion is a rabbit hole a lot of us inhabit.

 

[monsterthompson]

Getting my ears tuned in. Making the Quilter less of an issue. Still sorting things out. Just had a minor surgery, and the holidays are creeping up. Might have some time away from my day job to sort this out.

So what exactly is going on as the Octane turns? Is it going bright to dark, or is there more EQ sauce being smothered around?

 

[Matt Dean]

Getting my ears tuned in. Making the Quilter less of an issue. Still sorting things out. Just had a minor surgery, and the holidays are creeping up. Might have some time away from my day job to sort this out.

So what exactly is going on as the Octane turns? Is it going bright to dark, or is there more EQ sauce being smothered around?

Got your priorities straight... I’m on a plane to Europe and won’t be able to play my pedal board for two weeks!

 

[JGR]

Getting my ears tuned in. Making the Quilter less of an issue. Still sorting things out. Just had a minor surgery, and the holidays are creeping up. Might have some time away from my day job to sort this out.

So what exactly is going on as the Octane turns? Is it going bright to dark, or is there more EQ sauce being smothered around?

I set up the Octane so that off (fully CCW) is flat. As you turn it up, it adds what I like to think of as a “weighty presence”, broadly boosting mids and lower treble without getting thin or clacky. Between fully off and ~ noon adds definition, clarity, and bite to drive tones. I usually run around 9-10 o’clock. Going to higher settings (past noon) works well with lower gain and blend settings (say 10-11 o’clock) and higher level settings to get more of the aggressive, modern tones that are popular these days.

 

[monsterthompson]

I set up the Octane so that off (fully CCW) is flat. As you turn it up, it adds what I like to think of as a “weighty presence”, broadly boosting mids and lower treble without getting thin or clacky. Between fully off and ~ noon adds definition, clarity, and bite to drive tones. I usually run around 9-10 o’clock. Going to higher settings (past noon) works well with lower gain and blend settings (say 10-11 o’clock) and higher level settings to get more of the aggressive, modern tones that are popular these days.

I see your suggestions comply with my discoveries.

 

[JGR]

I see your suggestions comply with my discoveries.

Cool! I tried to put some of the general observations in the user manual to help folks get oriented, but diving in and twisting knobs is usually a lot more fun than reading something unless you’re a total nerd like me.