Stoner/Doom Bassists Thread, Part 90: Maxed Out

[lucas303]

Doomers, I come at you with an old man rant. I'm not quite at the point of getting a fedora and tortoise shell pick guard for my precision, but it's close.

I've fallen hard for Darkglass heads. I can't imagine a live situation where I would reach for a tube heads over a 7 lbs, is 900 watt tone monster. I'm sick of paying for tube head upkeep, they weight too much, and while they sound amazing, I'm can't justify it for myself anymore.

Am I crazy or just old?

"Am I crazy or just old?" Por que no los dos?

I'm not an evangelist for either side...I say go with whatever you like and don't worry about anything else. If you like it, that's all that matters. It definitely doesn't seem crazy to me to choose Class D over tubes, but if you were saying you like tubes better than Class D I wouldn't call that crazy either.

I use Class D, but that may in large part be a result of never owning or spending time with an old school tube head.

 

[thombo]

@br1qbat, how do you route your signal out of both heads?

 

[jollygiantchris]

For those of you that use compression pedals, where do you like to put it in your effects chain? And why?

I put mine first in the chain but I use an EQD Warden and I have it set to very light compression. I like the warm coloration the optical compressor makes when in front of the distortion and really all I want it to do is make it so my YYZ pedal has the clean/processed signal transients blends well. I feel like w/o compressor it sounds like the processed signal is sitting on top of the clean lows and I don't like it.

A lot of people are using it @ the end of the chain to give the distortion a tubelike sag. I'd play around w/ it and see what you get.

 

[Nekomata]

Converge and Chelsea Wolfe... A sum whole lotta greater than its parts. And the parts were already quite great, if you ask me. #yearlistmaterial

 

[Nekomata]

I have it towards the end of my chain, after (auto-)wah, dirt, preamp, but before L+HPF and DI box. Reason being, I like how my dirt pedals react to dynamics, so I don’t want to feed them a compressed signal.

Tells me how lazy I am. I once googled where to put my compressor in the signal chain, and the easiest/quickest answers seemed to be: right at the beginning. I guess I ought to experiment a bit more.

Then again, my bass playing is 99% solo practice and 1% illusion of something bigger. So most of the time the compressor is not even switched on. (In order to keep a keen ear for my far from smooth technique.)

 

[Novarocker]

Doomers, I come at you with an old man rant. I'm not quite at the point of getting a fedora and tortoise shell pick guard for my precision, but it's close.

I've fallen hard for Darkglass heads. I can't imagine a live situation where I would reach for a tube heads over a 7 lbs, is 900 watt tone monster. I'm sick of paying for tube head upkeep, they weight too much, and while they sound amazing, I'm can't justify it for myself anymore.

Am I crazy or just old?

If it sounds good, it is good.

Can't blame ya one bit. Love my amp, but I understand those that don't want to move em.

 

[Flamingo21]

Tells me how lazy I am. I once googled where to put my compressor in the signal chain, and the easiest/quickest answers seemed to be: right at the beginning.

Well, you do need a starting point.

 

[Deleted member 132197]

Converge and Chelsea Wolfe... A sum whole lotta greater than its parts. And the parts were already quite great, if you ask me. #yearlistmaterial

I'm so excited about this. The Dusk In Us is seriously one of my favourite albums of the last few years!

Also, totally unrelated, as I'm moving to Leiden in 2023, @Nekomata what places do I need to check Out?

 

[themarshall]

I usually run compression towards the end of my chain, unless I run it somewhere else.

 

[Nekomata]

Also, totally unrelated, as I'm moving to Leiden in 2023, @Nekomata what places do I need to check Out?

Shhh... not on the interwebz...

I'll happily give you a tour, in person.

 

[scabpicker]

If it sounds good, it is good.

Can't blame ya one bit. Love my amp, but I understand those that don't want to move em.

Yeah, I dearly love my Super Bassman, but I honestly am inclined to think that my love of it is for its preamp. I mean, I've had its master at 4, once, at an outside show. In every other environment, it's simply been too loud beyond that. I don't see how I could be pushing the tubes into needing to do anything all that tube-y.

Considering that, I kind of think my next amp purchase that would make any sense would be to get myself a Bassman 800 or used Bassman 500 and see if it performs the same. It's surprisingly hard to find the latter. There's one on Reverb right now, but it's local pickup only.

 

[lucas303]

@scabpicker Is there a pedal that can get you the Super Bassman preamp? There are so many pedals that clone iconic preamps that I bet there is one but I genuinely don't know the answer. If there is, why not go that route?

 

[kleinenenten]

Am I crazy or just old?

Why not both? I've never had much time with tubes, but I love my solid state GK heads. No desire for tubes here. Use what you like.

 

[themarshall]

@scabpicker Is there a pedal that can get you the Super Bassman preamp? There are so many pedals that clone iconic preamps that I bet there is one but I genuinely don't know the answer. If there is, why not go that route?

Tech 21 Blonde/Joyo American sound. Maybe Sushi Box Accelerator if’n you want a real tube.

 

[scabpicker]

@scabpicker Is there a pedal that can get you the Super Bassman preamp? There are so many pedals that clone iconic preamps that I bet there is one but I genuinely don't know the answer. If there is, why not go that route?

To be honest, I haven't searched for one. But since I use the overdrive side of the preamp, it's not really a classic preamp. They introduced it in around 2012. It's got a gain, a volume, a blend between the two and a master volume. The eq section has mid controls with a sweepable center.

But on top of that, even if I did find a pedal that gave me the preamp, I'd have to figure out an amp to power it. I guess I could put it into the power amp of one of my Peaveys or buy a simple class D amp, but if you can find the Bassman 500, it usually runs about $700 (yeah, more than when they were new) and it's the preamp I want and power amp I think I might want in one package. If I can find one, it seems like it would be a bargain.

I had a GK MBFusion 500 head that I liked a lot and weighed nothing, but it never delivered anywhere near the saturation and drive of the loony heavy head I haul around on a dolly now. I used to just walk it for blocks when we were playing a show, but then I realized I was a really stupid monkey for not using levers and wheels. Even if I could use the exercise, I probably should save that for nights I wasn't playing a show.

Tech 21 Blonde/Joyo American sound. Maybe Sushi Box Accelerator if’n you want a real tube.

Well, as I said, I'm not really using the classic Bassman side of the Super Bassman's preamp, I'm using the overdrive side of it, which is very different. I've got a EHX English Muff'n, which is a shot at a Marshall JTM 45 preamp in a box, which is a permutation of an early Fender preamp. It's pretty good, and I can be pretty satisfied with it through a cabinet simulator in my home studio. But I'm having to drive it pretty hard with some kind of boost and EQ it in my DAW to get it sounding anything like the Super Bassman.

Oh, and apropos of nothing, I remembered the band that actually motivated me to buy my first pedal steel guitar. They're not metal or doom, really, but they're pretty motherscratching stoner. This bootleg has the greatest title ever bestowed a musical recording, IMHO. Plus on a later record, they were apparently the first to cover a Sabbath tune. But this live recording is still the best thing I've heard from them (and they had a revolving door membership). Yep, one of the two awesome guitar parts you hear at any given time on this is a pedal steel. Sometimes it's obvious, but other times I have a hard time figuring out who is who. I assume the wah parts are not the pedal steel, and the parts that are around B on the A string of a bass guitar are the pedal steel.

Oh, and the bass player kicks ass most of the time, and has some nice fuzz in there. Two long spaced out noise jams, and a tasty couple of covers at the end: Stone Free, and How Many More Times. Pretty heavy for 1969-70 in Japan.

 

[El_Charro]

Doomers, I come at you with an old man rant. I'm not quite at the point of getting a fedora and tortoise shell pick guard for my precision, but it's close.

I've fallen hard for Darkglass heads. I can't imagine a live situation where I would reach for a tube heads over a 7 lbs, is 900 watt tone monster. I'm sick of paying for tube head upkeep, they weight too much, and while they sound amazing, I'm can't justify it for myself anymore.

Am I crazy or just old?

—————————————————————
LMAO-Um…Count me in on the old man rant then bc I’m also HEAVILY considering the Darkglass 900 as well (see prior posts a few pages back)…

Ampeg stuff (and tube amps in general) sounds amazing but idk how I feel about lugging something that heavy around- It seems kind of impractical given how ferocious the Darkglass amp sounds…

I’m sure there are plenty of people out there that think tube amps are the ultimate sound and that would think this is a blasphemous statement, but technology has come a VERY long way since tube amps became popular…

I get that a SS amp probably never will sound “exactly” like a tube from what I’ve heard, but I think you should ask yourself if it’s really a hill worth dying on if an SS gets you 95-99% of the way there with EQing (and of course you can always add a fuzz pedal if you want a more “vintage” sound)…

Thank you for posting this btw-I’m still a really long way off from buying a head, but I think you make some compelling points about the advantages of an SS amp vs a tube…

That Alpha Omega 900 amp is really sleek looking…Kind of hard to not be interested in something that powerful and slick looking…

Thanks! \m/

 

[bobomatic]

Doomers, I come at you with an old man rant. I'm not quite at the point of getting a fedora and tortoise shell pick guard for my precision, but it's close.

I've fallen hard for Darkglass heads. I can't imagine a live situation where I would reach for a tube heads over a 7 lbs, is 900 watt tone monster. I'm sick of paying for tube head upkeep, they weight too much, and while they sound amazing, I'm can't justify it for myself anymore.

Am I crazy or just old?

Both

I know the feeling. I have almost constant thoughts of picking up something i can chuck in a bag and go, and be able to leave my tubes home. I probably will if the right deal comes along on a PF500 or 800. I’d kill for a Mesa TT but…

 

[Flamingo21]

Also, totally unrelated, as I'm moving to Leiden in 2023, @Nekomata what places do I need to check Out?

I grew up in Leiden, but I haven't been there in many years. What I loved about it is how much history there is, you can really feel it goes back centuries. So my favourite thing to do there was always just walking around. And if you climb De Burcht you see rooftops going on forever, this always calmed me down.

Why are you going there? New job? New love?

 

[Deleted member 132197]

I grew up in Leiden, but I haven't been there in many years. What I loved about it is how much history there is, you can really feel it goes back centuries. So my favourite thing to do there was always just walking around. And if you climb De Burcht you see rooftops going on forever, this always calmed me down.

Yeah, it’s a super cute, old city. And thanks to the university still quite international. Beautiful, good museums, I’ve heard it has good food. Can’t wait

Why are you going there? New job? New love?

nah, we just couldn’t afford to buy in Amsterdam.

 

[lucas303]

saturation

Speaking of saturation, tape saturation is my new favorite effect. Like, "always on" level of favorite.