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Stoner/Doom Bassists Thread, Part 90: Maxed Out

#58,061
It's crazy how good pretty much any dirt sounds. I feel like all the different "trees" of dirt, if you will, are like ice cream. You may have many favorites and preferences, but they're all good.

Rats are newish to me as well and I'm a fan.

@NNNN dope bass! Had a chance to try a friend of mine's years back. Awesome bass. You thinking of trying the mk II mod? I will definitely force myself to pull the trigger one of these days.

Dopest dope
 
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#58,062
Novarocker said:
It's crazy how good pretty much any dirt sounds. I feel like all the different "trees" of dirt, if you will, are like ice cream. You may have many favorites and preferences, but they're all good.

Rats are newish to me as well and I'm a fan.

@NNNN dope bass! Had a chance to try a friend of mine's years back. Awesome bass. You thinking of trying the mk II mod? I will definitely force myself to pull the trigger one of these days.

Dopest dope
Click to expand...
I feel you. I had a similar revelation today, but it involved pretty much my entire rig. One day, I will actually pare down my rig and start practicing, instead of noodling and tweaking knobs to find "the tone".

Yeah, I need to get more Rats... The Iron Pig is really ticking all the boxes right now. In the past, I had a few other Rats (Blower Box, Volt Thrower, and a tiny clone), but they never stuck. The Blower Box was too grainy in the treble (but the bass response was fantastic), I always felt like I was fighting the Volt Thrower but couldn't quite get there (but it WAS amazing!), and the mini clone was solid, but certainly better on guitar and I had other tone goals for that.

Anyway, after spending time with the Iron Pig, I think I'm going to have to try a Rat Tail with clean blend. It's more than I'd prefer to spend new, but hopefully I can find one used. And after listening to all sorts of demos lately, I think the Ibanez PD7 will cover the Rat ground that the Blower Box would cover, but better (i.e. less grainy treble). The Rat Tail seems like it could smooth out better.

I also played my "other" basses today when messing around with various dirt, just to see how they sounded with all of my tweaking of late. Gotta say, the Iron Pig sounds totally different with flats vs. rounds! Most of my other dirt sounds different of course, but still very similar. The Iron Pig goes from fairly doomy to fairly thrashy just by changing the bass. It felt nice to play some of my other basses, especially my first (Ibanez Soundgear 300DX). In many ways, it was like coming home, and each one had a different tone profile, but each still sounded amazing.

I guess what I'm saying is this: I need more Rats in my life, and I love my gear. Life is good - regardless of Snowpocalypse.
 
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#58,063
ayy thanks @Novarocker . I appreciate everything about the MK-II, but ideologically I prefer the single pickup (and aesthetically the black headstock) of the MK-I. I do love me a pickup slammed against the fret board though, plus the fact that the MK-II has 3 pickups and still none of them is a bridge pickup
 
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#58,065
NNNN said:
I'm there with you. No idea which to choose though... I think there's a Cat Tail I can demo locally, but what about the other 10 I want to try?
Click to expand...
I'm rather glad that I'm not into "all the gain" like many seem to be. Most demos/builds seem to be all about maxing out the gain knob and going nuts. This really limits my search, which is a good thing. There really aren't many Rats out there that I can think of that pique my interest, at least none that aren't fairly well known around here. I hear nothing but good things about the Nepenthes, but can find few clips. Even the Rat/Cat Tail has minimal bass clips, and it's one of the more popular ones and has been around for a good while now.

Here's a page with TONS of Rats, most of which I've never heard of.
RAT Pedals And Best RAT Clones In 2022 | A Buyer's Guide | Delicious Audio
 
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#58,066
kleinenenten said:
I feel you. I had a similar revelation today, but it involved pretty much my entire rig. One day, I will actually pare down my rig and start practicing, instead of noodling and tweaking knobs to find "the tone".

Yeah, I need to get more Rats... The Iron Pig is really ticking all the boxes right now. In the past, I had a few other Rats (Blower Box, Volt Thrower, and a tiny clone), but they never stuck. The Blower Box was too grainy in the treble (but the bass response was fantastic), I always felt like I was fighting the Volt Thrower but couldn't quite get there (but it WAS amazing!), and the mini clone was solid, but certainly better on guitar and I had other tone goals for that.

Anyway, after spending time with the Iron Pig, I think I'm going to have to try a Rat Tail with clean blend. It's more than I'd prefer to spend new, but hopefully I can find one used. And after listening to all sorts of demos lately, I think the Ibanez PD7 will cover the Rat ground that the Blower Box would cover, but better (i.e. less grainy treble). The Rat Tail seems like it could smooth out better.

I also played my "other" basses today when messing around with various dirt, just to see how they sounded with all of my tweaking of late. Gotta say, the Iron Pig sounds totally different with flats vs. rounds! Most of my other dirt sounds different of course, but still very similar. The Iron Pig goes from fairly doomy to fairly thrashy just by changing the bass. It felt nice to play some of my other basses, especially my first (Ibanez Soundgear 300DX). In many ways, it was like coming home, and each one had a different tone profile, but each still sounded amazing.

I guess what I'm saying is this: I need more Rats in my life, and I love my gear. Life is good - regardless of Snowpocalypse.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's wild how different various dirt pedals react to different strings and pickups. One thing I've been meaning to try more is blending darker sounding dirt with my dry signal for definition. I love the darker sound of turning the filter up on Rats and being on the darker side of muffs, but I do recognize you can get buried in the mix. I remember a setting when I had a swollen pickle that was dark, but when blended with dry was just awesome.
 
#58,070
ConfoundedBridg said:
Everybody fare okay with the weather? This storm was a breeze compared to last year's, at least in Texas.
Click to expand...
We're doing alright. Essentials are always stocked in my house, so I've been LEGOing it up with my son the last few days, both video games and analog versions! And in my free time, I've been playing some bass. Been a great few days! Should be able to drive around town today if necessary, but I don't think we NEED anything, so we'll see if I head out or not.
 
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#58,071
NNNN said:
NBD (Reverend Wattplower)
View attachment 4569540
Much as I like the SG, I've already had an EB-0 and wanted to try something different. Signature instruments are kind of weird to me but this one ticked all the boxes. Now we know what happens when an SG and a PBass have a baby.
Plays great so far. I have some mods planned...
Click to expand...
Sweeeeeet!!!
 
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#58,076
Ice storm hit HARD here. Somehow I haven’t lost power, but I’m definitely gonna be spending more time and energy relocating big-azz tree limbs than I will be worshiping at the Altar of Riff. I hate winter, so much.

On the plus side, one of the line cooks at my job described my tone as “apocalyptic” last night. I’m gonna ride that one for a while.
 
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