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Stoner/Doom Bassists Thread, Part 90: Maxed Out

#15,642
Speedor said:
Worked till 3 AM yersterday, it's noon here now, up at 8 and working since then. Guys renovating my block been drilling since early morning, doesn't help much in my work.

BTW, how do you guys record your practices?
I think we got too loud as our phone apps fart out on us from some time.
Click to expand...
Get a Zoom. I have an H2 I got used locally for $50. Throw it on a mic stand, stick the stand in the middle of the room, set it to record in mp3 and just record the whole practice. Then later I can go back and grab anything I want to hear again or share with the band. It really helps when writing new songs. We use it almost every practice.
 
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#15,644
Screwed around with the Tube Rat idea. It sounded decent but was more of an overdrive at the voltages I was working with and wasn't really able to capture the Rat magic without a bunch of experimenting. Ultimately it proved to be not worth the effort.

5a4SmfH.jpg


On the upside though I have not been able to find a production Rat that meets my needs so I ordered the parts to build a modded rat (my own mods - mostly) into an active eq.

The main differences are going to be the filter knob will remain and will be modded to more bass friendly EQ points and then there will be a switchable active EQ (only in the signal path of needed). I find that the elimination of the filter knob in favor of the a dual band EQ doesn't have the same LPF effect. The high controls are usually shelving which means that they won't completely eliminate nasty higher frequencies. I wan't the shagers gone! Then I can boost the highs to bring back some bite to my tone. Plus active bass boosts are quite necessary with Rat-style pedals. Increasing the lows too much in the distortion stage will fuzz it too much for my taste. I'll only boost (and then clip) 60Hz and above (like the original Rat). I'm thinking I may put a switch in for a full (down to 0Hz), tight (60Hz - stock) and tighter (120-200 Hz) to experiment with.

The other mod is a departure from the standard Ruetz mods. I like the boosted high frequencies mostly but I wish the frequencies stayed the same-ish but were lower gain. I'm lowering the gain and making the boosted highs switchable between 10dB at 800Hz, or 10dB at 2000Hz (stock rat is 20dB at 1500Hz), or off (standard Ruetz mod).

When I build this up if it doesn't sound like poopie I'm going to build a parallel version so I can eq each channel differently. I hate clean blends but I think a high gain channel in "Tighter Mode" with mids boosted blended with a low gain "Full Mode" with slight grit and the filter knob turned down to a low pass around 100-200Hz would sound epic.

The last idea is not a mod but more of a consideration. Short of building a seperate brick wall low pass filter between 3.5k and 5k I'm going to adjust the filtering through the pedal so it will hopefully sound usable direct (with headphones - how I practice mostly) or to the FOH, or for folks with fEarful-ish cabs.

Then I'll figure out how to do it with just one knob for Beebass.

But...I don't want to get ahead of myself.

For those who care I'll keep you posted.
 
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#15,645
Lazarus.Bird said:
Get a Zoom. I have an H2 I got used locally for $50. Throw it on a mic stand, stick the stand in the middle of the room, set it to record in mp3 and just record the whole practice. Then later I can go back and grab anything I want to hear again or share with the band. It really helps when writing new songs. We use it almost every practice.
Click to expand...
This is how we have been doing it for a year and a half now. Helps a great deal if you have long breaks between jams.

dozicusmaximus said:
Morning!

Click to expand...

It's taken me a long time to appreciate the early Genesis. Thanks for the post.
 
#15,647
FoF, the rat + active EQ sounds like an awesome idea. I absolutely love my Rat, but the low cut really makes it hard to use for bass, especially tuned down. I'm working on a clean buffered blend pedal to alleviate this, but I'd rather not have to use a blender. I've tried post-EQ with EQ pedals and tone shapers, but I can't get the low end back to where it needs to be without drastically changing the character of the drive sound.

I've read all about mods, and there doesn't seem to be an easy solution to the problem. Some people rave about the Reutz mod, other people hate it. I decided it wasn't for me. ...and like you said simply increasing cap values isn't going to retain the Rat character either. So I'm very interested to hear about what you find with this experiment. Definitely keep me posted.
 
#15,649
kzr750r1 said:
It's taken me a long time to appreciate the early Genesis. Thanks for the post.
Click to expand...
Same here man. I was always more of a Yes and Rush guy. But these past few weeks, I've been getting into it more an more.
Listened to "Selling England by the Pound" the other day. Totally blew my mind.
I need to buy all the albums Hackett is on. Even the two after Gabriel left.

I've listened to all the old albums before. I guess I just didn't retain anything. Just kind of meh-d my way through them or something.
 
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#15,655
So glad I picked up the Greyscale Hellcat Rat clone, I got kind of turned off to Rats after the VFE Alpha Dog clone and picked it up as a flipper, but now I see the Rat love, this thing is awesome on both bass and guitar and the two gain stages are a blast and super versatile. I think I got some dirt to sell off now. Probably sell the Catalinbread SFT and keep the Beta Drive for low gain and just use the Rat for high gain, and the EQD Speaker Cranker for pushing them.
 
#15,657
Lazarus.Bird said:
Get a Zoom. I have an H2 I got used locally for $50. Throw it on a mic stand, stick the stand in the middle of the room, set it to record in mp3 and just record the whole practice. Then later I can go back and grab anything I want to hear again or share with the band. It really helps when writing new songs. We use it almost every practice.
Click to expand...

How about loudness levels? My only issue is that when we were playing on combos everything was ok and our phones were doing OK. Now I'm playing an SVT through 410 + 210, guitarist plays a valve Marshall head through a 412 Hiwatt cab and our drummer is pretty heavy handed. We tried to simply wrap our phones with jackets, but it's all muffled and inaudible then.
 
#15,659
You can adjust the input level so it's not blowing out the capture. Since I don't own one not sure if there is an auto level option. Drummers unit seems to need a sound level and the singers setup he just fires it up and records.

Main thing these guys are concerned about is tagging the end of songsso they can roll through the files and not have 2 (or whatever) hours of material to filter and capture.
 
#15,660
father of fires said:
Screwed around with the Tube Rat idea. It sounded decent but was more of an overdrive at the voltages I was working with and wasn't really able to capture the Rat magic without a bunch of experimenting. Ultimately it proved to be not worth the effort.

5a4SmfH.jpg


On the upside though I have not been able to find a production Rat that meets my needs so I ordered the parts to build a modded rat (my own mods - mostly) into an active eq.

The main differences are going to be the filter knob will remain and will be modded to more bass friendly EQ points and then there will be a switchable active EQ (only in the signal path of needed). I find that the elimination of the filter knob in favor of the a dual band EQ doesn't have the same LPF effect. The high controls are usually shelving which means that they won't completely eliminate nasty higher frequencies. I wan't the ****ers gone! Then I can boost the highs to bring back some bite to my tone. Plus active bass boosts are quite necessary with Rat-style pedals. Increasing the lows too much in the distortion stage will fuzz it too much for my taste. I'll only boost (and then clip) 60Hz and above (like the original Rat). I'm thinking I may put a switch in for a full (down to 0Hz), tight (60Hz - stock) and tighter (120-200 Hz) to experiment with.

The other mod is a departure from the standard Ruetz mods. I like the boosted high frequencies mostly but I wish the frequencies stayed the same-ish but were lower gain. I'm lowering the gain and making the boosted highs switchable between 10dB at 800Hz, or 10dB at 2000Hz (stock rat is 20dB at 1500Hz), or off (standard Ruetz mod).

When I build this up if it doesn't sound like **** I'm going to build a parallel version so I can eq each channel differently. I hate clean blends but I think a high gain channel in "Tighter Mode" with mids boosted blended with a low gain "Full Mode" with slight grit and the filter knob turned down to a low pass around 100-200Hz would sound epic.

The last idea is not a mod but more of a consideration. Short of building a seperate brick wall low pass filter between 3.5k and 5k I'm going to adjust the filtering through the pedal so it will hopefully sound usable direct (with headphones - how I practice mostly) or to the FOH, or for folks with fEarful-ish cabs.

Then I'll figure out how to do it with just one knob for Beebass.

But...I don't want to get ahead of myself.

For those who care I'll keep you posted.
Click to expand...
You had me at rat :)
father of fires said:
Also please suggest any mods ideas you have. Not something you've seen before but something you wish existed.
Click to expand...
I can't think of a mod but I do wish they had the same ferocity at higher gain but without the squish and compression.
 

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