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I have a sh1, English muffy, and a killer blue wail.
The muffy gets used for recording, and the sh1 as a flyrig.
The killer wail was a little disappointing. Nice wah but not a WAH!! Lol
The muffy gets used for recording, and the sh1 as a flyrig.
The killer wail was a little disappointing. Nice wah but not a WAH!! Lol
I'm correcting this statement. They do work well together. Really well in fact. You just have to run the BDDI into the Darkglass rather than the other way around.
I will sometimes run a B7k into the BDDI using the B7k as a drive. Not always on, just engage B7k when needed. It works very well.
So I have been a Tech 21 fan since I first got my BDDI in 1997.
Then I got me a Tech 21 LM300 and matching 410 cabinet back in 2008. I sold off the BDDI and got a Programable VT Bass in 2009.
Used that until 2011 when I got in to Genz Benz light weight gear and used the VT Bass sparingly, mostly for recording.
Sold off the Programable VT bass, but kept the LM300 Rig at our rehearsal spot. Picked up a Para Driver around 2012 as well as a Fly Rig V1 later on.
Used this off and on for a few years until I sold off the PDDI and gave the LM300 rig, and Fly Rig to my son.
Which leads me to now, I’ve been IEM for a long time, but wanted to bring out my Fender Rumble 500C 112 stack with my tribute band. So I found this pedal in the classifieds for a killer deal. I will be using it to drive the power amp section of the Rumble while having the BDDI go direct to FOH.
I have to say, the mid knob is a great feature to have on this pedal.
This is it from the top, but there is also a Broughton always on HPF under the board as well.
Happy with the way this came out.
Then I got me a Tech 21 LM300 and matching 410 cabinet back in 2008. I sold off the BDDI and got a Programable VT Bass in 2009.
Used that until 2011 when I got in to Genz Benz light weight gear and used the VT Bass sparingly, mostly for recording.
Sold off the Programable VT bass, but kept the LM300 Rig at our rehearsal spot. Picked up a Para Driver around 2012 as well as a Fly Rig V1 later on.
Used this off and on for a few years until I sold off the PDDI and gave the LM300 rig, and Fly Rig to my son.
Which leads me to now, I’ve been IEM for a long time, but wanted to bring out my Fender Rumble 500C 112 stack with my tribute band. So I found this pedal in the classifieds for a killer deal. I will be using it to drive the power amp section of the Rumble while having the BDDI go direct to FOH.
I have to say, the mid knob is a great feature to have on this pedal.
This is it from the top, but there is also a Broughton always on HPF under the board as well.
Happy with the way this came out.
Hey there just wanted to bump this along as ask if anyone has tried any tech 21 gear on thier bass signal chain that is more in the guitar category? I ask because I ended up finding the fly rig 5 v1 on the cheap and I’m planning to try it and see if it sounds good. If not it should be easy enough to resell. I realize that back in the day there wasn’t a distinction between bass and guitar pedals and effects and people just used what they could get thier hands on and make sound good. I think the old rack mount stuff was originally built with guitars in mind but a few bassists including Geddy Lee found a great bass sound with them so it caught on from there. I have been through a ton of gear but nothing sans amp or tech 21. I’m curious to see how this goes as well as anyone’s input on this topic
I use an English muffy from time to time for the hiwatt sound, but I don’t use the muff side as I have different options for drive/fuzz
Worth a try. My buddy, Tim, has one and never used it…can’t figure it out (???). Has the plexi drive, reverb, and delay.
I have a GT2. I'm pretty sure it cuts some low end but works well as a lead bass sound.
I currently own two discontinued "guitar" pedals from Tech21: the Oxford and the Leeds. The Oxford is an Orange sim, the Leeds is a Hiwatt sim. Both work very well for bass with limitations. The Low EQ control is 120Hz which isn't necessarily optimum for bass, but isn't "wrong" per se. With the Leeds I wind up dialing in the same setting every time, while the Oxford is a bit more versatile (for me). Bottom line: both are keepers because they deliver cool tones for bass.
Anecdote: close to three decades ago I tried running my bass through a guitarist bandmate's GT2 pedal. Some settings clearly didn't work for bass, but I managed to find a few that sounded amazing, some nice variety that my Bass Driver DI couldn't deliver. But my ignorant brain thought "well, it's a guitar pedal, I shouldn't consider it for bass". Then a few years ago I learned that a bassist friend has been using the GT2 as an integral part of his pedal chain. He usually stacks it into other distortions, but said he uses just the GT2 for some songs.
TL;DR: you could very well find bass magic in your Fly Rig, just let your ears guide you.
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I agree.
I used to have a GT2 as my main OD and used it as my only piece of gear between my bass an FOH.
I used to have a GT2 as my main OD and used it as my only piece of gear between my bass an FOH.
My thought is that I can use it mainly for sprinkling in some reverb and delay for noodling or cool textures for certain songs. I like shoegaze type rock like deftones, alcest, alternative like hum, filter, lots of bands from that period. I’m hoping as long as I can get a decent gain tone and distortion I can supplement it with my preamps. For some reason I haven’t found a bass drive tone I really like and I’ve been through the process of trying many. I used to like the drive tones from the old line 6 multi effect amps and got great results. I’m hoping that the tech 21 coloration will be something I can work with. I’ve been in the camp of HiFi/ modern tones like gk, Darkglass, ebs, Hartke, now Trace Elliot for a long time but I would love to be able to trigger something different but equally as satisfying to my ears. I have tried the color circuit mxr, mesa, ampeg, pretty much everything except sans amp. I think it’s time to at least try it. It’s too well reputable for me to not at least go for it once. I hope this will At least give me a decent idea of what the tech 21 sound profile is all about. Maybe it’ll work with my main preamp tone which is the Trace Elliot but if not maybe it’ll sound good enough on its own or I can chain something else I have to get something extra tone in there. The mxr m81 is great at pushing pedals that are weaker and beefing up the tone. It’s why I keep it around for certain things. I can use it if the guitar focused eq is too thin as long as I think it sounds edgy and aggressive enough I have things to fill it out and make it get fatter. I’ve messed with so many eq pedals and preamps trying to see what pieces of gear can do that I’m sure I can pull something out of it. I’m just hoping that it sounds good. It’s gotta be better than some of those clone pedals or sim circuits out there. The nutty thing is that I can buy a real tech 21 pedal used for almost the same price as a couple of the clones like the joyo tidal wave. That thing is going for about 90$ and I picked up the fly rig for about 100$. To me it’s a no brainer.
I use English Muffy in the HP loop of my KMA Tyler Deluxe-see the picture in post No. 1042 above.
I’m going to have to tell my English friends about that name. lol it’s funny as hell to Brits. But anyway I’ve had a problem with most bass drives and overdrives which is that they just don’t seem to get aggressive enough or they don’t blend well with the clean tone for whatever reason. The closest I’ve come is a Darkglass microtubes x and b7k stacked. Do You think that a guitar distortion is better for getting aggressive? My theory is that it would just because the conventional wisdom is that everyone wants the guitar player to stick out as far as they can in most mixes and that they engineer guitar stuff to do that.
I've been a big fan of stacking distortion pedals, and the Darkglass B7K is often last in the chain. I've been through a whooooole lot of devices looking for my favorite distortions. For aggression my current favorite is the Tech21 DP3X -- it's functionally similar to your Darkglass X (clean lows, dirty highs), but with somewhat different tone and distortion texture.
That said, I can't necessarily provide any insight to you. My definition of aggressive might vary widely from yours. Also, my gear and technique might vary. One thing that's often overlooked is how certain devices work with certain basses. The Tech21 DP3X (dUg Pinnick sig pedal) is mid-scooped by nature (though it does have a switchable hi-mid/lo-mid control to mitigate this somewhat). To my ears it works far better with a mid-forward bass such as a P-bass - makes sense because dUg often plays P-style basses. Not that the DP3X won't work with other basses, but synergy between pedal(s) and bass could be the difference between "pretty cool" and "effing awesome".
Just for grins, this too-short video clip was taken a couple weekends ago at a sub gig I played. I'm running Sadowsky P-bass into DP3X into an amp rig set clean and flat. The result fits my definition of aggressive, but won't be everyone's cup of tea.
P.S. The lead singer in the clip is a good friend of that band who only sat in for that song.
Sounds good!
But anyway I’m thinking that it might not be more aggressive I’m after but more aggressive in the right saturation. Also I like the idea of having the multi effects delay, reverb, the different drive circuits as well as the vibe of the sans amp eq. If it can get me either a lower distortion tone I like or even more clean I’d be happy. This is all basically my attempt at a secondary signal chain that I might be able to use for a couple basses and in certain situations when I’m looking for a good rock and metal tone. My clean tone works great with almost anything but as a constant tone chaser I’m always looking for something new. Sans amp is a different thing from what I’ve been used to. That multi fx fly rig should be a lot of fun when it gets here.
