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The perfect OD pedal ?

#81
Thank you everyone for the suggestion and thoughts, I am currently investigating WH Pork Loin, Xotic BB and SS/BS Mini. The Aftershock seems to do maybe too much for what I need haha...but I will have a look.

Concerning Darkglass, I already tried the VMT (two years ago) and wasn't completly satisfied with it. Too colored. And adding a blend to a dirt never satisfies me for some reason.

RickyWoo said:
@CassiusRegular Have you ever tried something as simple and cheap as an EHX LPB-1? I used to own an SVT and it pushed some pretty sweet overdrive out of it. It really depends how hot your Lollars are in your Precision too.. Your tone might suffer if they are too hot.
Click to expand...

They are really hot ! I've been thinking latetly that they my be (part of) the problem in the equation...

EDIT : Timmy, Elements and Mr Black OD sound like nice option too....I wish I could test this 7 pedals to clear my mind...
 
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#83
CassiusRegular said:
Thank you everyone for the suggestion and thoughts, I am currently investigating WH Pork Loin, Xotic BB and SS/BS Mini. The Aftershock seems to do maybe too much for what I need haha...but I will have a look.

Concerning Darkglass, I already tried the VMT (two years ago) and wasn't completly satisfied with it. Too colored. And adding a blend to a dirt never satisfies me for some reason.



They are really hot ! I've been thinking latetly that they my be (part of) the problem in the equation...

EDIT : Timmy, Elements and Mr Black OD sound like nice option too....I wish I could test this 7 pedals to clear my mind...
Click to expand...
FWIW, my P with VERY hot overwound Duncan's worked wonderfully with the BB - as I say, it responds very "amp like" when you hit it hard.
 
#84
pbass2 said:
Are there other boutique pedals modeled in that thing? That is just cool. I'm surprised, guess I've been living under a log. I can imagine Brassmasters, etc, but the BB is more obscure I thought. I use my BB religiously but haven't used a multi-effect like the Zoom in ages. To me that's a pretty big prop for the BB…..
Does it still have the amp-like response of the BB pedal? Crazy times we're in I guess…..;)
Click to expand...

It's fairly touch sensitive, yes. The fuzzes are all pretty bad, actually. It doesn't really have any boutique pedals but does have a share of obscure stuff like the guyatone bottom blaster. Not a one to one replacement of the originals in most cases but decent sounds can be found.
 
#85
karla684 said:
I agree with the opinion that Darkglass pedals are not what you're looking for (because of built-in tone), as long as you don't wanna use the blend to weigh in your tone.

Of the ones I've tried I associate your description with the smallsound/bigsound Mini. Very transparent and nice breakup, which flavor can be fine tuned with the Bias. It only compresses at lower bias settings (as it should), in the higher range it is very dynamic.

Best of luck on your quest!
Cheers,
Kalle
Click to expand...

I was curious after reading comments from other users, so I played my Mini solo today, listening carefully. And I must change my previous opinion. It does indeed compress your tone, making it fuller at almost any setting. So yes, it has a built-in compression to the tone, barely noticable, but it's still very dynamic and sounds superb.

Cheers,
Kalle
 
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#86
karla684 said:
I was curious after reading comments from other users, so I played my Mini solo today, listening carefully. And I must change my previous opinion. It does indeed compress your tone, making it fuller at almost any setting. So yes, it has a built-in compression to the tone, barely noticable, but it's still very dynamic and sounds superb.

Cheers,
Kalle
Click to expand...

Yes, as I said earlier on, the Mini does have *some* compression inherent to it that cannot be dialed out, but as you discovered, you can use the gain and bias knobs to dial almost all of it out, and it is still a very dynamic pedal. Full sounding is an excellent way to describe it.

People who say they cannot dial most of the compression out of it probably haven't spent more than 5 minutes playing it, or haven't touched the controls.
 
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#89
CassiusRegular said:
Concerning Darkglass, I already tried the VMT (two years ago) and wasn't completly satisfied with it. Too colored. And adding a blend to a dirt never satisfies me for some reason.
Click to expand...

I'm a HUGE Darkglass fan, however I didn't mention them here because just as many have said they are colored. I happen to love the colorations (I own the B7K, B7K Ultra, and Vintage Deluxe v1), but if I want transparent overdrive, I use other pedals. As noted my favorite is the Grizzly Bass, but my Blueberry clone (JohnK Foundry) also sounds great.
 
#90
Crazy Otto said:
The kazoo is essentially an overabundance of (I think higher) mids. ... I do know that the Grizzly has a delicious mid-scoop pot to help dial out out exactly that phenomenon, should it appear.
Click to expand...

cnltb said:
I tried that.
I never liked mid scoop and didn't like it here either.
Click to expand...

One of the nice things about the Grizzly is that the mid cut and treble cut controls can be completely bypassed by dialing them fully clockwise.
 
#95
I did a lot of overdrive/distortion experimentation in the years that I played SVTs. This was before there were most of the current options for bass-specific drives and the most recommended pedals at the time were the Fulltone BassDrive (pre-MOSFET version) and the Tech 21 BDI or PBDI.

My experience with the SVT-CL that I played for years was that the amp in itself was very colored and would tend to enhance the midrange of whatever you put in it strongly (a scoop in the mid-mids and large boost in the low-mid/ upper-bass region). I found the bass-specific pedals to accentuate the low-mid/upper-bass character too much which would cause the amp to compress and lose punch too much for my taste. I ended up having the best luck with very light drives or distortions that were fairly tight or even rolled off the lows to a degree.

My favorite pedals paired with the SVT were a Keeley Tubescreamer, a Keeley Rat, and an MI Audio Blueboy (a Tubescreamer-inspired design with a flatter tonal response and less compression). I used all of them at a fairly low gain but with a volume boost that would push the front end of the amp to start crunching just right. The most important aspect I found was the addition of upper mids and tightening of the bass. Interestingly, none of them apart from the Blue Boy were very impressive bass drives through subsequent amps. Strongly voiced tube amps can definitely be touchy about pedal pairings!

With all the various newer options available today, I would recommend trying a tighter dirty boost pedal my favorite of which is the Durham Sex-Drive at the moment. Of the already mentioned pedals, I would second the Pork Loin and maybe the SS/BS Mini, both of which can do similar things as my previous favorites but with some nicely tweak-able character options.
 
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#96
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No Such Thing!

I am still questing and have several that are close, very close.

Fuzzrocious BDPG is very close warm defined with a good bounce with out being harsh. I may speak to Ryan about giving this the Feed Me! treatment.

EHX Hot Tubes maybe if it had a better tone stack, great grunty tone, with the tone bypasses I can get it really close with a fancy non pedal board friendly EQ (Scholtz Instrument EQ)

Hjart Muller Lo|Fat really sweet overdrive but gets a bit harsh when seeking clarity but has a great girth and drive great with my Texas Boogie band.

Joyo California warm defined and versatile but missing that special something.

Dan Electro Daddy warm defined and versatile but missing that special something
 
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#98
I've been in an OD quest for the last month. I tried a few good pedals and I know there are limitless alternatives, but still, the best OD I'm getting to my ears with my current gear is the drive I'm getting from the BDDI. Man I love that drive. Problem, I need that pedal for clean as well. So I guess I'll be looking to trade back up to a PBDDI.... which is what I started out with and kept for 5-6 years. Call me Runaround Mike.
 

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