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The Spaceman Club

#442
I've had a little bit of time to play through the Sputnik III Std. edition I bought a week ago or so. It didn't excite me when I first started playing through it using my active Lakland 44-14 (J-MM pickups). I tried different volume levels going in and it wasn't as thick as I wanted with my bass' usual setup. I decided to max the low knob on the bass and MY OH MY, the pedal came to life and is a joy to play. I can pull the lows down a bit and it still sounds good but it feels like it wants to be pushed. I have it running after the Saturn VI also on fairly tame settings so I'll try bumping that up and lowering the bass and see where that takes me. Drift mode is cool, reminds me of a Brassmaster sound in some settings but I haven't worked with it too much yet.

I'm not a fuzz expert by any means but the pedal is a little more hissy than some of the other fuzzes I have. Probably nature of the beast but correct me if I'm wrong. I still have a lot of experimenting to do.
 
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#443
I love the Explorer phaser, but don’t love the space it takes, the Explorer was voted off my board.

Until now… I’m now rocking a compact Explorer.

DC76EE23-0CAA-4048-B2E1-76AD285EEC29.jpeg
 
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#444
Charlie Tuna said:
I'm not a fuzz expert by any means but the pedal is a little more hissy than some of the other fuzzes I have.
Click to expand...
Apparently I'm not an interface expert either. Hiss was accentuated greatly by the Apogee Duet's instrument input which is not grounding properly. Ran through a DI and the Sputnik was fine and helped cure a couple other issues I was having. Carry on, nothing to see here.
 
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#445
Well I got curious and went in and changed the two trimpots on the Sputnik III and am quite happy with the results. I took a picture of them before fooling around in case I made any terrible mistakes. Spaceman assured me it is fine to adjust the trimpots. Luckily they do not travel beyond a full rotation so getting back to square one is easy.

I played a loop into my TC Electronics Ditto and had that running while I adjusted the trimmers. Playing both high and low basslines in the looper helped a lot to get in the ballpark. Then I would get my bass back in my hand to see how it sounded while playing.

Do I know technically what the trimpots are doing? No, but I noticed if the top trimmer is turned close to all the way clockwise it pinches the signal quite a bit. So I dialed it back until it was unpinched and ended up at 10 o’clock. This seemed to give me a full range of volume and fuzz from the pedal at different settings. The bottom trimmer seems to have more effect on the character of the fuzz, from synthy buzz (almost a hint of Doom 2) to, as my daughter said, “pants ripping”, brrraaapppp. :roflmao: Unfortunately, I can’t remember which way is which but I settled on the tick mark closest to 3 o’clock. If I get bored with these settings than I’ll put it on the other side just to change the character. For my particular unit these settings give a great range and the pedal cleans up really well with a small dialing back of the volume knob. There’s a great purr/furr doing that and then a little upping the volume goes into all-out fuzz. I still like to push the bass knob on my bass to get a very full sound and these settings don’t seem hindered by it at all. I was wearing headphones so a rig test still needs to happen.

Well, for anyone not happy with their Sputnik I suggest fine tuning it for your ear. Since it’s germanium-based I may plug in today and have it sound different but hopefully it’ll be in the same ballpark. Hope this helps someone.
 
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#446
Interesting, didn't quite bond with the Sputnik III and parted with it, but tweaking these trimpots might've helped.

I'm a bit late to the Spaceman party, had a Nebula and a Saturn VI 3 years ago, snagged a (great) Explorer, compact version, as well. But the real wow effect comes from both the Mercury IV and Saturn V i recently bought. These are amazing pedals ! Mercury nails the console grit i get in my DAW from Neve-based Lindell plugin, perfect for my clean-not that clean tone, Saturn adds its smooth slice of saturation, not as smooth as the VI version, which is why i prefer the V over the VI i guess. Nice !
 
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#447
I am even later to the Spaceman party. Bought an Explorer phaser some weeks ago, and I already love it. So couple of days ago I ordered an Apollo. Looking forward getting it. Looks like Thomann ended their deal with Spaceman and they are selling the last pedals at the moment. Had to order the Explorer from Sweden and I got the last Apollo they had. Interesting detail. Maybe.
 
#448
I really like the Apollo, but it has more gain than I need for my band’s song list. The Saturn VI suits my current better, so that one’s on my board right now.

But the Apollo sounds great and the different flavors of drive you can get from the diode switch make it a really versatile drive pedal. If you need a more distorted tone, it’s a great choice.
 
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#449
dave64o said:
I really like the Apollo, but it has more gain than I need for my band’s song list. The Saturn VI suits my current better, so that one’s on my board right now.

But the Apollo sounds great and the different flavors of drive you can get from the diode switch make it a really versatile drive pedal. If you need a more distorted tone, it’s a great choice.
Click to expand...
I use quite a lot of distortion in all my bands at the moment. Rickenbacker bass and a lot of distortion.
 
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#451
dave64o said:
I think you're going to like it!
Click to expand...
I am hopeful. One thing that is important for me is, that it reacts to touch well. So it should be really distorted when I hit the strings hard with a pick, and relatively clean when I softly sweep them with side of my thumb. Not super clean, a little hair all the time is ok, but you know.
 
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#452
That's a good question. I'm pretty sure I remember it being pretty touch sensitive, but I haven't used it much since getting it. Soon after I bought my Apollo last year, my band filled the two open positions we had and immediately started rehearsing and playing out.

But my recollection is that is was pretty touch sensitive, especially with the diode switch in the center, "no clipping diodes" setting. With the gain level realtively high, that setting might get you the kind of aggressive and touch sensitive tone you seem to want.
 
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