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The Sushi Box FX Secret Society

Well this is kinda cool. It always freaks me out that there is so much gain lost with these pedals. More seems to be able to put it back. Using my Starfire with BiSonics for testing and of course because it is such a nice bass to play. The SlampeggX is set for BIG FAT but still defined. Switches out, bass 1/8th turn boost, treble 1/8th turn cut.

The UA is set as my brite channel. Treble and Mids are wide open. Bass is between 10:00 and 11:00.

More at 3/4 gets me to -12 db on the led ladder / gain display on my mixer.

All the EQ's and comps are bypassed on the mixer and it sounds lovely in the cans.


The Keeley is basically just a junction box in this test.
Tomorrow I'll swap around the SlampeggX and Oracle.
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Some folks on one of the fabulous DIY forums have been asking me for a while to do a DIY project of an old Fender preamp, and as I looked at it I thought "well geeze, that's not far off from PAX." So anyway, looks like this will be a thing I have available soon for my fellow builders.

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I've had my Detective for a couple of weeks now, and I need to tell you that this is a great pedal! I own the UA, PA, DW, Elementary. SBVT Smoke Signal and Space Heater. If I had to choose only one of these, no question it would be the Detective. The lower gain Elementary channel is perfect for an always-on tone warmup or light OD, and the higher gain Wattson channel gives me all of the higher gain HiWatt grind that I need. Granted, the HiWatt tonestack is sufficiently different from the Fender/Baxandall tone stack used in the UA or PA, or the James stack used in the SBVT, and some will prefer one over the other. But this is really a brilliant pedal with great real-world applications. Well done, Senor Sushi! PS.... I've got a Dreamcatcher in the December order batch, so stay tuned!
 
Well this is kinda cool. It always freaks me out that there is so much gain lost with these pedals. More seems to be able to put it back. Using my Starfire with BiSonics for testing and of course because it is such a nice bass to play. The SlampeggX is set for BIG FAT but still defined. Switches out, bass 1/8th turn boost, treble 1/8th turn cut.

The UA is set as my brite channel. Treble and Mids are wide open. Bass is between 10:00 and 11:00.

More at 3/4 gets me to -12 db on the led ladder / gain display on my mixer.

All the EQ's and comps are bypassed on the mixer and it sounds lovely in the cans.


The Keeley is basically just a junction box in this test.
Tomorrow I'll swap around the SlampeggX and Oracle.View attachment 4895559

I was using my More at the end of my chain as well. Then I noticed that others had it at the front, so I tried it there. It really opens up the top end when I used it there. I don't know why, but it's "effect" was enough that I had to readjust all of the pedals after it.
 
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I've had my Detective for a couple of weeks now, and I need to tell you that this is a great pedal! I own the UA, PA, DW, Elementary. SBVT Smoke Signal and Space Heater. If I had to choose only one of these, no question it would be the Detective. The lower gain Elementary channel is perfect for an always-on tone warmup or light OD, and the higher gain Wattson channel gives me all of the higher gain HiWatt grind that I need. Granted, the HiWatt tonestack is sufficiently different from the Fender/Baxandall tone stack used in the UA or PA, or the James stack used in the SBVT, and some will prefer one over the other. But this is really a brilliant pedal with great real-world applications. Well done, Senor Sushi! PS.... I've got a Dreamcatcher in the December order batch, so stay tuned!
Thanks man, glad you're enjoying it :) I think you're going to love Dreamcatcher, it's becoming one of my favorites to play with. I'm honestly torn between the two as my go-to two-channel though, they're both so excellent but different. I love the heavy distortion on Dreamcatcher's drive channel, but realistically I don't play that heavy much, and I LOVE the elementary channel on Detective.
 
@Sushi Box FX Can the Dreamcatcher dirt channel be clean without a loss in output in comparison to the UAx side ? any thought about adding the tone stack defeat switch(es) to Dreamcatcher ?
I'll have to plug my Dreamcatcher in and test it, but I'm not sure if clean is really an option for the dirt channel, it's pretty heavy. I'll try it out tonight.

I've thought about the tone stack defeat switches, I'm open to the idea and there is obviously room in the box and on the board, but lately I've been more careful with the routing of my boards to minimize noise and other issues so I would have to make sure there is enough room from a routing perspective to add switches without disrupting the signal paths.

I'm also a little concerned with stability due to the amount of gain that will be added back in. Obviously not a concern with the clean channel as that's basically a UA, but the dirt channel is pretty heavy. I basically cranked up the gain in the design until it started to oscillate, then I turned it down gradually to just the point where it stopped. I would be a little worried that bypassing the tonestack would push it back into oscillation territory, so I'll have to try it out on a prototype unit before I commit to redesigning the board, so it would be a little ways down the road if it were to happen.
 
I'll have to plug my Dreamcatcher in and test it, but I'm not sure if clean is really an option for the dirt channel, it's pretty heavy. I'll try it out tonight.

I've thought about the tone stack defeat switches, I'm open to the idea and there is obviously room in the box and on the board, but lately I've been more careful with the routing of my boards to minimize noise and other issues so I would have to make sure there is enough room from a routing perspective to add switches without disrupting the signal paths.

I'm also a little concerned with stability due to the amount of gain that will be added back in. Obviously not a concern with the clean channel as that's basically a UA, but the dirt channel is pretty heavy. I basically cranked up the gain in the design until it started to oscillate, then I turned it down gradually to just the point where it stopped. I would be a little worried that bypassing the tonestack would push it back into oscillation territory, so I'll have to try it out on a prototype unit before I commit to redesigning the board, so it would be a little ways down the road if it were to happen.
I'm no circuit designer, but could the tonestack bypass implement a dropping resistor to keep the level more or less the same?
 
We need an exchange program. I'd really like to try Dreamcatcher and the Detective as well as the Slampegg and the eventual SVT. I would pay something like $30/month to be able to trial different pedals and see which one I wanted to purchase. Something like what PedalGenie does: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
Thanks man, glad you're enjoying it :) I think you're going to love Dreamcatcher, it's becoming one of my favorites to play with. I'm honestly torn between the two as my go-to two-channel though, they're both so excellent but different. I love the heavy distortion on Dreamcatcher's drive channel, but realistically I don't play that heavy much, and I LOVE the elementary channel on Detective.

Any chance that the Dreamcatcher's drive channel will be available in a pedal on it's own in the (near) future?
 
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We need an exchange program. I'd really like to try Dreamcatcher and the Detective as well as the Slampegg and the eventual SVT. I would pay something like $30/month to be able to trial different pedals and see which one I wanted to purchase. Something like what PedalGenie does: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

I find the support and advice from Nathan and those on this thread, combined with the high resale value to be sufficient for my needs...JMHO.
 
Ah... I'm probably not Dremcatcher material then. In my world, dostortion on bass is highly over rated. I'm firmly in the universe of 'pit a little hair on that'. On guitar, fine but on bass it typically robs punch and for me... that's heresy!
It's possible you just haven't tried a really good one ;) The majority of bass drives out there are too much drive and not enough bass, in my incredibly biased opinion. It should still sound like you, even if it's distorted.

I'm no circuit designer, but could the tonestack bypass implement a dropping resistor to keep the level more or less the same?
It's definitely possible, but then what's the point of bypassing the tonestack? Just set it for 2-10-2 and you get the same result.

We need an exchange program. I'd really like to try Dreamcatcher and the Detective as well as the Slampegg and the eventual SVT. I would pay something like $30/month to be able to trial different pedals and see which one I wanted to purchase. Something like what PedalGenie does: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
As much as I would love to do something like that, it wouldn't really be practical for a business the size of Sushi Box.

Any chance that the Dreamcatcher's drive channel will be available in a pedal on it's own in the (near) future?
It's certainly possible, though it's very similar in character to Black Eye II already. Basically I took the 3 gain stages I had to work with, set them for the cumulative gain level offered by the 4 stages of Black Eye, swapped the tonestack for TMB instead of James/Baxandall, then as I mentioned decreased the gain until it stopped squealing.
 
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