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The Sushi Box FX Secret Society

#16,121
Order question. Thinking about trying something other than my YYZ for dirt. I don’t run it nearly as much now with the UA on the board. The UA driven a bit is great. Was thinking of trying something different like Dist/Fuzz for dirty. Would you run that before the UA or after?
 
#16,122
Parzival said:
Order question. Thinking about trying something other than my YYZ for dirt. I don’t run it nearly as much now with the UA on the board. The UA driven a bit is great. Was thinking of trying something different like Dist/Fuzz for dirty. Would you run that before the UA or after?
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That will entirely depend on 1)how you are running the UA 2)what fuzz or dirt is added in series and how THAT is set and 3)what sounds good to the player. It really does depend on all those factors, and there are surely combinations that would work both before or after. I strongly suspect any other dirt you like can sound good before or after the UA; it'll just be a question of getting the settings/gain structure to sound "right".
 
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#16,123
Parzival said:
Order question. Thinking about trying something other than my YYZ for dirt. I don’t run it nearly as much now with the UA on the board. The UA driven a bit is great. Was thinking of trying something different like Dist/Fuzz for dirty. Would you run that before the UA or after?
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There's no right or wrong, just personal preference here. I run drive pedals in front of the UA; I treat it as my "amp" front end, and I like the sound of hitting a tube amp with some drive. I'm sure you can run them after, it'll just be a different flavour.
 
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#16,124
Parzival said:
Order question. Thinking about trying something other than my YYZ for dirt. I don’t run it nearly as much now with the UA on the board. The UA driven a bit is great. Was thinking of trying something different like Dist/Fuzz for dirty. Would you run that before the UA or after?
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I prefer to have my UA or other amp style preamps at the near end of my signal chain to get the best results. YMMV.
 
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#16,126
bassbrad said:
Sushi Box FX JC Emerald v2 on Bass


The Sushi Box FX JC Emerald is another great offering from Sushi Box FX this time based on the ever popular rock amp the Marshall JCM800. This version takes the standard JCM800 and adds a couple of tonal options making it more versatile and user friendly for bass players. My impressions for bass start with the Deep switch engaged. My test bass has a Seymo0ur Duncan Vintage P into the JC Emerald into my Zoom interface monitored through Mackie CRx3 and Koss headphones. Tonal comparison was my first run Underground Accelerator for a baseline. As always YMMV


The gain is very sensitive and quickly goes from clean into saturation and as much overdrive as you can stand, low doses of that are a potent ingredient in a rock player’s arsenal, the gain is also nicely touch sensitive adding authoritative crunch when pushed by plucking deeper. Mid gain crunch into full on overdrive the JCE has very pleasant teeth with no loss of lows and mids that should punch well. Of course higher gain settings do introduce some noise. I might have wished for a little more clean headroom in the beginning. With the Deep engaged the bass is potent and punchy, mids are pronounced and highs are very open in comparison to the UA but not overly so unless the Brite is engaged. There is a lot of output with this pedal so be careful not to overdrive the rest of your signal chain. Compared to the UA the JCEmerald has all the bottom and mids with more open highs, switching back and forth the highs seem dampened on the UA which normally has a very pleasant character for bass. As hoped the Deep adds some of the authority of the venerable Marshall Major 200 watt beast and other Bass versions I have experienced.


If you're looking for a rock bass voice to emulate Lemmy, Chris Squire, Jack Bruce or Noel Redding the JC Emerald has the goods. If looking for a different tone option this also has a different character with the open highs, but be careful with the gain as saturation happens pretty early.



TLDR; Compared to the UA the JCEmerald has all the bottom and mids with more open highs, switching back and forth the highs seem dampened on the UA which normally has a very pleasant character for bass. If you’re looking to Rock the JC Emerald delivers.


Cons; I wished for a little more clean headroom before saturation, IMHO this would make it a lot more versatile and an alternate voice for other styles than rock.
View attachment 4978419
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Update after installing 12AT7 as suggested by @Sushi Box FX. IMHO this might be a better choice especially for bass players interested in this pedal as it seemed to offer a better dial in range for saturation settings letting me go from a cleanish through crunch to full blast. The cleanish is not much improved but the added range is helpful for dialing in saturated tones. I can go from a Chris Squire to Lemmy to Felix Pappalardi/ Mountain tone, Noel Redding/Hendrix and Jack Bruce Marshall tones as well.

The everything on 10 is super massive but still defined and punchy. I'm calling it El Capitan
El Capitan Yosemite.jpg


FWIW I used a small screw driver to push up the tube.
 
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#16,127
Parzival said:
What OD/Dist pedals have you found play well into a UA? TIA all.
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Honestly I have not found a pedal that didn't play well with the UA and the UA imparted special sauce to everything I have tried. Some have even pushed the UA into delicious buttery tones. Even textured synth sounds and the Ultrawave pickup some love going thru a UA.
 
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#16,128
Parzival said:
What OD/Dist pedals have you found play well into a UA? TIA all.
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Damnation MBD2; it's the only drive pedal I haven't sold at least once, it's never left my small board. With the clean blend, you can dial in anything from mild overdrive that's barely there, to full distortion.
 
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#16,131
Parzival said:
What OD/Dist pedals have you found play well into a UA? TIA all.
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Haven't played one that didn't sound good just yet. Currently using a Wampler Belle and a custom-built OD which in a previous lifetime was a MXR Zakk Wylde. The former is a Nobels ODR-1 style, the latter a Tubescreamer, plenty of those variants/clones on the market! Finding that I actually set both with considerably lower gain than I would do without using the UA; the latter is set so it's *just* on the edge of breakup, but still basically clean. So when one of those drives hits the front end, the UA goes into some lovely saturation. Stacking the drive pedals makes for such a thick-yet-cutting tone. Definitely reminds me of playing a heavily pushed Orange AD200 or SVT head aka: righteous distortion.
 
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#16,139
Bleeds Horchata said:
I know we're tube tyrannical around these parts but hear me out: Dreamcatcher red channel in a smaller enclosure, no tubes. Hosomaki Series Sushi Boxes. Maybe a switch for a mid notch filter, the discontinued Wampler Low Blow had one. Made a huge difference cutting though while heavily saturated.
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@Sushi Box FX has already offered a solid state dirt pedal along with several other tube distortions that were not big sellers. FWIW the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] is brilliant

Fluffy Kitten – Sushi Box FX
 
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