I wonder how that compares to the Vintage Microtubes? It's so hard to tell from videos. I can still hear solid-state clipping going on in my Vintage. It's the least-bad pedal I've found so far but I'm looking for saturation without any sizzle.
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Trouble deciding a bass overdrive
- Thread starter bassweedwizard
- Start date
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- Tags
- overdrive stoner rock
I wonder how that compares to the Vintage Microtubes? It's so hard to tell from videos. I can still hear solid-state clipping going on in my Vintage. It's the least-bad pedal I've found so far but I'm looking for saturation without any sizzle.
Rat. Filter dark, gain up for pseudo-fuzz tones. Turn down the gain and you’ll find it can be fairly versatile. For aggressive music, you can do much worse. Of course the older Rats have some magic, but for the price the current off the shelf Rats are fantastic. It’s all over countless heavy albums throughout history.
My absolute favorite tone for a stoner tone that has grit is basically achieved by running two low gain drives into each other.
The texture you're getting from that is a lot coarser than using a single gain stage.
In terms of cheap pedals, I'd look at the Nobels ODR (any model, the guitar ones work for bass), the Wampler Belle,
the Ground FX Burning Sunn, the Xotic BB Bass Preamp, the Catalinbread SFT and Dirty Little Secret, the Beetronics Fatbee, the Aguilar Storm King.
All of these should be around or below $100 on the second hand market. The combination that works best for you? That's down to some experimentation.
The texture you're getting from that is a lot coarser than using a single gain stage.
In terms of cheap pedals, I'd look at the Nobels ODR (any model, the guitar ones work for bass), the Wampler Belle,
the Ground FX Burning Sunn, the Xotic BB Bass Preamp, the Catalinbread SFT and Dirty Little Secret, the Beetronics Fatbee, the Aguilar Storm King.
All of these should be around or below $100 on the second hand market. The combination that works best for you? That's down to some experimentation.
That is pretty cool, never heard that- and his tone was definitely unique at the time when I first heard them. The old SVTs didn't have a Master Volume control, so boosting all of the EQ controls would have driven the tubes in interesting ways (hence the very low "volume' setting). I have to try this with the Origin Super Vintage!
Love the Spark but I think the MojoMojo gets closer to the sounds you say you want - it’s kind of a Spark plus when it comes to overdrive.
It’s pretty much of a Swiss Army knife if you want a range of subtle to high drive levels as well as boost on hand. The left-hand side is “Spark”, to the right is “Spark+”. Mine’s been a brick for reliability and only $60 or so. But I wouldn’t make you try anythingDangit! Don't make me try the Mojomojo too!
No one is probably going to defend a Boss ODB3 here. But some of the best raw, bass tones I’ve heard live have been with that little yellow tank. I’ve never used one but from people who have, apparently the first quarter is where the magic is before it gets overblown.
Also, if you’ve seen any videos of Reeder, a lot of his sound is from playing so far forward that he’s hammering the strings over the fretboard.
Note that MojoMojo is darker-sounding than Spark. There are frequency charts for each showing that somewhere here on TB...I can't find them at the moment...The left-hand side is “Spark”, to the right is “Spark+”. Mine’s been a brick for reliability and only $60 or so. But I wouldn’t make you try anything
That’s what I recall too, I remember the MojoMojo being decent but a little dark and honky with bass while the Spark was more clear and “sparkly”
The Blumes has taken the place of the Aftershock on my board. Its a super versatile drive pedal
Since I have both Spark and Mojo, I took a minute to A/B them as I’d never noticed any “darkness”. I think I agree that the Mojo boosts bass a bit more, but working the bass and treble controls it was easy to make them sound identical at low drive levels. As I’m currently looking for lower levels of overdrive, the Spark is more suitable and it fine-tunes the low-level drive much more easily. The MoJo though will go all the way to fuzz for those in the mood.
Yeah I found the Spark a lot more suitable for what I was doing when I compared them (pushing a tube amp, so the bass version of a “treble booster”). I personally didn’t like the Mojo Mojo for that role as it wasn’t as open up top for me regardless of EQ. Of course pushing a tube amp isn’t exactly a linear affair, so it may well be a different story when you are using them into a clean amp to begin with (which I don’t think I ever tried with either)
