So. My Le Bass arrived today. Got to mess around with it through headphones, and my impressions are largely positive!
First: for those concerned about the size, here's a picture of it next to my old Hartke Bass Attack:
It's definitely large for a pedal, but at least for me, not prohibitively so.
Soundwise, here are my thoughts. My bass is a Spector Q5 with EMG-HZ humbuckers, with D'addario Chrome flats.
Channel A: Despite the lack of a mid control, this channel has some nice punch (though my bass is naturally midrange-y). Tons of low end from this channel. With the cab sim, it gets really bassy, to the point where I need to boost the highs on both the pedal and my bass to get a useable tone - but for me, cab sims are most useful with distorted signals, so you probably won't need it for this channel.
Channel B: This channel gets hairier than I expected at high gain settings - very nice tubey overdriven tone. With the gain rolled back, the breakup is nice and dynamic. I would recommend the cab sim if you're using a lot of the dirt, but again I found myself turning up the highs to compensate for the rolloff.
Cold Fusion: I'm still working out exactly how the controls between the two channels interact in this mode, but I think I've found a winner. All the hair of channel B with a cleaner, more articulate low end courtesy of channel A. This channel seems to have a bit more output as well, though that may be fixable with some adjustment to the controls.
Hot Fusion: Despite being designed for ultra high-gain sounds, I actually really like how this sounds when cleaned up - it's like channel B but meatier. I'll need to experiment a bit with it through an actual amp, but I can see myself using this regularly. For those wondering, though, the high-gain settings are absolutely
savage.
My rig is at my band's rehearsal space and it may be a couple of weeks before I get to run this thing through a real cab, but I'll have more notes then.
