Pearce BC1 Clone. There now is one!!!!!!!

[victor5string]

At last it is being made.
http://www.suncoastanalog.com/preamp_pedals.htm

Not that cheap, but to find a Pearce BC1 in good condition is getting rather hard these days. This also has the ability to switch between the regular Pearce drive and what essentially is the 'Billy Sheehan' mod, which on a Pearce you can't do, so a big bonus IMO.

I've owned a BC1 and really, really liked it, and would love to have another but I feel taking a piece gear that rare and old out gigging a lot could lead to some issues. Now a new pedal format just seems to work better for me, I could pop it on a small pedal board and travel smaller and lighter(no need for a rack). This pedal could be what a lot of bass players are looking for to get that tone, without having to wait for a Pearce to turn up.


GAS has arrived..

[Dood]

Stop it!!!! I can't keep adding to my GAS list! - The videos (including the one you sent me) are a pretty strong argument for having one!!! It's a distortion I really like a great deal.

[Dood]

[media]http://youtu.be/_GNyjQ9GwMs[/media]

[Dood]

[url="http://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=960124820680988&set=vb.100000504387229&type=2&theater"]http://www.facebook....&type=2[/url]

This is the link V5S sent me folks..

[Prime_BASS]

Had a pearce for a while but couldn't get the right sound I wanted out of it unless I used a bass I don't get in with generally, thus didn't work to well with the band so ended getting sold on. Would love another though.

Just saw Ant on here formally castrovalva now in Brawlers play in Nottingham and he was using a pearce sounded gnarly as!!!

[molan]

I'm not usually much of a distortion fan for bass but I have to admit that this really sounds rather good!

[fretmeister]

I need one!

Any UK sales yet?

[victor5string]

It's not just an overdrive machine. The Pearce/this pedal have a very nice clean tone.

[fretmeister]

I'm seriously thinking about ordering one.

Anyone ordered anything from Basscentral in Florida before?

[Prime_BASS]

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1413879107' post='2582945']
I'm seriously thinking about ordering one.

Anyone ordered anything from Basscentral in Florida before?
[/quote]

Not sure myself Ant has already brought one so waiting for him to give a me link

[Ant]

yeah i have one on the way from basscentral, i had planned on getting the V1 a while back before the sheehan mod was introduced into it, but im glad i waited now.

[Ant]

had a good play with mine now, and i know prime_bass and dood have one as well.

i've had chance to properly compare it to my pearce BC1 as well, so ill go over the differences here

this is essentially a stripped back version of the pearce BC1, it's missing the dedicated effects loops for each channel (but keeps the global effects loop which is post EQ and pre limiter)
the limiter seems to act/sound/feel just the same as the original, but the LED works in reverse - instead of coming on brighter based on how much your signal crosses the threshold it starts fully bright and fades OFF)

the main channel on the suncoast (pearce BC1 channel 2 -GREEN CHANNEL)is IDENTICAL in every way to the pearce, only thing missing is boost flick switch that slams the input harder, and although the mid frequencies etc arent labelled on the face of the suncoast, the travel on the pots seems to match the pearce (i.e - i set my mid freq to the same point and it sounds like it's boosting the same frequency), the drive on this green channel is also very touch sensitive, it will clean up a lot if you play lightly,

hitting the BOOST switch brings the second channel (meant to be pearce BC1 channel 1 - RED CHANNEL) on in parallel so you can blend them together.

as on the pearce BC1 the GREEN channel seems to have a lot more volume available than the RED channel.
the controls for the RED channel are found under the baseplate in the form of trim pots, along with the option to switch from OD1 (original Pearce BC1) to OD2 (Billy sheehan mod)

they have removed the sweepable mids for the RED channel and fixed the control to 1.2khz,

now, i cant seem to get anywhere near the same amount of bass from this channel than i can from the original pearce RED channel, so there must be some differences here, to the point where you couldnt really use this channel on its own in my opinion, which brings me to the next point as well.

they have also removed the option to SWITCH channels from the Pearce BC1, you can only start with the GREEN channel and combine it with the RED channel, if you wish to use the RED channel on its own then you have to combine them both and then TURN DOWN the green channel - useful for recording etc but not live i wouldnt think because of the bass issue i mentioned.

the billy sheehan mod is INSANE! heaps and heaps and HEAPS of gain on tap, and pretty much zero bass, sounds gnarly as hell and cool if thats your thing, but i dont like the separation of sound it gives (you can distinctly hear the two sounds side by side, whereas i like them more melded together - but this is personal taste)

overall i think this pedal is insane, works perfectly for what i want and would even make me consider moving on my pearce and buying a backup pedal.

wrote this in a bit of a rush, so any other questions just fire them over, my pearce BC1 is probably the only piece of gear ive owned since back when i first really started taking bass seriously apart from my precision bass so i feel like i know it pretty well.

[molan]

Nice review Ant - great to hear from someone who has an original to compare with.

We had a lot of fun with the ones we had in the shop but they went very quickly. Some more arriving soon so hopefully we'll hang on to them for a bit longer and get a decent chance to run through all the options with a variety of amps and basses

[fretmeister]

Thanks for the review.

This is still on my GAS list. I've never used a Pearce but I have the SVP-BSP and I'd love to try them all together!

[Ant]

i will also try and get some sound clips sorted as i dont think the current ones out there show enough of what it can do, the overdrive available from the front controls is one of the nicest sounds ive ever heard.

[victor5string]

I've been lucky enough to have had a Pearce, Ampeg BSP and spent plenty of time on the Suncoast. The Suncoast is really a monster pedal, the clean tones you can get from it are very nice, backing off the treble with a slight bass boost and mid of your choice can result in some very pleasing fat clean tones. There is enough bite from the treble control to get some awesome slap tones.

The overdrive section on the Suncoast is a real monster, like Ant i would have liked the ability to sweep the mid range but the frequency selected is about where i would have it, so the harmonics in the note just pop out and you have that fantastic bite and grind in the mid while maintaining a firm structure to your tone with the clean channel. It does to the insane(but usable) very very well and its a tone i really like, but it also does mild break fantastically well when used in the OD1 setting.

[Prime_BASS]

Since everyone else has chimed in I will as well.

Just done a run of shows and rehearsals with my pedal, I never really use my Pearce as it was too much of a ball ache for me to shift about. After Ant telling me it's sounds stupidly similar I brought one.

Not much for me to add that Ant hasn't already covered. I do miss the sweep able mids as the 1.2khz setting is a little too high for me, and again it lacks a lot of real bottom, but for the tones that you can get out of it for people who use precisions or like the both pups on full whack sound it really sounds amazing.
But too thin for me.
To push it into super gnarly I still use my favoured BB preamp, which for me is a lot better than using the boost.

Again, the main channel sound is brilliant even on its own, clean tones are sweet and drives can be harsh or big and dark. The limiter also IMO works better this way round as you can see when it's turning off your big notes so to speak. And an easier thing to see on a stage of lights etc.

My board has gone from two drives and blender and an EQ to just my BB preamp and the Suncoast.

[Dood]

Yeah, 'ello!

Well everyone else has been in so it's my turn! - I've had a real love hate relationship with my drive sounds and I'm still not 100% happy, but I do have a sound I'd be happy to throw out live.

Like the guys, I've had different kit to mess around with. I've not owned a Pearce, but I've had the EBS Billy Sheehan Sig Drive, I have an Ampeg BSP that I still may sell and I now have the Suncoast B1P. In my journey I have also had an MXR M80, the obligatory BDDI and even a Boss Metal Zone looped up with a graphic equaliser, which worked quite well!

All the good stuff above rings true for me too and I would maybe prefer to sweep those mids as well but I am happy with having a clean channel that dirt gets added to - I'm wanting to keep the kit as small as possible so the trade off of not having a full second channel does mean the B1P box is a bit smaller.

Primarily I went with the B1P to shift some pounds from my rack using the BSP and it's tour ready metal carcass! I have to say though I've not gained much!! My B1P lives on a rack tray with a TC Nova Dynamics noise gate/compressor a power supply and a Cab Sim that I'll come to in a bit. So, really weight wise I've shed very little. Effects come from a TC GM2 so that lives in the rack too.

Two things I found a little difficulty with the B1P. The BSP drive is a very smooth distortion and there's tons of it - but it does need EQ to make it sing. BSP plus EQ rack..annoying! I was kinda hoping that the B1P had the same amount of distortion sustain out of the box - so I'm having to push the input a bit by winding up the output of my Nova Dynamics. No bother there really as I run that as a parallel compression leaving my 'loud stuff' intact.

The other thing that was immediately a problem with my set up is that I have a very clear full range speaker system behind me and the B1P to mind isn't designed to work well with tweeters. Much the same effect as plugging a guitar distortion pedal straight in to a flat PA. Not pretty! So to get round this I had two options. Either turn off my tweeter and sacrifice it for all my sounds or EQ the sh*te out of my signal output for just the distortion sound. There's a whole thread by me about it too! So I took a punt and bought one of those Fender rebadged Mooer Micro DI pedals. I run that after the B1P or in it's effects loop, I've not settled on which yet. I have to say, for the money it's brilliant! It allows me to push the tops on the B1P without tearing my ears off - and plugged in to my recording interface i get a much smoother bass signal that I can then treat with VSTs to add cabinet 'air'. The Micro DI is just an EQ, there's no fancy stuff in the box if you see what I mean.

I've got some other things to try in coming weeks, but I'm starting to get used to the B1P now. A nice piece of kit. One thing I wish I could go back and try though is the Sheehan drive and Micro DI. Maybe that's what it needed and I should have kept mine!

[Dood]

My other wishes for the B1P would be that the dirty channel could be switched in and out remotely. My effects unit has the ability to switch amplifier channels etc as part of a patch. Being able to control the pedal whilst it lives in a rack would be amazing. I might have to look in to that Suncoast! I've never been a fan of having pedals down by my feet - especially for gigging on the road!