dannybuoy

Btw, if you get a Cioks DC5 (Hotrox stock them), that's the only power supply I know that will fit under a Nano without any mods.

I know you weren't asking me, but I have the mids maxed, bass at 11 o'clock and treble at 2 o'clock. Flat setting is supposed to be bass and treble off and mids maxed btw - but that still sounds a little dark if you ask me!

Interested to hear what you think of it. I love how it never bottoms out no matter how hard you dig in, it just gives you more growl. However it is too dark sounding for some, you might want a bit more clarity if trying to bring out the mwah on a fretless. [quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1490603564' post='3266214'] Xotic BB Preamp - like a bass friendly tubescreamer, very touch sensitive and can go from clean to heavy drive by plucking strength alone. Come to think of it, this is what I used when playing fretless in a rock band due to expressiveness and is worth a look. [/quote] Still keep an eye out for a BB Preamp though! Just had another go on mine just for the hell of it, love how touch sensitive it is and its buzzy quality really helps to accentuate that mwah.

Also, if just turning the pad down on the tweeter, I assume you would still have a crossover in place that you might want to eliminate? Say for example (this is purely hypothetical) there is a crossover sending everything above 2kHz to the tweeter and everything below to the woofer. However the woofer might actually be capable of going up to 3kHz quite comfortably. If this was the case then removing the entire crossover network and hooking up the main speaker direct would give you a tad more brightness.

[quote name='jassbass' timestamp='1491338805' post='3272310'] When are the new yamahas being released,? Anyone know [/quote] They are in stock on Japanese sites now, so not long. Give the Yamaha shop in London a ring perhaps?

The soon-to-be-released updated Yamaha BB lineup features an active model in their mid-range price tier, I'd expect it to be under £800: http://youtu.be/eDslUlL_j7Y

Never heard of it being based on anything Ampeg like, but it doesn't sound like one to me anyway. There is more than one Ampeg sound, but usually it's associated with a fat/round/scooped sound. To my ears, the left hand side of the Vulcan's colour knob (or switch if you have the deluxe version) is like the Vintage but more ragged and with a big peak in the upper mids. The right side is scooped like a B3K but perhaps tamer/flatter. It's great to be able to blend between the two.

[quote name='Osiris' timestamp='1491157355' post='3270910'] OK, so not a pedal, but check out the drive channel on the Genzler Magellan 800 amp. Like you, I've been searching for ages for the perfect low gain drive that sounds smooth without low end mush or a nasty fizzy top end. I'd tried some of the pedals on your shortlist but ended up with the Magellan instead I ought to point out that I play fretted basses and round wound strings. Someone mentioned the Tone Hammer earlier and that was the best of the pedals, in my opinion. The Boss BB-1X bass driver sounds titanically crap on every YouTube clip that I saw but was surprisingly good in the flesh for low gain sounds. However, the Genzler is totally very similar to the Tone Hammer but with an additional level of clarity, not brighter but somehow clearer and more refined. When you engage it, there is a subtle eq curve added in too that rolls off some of the high and low end and bumps the mids a touch. My guess is that this would work really well with a fretless. I'm hoping to post a more in depth review of the amp soon. [/quote] That Genzler sounds nice, and it raises a good point that many of us are just looking for a preamp/drive pedal because we are not happy with the basic sound of our amps!

That's the one! There's also the C9, but I preferred the B9. This reminds me I have lent mine to a friend and need to get it back!

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1491140877' post='3270762']After all it isn't as if a Fender has a Best Before date, and if it did it would be 1965 [/quote]

How much did you pay? The last of the American Standards are being blown out for bargain prices due to the new American Professional line, so hope you didn't pay full price. I don't see a problem with it though... the specs are the same as the last 2016 version. Is a shop supposed to get rid of all their old stock annually in case it goes it out date?

The DHA goes from clean and transparent, to slight tube warmth, all the way up to fuzz. But it sounds pretty bad as a fuzz though if you ask me and is more at home as a low gain pedal. I had one as my first ever bass pedal, loved it at the time and only got rid due to it's large size, 12v power requirements (although they can also run at 9v), and unstoppable gas to try other stuff. It could be perfect for your needs!

I still have the BB; my VT suffered an early demise but I now have the VT500 amp (but the Orange Terror is my main one). The Bearfoot Blueberry and Pike Vulcan are my go-to overdrives. There are plenty of clips out there that can express their tones better than my written words. But if you're anything like me, even if you did your research and picked just one, I bet you would always have that niggling feeling about the other and eventually end up getting it to try anyway! You can return new pedals bought online due to the distance selling rules, and if you buy used you can sell on for the same amount. You might take a small hit in postage, but you can just treat that as a rental fee!

+1 there to the VMTD. It does sound 'tubey', but in a different way to the VT. When playing into tubes at the point of breakup, a guitar gets a nice crunch sound, but with a bass, especially a high output one played with fingers rather than a pick, all that low end going in results in a squishy, squelchy, compressed sound. The VT replicates this very well. The VMTD leaves your low end through clean and uncompressed though and sounds like it's been blended with a guitar amp. That's how I found them anyway, and I liked them both equally for different reasons!

I used to use both together into a Markbass CMD121P! The VT as a relatively clean Ampeg sim and the BB to kick it up a gear. They are both great, but both different, and it's hard to say which you'd prefer. But they do work really well together, so perhaps get both! If forced at gunpoint to pick one out of the two, it'd be the VT.

They swap bass too, Katzman and Stratton both played a bit during the London gig!

[quote name='ba55i5t' timestamp='1490959284' post='3269388'] If you get the P and MM config you could always coil tap the MM. Or you could just get a Peavey T40 and see what the hype is all about. [/quote] I've had a T40, it sounds like none of them! The sound of that with both pups on full vol/tone played aggressively with a pick into an AD200 was bliss though!

Oh yeah - there is a new EHX Operation Overlord pedal, an overdrive for guitar and bass with blend and 3-band EQ. Fits within budget, and just might sound awesome (not heard bass demos yet!).

Solid connectors can cause problems in the long run - most MXR-style Hammond enclosures are slightly trapezoidal, so especially if you have more than 2 in a row, you are putting a lot of strain on the jacks, which is especially bad if they are soldered to the PCB.

Darkglass/Pike pedals and the Two Notes should both cope well with the hot signal though (I used to have a Ray4!).

[quote name='Westenra' timestamp='1490960343' post='3269403'] So what did you end up with? [/quote] A mixture of George L's here and there (even though their reliability isn't great), and a bunch of these in varying lengths: https://www.thomann.de/gb/sommer_cable_spirit_xs_highflex_02.htm Not as compact or flexible as the EBS, but still fairly low profile and look like they'll last forever!

I do not recommend EBS (or the clones made by Warwick); I tested a whole bunch of patch cables in a simple true bypass looper into a headphone amp when trying to diagnose the cause of noise in my signal chain. All the EBS ones picked up a huge amount of hum (presumably from nearby sources of interference such as my PC or dimmer switch), whereas the other ones with proper shielded metal jacks were totally silent. I've mentioned this elsewhere only to have others say they've experienced no issues with theirs. Neither did I until I decided to test them as above, so I invite any other naysayers to do the same!

Depends what kind of tones you're after as there's such a wide range! I prefer the P+J pickup blend on my Yamaha BB, the grunt of a P but with extra depth and growl; ballsier than a Jazz with both pickups on. One thing to note is that those SUBs have really hot preamps in them that can easily overload the front end of many a drive pedal. When this happens, especially the low end can get all compressed and bloated, so a blend can come in handy there. I dig the Blueberry for that old school sound, the Beta mentioned above is also in this camp (but I found it boomier, duller and fizzier). But also utilise some more modern blended distortions like the Pike Vulcan. This Darkglass-esque pedal has a knob that blends between 2 different drive circuits, and I prefer the voicing to the Darkglass variants. With a P and the colour knob to the left, it sounds just like Geezer Butler's sound on the 13 album to me! I suggest you look into the Two Notes Le Bass also; £200 ish new so you should be able to get a used one within budget. When it comes to using pedals with a built in blend vs a blend pedal, I've got a blend pedal but never really found a use for it; pretty much everything I've picked up either had one built in or didn't need one!

Tried one of these out in a shop whilst shopping for an acoustic guitar... Loved it so much I instantly forgot about buying a guitar and picked up a Yamaha fretless as my first bass! Thank you, Michael Kelly!

The LS-2 is a good cheap option and is also flexible for multiple uses. Some pedals invert phase though, resulting in your two signals cancelling each other out when you blend them; so I recommend a blender with a phase switch like the One Control Mosquite. There are plenty of decent pedals that don't need a blend though, especially lower gain overdrives. I play a lot of doom stuff and my main drive is the Bearfoot Blueberry, very thick/warm/vintage sounding.