dannybuoy

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.

From demos, as I haven't played one, I thought it sounded good, but not really that close to the real deal. Especially 'Stingray mode' where the pickup position is all important, something that most dual pickup basses stumble on as the sweet spot is kind of in the middle of the two! I'm also not a fan of the lights but they could be disconnected easily enough I assume. If I had to choose one pickup config to do it all, I guess it would be some P+MM+J monstrosity, but I've never seen it done!

Sounds great here: http://youtu.be/_jBaovVmeBc I love my Sandberg Basic for its Stingray-esque tones but with a slimmer neck and smaller body, I could see myself getting on with one of these too for the same reasons.

I'm a big fan of both of his movies.

Most analog octavers will handle a low G ok, but only for short bursts - sustained notes that low down often jump an octave up and down, that warbling effect I was referring to.

Those tips will come in handy, I have a CV Jazz neck and a bottle of Tru Oil here waiting for a project one day!

Just re-checked the offical Factotum vid I watched before and I take it back - must not have listened on proper speakers before, but I'm not hearing those tracking warbles I thought I heard before!

If an analog pedal provides an octave up, it will be like a fuzz effect rather than a pitch shifter that you'd get from a digital device. There are a few analog ones that do this, the Pearl, Foxrox Octron, Broughton Broughctave spring to mind. I remember listening to a clip of the Factotum and the tracking was all over the place. Sounded like a mediocre octave + mediocre drive in a shiny box with a premium price tag if you ask me. But remember that's an opinion formed from one single demo, it might actually be decent!

It's a different class of effect. I don't like the sound of digital octavers, but if you need polyphonic tracking or non-fuzzy octave up, you need one. If you want a zero latency octave down with a better tone, at the expense of the odd glitch in tracking, then analog is where it's at.

Just trying to wrap my head around that tuning! All strings 2 steps down except the low E is 7 steps down! I guess you just want a regular heavy guage set plus what would be the low B from a 7-string set? I've heard of using baritone strings on standard scale guitars to tune to A or B standard, but those upper strings would be way too tight for the tuning you want.

Sounds very similar to the Prunes & Custard and Red Ripper, but, as they say, on steroids!

I would think of getting a custom guard or control plate made up for it, but due to it being active there are too many knobs in the way!