dannybuoy

The Diamond compressor wipes the floor with the EBS now that I'm running it at 18v courtesy of a Diago 9v->18v converter (it was clipping at 9v when thumping the low E), got mine imported from Humbucker music. Subtle squash, very smooth quiet studio like sound. Unfortunately the ratio is fixed and the comp knob controls the threshold, but it's set just right for me plus the eq is useful for rolling off the highs. On the board it goes!

The Dunlop is as you say just a daisy chain brick. Each pedal shares the same ground connection so you can get ground loops causing noise and sometimes you'll get a pedal with a positive ground that willl just not work with it. More expensive ones like the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power and BBE Supa Charger have isolated outputs (each one takes a seperate output coil from the main transformer). Not sure if this Maplins one has isolated outputs, it doesn't say. But it's only got 450mA on tap, you'd be better off getting something a bit meatier if you have a lot of pedals, or any power hungry digital ones.

[quote name='bass_ferret' post='288319' date='Sep 21 2008, 12:24 AM']There are lots of options. The Carl Martin is a proper compressor limiter with a full set of knobs, look for second hand in your budget. T-rex do a nice looking valve compressor but that is new and expensive so dont expect to see any used. DHA also does a valve compressor. I use an EBS but it does have a pad for hot basses - not sure if dannybouy had/used that. The thing is active/passive switches can be misleading depending on how you use your actives. I always gain from flat so if I give it loads of boost I roll back the volume to compensate.[/quote] Actually I did solve the problem on the EBS by using the internal trimpots (I turned the left one down to about 10 o'clock). My Diamond comp just distorts big time on the low E, there's no trimpot to adjust as it's a fixed ratio pedal and the comp knob is actually a pre-gain control. I'm hoping that running it at a higher voltage (t can take 9v to 24v) will improve the headroom, as apart from this problem this pedal is great. Otherwise it'll be sold to a guitar player who'll get more love out of it!

Warning, some compresor pedals distort if you put too much volume into them, and they may not have a high enough ratio to be used as a limiter, which sounds like what you want. I've only tried the EBS and Diamond compressors, both of those clip when I bang my open E string hard, which is why I'm looking at a Maxon CP9-Pro+, as it internally converts the 9v to 18v which supposedly gives it a higher headroom.

Well it's easy enough to upload samples to a hosting service like mp3space.com and post links to them here, I've done that with a few pedals before. What would be good though is to have somewhere like the WIKI or Reviews section like they have over at talkbass.com!

Ha, should've spotted the zombie thread before writing my essay of a reply!

I would go: [b]Tuner -[/b] Korg Pitchblack. Small and sexy, true bypass and it has a nice strobe function. [b]Compressor -[/b] EBS Multicomp / Demeter Compulator / Maxon CP-9 Pro / BBE Opto Stomp / Diamond Compressor (Check out [url="http://www.ovnilabs.com"]ovnilabs.com[/url] for a good roundup of bass compressors). I have the latter on order, but bought it on pure faith after hearing amazing reviews. Fingers crossed! [b]Noise Suppressor -[/b] Only buy if you really need one. [b]Volume Pedal -[/b] Ernie Ball Jr, hands down. [b]Chorus -[/b] Not into chorus on bass, but Analogman seems to be top dog. I get a chorus / flange sound out of my EHX Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai though... [b]Delay / Looper -[/b] EHX SMMH! [b]Reverb -[/b] The SMMH can also do a good reverb sound. But I want the Line6 Verbzilla for it's pant-wettingly awesome 'Octo' shimmer effect. [b]Distortion -[/b] Turbo RAT perhaps? Very lead guitar sounding and works well on bass. [b]Overdrive -[/b] Go for some kind of tube screamer pedal, I use a modded Bad Monkey and it's great for this. [b]Whammy -[/b] Word round the camp fire is that the Boss PS5 is a bit pants compared to the PS3, so make sure you try before you buy! [b]EQ Pedal -[/b] If you can wield a soldering iron, check out the BYOC 10 band EQ. It comes with different resistor choices allowing you to choose your EQ bands, plus it's probably the smallest sized 10 band EQ you can get.

The medium sized Spider case is PERFECT for a Pedaltrain Jr if you buy the one with the soft case and later decide you need a bit more protection. You have a bit of room left down the side big enough to squeeze a volume/expression pedal or a power strip and cables, but the PT sits in there so snug it won't move from side to side. I went from the Spider to the Pedaltrain, and have the Spider up for sale... but I think I'm gonna hang onto it for a while in case I need to take my pedaltrain to dodgy dives where people trample all over your gear!

Not necessarily - the EBS Microbass, Sansamps, various DI boxes all achieve it with a specially shaped low pass filter and EQ curve. No digital voodoo required!

Some octavers I've used tracked really well after fuzz and I also preferred the sound of the fuzz before octave. But I imagine the Bassballs, flanger and wah would screw the tracking up a bit. If it works and sounds good Phil, keep it the way it is - although personally I'd try the octaver either first or straight after the muff and put the flanger last.

I'm not sure the Boss is true bypass. You could by or make a true bypass looper to completely disengage the pedal from your signal chain if you like though, it's a popular option for pedals that suck your tone dry. The FX loop of an amp allows you to run effects in-between the pre-amp and power amp sections. Some effects such as delay and chorus can sound better after the pre-amp, espcially if the pre-amp is set up for an overdriven tone. Most FX loops run at a higher signal level than your basic instrument level though and most pedals won't like the higher voltage coming from your fx loop's send jack. What you can do however, if you have a pedal that can do amp simulation you can plug this straight into the fx loop return socket so you can bypass the tone colouration of your preamp and have all the sound coming from the pedal. I'm not saying you should do this though as I doubt the Boss emulation sounds better than your Mesa would. One way to get the drum machine to work would be to get a cheap little mixer like the Behringer Xenyx 502 and put it in the FX loop of your amp. This will let you blend in a bit of drum machine signal to your main output.

Dave, what would it take to add a switchable speaker sim on the DI/line/headphone outputs? This pedal would really have my interest then!

I think there's 2 BYOC ones, a Ross clone, and an optical one based on an old DOD280 pedal (so look for reviews of those to see how they might sound). I would try and build a compressor similar to the Demeter Compulator (regarded by some as the best bass compressor pedal). I've had my eye on these 2 and thinking of doing it one day, the [url="http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1043&p=12919&hilit=baja+compulator#p12919"]Baja Compulator[/url] and the [url="http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=617&st=0&sk=t&sd=a"]Flatline[/url] [url="http://www.geofex.com/PCB_layouts/Layouts/flatline.pdf"](additional link)[/url].

I'm going down the road of preamp pedals used in conjunction with a power amp / cab combination. I rarely get to take my own amp along to gigs (so I'm selling it), a setup like this lets you take your sound with you wherever you go. I have the VT Bass now, but I get the depressing/exhilarating feeling that I am now going to buy the Tone Hammer as well, and any other preamp that comes out and gets hyped to buggery!

My VT Bass I had on pre-order from the US finally came in yesterday - my board is now looking a bit more full! I'm pretty much done with this set up, I might add a compressor and/or tremolo at a later stage - which might need me to swap the tuner for a Korg Pitchblack to fit them on! Done, yeah right, whatever you say Dannybuoy... I'm going to build a switch box so that I can change the order of the VT Bass and SMMH (SMMH ideally comes last but in some situations I will want the VT last so I can drive a power amp with it or split the SMMH signal so I can have a clean signal to the amp and the VT signal to the desk) and I'm also planning on modding the 442 filter to be able to use an expression pedal. Just a bit too busy at the moment, about to move house and go on holiday in the same week!

You need a pair of winkle-pickers!

Earthbound Supercollider is my choice... Loads of sample clips over at talkbass.