dannybuoy

I still drop tune my E to D on my 5 string when the song calls for it. If there's a lot of pedalling of the low D going on it sounds much better on the open string and also some D-based riffs are very tricky to play in BEADG tuning. Try Slither by Velvet Revolver for example! If you play that without dropping to D, in between the next track the band members and audience will look round at what the hold up is from their bass player, as he had to stop and shake the cramp out of his wrist!

I've not been a fan of any of the VM/TM series based purely on demos I've heard, I always felt the MM pickup was too far south from its natural habitat and it didn't blend well with the P. I'd have to try one out for myself though! I was always interested in the single pickup Basic model though as a slim necked Stingray alternative: I picked up a Sandberg Basic from here for an absolute bargain and it's the best sounding bass I've ever had. Just plugged straight into any amp it sounds great even in passive mode, whereas with other basses, I've had I've always been trying different pedals and preamps to make them sound good!

BB735A review: https://www.bassgearmag.com/yamaha-bb735a-bass-guitar/

I couldn't get the Mastotron to work for me, seemed very tricky to dial in. I have a Malekko Unity that has the same issue, heard some amazing sounds out of it just not from me! The Diabolik on the other hand was dead easy to get a good gated synth fuzz tone out of.

The Manta's waveforms are all LFOs, AKA Low Frequency Oscillators, essentially a control signal to modulate, AKA wobble, your signal. Synths feature LFOs too but they use higher frequency oscillators - sine, square, sawtooth, etc shaped waves to produce the basis of the entire sound. A sine is a pure note, different shapes have more harmonic content going on. If you were to add together hundreds of different sine waves of just the right frequencies, you could make the overall waveform look like a square or triangle. That's why a sawtooth waveform sounds much harsher, and also the reason why fuzz sounds like it does - turning your standard sine wave into a square wave, your ear picks up all of these different frequencies that weren't there before.

There are two settings with getting it for IMHO, and they are +5th / -4th (for making power chords above and below the root) and +Oct / +5th (for taking a power chord and bending it up to the octave). Molten Voltage (as well as another I can't recall) produce some add-on devices that let you get the full range of possible harmonies out of either pedal though.

This app used to be £35 but is now free. I actually paid for it a while back as I found the sound quality of the time stretching to be superior to the other options I tried at the time. Worth checking out if you need to slow down tunes to learn them anyway! https://pro.riffstation.com/download/

I’ve got both. If there is a difference in tracking it is very slight, I can’t really tell the difference. I only got the V to try some of the extra harmony options but it’s surplus to requirements now and it’s in my to-sell queue if you’re at all interested!

We already have one! But most of the picture links are dead now.

Lots of octavers fare surprisingly well near the end of the chain, and many people have never even bothered to try it after other fx due to having it drummed into them that octavers have to come first. I don't like feeding octave into most dirt pedals or compressors, but they do kick donkey into a filter. Best way around the whole situation IMHO is a filter with an FX loop so that it can react to your raw bass tone but blend it in at the very end of the chain. I see the COG T65 has an fx loop but it isn't clear how its wired up, e.g. if it applies the loop to the clean or sub octave?

Well I've disowned the clean channel completely, with my setup there's no way I can get it to sound good with flicking between them. Mainly because the dirt is so bright I have to cut the treble - but for a clean sound I want the opposite and could use a treble boost. It's far less of compromise to have bypass as my 'clean channel'!

The clean channel is worthless to me as you need drastically different EQ settings for clean vs dirty. I just set the EQ up for the dirt setting then switch the pedal on and off. If one of the other footswitches ever wears out I will have a spare unused one on the left hand side! If you wanted two channels, I would flick between this and some other Sansamp pedal or preamp.

Hats off for producing an in-depth review, although I'm not sure if it's the bass, settings or the way it's recorded, but there is a really nasal midrange frequency going on there at 11:32 that makes it unlistenable for me. Yet to see what other settings are explored but the video is pretty epic! Shame he didn't record straight off the XLR.

Ammonia is used in the process, not quite as drinkable as Chardonnay! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_fuming There's quite a range of colours the process can produce though, hence my interest in seeing some examples out in the wild! For example:

That might be one pedal but if it's 3 times the size and 3 times the price of some separates it starts to become less attractive! You could line up a TC mini Corona (which I have in stock!), Flashback and Shaker for less. There are plenty of small multi function pedals like the Mooer Mod Station but not sure if any cover all 3 areas. Zoom MS-60B or MS-70CDR not an option?

Apparently it's nothing unique to Sandberg having been used for furniture and flooring for years, but perhaps the first instance of it being used for guitars/basses.

This is what I’ve been messing about with. The fumed oak almost looks like a charcoal grey in the pics which would go well with the finish!

Well the pedal gets a big thumbs up from me! Playing along to my (ex) band’s albums which were pretty light in the bass department, it delivers such a ‘produced’ tone that it just sounds like they’ve been remixed / remastered with better bass! I thought I was getting this effect from my B3K also, but now that tone sounds completely off. It’s funny how our ears adjust - I’ll probably change my mind next week! It’s made me change my technique for the better too, forcing me to play with a lighter more consistent touch and only dig in when I want to hear distortion. You can get a lot of sound variation just from how you play.

Checking out their configurator earlier and I noticed they now offer 'fumed oak' as a fingerboard material. Has anybody ever seen one of these in the flesh?

Only had the B3 and B1on but struggled for enough volume with both on maximum!

'The right pair of headphones' is the sticking point. Mine are harder to drive than some (Beyer DT770 Pro 80ohm version) but I love the way they sound and the Bighead drives them much better than any other headphone out I've found on an amp head or preamp pedal.

Peavey T40?

I rate the Spectracomp very highly, and as long as I could find a light drive to my tastes, the cab sim sounds decent (not overly dark or coloured) and the headphone amp is as loud and clear as my Bighead, I could see myself acquiring one of these down the line too.

Couldn't be more different to mine! Can't believe you boost the treble, I cut mine quite a bit and my strings are dead and I have no tweeters! One tip is turn chunk off whilst you set your compressor level so you can better hear what it's doing. Also remember the gain boost hits the compressor harder too. I find the mid band to have a very wide Q, so much so that if you cut the mids below 9 o'clock, you've got hardly any sound left at all!

12 bar being the lowest common denominator? These two seem to get some good mileage out of playing just one chord! My local jam does this from time to time, it’s a great way to strip everything back to basics, stop worrying about changes and just concentrate on phrasing and responding to what others are playing.