Al Krow

A TalkBass chap has just posted this on their SY-1 thread today: "Finally got around to trying this on guitar mode, gets closer than anything else I’ve tried. For Moog sounds (for playing along to The Police): Type: bass Variation 6 Depth 9:00 Tone 2:00 Effect 12:00 Direct 11:00 If anyone finds a setting closer to a Moog Taurus let us know!" What's really interesting for me is that's pretty much the exact setting I was describing in my pic / post above a few days back (April 26th). There's a little variation between dry and wet mix - but they are the most 'cosmetic' setting changes to the overall sound. The key difference is my pedal was set on the bass mode whereas his is on guitar mode, but we both really like our respective settings. Will be very straightforward to audition that patch in both bass mode and guitar mode (by sliding the switch at the rear) and hear what that does to the sound - looking forward to doing exactly that. You may also want to try this at home yourselves! [UPDATE] - when the variation dial is set to 'bass', sliding the switch at the back from bass mode --> guitar mode alters the pitch by an octave i.e. from root + octave up --> octave down + root

👍 And that's the great thing about Helix: marginal cost of trying out the BDDI sim = £square root of nil 😊

Sure - I'll give it a go on the Helix. But does the Helix BDDI sim nail the actual BDDI sound? It's been 3 years since I had the pedal, so a bit like krispn I'm starting to get hazy as to what it sounded like and it would have been through a different rig / bass too!

Nah I was just curious. I know exactly why I didn't like it which I've already stated. I just find it more useful / interesting when folk say they do or don't like something (which is very easy to do) if they could articulate, even in general terms, as to why. Can sometimes give a helpful insight or something to look out for. But no biggie, back to Helix...

Thanks. I was actually more curious what it was about the BDDI that put and Osiris off that particular pedal? You've both said it wasn't for you, but with no explanation as to why. That's the more interesting / informative bit from my perspective.

The 'bite' provides a ‘presence’ boost by boosting the upper mids and treble so that the tone becomes more pronounced and present especially in a mix. It also has a subsonic filter (i.e. HPF) to tighten up the sound.

Apologies for the thread de-rail, but penny for your thoughts on what it was about the sound from the BDDI and VT Bass that didn't float your boat and what the dUg does to deliver? I note you had the VT Bass rather than the VTDI, interestingly the VT Bass appears to be lacking the "bite" switch and blend knob, which for me are both really key in making the VTDI such a great pedal.

Nice little review and liked your clean tone a lot at 4.00, but sadly I didn't hear anything from the pedal that remotely floated my boat tonally or as an octave pedal and I won't be parting with £119 to swell's Boss' coffers on this one!**

Pub gigs are some of the most enjoyable gigs we do. Obviously not as lucrative as functions, but they're more relaxed and can be a huge amount of fun particularly when the crowd is up and dancing / joining in, in the hour before last orders! Missing doing them already!

@TJ Spicer - also loverrly! Was that the one at Bass Direct that you had your eye on. Does that mean a certain white Sad PJ5 is about to come up for sale?! 😉

Hah! So I've actually had a filter on my board that you've not tried yet, well that's a first! FWIW - I think you will prefer your BEF to the Aguilar, the BEF is less polite and more funky, despite being band-pass rather than the low pass generally favoured by us bassists. What the Aggie unusually offers i.e. its USP is being able to blend two filters with separate up and down sweeps. Which did seem quirky, but with several more filters under my belt I've come to realise that I'm only ever going to want to engage either up or down sweep at any given time. Defo a cool video, but I suspect he could make just about any filter pedal sound great!

Mistresses are an expensive hobby at the best of time. Particularly precarious during lockdown. Just sayin'.

That's a great result when that happens! Enjoy it, and don't move it on it this time. I've managed to hold on to mine, and glad I did so, despite generous (and nearly tempting!) offers to take it off my hands! 😉😁

Do you have a particular budget in mind and are there any particular "must have" effects / other add ons you're looking for from your multifx?

No mention of the audio interface on the B3N or on their latest iteration: the more compact and really good value B14. Must admit that was a point that had escaped me in terms of older B3 --> current B3N / B14, probably 'cos like a number of BC'ers, I've got a Focusrite Scarlett for interface duties. I'm not particularly sure why Zoom did this, other than maybe to create a niche for this very neat "mini Zoom B3N" (strictly its a mini G3N) which is their current multifx audio interface: https://zoom-na.com/products/production-recording/audio-interfaces/gce-3-guitar-lab-circuit-emulator Cheapest I've seen this on the net is £75 at Andertons. One of the advantages of the Focusrite kit, depending on the model you choose, over e.g. a Zoom or Helix is having separate inputs rather than needing to route everything through your multifx so that you can clean blend some / all of drums, vocals, instrument and bass in real time together and put down a couple of tracks at a time, although I suspect for a lot of recordings that won't be an issue in that you'll lay down the drums and then layer each of the other instruments and vocals separately. The other issue with Zoom kit is that there is an element of underlying small but noticeable "digital artefact" noise on the B3N and B14, which is more present with some of the fx patches than others. This is fine for live use, but you wouldn't want it on a recording. I wonder if they have managed to eliminate this with the GCE3?

Good stuff. I'm sure it can be easily refined / improved on with different choices of Fuzz and changes to the Auto Filter settings, particularly if playing through a rig - I knocked it up in 30 mins flat via headphones last night, just to get the ball rolling.

It's a really interesting question. Calling @Bill Fitzmaurice or any of our other cab experts on what difference to the sound front or rear porting makes?

Hah - been asked that a couple of times already! Here you go... Synth Patch.pdf

Excellent - I suspect it will do as good a job and definitely be less glitchy than the Boss SYB-5 on that you YT clip you found. Although tbf, that was a nice little vid of various songs where a synth pedal could work well.

Synth Patch (do try this at home!) A couple of you have mentioned you're on the look out for a synth pedal for use on a couple of tracks. I've pulled this together on HFX - IMO it's usable (without being amazing). Based on classic: octave -> fuzz -> filter approach: Rochester Comp --> Simple Pitch [1] --> Valve Driver --> Autofilter [2] --> Low cut at 30Hz [1] pitch shift set at -12 i.e. octave down. Mix only at 40% to give a touch of octave to fatten without giving rise to mush. [2] low pass, up-sweep, short attack but long (1.0s) decay. If you try it out, let me know what you think.

for sure. Can you recall what it was about the BDDI that didn't cut the mustard (or chilli powder) in your case?

Yeah thinking about it, that's a pretty standard approach, right? Although according to Mr Bass5 the blend knob is the key. Was far too polite for my liking, a bit like having a curry with no chilli. Its sibling, the VTDI, has far more bite. But I can tell from my general direction of travel over the past half decade, definitely going from civilised to increasingly heathen!

Me too - maybe it's a just a MB, DG M900, BF cab user thing? 😁 But apparently if you dial it in using a very specific approach it can work really well. @Lozz196 shared the magic formula on another thread, but I can't for the life of me find it now!