Al Krow

Here's what I posted on the Yammy BB mega thread when I first picked up a Nathan East in the Yammy store near Oxford Street in London. Yamaha BBNE2 (Nathan East) Wow - Warwick Streamer Stage II meets Yamaha! It’s a completely different beast to the rest of the Yamaha BB range. BBNE2 pups are stack type Alnico V Humbucker pickups include a hum-cancelling coil. This is combined with active electronics and versatile controls e.g. in place of single tone control on the BB1025, the BBNE2 has a 3 band EQ for bass, mids and treble; mid cut frequency & mid cut on-off switch together with the usual pickup selector and volume. In combination they deliver a wonderful, tonally rich sound (even through a 75W Hartke combo at the store!) which I’ll have to admit puts even my former Warwick $$ German Corvette in the shade. It has a contoured body which provides a compact, comfortable body shape and I found the neck to be very playable. Nice touches, which sadly aren’t found elsewhere further down the Yamaha range, include individual bridge pieces and 5-piece neck-through design (but both of which Ibanez provide as ‘standard’ in their BTB Premium range). I then had to wait six months for a mint condition used white NE2 to make an appearance in the FS, but it was worth the wait. It's an absolutely lovely bass; without doubt one of the very best I've had the privilege to play and to still own.

Oh dear, this is starting to look like a serious design flaw.

You do realise that this thread you've started is the MOST popular effects BC thread of all time in terms of replies? So you're defo going to need to get one Second most popular is the Line 6 Helix thread! Seems to me that Line 6 are doing something very right, although recent stories of a couple of the Helix / Stomp pedals failing mid gig are a bit worrying - the last thing you need when playing live particularly if you are going directly into FRFR. Hopefully this lack of reliability is just isolated and not the start of a trend...

Dave - really glad to see that getting your Yammy BB P34 has given you your mojo back!

Did you have the same thing as Lewis did on his i.e. the Stomp cut out mid set? Ouch! Did you manage to get to the bottom of why it cut out - a bit worrying given that your Stomp is practically brand new?! The Zoom boxes are very good value but none of the current production models (e.g. B3n, B1-4, MS-60B) have a DI out. Not had one myself, but seems to be a fair bit of love for the TC Spectradrive from one of my BC mates. This doubles up as a headphone amp with aux in and headphone out. Has the much loved Spectracomp on board + drive + 4 band EQ + DI out. New £137 and used around £90 to £100.

Comment on TB that's interesting on the power output: The GK 1200 would need two 4 ohm cabinets to get your 1200 watts since it's a a 2 channel amp, each amp producing producing 600 watts into 4 ohms (whereas the Bergantino Forte HP will give you 1200 watts with one 4 ohm cabinet since it uses a higher powered ICE module) Is that correct regarding the GK 1200 - if so it's definitely a point worth noting. Are the GK 800 and 500 also similarly 2 channel amps?

Final post on Grizzly Bass. YouTube clips for all of the following if you're interested in checking what this pedal sounds like:

Haha - don't worry - you're on my radar too, Woody 😂 I started a Yammy BB thread back in 2017. Probably the single most expensive thread I've been foolish enough to start...I ended up getting SEVEN Yammy BBs along the way!! (I still have 3 of them). Almost as many as that chap @AndyTravis...zero regrets though - they're wonderful PJ basses and a lot of bass for the money. And let's face it, you're entirely to blame for my love of Ibby SRs! Sounds like you've really been 'through the mill' over the past 8 months! Only suggestions from me are a bit of creative and GAS therapy: write a song and buy some gear, that you're gonna love having, to play that song with

Hah! They did sound good through a decent monitor, I agree. There's a white NE2 currently in the FS! Whatever you do, Tyler, don't ever try a Ken Smith...it will leave you with a sense of "Oh my gawd, can a bass really ever be this good?". Ok I appreciate that's a bit of Yammy heresy!! 😄

Well given that you started this thread, you're obviously obliged to get one! 😂

Fixed. (For my facts and circumstances anyway). PS I DO have an imaginary friend. But he recently issued me with a non-contact Court order.

...more on the Grizzly Bass. Was checking what the price of these currently are (£220 new) and also found an explanation of why it seems to retain low end so well: "Typical distortion pedals use a ton of gain and clipping. This creates a lot of unwanted noise which needs to be heavily filtered and that thins out the tone. This is why pedals intended for guitar don’t work well for bass. Grizzly Bass borrows analog wave-shaping technology from the Holy Fire to re-shape the waveform and achieve tube-like FX without adding noise or heavy filters, preserving your bass tone all the way down to 20Hz. This makes Grizzly Bass a very musical pedal that responds to your touch. Play with a softer attack and velocity for a cleaner sound, or dig in and the Grizzly Bass goes there with you – with as much grit as you need. It’s here to serve you, not the other way around! Control the effect with your playing dynamics. When you plug directly into a sound system or use a solid-state amp, Grizzly Bass is a great alternative to a bulky, fragile and expensive tube preamp. *For best results use the High-Current output of your power brick (250mA recommended)."

Sounds like a good combination and I agree you won't need more than that!

So @dannybuoy where are you currently landing on your drive quest?

Haha indeed! But I recall you saying you didn't have it long at all before moving it on and this is definitely a pedal that is worth living with for a little while to get under its (very capable!) bonnet

Creation Audio Grizzly Bass I'm finding that as I get longer in the tooth as a bass player I'm ending up with gear that Ed Friedland is already be a fan of! Most recently the Fearless F112 cab which handles the low end superbly. Speaking of which, one of the gripes I've had with bass drive pedals has been the loss of low end. Well that's not an issue for the Grizzly Bass by Creation Audio. This little wonder, which I have had for six months or so now, retains low end better than any dirt pedal I've come across to date. I was introduced to it by young Mr @bassfan and when I first heard its ability to produce a rich tube like dirt, I definitely knew I had to give it a try out! Unlike other drive pedals which have a clean blend to make sure that the loss of low end is minimised but means that half your bass signal is clean rather than driven, there is no clean blend on the Grizzly; it simply doesn't need it! Instead it provides additional tone shaping, allowing both a mid cut and treble roll-off, which allows you to do pretty much what its sister pedal the Funkulator can do in terms of giving a Motown feel to a jazz bass. It has not one but two drive circuits: an overdrive and a separate distortion circuit which let you go from valve break up all the way through to downright driven and dirty! Fully analogue. Well the Grizzly Bass seems to be another piece of kit that the Bass Whisperer is a BIG fan of. Here's a YouTube review of his putting it through its paces:

Hah! Depending on its condition, it sounds to me you've potentially bagged yourself a bargain! Time to change the thread title... I've done a very clever stupid thing. Ebay whizz kid struts his stuff bid dilemma Fixed! 😁

...although tbf 6 string basses are probably the work of the devil. Our Creator clearly meant us to play 5 string basses given how many fingers he gave us, right? 😁

Learn to play 6 string bass and then sell all your four and five string basses! 😉

Nice little shoot out, including several Yammys... Yamaha Nathan East (Pensa Preamp) Sadowsky NYC Chambered 21 Fret Sadowsky NYC Chambered 24 Fret Dingwall Combustion (Sadowsky Preamp Mod) Yamaha 1005 Ibanez ATK Yamaha Attitude (4 String with Pensa Preamp) Fender American Deluxe (J Retro Preamp Mod) Fender American Deluxe (Pensa Preamp) Yamaha TRB5P2 (he would like to try!)

For sure, they don't sound worse than they did before. It's just that once you've enjoyed the almost zero latency of e.g. the Helix pitch shift it does mean that the Zoom pitch shift is not something you're able to put up with any longer! It's like coming back from my parents' place where they have a 4K TV and having to settle down in front of our own 10 year old 720p screen! Equally some newer things can sound worse than the older tech...not found any of the modern Mesa D class amps to be in the same league as the now discontinued but still outstanding Mesa M6.

I'd agree with you on analogue pedals. But not when it comes to digital. As a rule of thumb increased DSP capacity + improved software => better emulations. The Helix Stomp is a step up from the Zoom kit in terms of capability (and price!) no question.

The latest generation chipset Zooms are the B3n and the B1-4. Neither have a particularly good looper, although the B1-4's looper is the more easily accessible of the two. The looper recording time on the B1-4 is just 30 seconds and I think the B3n will be similar. If a looper is important for you, then there are plenty of other options, but that's a whole separate thread! The NUX Loop Core is around £60 and provides 6 HOURS of loop recording with 99 memory locations and seems to me to be one of the better value loopers, although I've not had one myself (I've still got my old trusty Boss RC30, which provides 3 hours of recording also with 99 memory slots). Just as an fyi - there is an almost new B1-4 in the classifieds if you're interested. The seller is a really good guy.

@Quatschmacher do you reckon you could reproduce the synth bass at 0.00 to 0.13 and 1.01 to 1.28 on the FI ?!