Al Krow

Yay! We may have differed over the years on our view on gear, although I suspect we've ended up a lot closer on that score, than either of us would care to admit - lol! But on this point I'm 110% with you, Chris. For me that feeling of being most 'alive' is when I'm playing bass to an appreciative audience with great band mates. ... and it certainly beats golf 😂

Haha - well this one is going to be your fault Woody (together with my 3 Ibby basses - lol!) That and the fact that Source Audio have taken forever to get their C4 pedal out the door and are going to want us to part with £75 more than this Boss pedal for the privelege, so maybe you've actually saved me some cash for once? Well at least that's how I am going to rationalise it! 😂

Where I'm landing is as follows, the SY-1: is an update of their current SYB-5, but has gone from 11 to 121 available sounds, better tracking and poly capability; seems closer to the SY-300 in terms of available sounds but doesn't have the tweakability or presets of the SY-300. However, importantly, it's just one third of the price and size of the SY-300, both of which are major plusses; has the immediacy and easy work-flow of being able to adjust in 'real time' via six pedal knobs rather than needing to deep menu dive via a PC editor; the flip side, and the only major negative for me, is a lack of presets for being able to switch quickly between your favourite 3 or 4 settings which would have been very welcome for live use; sounds good and tracks well, certainly on normal guitar. Overall - this packs in a great deal and seems to deliver a lot of what we could be asking for when it comes to synth, other than presets. For me, the new Source Audio C4 seems much more akin to the FI in terms of needing to deep menu dive via a PC editor and I'm not yet convinced about the C4's tracking from the short clips I've seen so far - hopefully the final version will prove me wrong and be very good at tracking as that is such a key feature for live use. Whilst the SY-1 doesn't have presets, it's accessibility via its six knobs provides a welcome break from having to menu dive on yet another of my pedals - HX Stomp, FI and two existing SA pedals are plenty on that score! Would love to hear a few more bass focused reviews to see if it tracks equally well on bass. If it does, I'm in!

Rumours of 000s are a bit exaggerated, a paltry twelve pedals in fact. And your request for more fwonk in your life has now been met. I hope it's being put to proper good squelchy use!

That's a really nice story Lee and gonna be a hard one to top: your pedal board came pre-loaded with a future wife!

I don't think dB has a Stomp pedal, just the Native software.

Congrats - I think the new MB ranges looks great. They've taken everything good from the old LM3 and sorted out the EQ centre points to make them much more in line what most bass players would be looking for and remove some of the previous gaping EQ 'holes'. Can't quite work out what, if any, the significant differences between the Little Marcus 800 and the newer Marcus Limited 800 amps are!

@dannybuoy if you refer to the Ed Friedland YT of the Grizzly, which chimes pretty closely with how I find it works, what time reference / pedal settings in that video were you finding it not delivering what you were looking for? Must admit I use the Grizzly as a full bodied dirt rather than for tone shaping as I have plenty of other options for that.

Haha - they're not easy to get hold of to try out! I'm particularly interested in the more compact Dubster 2 or an equivalent from another manufacturer. Not sure what the alternatives are?

Boominess an issue? I guess that's my biggest single concern and using hpf to control would seem to defeat the point of focusing on the low end.

Done! And, even better, it will get an independent, unbiased, 'warts and all' review from a guy who knows his gear! They're easily the best, most useful, reviews in my experience. That's gotta be worth the cost of postage! 😀 PS - given that dirt is inherently compressed not sure what the 'unruly' low end would be that you mentioned coming from a drive pedal? And, if necessary, any unruly low end I presume should be fairly easily tackled by setting an hpf appropriately, to cut at either 30 / 40 Hz or from the first harmonic at 60 / 80 Hz, depending on whether you're using a 4 or 5 string? So maybe take your Broughton on the road with you when you're taking the Grizzly for a spin

Better still, don't take my word for it: I should just put the Grizzly in the post to you and let you try out and you'll be able to hear it for yourself! [Please note, this isn't a general offer to the whole of BC land, as I'm gonna need the pedal myself...but young master krispn has been kind enough to loan me pedals in the past, and even paid for the postage - so I owe him!] "So does the HX Edit nudge ahead of the Zoom editor now you've had a chance to properly compare the two?" I don't use Zoom's own editor but a rather nifty PC Editor by Tonelib which is provided free by its creator online. Still getting up to speed on the HX Editor and the Stomp has a quite a lot more functionality - but it looks like it can do the job pretty well. So happy to use either. "IMO that rules the Q Strip redundant on a pedal board which already features a Stomp" Yup that's kinda where I am landing too and @dave_bass5, who I got the pedal from, made a very similar comment to me earlier today. He, however, doesn't have a Stomp and has been missing his old Q\Strip...or, more likely, I suspect my Q\Strip may well find its way into the FS in the not too distant future. "I was also under the impression that the new BB series were not as full on and possibly more subtle in their voicing that the older BB's" It's a pretty nuanced difference. I don't think you would hear a great deal of difference between my BB1025 and BBP35 in a blind test.

Couldn't see a thread on this, so was wondering if anyone has had or tried one - if so how did you rate it? Could perhaps be more interesting for synth bass rather than normal bass? (Reggae being the obvious honourable exception!) Appreciate this is now out of production, so what's the current competition for this low end beast?

Great post thanks @krispn! Picking up on some of your points: My pedal board is still 'bedroom warrior' stuff and will be for a while. Just the little Zoom B1X-4 taken on the road so far. And yup all the drives on that Zoom multi lose low-end, even with a boosted bass EQ patch added to the effect. As has been commented on by dB the DG pedals do also lose low end and that features on the VMT and B3K effects built into the DG M900. You can clean blend to compensate; but the ability of the relatively few pedals such as the Grizzly Bass to give you a driven low end without the need for clean blend is, for me, preferable, as the whole of your bass signal (including the low end) benefits from the dirt tone and I suspect is less likely to get lost in the mix than I find with the M900 / B1X-4 dirt, rather than be overpowering which was your concern. Am starting to make progress with the Stomp, though, and will maybe pull together a little mini board with that and a couple of other pedals, later in the year. I'll have to admit that the Stomp has recently demonstrated that it is in a league above the Zoom on a couple of patches (e.g. pitch shifting) and the HX Edit is making much lighter work of creating and editing patches than I had feared might be the case. Yup my points on the TH were picked up straight from the Andertons' sales page, so thanks for correcting! On tone shaping do you think the Aggie will bring something to the party that the Stomp won't? Or alternatively a Tech 21 Q\Strip (which I've recently acquired in a trade from Mr Bass5). In terms of the hint of tube growl on my BB1025 - it's not by any means a full-on tube growl which I hope was clear from my earlier post. The BB1025 P pup should be pretty similar to your BB 734A; it's not as 'flat' as the BB425 or I suspect a Fender P (@dannybuoy will be able to confirm as he has both) but has some complex harmonic overtones / richness, which I really like, even through a clean amp such as the DG M900. It's a similar harmonic richness to what I hear from my Mesa M6 with other basses and I put this down to the M6 preamp which features a 12Ax7 tube. I know you and I often use terms like 'punch', 'growl' and 'throaty' a little differently but I hope that clarifies what I was trying to get across.

Very nice! 3 commissioned basses in one year? Next time you tell me that you don't have funds to buy my BF SC: a) I'll know exactly why! b) you'll find me totally sympathetic to your missus, and c) I will thank you, as holding on to that 21 lb cab was a really good thing to do! My BF SC does not have any tolex issues... ... aaand we're seamlessly back on topic! 😂

Btw - have you posted a pic of your 'saucy blonde ACG' somewhere? Sounds fantastic. Speaking of trouble, tbf - I totally get why your missus would be kicking up a fuss if you have just started something with a saucy blonde 😂

It was indeed very funny. Is she still letting you get a Glock amp?! If not wait can I put a slightly wicked thought into your head? Wait until the Bergantino B|Amp hp (with the new 600W 8ohm power module) is out next year (just a rumour I'm starting, I know!**). I think it's gonna be awesome... ** although when I had a little bit of banter with Jim Bergantino over on TB, he didn't deny it!

Makes sense. Fender P & Motown = hand & glove, right? I'm not getting another bass! 😂

It's your wife finding out that you should be more concerned about. £20 sales price?? Ok so you're then £20 up. But does that include P&P? And she'll be entitled to 50% of everything else you have including your basses amps and cabs...£20 for all that?! Now that is a bargain! 🤣

10/10. Go to the top of the class! Detention over 😂

Ok cool - I'd want it to double up as a capable drive pedal as I suspect I'm going to have all the amp sims I will ever want (and a ton more besides) in the HX Stomp; so I think for my purposes having a drive that maintains a full low end and mid punch in the form the Grizzly Bass is still going to be the ticket for me. I've not really needed to use the Grizzly or other pedals for Motown style tone shaping as I get pretty much there with a Yammy BB 1025 on P setting and the tone dialled right off; obviously that's not delivering a full tubey sound all by itself which @Clarky is after, although there is a hint of tube growl from the Yammy P pups when you dig in. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

But it has both a gain and master volume, can't you adjust those to equalise the volumes to what it is on clean by-pass?