Osiris

How much??? That's almost Helix Stomp money. Much as I love Steve Harris's sound I can't see me getting the pedal if it's going to be that expensive.

Looks like the same casing as the dUg pedal, in which case you'll be surprised at just how small it is!

Does this help?

Cable envy!

The outputs on the Stomp are balanced, which means that they're noiseless. Compared to a standard instrument lead a balanced cable has an extra core that cancels out noise. Or something like that anyway, no doubt someone will be along shortly to explain that in a more detailed (and accurate) way! But it's the same arrangement as you'd get with a dedicated DI box or on the back of your amp, it's just that the Stomp has two 1/4 inch sockets instead of the more usual 3 pin XLR socket. But connector differences aside it's exactly the same thing. You can also adjust the output level to instrument or line if you go into the global settings menu should you need to.

With one of these.

I bought some different tips for my ZS10's, the ones that are cone shaped with 3 different sections, if you know what I mean? They probably have a name but I don't know what it is! I bought a load from eBay for around £3, IIRC, ages ago. Can't comment on how the Stomp drives play with other pedals as I use mine as a stand alone unit as it does everything I need in one box. I've never really been one to craddock around with boards and loads of pedals. The lovely @Al Krow uses a Stomp in amidst a huge pedal board so he should be able to answer that for you 😀

I've ditched my rig and gone down the IEM route, my rig is now a Stomp and a wireless IEM set up. If you get yourself some capable in ears - the obligatory ZS10's have 4 drivers each side, 2 of which are dedicated for low frequencies - you'll still get the weight of a rig, just at a much more comfortable volume, at least that's been my experience. And even if I say so myself, my rig that it replaced was a very capable set up! The quality of the models in the Stomp are virtually indistinguishable from whatever they're modelled on, the few models where I've used the physical version are so close I suspect few could tell them apart in a blind test. I've been through my fair share of drive pedals over the years and IMO the Stomp beats many of the analogue pedals that I've tried. No longer do we have to put up with fizzy, thin sounding Sims. The drives have the weight, colour and touch dynamics of the real thing. Add in the ability to use crossovers and clean blends, not just walk th drivers but with everything, and you have an infinitely configurable unit. The amp and cab models are excellent too, I've not had hands on experience with some of the amps that have been modelled but they do sound like a real rig to me. The SVT model has that low end sludge and top clank of the real thing. Last night I gigged using the Cali 400 model, the gain was set so that when playing normally the tone was clean and fat but digging in increased the saturation and gave that chewy, rich, compressed edge that valve amps give when pushed. All this at a volume that doesn't make your ears ring or put your back out when lugging your gear around.

Compression is widely misunderstood, it's not an effect in the sense of something like a delay or synth. It's more of a tool to knock the sharp edges off your signal than an obvious sonic gimmick. It's an area where a little understanding can go a long way. Of course, there are different types of compressor and different types of compression. Once you grasp the basics have a play with the different compressor models in the Stomp and see if there's a particular flavour of compression you like, for example an optical compressor feels different to a VCA circuit. Then you can choose the model you like best or flatters the acoustic tone. There's some basic compressor models in the Stomp that only have a couple of tweakable parameters, they're a good place to start even if they usually don't meet the approval of more expert users. But you can still get some usable sounds from them. When you're comfortable with all that, have a play with putting a crossover in and experiment with compressing highs and lows separately or having a blend of compressed and uncompressed signals. There's some real geeky stuff to try before you get your first compression anorak 😃

I can try! As I said in the above quote it's essential that you sink some time into getting at least an appreciation of what the various controls do, that way you'll know what to adjust and when. Compression isn't usually obvious and that's one of the biggest complaints from certain members of the anti-compressionist league. If you read any of the compression topics on here you'll see there a degree of misunderstanding and a few often repeated misconceptions about the whole subject. My advice is to ignore those and approach the subject with an open mind. And think as a sound engineer, not as a bassist! As you know a compressor reduces the dynamic range of your bass signal. The most obvious benefit of bass compression is to stop the lows swamping the higher frequencies. This allows the bass to sit better with other instruments by controlling its dynamic range. As to how to set it up, this is where you need an understanding of what the various controls do and how they impact the signal. Disclaimer, although I'm an advocate of compression on bass I am in no way an expert the subject, I can usually get the type of compression that I want from most units that I've used, including the Stomp, but a clued up sound engineer may well shudder at my ham fisted approach! Set the ratio (the amount of gain reduction aka squash) to around 4:1 which is a good generic setting for bass. Next adjust the threshold (the point where the reduction kicks in) until you can hear the squash working, then pull it back so it's not so obvious. You'll get better results listening to the effect on your sound by playing along with some other musicians (if they're patient) or a backing track. As for things like attack and release, they're personal preferences. I've never compressed an acoustic bass so there could well be some additional considerations that I'm unaware of. @51m0n did a superb overview of compression basics here. There's also the Ovnilab FAQ section. The above links may well be a bit of a cop out but they'll be more comprehensive and more informed than my limited understanding. I guess I still owe you a coffee 😀

I'm all for making life simpler and easier!

Cheers for that. I'm very much a P player, albeit with rounds instead of flats, I also play short scales which are inherently darker than regular sized basses, so that may also be a factor. The attack switch sounds too abrasive and clanky to me so I tend to leave it off or even cut, but as you say that could be tamed with an LPF after it. I'll give it a go. But I suspect a lot of my problem is down to the fact that I'm not keen on mid scoops, whether they be upper or lower mids, and especially with a driven bass sound where I advocate boosting the mids instead of cutting them. I could never get a drive sound that I liked out of the Darkglass amp either so it was always looking dubious as to whether the model would give me what I wanted anyway. For my tastes I have more luck with the various Tube Screamer based drives that give me the mid range fatness that I want.

Cheers, I'll give those settings a go with the B7K model. I actually prefer the Line 6 BDDI model to the real thing as it's easier to put the mids back in that the BDDI takes out.

Like @dave_bass5 that's how I use mine too; I have a separate patch for each bass with amp & cab block and compression are always on, these give me the core tone. Then I have footswitchable drive, chorus and pitch shifters assigned to each switch. That way you can use them as if they're individual pedals. Each patch is named for the bass I use it with, that way I always have the sounds I want regardless of which bass I decide to use. @dave_bass5 What settings are you using with the B7K? No matter what I try with the drive section it just sounds utter 💩 to me. I like the tone when I hear other people use it but I can't get anything usable out of it when I try it, so any pointers would be appreciated.

Frank, I reckon you could easily halve the number of patches you already have to just one for each guitar. Simply take the reverb patch for each and assign the reverb block to one of the footswitches, that way you have the EQ and compression on all the time and you can kick the reverb on and off at will without having to change patches. To assign the reverb block to a footswitch, select the block on the stomp interface and touch (but not press) the switch you want to assign it to, a message will then pop-up asking you to confirm the action (more technically I think it says something along the lines of merging the effect with another one on the same switch, or overwriting it so that only the block you want is assigned) I don't have my stomp in front of me to check but it's way more simple than I have made it sound

I'd forgotten that one, thankfully. But yes, you're right, what a dreadful load of 💩 that is.

I'm struggling to condense the number of songs that I truly hate with a passion down to 3, so many spring to mind. But a few that have unequivocally earned their place as the most nauseous noises ever made include; Fairground by Simply Red. Words cannot truly convey the extent of my loathing for it. I can't stand anything that SR ever recorded but this is unquestionably the biggest stool, among many many others, squeezed out by that ginger tosser. I will always love you by Whiney Houston. It just makes my ears bleed. Come on Eileen has already been mentioned, and rightly so. That so called 80's anthem of the working man, it starts with a steady snare crack followed the melody line played on a £20 Casio keyboard from Argos, then Springsteen's laryngitic wail starts to defaecate over the top, Baaaarrrrrrrn inna you essay. How does a third rate pub singer go on to be so huge for so long? Wrong in every conceivable way.

Err, weren't you recently bemoaning the fact that you didn't like the Future impact because you didn't want to be tied to a PC for editing??? Editing the Stomp via the pedal interface is a breeze, plus being familiar with it will help when making edits on the fly on a gig. I only HX edit for backing up patches.

To use the local parlance, do what, me duck?

Met with Frank this morning for a Basschat dodgy car park deal, where he passed on a pedal board he was giving away. I was expecting something old and battered but it was new, as in still wrapped up new. Once I realised my folly I offered to pay for the board, but the payment was commuted to a coffee and an attempt to put the world to rights at a later date. Frank is a true Basschat legend, deal in confidence.

Cheers Frank, it was an all too brief pleasure. How'd it go with Pope Frank?

@cocco The Stomp will certainly be able to split your signal through a crossover and allow you to build the signal path you describe. I'm not too familiar with the LT, but I think I'm right in saying that it will allow you to use more blocks (blocks are what Line 6 call each individual effect in the signal chain). There is currently a limit of 6 blocks on the Stomp, but the good news is that you wouldn't need to allocate one of these to a crossover as you can drop one in between blocks at whatever point in the path you wanted, so that would effectively give you 7 blocks. For example, you could set up a signal path something like this; Crossover, then lows going through a compressor into an amp & cab model (or just an amp or just a cab). Maximum of 2 blocks. The high signal path could go into a Sansamp model (I actually prefer the Helix model to the real thing as its easier to put the mids back in) into an amp & cab model. You could even mix and match guitar amps and cabs here, but if you were to mix a bass amp with a guitar cab they would need a separate block each. Maximum of 3 blocks. Your can then either blend both signals back together or route them to separate outputs if you're running more than one rig. Like the crossover, you'll get the mixer to blend the signals back together for free so it won't use another block. The only potential issue with using the Stomp for this is that a signal path like this will only leave you a block or 2 for other effects. But that's obviously not an issue if you're not a big effects user!

Excellent work @51m0n

Badmotorfinger is the king of the hill for me, Chris Cornell was one of the greatest rock singers of all time. I still listen to and love that album, Room a thousand years wide being the highlight for me. Whereas Anthony whatshisname is arguably one of the most atrocious singers I've ever heard, he's on a par with Springsteen. Flea is is an amazing bass player but the whole slap thing leaves me cold so this is definitely the worst of the 3 in my ignorant, ill informed opinion. Nevermind was, and still is, fantastic so that comes a close second to Soundgarden.

Compression is one of those areas where you really need at least an appreciation of what's going on to get them to work for you. You have to think more like a sound engineer than a bass player because compressors, as I'm sure you know, control and compress your dynamic range - they're not an effect in the same way that something like a flanger or delay is, and I think that's where people get confused by them as they're expecting an obvious change in the sound. But think of it in terms of controlling your sound so it sits better with other instruments and you'll start getting better results. It's definitely something where it's worth doing your homework. Another idea could be something like a limiter. Set it up so the threshold only cuts the spikes that are peaking the desk. Could that work? But there's plenty of different compression models in the Stomp to play with, some simple, some more complex. Have a play, see what each one does and what ones you like best. My own experience is that not all of them give me what I want on bass, but that's not to say that they won't work for you. Once you've got to grips with the basics try playing with them in parallel signal paths with crossovers too to mess about with mixing in clean signals Likewise, I use my Stomp for the amp/cab sims and compression. I gig with in ear monitors so I have a patch set up for each bass that I gig with, each patch having an amp/cab sim and compressor that are always on, with footswitchable drive and pitch shift for drop tuned songs. For my needs it's the perfect single box to drag along on a gig.