charlietuna

Just to add, I had the Bassrig ‘64 the same time as the FPT. The Bassrig has a bit more bottom end—when you DON’T use the DI out. I could not make friends with the DI on the ‘64, the HPF was just too high for my tastes and cut out the nice feel of the rest of the pedal. The ‘64 has a fair amount of tonal options at hand and I really liked it aside from the DI. After I had made a deal to sell it I played with it a bit more and realized I had mostly overlooked the Blend knob. Utilizing that is helpful to add more dynamics and a more responsive feel. I would probably get one again in the future if I was doing something requiring deeper low end than the FPT gives me. That said, I love the FPT and feel it is unique in what it can do.

Hi sorry for the delayed response. I play through headphones quite a bit and have played a fair amount of preamp pedals. The FPT is a standout in terms of responsiveness and has a wide tonal variety for a pedal with 4 knobs. The people I've recommended it to really enjoy the pedal as well. One guy wrote: "FPT is da bomb. Best purchase in a long time. Apart from it being a bit hissy when pushed or combined ... it is one of my best pedals ever. Thanx for showing me!" I wrote this (https://www.talkbass.com/threads/audio-kitchen-the-root-and-branch-thread.1644742/post-28935240) about The Small Trees on a TB thread I started. Check out that thread for more in-depth info. "The Small Trees DI doesn't do overdrive on its own, although I haven't tried it with a 12AX7. I'll have to ask Steve at Audio Kitchen on that one. @One Two made a nice discovery about differences in sound depending on how you power (or don't power) The Small Trees DI. With it powered, TSTDI is a bit more sparkly, bringing out the top end. Unplug it and you get the passive transformer doing its thing without the tube imparting any of its characteristics. With gee-tar I would be plugging it it. -- A more experienced producer wrote this to me elsewhere, "The Sowter transformer inside STDI is very vintage sounding, and soft feeling under the fingers. It sounds very unique and open/wide sounding indeed. I've tried it both powered and unpowered passively, and liked both of them equal. Obviously when powered, it just gets more upfront In comparison to when it's unpowered. Initially I was experiencing noise when I was using both line out and DI out at the same time; but then the ground lift switch quickly got rid of noise completely. In comparison to the JDI's Jensen transformer, the STDI's Sowter transformer sounds a bit more glassy and a touch more soft/compressed. It feels amazing under the fingers. JDI sounds more balanced, modern, with a bit more low mids and very rich sounding in a way that it feels very tight and articulate and yet velvety if you know what I mean." "Overall, and even though STDI was a freakin' expensive pedal for what it is, but I must say that it does what it says perfectly. It sounds phenomenal, and feels great." Hope this helps!"

Yes, cross-border is now a headache. Chromatron made the trip just prior to the isolationary event... And "wireless mouse" receiver or tracking device? 🤔😆

I lent Q my Chromatron and he helped give me some tips on getting better sounds out of it. 👍Unfortunately Brexit screwed up the swapping for the most part.

Whoa! You need to put those fuzzes in FRONT of the Meatball! Those Valcos look cool. Do any of them do gated fuzz? That’s when things get really fun.

I have a 00Funk clone as well and like it a lot. It gets a little juicier than the Meatball and can get wackier. It is also capable of a slower sweep that sounds really good. The PastFX 101, 00Funk and Meatball are the three filters I’m keeping in my arsenal; they seem to cover a lot of ground.

And if you want to play with frequencies, it seems the Intensity and Hi/Lo knob work in conjunction with one another. Meaning as you go from Lo to Hi the Intensity knob Maxed on a lower frequency click equals the Intensity at Minimum on the next higher click. This comes in handy when trying to dial in an optimal Static filter frequency and helped me realize a continuous frequency range rather than 4 separate ones. I didn’t graph this out but that’s what my ear hears. And compared to some other filters, my Meatball clone can take a lot stronger incoming signal. Don’t be afraid to feed it more volume, you may get more range out of the Sensitivity knob. I rarely have mine maxed.

Static on the Meatball is great, and I’m finding the 1/2 mode to be awesome as well IN AN Octave/Fuzz chain. It’s such a versatile pedal.

I was thinking if peak is at zero than maybe it wouldn’t open so it would in effect be a static filter. I don’t have one so I’m not sure how the frequency cutoff works.

If you use static mode and can dial down far enough then a high pass filter can be used to take out the mud. They have dedicated pedals for that so I’m not suggesting to use a Mutron 3 for that BUT it may be able to serve a secondary use in that function. Adding resonance at the cutoff point gets you into part of cab sim territory. I figured this out with the Meatball clone I have. I could use that thing on ANY board even if an envelope filter sound wasn’t required.

Late reply as I hadn’t seen @Quatschmacher’s tag. I haven’t had the Meatball in a long while but I do have the FT clone and am satisfied with it. One thing about the FT that I like better are the line etchings around the knobs that make recalling settings easier than on the Meatball. One thing to watch on some of the clones are the knob orders. There are some the switch a couple knobs so that the envelope and filter knobs are intermingled. It is helpful to look at the Meatball as the left side controlling the envelope and the right side filtering the frequencies. The pedal is basically split into two halves. Approaching it with this mindset really helped me. Things I’m not excited about with the FT are its size and that it duplicates the Meatball’s poor expression implementation. Perhaps there are pedals that work flawlessly but in order for expression to work with the Intensity knob you have to insert the plug and then pull it out one click for proper functionality. I think some clones may have better implementation. Also, I don’t believe there is real expression frequency sweeping like other filters. I think this may be due to the Range knob’s frequency windows but I can’t say for sure; I’m not a circuit guy. All that said, for an analog filter it is very responsive and can get really fat and filthy if paired with octaves and fuzzes. The effects loop works great for this. One trick to set or use pedals while they are in the loop is to just switch the direction from Up to Down without touching the other knobs. There may be some effect going on based on the other knobs but you shouldn’t have to manipulate them too much to utilize them without unplugging them from the loop. Hope this helps someone down the road.