admiralchew

Wow!! I love the Cog pedals (obviously, given my Cog obsession). What do each of them do, if you don’t mind me asking? I think I may have seen them on the Cog custom page when I was spending way too much time there. I’ve heard a lot of good things about W&C and Neunaber reverbs too.

Good luck on the next Doom 2 drop! I accidentally stumbled onto the Doom 2 because I love a cartoon called Frisky Dingo that the title references. At the time my pedalboard had a lot of MXR and BOSS pedals, all of which I loved, but that got me into boutique pedals in a big way. It has a lot to answer for!

Haha, you should definitely go down that road! I think the SLO or Capo would be a great counterpoint to the BP1. I’m a pedal obsessive (maybe not knowledgeable but obsessive) and I had a crazy notion of using the SLO/Capo for hairier boards, and a BP1/Broughton Studio One for more transparent tones. At a certain point they are all pretty versatile but I’m still yet to try something I like that provides clean tones as well as the Noble, BP1 or Studio One while providing grit as well as the SLO or Capo. There’s actually a Capo on the Bass Gallery website at the minute.

Really nice board! Shades of Ian Allison, which is no bad thing given how on top of pedals he is. Cool detail about having the US-made VMT too. If I recall correctly too, the P&P is one of a few ODs that Jack Roan at Noble said he’d heard pair well with the Noble when I emailed him asking how best to get a dirty tone.

Thanks! I either love how F Basses look or I’m left really cold by them; this was a real winner. I think the Bass Gallery in London are starting as a dealer of them next year but I may be wrong. I ended up buying this one overseas but it may be worth having a chat with them.

I think it’s capable of a lot. One of the reasons I like it is it has proper tube tone because of the 12AX7, but the other features that made it worthwhile to me were the excellent switchable cabsims, headphone out and effects loop. Of the other preamps I’ve tried, I found it most similar to the Jad Freer Capo, in case that’s a helpful analogy. I find both fully featured, with a good natural tone that sounds even better with a bit of hair. Something like a Noble is cleaner but the SLO still sounds pretty good without the gain up.

Owing to my working hours I can't commit to being in a band (which is a shame given my brother's a good drummer) so this board is just used for whatever I want to play while practicing or jamming. I play a lot of heavy rock, metal, grunge and, more recently, doom. I try to play a bit of everything though because I just enjoy playing (or trying to play) bass. I've been on a bit of a Tool journey recently so I have a bit of a flanger obsession. The SLO can get very gritty so it covers most of the rock tones on its own, but the MBD-2, Parabellum, Calamity, Heliotropic and Life pedals are each their own flavour of dirty or destructive. I really like gain into flanger into delay so they each get playing time with the flanger setting on the Utility Knife and the Echosystem (again, Tool-tastic). My main aim was to replace my old practice board which had on it most types of pedals I could think of so I could try to adapt it to most things, even if not perfectly. This board more or less does that and the Element means I can play to my music using bluetooth too. Plus, I really like messing about with pedals and building pedal boards so putting together something quite big was a lot of fun.

Absolutely correct! It’s the only reasonable conclusion. I bought a 4003 specifically because I loved how the Ric sounded on this video. This video has a lot to answer for!

Thanks! It weights a ton though! I bought the SLO direct from Shift-line; I gather they are still shipping to the UK but I think you need to contact them directly. It’s one of my favourite preamps, particularly for the great cabsims they do) but it was worth getting a Cioks Crux to power it given its power-hungry 12v requirements. I’d been meaning to build a board around it for a while. The Rusty Box looks great too. I think they are being sold directly on Reverb again if I recall correctly and I think there is one in the classifieds. Although I know that just because they’re on sale doesn’t make playing them magically possible!

I posted my updated practice board a while back but I thought I'd provide an updated picture showing the two outboard pedals, the Mission EQD-1 that controls the Life pedal and the JC Wah. The two outboard pedals just plug into the patchbay (including, in the case of the JC Wah, for power). It's an aggressive board with a lot of dirt and gain but that's perfect for what I typically enjoy playing. It's portable too (if you have several strong friends willing to do you a favour).

I really love Thunderbirds (the basses, not the puppets, although that wasn’t bad). I wanted to play one after watching this video where the growl was just amazing: I know they aren’t everybody’s cup of tea but I found it really suited me. Mine is close to being my lightest bass and it sits in a really nice place when I’m seated (although I would have preferred the jack to be in a different place as I pluck with my right hand balance the bass on my left leg so it occasionally digs in). I play mostly 5-strings though so decided to take the plunge and order a Dingwall D-Roc 5 to see if that can give me the best of both worlds.

Oh that’s fantastic! It works so well! Cool colour for a bass too!

Yep, I collect headstocks and neck fragments. It’s much cheaper than buying full basses and easier to take photos of.

It’s not the best picture as it doesn’t quite capture how nice the ultra faded black is but it gives an idea. I was very tempted by an NS6XL recently but it seemed a bit daft to make the leap when this EuroLX is so good and I play a 6-string so infrequently. I’m sure the US-made basses must be in a different league but it’s difficult to see how they may be much of an improvement. Here’s the Bass Direct photo:

Haha, I'm doing my best! But it's the only 6-string I have! It sounds great too and has sustain for days. That said, 5-strings are more my thing so when I'm toying with whether to downsize the Spector springs to mind first (through no fault of its own).

Slightly OTT post, sorry. I’ve been wondering what this would look like for ages.

The Spite Box is really underrated. Great board as always!

I recently sold a pedal to Ordep and it was a quick and easy transaction with quick payment. Thanks! His pedalboard looks great to boot!

Possibly not in time for Christmas (although they are batched I think, so maybe) but the Triungulo Lab Barbanera is the funkiest, wettest filter I’ve used. The Broughton Josh Wah is well worth a look too (and should arrive from Canada in less than a couple of weeks). Broughton pedals punch well above their retail price.

I was using this as a pedal-testing board until recently (which is why there’s a slight gap between the Stomp and Element). It’s a Rockboard (2.1 I think) and has a Cioks DC7 underneath if I recall correctly.

That's an absolute beauty! Congratulations! The fingerboard looks phenomenal too. It's been blowing up on Instagram all week so I'm glad that it's not in Bass Freaks' store to tempt.

The BF-3 Flanger is my favourite Boss pedal. Do it!

I just listened to Bayou and Third of the First; both are right up my alley. Great stuff and massive tone! It reminds me of how thick the tone is in Raging Speedhorn’s Gush. I think I detect a decent amount of flanger too?