admiralchew

I’m not sure either. I need to revisit the notes I made when putting together some Instagram narratives (yep, I’m that boring). I think you may be right though as I think Spencer was a fan of the Meatball. I have a feeling there was a Mutron element too. If I can find my notes I’ll put more details up. In the meantime, I’ll leave this here:

Sorry, the reference to the Meatball was to show another pedal with good routing options. I’m not aware that any 3 Leaf pedals have any Meatball DNA. I’ve not played the original Meatball, only the FTelettronica version, but the latter at least has send and return.

I gather the sourcing of enclosures has proven the issue with making more (as per the old website entry). It’s a shame because it, along with the Barbanera, is my go-to filter. There aren’t that many filters out there with as much functionality and, compared to Meatballs and Meatball clones that do have the routing options, the footprint is small. Given that it’s effectively the deluxe version of the Proton, paying more for the Chromatron seems fair. Each person can decide whether it’s worth it for them to pay the retail price. This is basically moot for the moment though as I don’t think there are immediate plans to make more. I’ve had a Chromatron that suffered with letters shedding and had it refinished. It was a shame when the lettering started to come off but it was a good excuse to do something creative.

I’m not sure to be honest. I seem to recall the Chromatron page stating it was an original design but the page is currently not on the site. The Doom 2 statement was based on not hearing anyone say it’s like anything else and I’ve not come across anything that similar. I would like to try a PWNZOR though, I know that much!

Agreed. I think Spencer’s come under a lot of criticism for offering a product that has allowed scalpers to make big profits. I’ve seen on other well known forums the sentiment that people would rather pay him than a scalper. I suppose the auctions at least take scalpers out of the equation as the prices paid are the effective market prices. If he charged the current market price (as more easily seen on eBay and Reverb than his website) then they would be beyond the reach of all but a few and he would make even greater profits. I’ve seen the prices start to come down as substantially more Doom 2s etc hit the market than over the last three years (when months could pass without seeing one) and I think that trend will continue to some degree. I’ve seen some pedal manufacturers do timed drops, others take preorders and others still do surprise drops. My least favourite is the surprise drop but they all have issues. The timed drop rewards those using certain platforms and payments. Surprise drops penalise those that can’t refresh all day (at least small batches where seconds count). Preorders work but place an immense amount of mental stress on builders (as seen previously with Cog and 3 Leaf). Ultimately there’s a lot more demand than there is supply. I know Spencer is highly committed to what he does and, if he considers himself making art rather than a product, demanding that he make ever more may not fit in with his goal or his reason for making pedals in the first place. It’s a shame for pedal-users, because he makes great pedals, but there are some excellent alternatives.

I think the Chromatron and PWNZOR were original circuits weren’t they? I’m not sure if the Doom 2 is based on anything either. I’m not far enough into circuit design to know where the line is between different circuits though.

I’m sorry you missed out too. I think the intention is for larger releases next year so there should be more than a hundred available of each pedal throughout the year. Hopefully, with those released next year and the larger releases next year, there should be greater availability and reduced resale prices.

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.