SumOne

Fat Mike chooses a few here:

RIP to these two greats:

I'm actually going to return the EBS. It works fine and is good but isn't quite good enough for me to justify £170 considering alternatives like 2nd hand M82 for about £100 which is less versatile (particularly no sweep down) but does the quick 'quack' percussive type bandpass sweep up better and has useful separate clean/wet volumes and decay filter control. Or about £150 for 2nd hand Spectrum for lots more tweaking versatility. .... or the Proton, spatial delivery, funk lite, discumbobulator all seem to be slightly different flavours of the EBS functions for simar new price, possibly they will have the mojo in looking for. Anyone looking to sell any of them give me a shout.

I've only tried the new one. The q control is useful - I think it would be quite limited without it, and switching from full/band/low pass filters gives quite different results so I'm fairly sure it's quite a big improvement.

An EBS MB2 replaced my Sansamp BDDI. I preferred the EBS once I'd figured everything out - there's a lot more going on.

EBS BassIQ Blue Label arrived and it's good, I'd only got it on impulse expecting to probably return it but I think I''ll probably keep it - there's tough competition in this price range though. Compared to the M82: Not much in it between the two but if I was just after a bandpass filter sweeping up I'd probably get an M82. The M82 clean/wet controls and depth control are things the EBS doesn't have, and the M82 has a bit more of an in your face 'quack' than the EBS, I do like the EBS tone though- it's smoother. And the EBS bandpass is okay at keeping the low end without a clean blend because it seems to work a bit differently to the M82 in that the threshold at zero is pretty much 100% clean and it gradually gets blended out, that along with the Q and Attack seem to all interact with each other and the amount of clean blend a bit more than the M82 controls do, so although the EBS has fewer knobs it can still get a similar (or perhaps more) variety of tones just in the equivalent bandpass + filter up settings. The M82 sub type sounds with sensitivity dialled down are also a bit more full on than the EBS - but I quite like the milder (and perhaps more usable) EBS sub. The EBS doesn't have the Decay frequency control of the M82 which is a shame, but the main thing the EBS is lacking is output volume control- it does have an internal pot for that, and it seems to be at unity without adjusting it so it's hopefully not a bit issue, still though - what if I want the sub tone turned down and then change to a more 'quack' setting that I want louder? Seems an important omission for a £170 pedal (but the Fwonkbeta is similar). The big positive of the EBS though is that it also does full range and low pass filters, and a second up sweep setting (internally adjustable range), and down sweep. So 9 combinations in total and all of these can make decent sounds, so for that added versatility I think I'll stick with the EBS rather than M82. The EBS is also in the sort of price range of a second hand Spectrum though which has even more versatility - but that needs phone/laptop tweaking and it only has 6 presets available without buying additional controls vs the 9x EBS settings....and like I was saying with the C4, it's not as obvious that 'green light middle toggle' is, say 'lowpass sweep up' than having it there on the dedicated controls of the EBS. Of the filters I've owned: Helix and Zoom envelope filters I didn't think much of, but the Fwonkbeta, EBS, M82, and Spectrum each have their pros and cons and all are good in their own way. For the time being I think I'll stick with the EBS but will have an eye out for alternatives - my search would probably be over if it just included clean/wet volume controls and a decay frequency control.

Yeah I've been recommended the sine effects pedals but not tried them. I've got my eye on the mega para but their prices suddenly jumped up. I had a GEB-7 and it was a bit noisy, but that might have been down to my cheap power supply.

I haven't used these but they look good https://sineeffect.com/shop/micropara-1-band-parametric-e-q/

Yeah, just something like the little screen on the Zoom pedals or Boss RC pedals would really help - and it's presumably pretty cheap to do as those pedals don't break the bank. I recently got a Source Audio Gemini which I think is great as 6 modulation presets is plenty for me, and it's easy enough to tell what preset I'm on (e.g. green light = chorus x3, red light = phaser, flanger, vibe) and as they are all similar enough effects it's fine for the controls to all be fixed the same things across the presets- and 4 controls is enough for most live tweaking. A bit of laptop/phone editing is good to fine-tune other parameters but doesn't need hours of mucking about.

I got the C4 mostly to replace my M82 and Octamizer. Figured selling them would make about £200, then an extra £50 was worth it for the extra synth features. C4 is great and it gets very close but doesn't 100% replicate them, you can play a clean loop and run it through the Octamizer or M82 vs C4 to make the loop sound exactly the same - you could then listen A/B recordings of that loop and not tell the difference. But that's a bit misleading because when actually playing there is a subtle difference, C4 didn't sound quite as good across the whole range of notes and playing dynamics, and it wasn't as easy to do something like the equivalent increasing the 'growl' of the Octamizer as it fed into the M82 with decreased sensitivity - you'd ideally need a C4 preset and quite a long time tweaking to replicate that. The main C4 disadvantage for me was it's lack of 'on-hand' controls so you need to save all the different options as presets- and then it's hard to tweak them via the pedal as it's tricky to remember 'is this synth preset control knob #1 for attack, or bass? or is this filter preset control knob #1 for decay or !?' etc. And to access more than 6 presets you need phone/laptop or controller hooked up or getting a controller like the MC6 (£220) + Neuro Hub (£100) puts the overall cost at £570 and even then it wouldn't have the same 'on-hand' controls as the two separate pedals.....so I returned the C4. Not to be down on the C4 though, it is an excellent pedal, and I was specifically wanting to re-create analog pedals but I think it 100% nails replicating digital pedals like the POG, sub n up, OC2. And obviously it has loads of different synth/filter/octaver sounds so it's doing much more than just replicating other pedals. I'd be tempted to get a Spectrum as I think 6 presets and the additional 'alt' controller functions mean that it would work well as a stand-alone filter pedal without having to spend a load more on controllers.

C4 is great but I found it didn't quite replace the M82 or Octamizer. Very close though. I think it was mostly down to the limited hardware controls for on-hand tweaking. Proton looks good. I had a fwonkbeta for a while and found it a bit too much of an unpredictable speaker breaker!

Yeah, I used them (and a lot of your others) and it's very good. But I guess like you, there's just something that the M82 has that the C4 doesn't - it doesn't fully replace it.

Ah, nice one- I missed your advert. If the I like the Blue label but don't find much need for the filter switch then I'll be in contact.