robiredale

If you like the B7K sound its a great pedal and very easy to dial in that tone. But if you don't like that B7K sound, you're a bit stuffed with it. The XU is way more powerful and versatile than the B7KU, but less intuitive based on my experiences with both. If your XU is for sale for a good price I'd expect you could punt it on easily enough if it didn't work for you.

I've got one of these. I mostly use it for playing metal. The EQ points (which are fixed) are typical of most Darkglass products, so aimed at a more modern sound. However, like many Darkglass products, whilst its marketed at heavier genres, its really versatile if used correctly. The key to using it as you're suggesting is to reduce the input level. They're super sensitive to this, and with most basses I've tried (fairly modern, active ones from Dingwall, Ibanez and Yamaha) going straight into it gives a signal that is too hot to access the low gain and clean capabilities that the pedal has. It has the ability to increase output by up to 12db to compensate for reduction in input gain, so any loss of volume on the way in shouldn't be a problem in that sense. The cab sim can only be run through the XLR out, its off all the time from the main jack output. If you're still not sure you could try downloading a free two week trial of Neural DSP Parallax. Its essentially a software emulation of this pedal (not quite 100% faithful, but close), and gives you a very good idea of what the pedal is capable of. Hope that helps!

I was going to suggest Quilter too, I've got a Bass Block 802 and its excellent. Nice tone by itself, but also plays very well with external preamps if that's your thing. Pretty sure I got mine from Wembley Music Centre.

I've got an SR 5 string, a 655 maybe? It's got the Nordstrand-licensed PJ pickups. I replaced the stock Ibby preamp with a Darkglass Tone Capsule - night and day difference. But then those pickups are decent to start with in my opinion. I have another SR bass, a 4 string with Nordstrand big singles and the stock Ibby preamp. Sounds good too, but out of the two, I prefer the bass with the upgraded pre. Totally appreciate what you say about the £ required to replace both.

Bought two Darkglass pedals from Mike, a VMT and a Harmonic Booster. Communication was excellent, postage prompt and the items well packed and exactly as described. Would not hesitate to deal with him again. Cheers Mike!

big fan of DG stuff. one of the things that makes me like their pedals is the amount of adjustability on offer, and therefore flexibility for different tones, guitars, genres, playing styles etc. this makes that more difficult to access. so of no interest to me. but this is clearly aimed at someone who doesn't adjust settings often. i guess they keep making distortion pedals because people keep buying them! not the first company to do that...

I bought a Boss LS2 pedal from Peter. He's very friendly and quick to respond to messages. He posted the pedal exactly when he said he would. The pedal is exactly as described, and very well packaged. I would not hesitate to deal with him again. Thanks Peter!

i did it last year, a bit monotonous some weeks but got a lot out of it. i also refer back to the material from time to time. some of the exercises are really very good. as someone above said, im sure most of it can be found elsewhere for free, but i still think its decent value.

happy empress bass compressor user here. it does transparent compression extremely well, is very adjustable, has two colour circuits if you'd like a bit of, well, colour, and packs in some other features that some other pedals don't (the sidechain hipass filter is extremely useful for me). also the leds on it are very easy to read so you can exactly what its doing. they're bloody expensive though, and you can definitely get something very good for less. the mxr seems to be very highly regarded. i have a TC spectracomp and its a very unique and interesting pedal with a massive bunch of tricks, including multi-band, which is really cool. but i just prefer to have knobs on the pedal.

Hi - I'm Rob, based in Peebles in the Scottish Borders. I've been playing bass for about 20 years. Have been lurking on the forum for some time (not 20 years mind). Metal/prog are my passions and what I usually end up gravitating towards in bands, but I like to turn my hand to a wide range of stuff when jamming at home. Currently on a Dingwall NG2 5 string and an Ibby SR1400 4 string. Love them both, really versatile (as long as modern sounding is your thing). Ampwise I'm currently on a Quilter Bassblock 802, with 2x Barefaced Supercompacts. I also use Darkglass mulitband distortion pedals (Microtubes X/X Ultra) for metal. Also got my eye on some stuff in the classifieds, which prompted me to get my act together and register! Will stick around for the chat though