Barefaced Machinist

[spyder]

Just now, alexclaber said:

Yes, I'm sorry. Hopefully there is some forgiveness for someone having a pretty hard time right now.

We are all having a hard time.

I haven't worked for 9 months, I'm living off my wife's wages. 

[alexclaber]

Yes, it's been a horrific year. I'm sorry for upsetting any of you, I really didn't mean to.

[EBS_freak]

Just some further feedback - again, just my opinion.

Im intrigued by the inclusion of knob choices. Standardise them.

If people want to customise them, let them do it at their cost. Build a brand on uniformity - not so your product looks like it's been built from random parts bins. Im taking this is an off the shelf product that you want to just shift in boxes? Why add the complication?

Edited November 26, 2020 by EBS_freak

[alexclaber]

13 hours ago, Beedster said:

Can't help feeling a strong sense of disappointment that their first venture away from cabs is this? Guess they have their reasons

It's the first non-cab product released, it's not the first thing we've started working on. An amp is a much more complicated thing to get right and much more expensive to get into production.

[itu]

The pedal looks very good, I would love to see an FX loop in it which would separate the clean from those two other channels. I would use a X-over between them. The clean channel looks just like I would love to have one: a simple and one very effective filter.

(Offtopic: If BF will make an amp, it probably has Gain - 3/4/5 knob EQ - Vol. But hopefully not. I would love to see something like an old Quad type of EQ with tilt and another knob that selects the tilt freq, like Gain - Tilt - Freq - Vol. It certainly would be an old design but fresh compared to those basic ones I described earlier. Offtopic ends, back to the CVs and cover letters and so on.)

[alexclaber]

10 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

They say that pictures paint a thousand words. However, in this case, I feel a few labels may have been a little more appropriate.

Would have liked to see some collars on the LEDs too.

But hey, fair play on getting something to market. Difficult task.

It's quite hard to make text as legible as symbols when space is limited and I thought this symbols would make sense once a musician has used it for a short while.

We had collars on the LEDs on one of the prototypes but it looked better without collars.

Yes, it is, thank you for the positive!

[alexclaber]

2 hours ago, Beedster said:

Good post, although I would have thought that BF have sufficient brand loyalty now to not have needed to produce a game-changing amp, just a good amp (which I guess is what many amp manufacturers do in reverse, game-changing amps, standard cabs)? I suspect a reliable and powerful unit styled to match their cabs would sell on brand power and aesthetics alone?

I don't want to make just another amp with a Barefaced logo on. There's a lot of stuff I want to do with an amp, and I want to build it here and make it as serviceable and long lasting as possible because that's something I believe in. It's not easy to do...

[EBS_freak]

4 minutes ago, alexclaber said:

It's quite hard to make text as legible as symbols when space is limited and I thought this symbols would make sense once a musician has used it for a short while.

It's OK, I picked up your veiled insult. Again, refer to customer 101.

 

You should know that a great deal of people using fx pedals, amps or anything, the more you give them to twiddle, the greater the chance that they don't know what they are doing. If people at least know the term as opposed to having to learn the meanings of potentially new hieroglyphics, things may be easier?

Edited November 26, 2020 by EBS_freak

[alexclaber]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

Given they already have experience of powered FRFR cabs, I'm surprised they didn't go for the more obvious development of the BF SC or SM combo?

Alex could have had, at a stroke, a market leading lightweight product on his hands.

Without there being something that's a perfect fit off-the-shelf (as with our discontinued active cabs), we have to develop something from scratch, which sadly isn't that easy. I am working on things but everything takes time!

[fretmeister]

3 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

It's OK, I picked up your veiled insult. Again, refer to customer 101.

I don't see an insult there. It's only musicians who will be buying it.

[spyder]

7 minutes ago, alexclaber said:

It's quite hard to make text as legible as symbols when space is limited and I thought this symbols would make sense once a musician has used it for a short while.

We had collars on the LEDs on one of the prototypes but it looked better without collars.

Yes, it is, thank you for the positive!

I agree Alex, I have the Orange Bass Butler and the symbols are much easier to read when space is limited.

Symbols are a positive step forward.

[EBS_freak]

1 minute ago, fretmeister said:

I don't see an insult there. It's only musicians who will be buying it.

I won't be buying it. Cos I'm not a musician.

[Beedster]

Just now, fretmeister said:

I don't see an insult there. It's only musicians who will be buying it.

Well, it could be read as such given his earlier "screw the customer" approach

[alexclaber]

2 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

It's OK, I picked up your veiled insult. Again, refer to customer 101.

It wasn't a veiled insult - I know it's a bit sideways using symbols rather than words but I didn't do it for the look, I did it because I think on this pedal (where the symbols can be logical and clear) it helps. Obviously we're all used to things just saying gain and volume so it's not as easy to understand at first glance. But I do honestly believe it's a good way of labelling it.

Obviously if I'm wrong and everyone thinks this is worse than having words, then we'll have to make a version 2 with text instead of symbols!

[Al Krow]

Just now, alexclaber said:

Without there being something that's a perfect fit off-the-shelf (as with our discontinued active cabs), we have to develop something from scratch, which sadly isn't that easy. I am working on things but everything takes time!

I can appreciate that - but seriously you could have an instant "best seller" on your hands and immediately wipe the floor with a lot of existing combos.

[fretmeister]

1 minute ago, EBS_freak said:

I won't be buying it. Cos I'm not a musician.

I think you're reading too much into it.

 

[alexclaber]

1 minute ago, EBS_freak said:

I won't be buying it. Cos I'm not a musician.

If you were referring to me saying "musicians" as being a veiled insult, I didn't say bassists because it's aimed at guitarists too, and other instrumentalists. Again, apologies if you were insulted by that, it was not meant to be an insult. We're all musicians, even the drummers! 😉

[Steve Browning]

Just now, alexclaber said:

If you were referring to me saying "musicians" as being a veiled insult, I didn't say bassists because it's aimed at guitarists too, and other instrumentalists. Again, apologies if you were insulted by that, it was not meant to be an insult. We're all musicians, even the drummers! 😉

And singers? Be careful how you answer that!! 🙂

[Beedster]

20 minutes ago, Kev said:

Guys, this thread is about the Machinist pedal and nothing else.  Please try to keep on topic otherwise we’ll have to close the discussion.  Alex has apologised, let’s move on.

Let's be clear about this, it WAS about the Machinist until Alex waded in, so how about you rewrite that as 'Alex, this thread is about the Machinist"? 

[Al Krow]

1 minute ago, spyder said:

I agree Alex, I have the Orange Bass Butler and the symbols are much easier to read when space is limited.

Symbols are a positive step forward.

Symbols are cool BUT sine wave, square wave and sawtooth already have well known meanings attached to them for filter and synth pedal users. 

I appreciate that the Orange Butler decided to "abuse" these - but it's definitely confusing! 

[EBS_freak]

My skin is thicker in that.

But seriously, you may want to read your responses from a number of viewpoints before clicking submit reply.

[Beedster]

Just now, Steve Browning said:

And singers? Be careful how you answer that!! 🙂

Lucky it's not a drum FX, there'd be some real problems in user terminology

[EBS_freak]

Anyway, where's the official demos - and is anybody reviewing them yet?

[Rich]

13 hours ago, machinehead said:

I was hoping for a top quality bass amp and I don't use pedals so this isn't for me.

Frank.

From little acorns, and all that. If they're going to dip a toe into the waters of stuff-other-than-cabs, better to start small. Jumping in feet first with an expensive tube amp, with all the R&D and prototyping costs involved, could have been financial suicide. I think it's a smart first move.

[Cuzzie]

Let’s look at the pedal properly - its an overdrive/fuzz/clean signal path, which if i read properly is able to be used on guitar and bass.

This makes perfect sense considering BF is making guitar and bass cabs - pinning all hopes onto a bass amp does in itself not serve all of the customer base. People using their cabs, will already have an amp, its more expensive for them to make and for us to buy, and despite protestations would there be a mass buying of the amp from the BC community let alone the whole bass community at this time when no one has a lot of cash - i doubt it.

The lack of DI makes not difference really - it doesn’t have to be line level to go into a desk or a USB interface etc. You just have to gain stage,plenty of pre-amp pedals have no DI - Tech21 PSA 2.0,  Line6 Helix etc.

Personally i think it sounds really interesting,and I want to have a play more on it, i am not normally a fuzz guy, I like either a mild ‘tube’ type drive,or go more for a crossover type clank like the Tech21 DP3X or dUg amp. What i want to know is @alexclaber i reckon it will do the overdrive nicely as well as fuzz, but will the distortion do ‘clanky’ or is it still more organic?

Keep going, i like it so far

Edited November 26, 2020 by Cuzzie