On hold - JohnK Mini XO - crossover drive/distortion - *SOLD* £130 Leeds

[LukeFRC]

2024 Pedals cull - part 2
JohnK mini XO crossover distortion

 

Right - it's a pedal made by John Kallas (Johnk_10 on talkbass) 
Its a distortion/drive pedal that lets you keep your bottom end clean... or boost your bottom end more or whatever... but I don't really like anything more than a mild drive on bass so it's a wee bit wasted on me. For someone else, playing heavier music  than me it's killer.

 

£105 posted to your door (UK)

 

 

 

So 5 made and not something you will see every day... I think there's two in Europe that have been on basschat before...

 

Info...
https://johnkvintageguitars.homestead.com/mini-XO.html 

The larger one including a sound clip https://johnkvintageguitars.homestead.com/XO-Crossover-Bass-Distortion.html 

 

some topics on talk bass about it 

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/johnk-has-a-crossover-distortion-coming-out.1383604/ 

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/johnks-new-crossover-line.1386253/ 

 

Controls are Gain and volume of the drive

then low volume, crossover point, high volume.

 

1590a with top mount jacks. 

 

What does it soundlike?

Well its based on a Greedtone Overdrive 

https://youtu.be/S-SbUnERhg8?si=nUVRkgIibTEZaWn1 which sounds like this... 

but obviously with a crossover section so it sounds different... 

It's loud. And the drive can get quite aggressive into distortion type sounds- it is transparent sounding in that there's not any major eq curve in it (unless you put one there with the crossover)
It's lovely into a bass cab, cab sim or LPF - anything full range it's a bit fizzy (in the same way a dark glass b3k is) for my ears - and as I play a full range cab or into the PA... it's getting played.

 

The price (or trade)

I'm asking £105 including postage 

Trades (with cash either way)... Zoom MS70cdr, Zoia, HX stomp, Neunaber immerse mk2 or Expanse, valeton OC10, Hellborg preamp*...? 


*other hens teeth don't sound as good!

 

Edited March 4 by LukeFRC

[dudewheresmybass]

@Cosmo Valdemar

[LukeFRC]

I think my post was too long... 

here's info from his website to make it easier for you...

 

His spiel from the full size one (my edits taking out the features you can't access on the mini):

I've been working on a bass crossover distortion for the last several months and finally dialed in everything that I was looking for in one. Most, if not all of the crossover pedals offered today aren't very user friendly to set up, and many have a 'baked in' tone that's impossible to dial out, so my goal was to make one that sounded organic, easily capable of retaining your original tone (if desired), with a wide range of sounds, yet simple and intuitive to use. The result being, in my opinion, the finest and most versatile bass overdrive/distortion that I've built to date.

 

Back in the 70's, one of my bass rigs was an Acoustic 360 with its powered 18" cab. Due to it being a folded horn, I found it to be lacking clarity in the top end so I ran a blackface bassman with it's small 2x12 cab along with it. I cut the lows on the bassman since the 18" had more than enough low end and used the bassman for the highs, and could run it clean, or push it into having a slightly dirty top end. I was basically running a "poor man's"  bi-amped rig. Fast forward 40+ years later, and I now can achieve the same thing with this pedal. This is also similar to the way that Chris Squire got his HUGE tone, by running his lows to a bass amp his highs to another. When I saw him back in the day he used Sunn's for the lows and a Marshall for his overdriven top end.

 

First, I designed a Linkwitz-Riley crossover circuit with a variable crossover point from 100hz to 1khz. Next, the crossover goes into a two channel mixer with separate low and high volume controls. With the distortion switched off and  (not on the mini) both of the high and low controls set at the same level, you can rotate the frequency control from 100hz to 1Khz and the tone remains flat, as if the crossover isn't even there.  If you set the high and low volumes at different levels, you can use it as a tone control for for either cutting highs or lows, or even get reggae or dub bass sounds out of it.  

 

Before the top end goes into the mixer, it first enters a foot-switchable cmos distortion circuit with it's own level and gain controls. The distortion's character sounds very much like a tube amp breaking up .The variable crossover allows you to have a distorted top end with super clean and punchy lows. 

 

And from the Mini XO
The mini XO is the mini version of my XO Crossover Bass Distortion, but without the distortion bypass footswitch, 4 band equalization, and master level control in a smaller 1590B enclosure. It is basically a "biamp in a box" and contains the same active Linkwitz-Riley crossover with a variable frequency range of 100hz- 1khz, the same cmos overdrive/distortion, and the same two channel mixer as the XO

 

This pedal does not have a dip at the crossover point which I have found that many other manufacturer's crossover pedals exhibit. It keeps 100% of your original low end tone and punch while allowing you to select which frequency from 100hz to 1khz to overdrive, from none, to heavy saturation.

 

This pedal contains a charge pump and should ONLY be run at 9 volts.

 

The mini XO comes in a polished and etched 1590B, with all top jacks, black anodized aluminum knobs  and a true bypass  My pedals are completely hand-made and I make them in very limited quantities. I prep & polish the enclosures, acid etch them, etch my own PCBs, tin plate them, mount & hand solder  all of the components and wire and test them before they ship, making them a truly hand-made boutique pedal. Nothing is farmed out.

 

UPDATE  2/5/19: Due to demand, I decided to make three more orders available for a total of five builds. Please allow an approximate 1-2 week build time before it ships.

[LukeFRC]

Did I overprice this? Let’s try a price drop  £105 posted 

[LukeFRC]

So I've had about 3 people asking "what does it sound like" and "are there any YouTube reviews" which there isn't as there aren't that many about...

So I've tried to do some recordings... which proves I'm not a great bass player! 
So here's me messing around with the same wee riff and recording different settings.

Sadowsky metro, passive, both pickups, fairly old sadowsky blue label strings
> Into pedal  >Into Behringer Q802USB mixing desk > into GarageBand

No EQ or compression, I tried to keep the volumes about the same.
Normally drives sound a bit fizzy and nasty completely clean so I've done a second set with garageband's inbuilt bass amp and 810 cab sim set clean and no eq.

I am not a great player, and this is a super hacky low-fi and low effort attempt at recording, one take while tired and not really focusing  - so sorry about that. This kinda bi-amped sound I know is used in some genre more than other - I've no idea what genre it is though so you've got this line from a song I've played - it's a bit busy but I'm not @Dood and  I really don't know what the best type of noise is to demo a overdrive/distortion pedal. 

 

First few have the crossover all the way down (100Hz) so is the closest it gets to what a standard drive pedal would do... then I stick the crossover roughly in the middle. 

 

 

Oh I stuck a few other pedal's I've built on at the end while I had everything set up... 

 

  

Edited February 10 by LukeFRC