mcnach

Thank you for that! Very lucky for me to have you tried all three! :) I must give the Pure Blues a try since I never like any string when new and wait for the initial zing to go... they sound like they were made for me!

For me, DR Fat Beams mostly, but also Sunbeams. However, over thepast year or two I've also developed a taste for the Labella White Nylon tapewounds. They're not 'thumpy' like most other tapewounds. They can be quite bright and do slap well, but what I like the most is how tight and focused they can sound on the low end, with strong low mids and very good definition. On a Jazz, in particular, they work very well.

How would you compare the Sunbeams to PureBlues, both in terms of sound and feel (coarseness and flexibility)? I like Fat Beams a lot, but I'm finding SunBeams very nice on a couple of basses (PJ types). I keep hearing about the Pure Blues and I'm curious...

Well, I really don't like the higher gain sounds... but for low to mid gain it is very cool. For higher gain I prefer the Multidrive. Curious, as I expected the reverse!

A thread about this pedal here (that's how I found out about it): https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/330442-cheap-valve-drive/

Have you experimented with other valves? I quite like it as it is, but of course I'm curious. If you try 12AX7 type valves remember to change the switch by the base of the valve accordingly (they seem to come with a different type valve, fits in the same base but different pin layout which the switch adjusts for... I only realised that by watching a video)

But... there's a pedal that has surprised me a lot recently: the Nobsound (I know 😛 ) Little Bear G3... Less than £40, it's a little quirky in its design with a valve that actually seems to do something and with a larger footprint than most other pedals... but it sounds really good. Although the (sometimes cryptic) instructions state you should use at least a 350mA capable power supply, it seems to work with less. I tried it on the 250mA output of my Voodoo Power 2+ power supply, and also on one of the 100mA outputs... and there's little difference. Actually maybe a bit more gain and compressed on the lower power output and maybe a bit quieter but the level control adjusts easily for that. I even tried it with a 9V battery on an adaptor and still works reasonably well, although I suspect the battery would not last long). The videos on YouTube are pretty dire... if I had watched them before I bought the pedal, I would not have bothered. Pretty cool little pedal...

I have one of these. Pretty cool sounding on bass, despite a little bit of low end loss, still useful. There's also the Mosky Black Rat for about £17, again in a similar compact form, supposedly based on the Rat. I received mine today and has the same slight bass loss but still usable. It has two modes: vintage and turbo. I prefer the vintage, it's smoother, and its sound actually overlaps a lot with the Hustle Drive. On Turbo mode, I prefer it with low gain, as it gets a little too 'raspy' for my liking (with a Stingray) when the gain is high. I still think the Joyo Ultimate Overdrive is the nicest most versatile cheap unit. Using the mids on my onboard preamp you can sort of control how smooth the overdrive gets...

+1 I had a pair of BB2 for some time, using various amps (MarkBass LMIII and LMT800, GB Streamliner and Shuttles). They worked well, but I was never really fully happy with them and I found I needed to work the EQ carefully to get a sound I was happy enough with. Eventually I 'discovered' the Two10... and I now use a pair of them instead of the pair of BB2 and it's just what I was wanting. Despite their original description being "Retro", they are very versatile. They do the 'old school' sound very well, but not only that. I find it very easy to get a great sound with these (now using mostly a Mesa D800+ but still have the LMIII and it never sounded better).

Well... I didn't really have time to sit down to test everything... but earlier today I found myself in front of the pedalboard and I thought I'd start at least. I plugged in and... it sounded worst than last time I used it. Not just the volume issue and slightly degraded sound... there was a bit of a weird fuzzy noise that followed the envelope of each note I played. I started wiggling patch cables... yes, very technical, I know... And what do you know? One cable, between the last overdrive and the wah started making noise... and in one position made the bass sound perfectly clear... then move it a bit and the problems start. I think it all may be THAT single cable. Since I'm at it, I'm going to revise the setup to make the cabling tidier but... replacing that cable seems to be doing the trick. The simplest things...

Borrow a wireless system

This. I had just mentioned my favourite cabs have nothing above 6 KHz and (to my ears) they sound great with plenty treble. I was talking about the Two10. Largo uses a pair of One10. Same speakers, and nothing much above 6 KHz either.

Is he getting a good FOH sound? You could use a separate EQ for your IEMs, but to me it sounds like he's trying to squeeze in inordinate amounts of treble... I find the white nylons very rich in the low mids, and I'd have imagined that they would be easy to EQ so that the bass has nice definition: I'd look for it in the mids, low mids especially, not above 7 KHz!

White nylons do have more treble than other tapewounds I've tried... but certainly not like new rounds would. I also think that the sound person is looking for a different tone than what is provided. It seems to me that his view of the bass sound in the band is different from what Largo sees as suitable, and nothing else. Shelving at 7 KHz is nothing to worry about (in my opinion) for most bands' basslines. My favourite speakers "only" reach 6 KHz... and there's plenty of treble there if I want it.

Shelving at 7KHz does not sound too bad at all. Is he expecting a different tone than you? Has he heard your IEMs? I think I'd respond like you have. The white nylons don't have the extremely bright zing that a fresh set of roundwounds would have, but they are certainly not dull, as you're hearing.

No, I'm sure the power draw is not exceeded, I'm quite careful with that since years ago I had a hard time with gremlins in my board... and it turned out to be that my power supply was not powerful enough. Since then it's become a thing for me to check the specs of every pedal and the power supplies The daisy chain, however, is worth looking into. It is not the sturdiest looking thing and I don't even remember where or when I got it 👍

9 relatively low draw pedals, only 3 daisy chained: two of the overdrives (I think they're less than 20mA each) and the tuner.

Those symptoms seem to match mine indeed. I'm using a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus, there's plenty left on tap as most of the pedals I'm using are very low current draw. It's a little overkill for my needs, but I bought it at a time when I was using a couple of hungry digital pedals plus the wireless system, and this coped with the lot very well, so I don't think power is the issue here. I'm tempted to buy already one of those Evidence Audio kits and use it to troubleshoot the board (as well as tidying up a bit the layout), as it cannot hurt.

That's my feeling too: that it's probably one (or more) or the patch cables, or a particularly bad pedal but I've tried them all in isolation at various points and none seemed bad. The thing that puts me off solderless kits is that I *feel* they're not very solid. Maybe it's just my feeling and they work beautifully, I don't know. I'm happy to solder anyway... but I prefer them already made (while I can solder well, I prefer to use my time doing other things, like reading BC 😛 ) IN your own personal experience, what works well?

EDIT: It was a single patch cable, between the last overdrive and the wah... I'm not a heavy effects user, and I only really use a non-small pedalboard in one of the bands I play in. I say non-small rather than large because I've seen the size of some of the boards some of the guys here have... some have a measurable gravitational field 😛 I've been replacing, adding, changing things over the past few months, and I realised last week that I have a significant signal loss. The volume drop is noticeable and it feels a bit... muffled... just a bit, compared to plugging straight in, or through a single pedal (so that I still use the same long cables) I use a 6m lead from bass to pedalboard, and another one from pedalboard to amp. I checked and it turns out that every single one of the 9 pedals is true bypass, including the tuner at the start of the chain. Last/near last is an EBS Multicomp, true bypass but it's always on. Chain: Tuner (Tomsline TA-07) Octave (MarkBass) 3x overdrives (Caline Orange Burst -> EBS Multidrive -> Joyo Ultimate Drive / EBS Metal Drive) wah (G-Labs wowee wah) Phaser (EHX Small stone) Compressor (EBS Multicomp - always on) DI (DSM OmniCabSim DeLuxe - always on, but using the 'through' output to the amp, reserving the processed signal to send to FOH) Q1: I generally use active basses, either a Stingray or a Schecter Model T (EMG)... which I thought would go some way to help matters, but perhaps I should consider putting a decent buffered bypass pedal first in the chain, especially as I sometimes use a passive Precision too. Probably a tuner would be the best idea although I like the one I'm using now (small but bright, good visibility in all conditions)... so maybe a dedicated buffer would be a good thing to use, such as the TC Electronic Bonafide (also small footprint). Any suggestions? Q2: Cables. The patch cables I use have been accumulated over the years. All kinds and varying in length to fit. Whenever I identify a bad one, I throw it away... but that doesn't mean that they're all great... and perhaps the cumulative effect of all those cables, if a few of them are not great, can have a noticeable effect... so my question is... there are lots of patch cables advertised everywhere, some with pretty amazing claims (of course) so it's hard to decide which ones are really good and which ones are just exaggerating: which patch cables would people here recommend for a pedalboard the size of mine? Most can be pretty short but I need a couple of longer ones. Compact plugs are a bonus as they allow to organise the pedals better. Q3: Any benefit in adding a buffer in the middle of the chain? Just considering adding a buffered overdrive as the last of the 3 overdrives I use. I plan to test systematically the board removing one pedal at a time, to see if the effect is mostly due to a single pedal (as I found years ago with the CRy Baby wah I was using at the time), and see if any cables are obviously worse than the others... but until I an do that (not until next weekend, likely), I'd love to hear any suggestions/advice from people who know about these things and/or have experienced similar issues and how they dealt with them.

I'm liking what this little pedal does. I found this video that explains a bit more what's inside, as well as showing the internal switch if swapping to 12AX7 type valves...

remember? I still have one, turned fretless!

I have never played one with neck dive, and due to their shape I imagine that only the very lightest ones could potentially have neck dive... so that sales guy is talking pish, in my opinion. Go elsewhere and try other Precisions.

I find the Orange Burst has a very slight low end loss too... but it's very very slight and I think it works well with bass. I have let many pedals go because of the bass loss, but this one manages to pass the mcnach threshold

I really like that Orange Burst too. I have one of those early Danelectro Cool Cat Transparent Overdrives. I don't use it much, mostly because I find the knobs on the back a pain to deal with... but the few times I looked at it and thought "I'm going to sell this, but first, let's have a little play" I ended up changing my mind and keeping it. I prefer it on guitar 'though, but it's really nice for low gain bass sounds too.