ahpook

ok so after trying out a number of pedals in a shop on denmark street, london, i thought i'd give this one a whirl.

the pedal's basically two things - a clean boost (up to +20dB) and an overdrive with gain, tone and volume controls.


first the good stuff...the boost section is excellent - very clean sounding and it drives my ampeg pre-amp superbly...just adding a bit of grind and bite to the sound. yes, there's noise there if you crank it all the way up to 20 (!!), but that's just what you'd expect.

now...the overdrive....not so good. it sounded nice in the shop, through a smallish amp, but through my rig it's just ugly sounding at anything over 1/3 gain...past this you start to get a nasty clipping sound that reminded me of putting too much signal into a PC soundcard...horrid and totally unmusical.

the tone control didn't help much in taming this either. at very high gain levels it get more musical (less ugly clipping) but then i don't need a high gain pedal...i've a few of those already.

so i returned it to the shop, and they were more than happy for me to swicth it for the MC-401, which is basically the boost section only. got a credit note for the balance.

10/10 for the boost, 3/10 for the overdrive

i've had a chance to try it our properly now, so have a look in the reviews section

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=4978"]linky[/url]

i'd only heard good things about them - iirc they also released a version with a jazz pickup in the neck position as well.

not tried one myself....love to though

hmm - looks like sanding and varnishing floorboards has been the order of the day this weekend...


i might try and get some sound clips posted next week...when the the better half goes out

after trying out...

mxr distortion+
mxr distortion III
roger meyer voodoo blues

i decided that this was getting the sound i like - an mxr/cae boost/overdrive



early days yet with the home rig, but the overdrive sounds raw and lively and the clean boost is great for getting the front end of my ampeg to slip into a nice bit of grind

i'm going to run it though some different setups with my other pedals, but i'm very impressed so far.

expensive ?...yes...but it was a sunny day and i'd had a wallet-loosening pint

personally, if i were there i'd be more bothered about seeing battles.


the chillis are good, but they're pretty much digging a familiar furrow deeper.


ymmv

[quote name='alexclaber' post='50179' date='Aug 24 2007, 02:51 PM']A properly designed amp will not benefit from an external power conditioner as its own power supply should deal with all the filtering and buffering of the mains supply.[/quote]

i'm no expert, but that's what i would have presumed.

i'm curious as to how a mains supply that deviates from a true sine wave would affect an amplifier - surely the power supply in the amplifier is going to be rectifying the sinusoidal main supply into smothed dc anyway ?

enlighten me folks !!!

[quote name='G-bitch' post='49023' date='Aug 22 2007, 03:52 PM']I almost feel inadequate with this little thing - it's going to take some getting used to.[/quote]

so you should g -how the mighty have fallen !

i remember the good old days...when you hit your effects the lights would dim in birmingham.

i've not found any bass shops in london that are particularly inspiring.

my fave bass shop was 'howard's bass place' in newcastle - lovely guy...very reasonably priced tech work and always some interesting basses in to have a look at...all second hand mind.

it's where i got my musicman sabre.

my main bass is a mexican 'cowpoke' pj...blind bought on ebay, and it turned out to be the best i've ever played.


i love it

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='14509' date='Jun 9 2007, 08:43 AM']I've bought their soapbars in the past, as Russ says they're very underrated and good value for money.[/quote]

plus the one - i bought a KA soapbar for my self-build bass, but i sold it to a friend and we fitted it in a westone bass he was upgrading.

sounded amazing

very fat and defined...i'd deffo use them again

[quote name='setekh' post='44461' date='Aug 12 2007, 03:28 PM']yeah my fear is that it isnt reliable..Ashdown amps seem to be a bit dodgy - its hit or miss..[/quote]

i'd be wary of the smaller ashdowns..i had an after eight and it crapped out [i]very[/i] quickly.


luckily i fell on my feet - i manged to snag a 15w session rockette bass amp for cheap, took the amplifier section out of the awful speaker and slotted it into the ashdown's chassis and speaker !!

sounds fab

sorry for the digression

i made my first strap myself out of a seatbelt from an austin allegro and the bits from a friend's broken strap.

i still have it...it's long enough so that you can wear the strap and have the bass lying face-up on the floor

:)

it's a tad shorter these days...

it depends what you want the volume pedal to do i guess...if you were wanting to do glissando-style stuff (a la steve hillage), you'd need to put it before a delay pedal...similarly if you wanted to use it to control the input level into an overdrive pedal, it'd need to be before that.

is there any practice studio in the land that doesn't have some carlsbro stuff in ?


odd...cos they sound like sh*te !!!

my fave bass distortion is either my ehx little big muff or my award session sp75...

i have just got hold of a 70s guyatone tube distortion td-1, which sadly is a bit too higher gain for me, but i'm waiting for a lower gain valve to see how that sounds

edit: well, my electro harmonix 12AT7 arrived today...just before i had to head into work...i'll let you guys know how i get on


(bloody working on a saturday !!!)

[quote name='Telebass' post='47936' date='Aug 20 2007, 08:36 PM']Welcome! You won't have any trouble remembering your member number! Nice one!
[/quote]

hehe - didn't see that before

noob !!

88's....


it's like playing an anti-aircraft gun...kindof

my 70's fender precision...what was i thinking ?

hello, just joined up...

i'm in london btw