Wolverinebass

Don't worry squire. I was! 😜

Please feel free to. I'm a man of my word.

Because I won't be selling mine.

Now for the main question. As we did this with the Dug pedal. Who is up for doing a buyer's club for this so we can maybe get the price down? @tonyxtiger is this possible?

Yeah. Buzz, drive and low eq are all interactive so yeah, you can do what you say. The buzz, punch and crunch aren't eq per se as they are distortion points. I tend to have punch quite low for example and have crunch rather high. It's all to taste really.

Basically, buzz distorts the lows, punch the Mids and crunch the highs. Drive is like poweramp distortion of a valve head. Quite creamy. It's not a crossover thing, but you can still distort bits of the signal or all of it if you ramp up the preamp gain.

I use the rack PSA 1.1. This is basically the same in a mini flyrig format. For those of you who don't get it and are happy with your "on/off" distortions, this is a 128 channel pedal due to the midi. If this doesn't sell well it's because people are morons or think midi is the work of Satan. I stand this up as the best preamp ever. For flexibility alone it wins. Multiband distortion. Midi presets. The lot. It's voiced superbly, works with guitar and bass. I've used it as outboard in my studio on occasion to crunch up some drum loops. @Tech21NYC have scored a blinder with this. Frankly, I wished they put the midi presets on some of their other products. If the Dug pedal had them you could properly toggle between clean and dirty settings. Oh well, living the dream.

Here's the thing, how many people get a Helix for octave up and down functions?! Really?!! That's absurd. Anyone with serious use of that stuff will have dedicated pedals as you say. As I've moved away from synth type playing I don't really need it, but I'd that's what you've bought a helix for.... Well, unlucky.

Nobody will buy this at £399. The price will come down to something more sane like £299 by launch day and I'm sure Andertons and GAK will drop it.

The ones I've tried weren't heavy and the necks are fine unless you like Jazz basses. Certainly not Gibson Les Paul bass neck baseball bat. Yeah, okay, One of the tuners is under the neck and the scratchplate is a bit odd, but they're not rubbish instruments. I hasten to say, I don't own one and do own a Rick. Both different, both with different tricks and sounds. I'd happily have one in double humbucker variant.

It does sound good, doesn't it?!! Tech21 have now hit their formula. Flyrigs. Or smaller pedals in cut down chassis. They are going to crank the handle for some time on this. Might be a great thing, might not. Depends if the quality of products keep up. These models are certainly addressing the need for portability and ludicrous tones. In many ways, they're inspired. I just wished they'd put the tone controls left to right rather than right to left.

My mates fake Bongo has a hum issue as well so clearly you dodged a bullet there squire.

Actually, I've been having a loft conversion done recently and the toilet seat for the en suite bathroom is out of stock. So I might be putting his knockoff Bongo to better use....

I really enjoyed it. It was great to meet up with familiar faces. Some whom I really only see once or twice a year. I think I may have been the youngest person there being 40, but it doesn't bother me at all. It's all about the crack really and playing things you might not have access to. Besides, it might be cool to see what "the kids" are using these days. On the other hand it'll probably be drop F Dingwalls with Darkglass everything. Maybe it's best not to know.

A drummer friend of mine is learning bass and was obsessed about getting a Bongo in stealth black. Or at least until he saw the price. He then went and got one off Ali express. Now I haven't played it, but from what he told me it had sharp fret ends, and although there were 2 battery compartments only one was wired. It sounded to me like the mid control didn't work either. Okay, £200, but I said if he wanted a cheap 5 string he should have got a Yamaha or Ibanez. I'll be having a shot of the thing next week so we can see.

I would think the £399 is a typo. I think when the 400 quid mark is breached by a distortion pedal then either the pound will be worth less than the Zimbabwean dollar or we'll be getting price gouged severely. I've never spent more than 400 on a single issue pedal. I never will as that's insane. Darkglass have come close, but I don't think even their marketing will stand up to that level of scrutiny. Even the Strymon Timeline isn't 400 and that's arguably the best delay on the market with almost every function you can think of. Not just a pedal which does distortion and has no recallable presets. Personally, I think the Dug pedal is a keen price for what it is and I've just recorded one of my band's albums with it. It's just brilliant.

Although I have bought stuff this year, none of it has been for me directly and has all been for the studio. I won't be using Darkglass pedals live as I don't need to. Just that it seems that some of the bands I record are after that sound so it makes sense.

I hasten to say, I am a King's X fan. I'd never use Dug's tone though. Not my voice. If people want samples, I'll try and find 10 minutes over the weekend. I'll use a reamp DI so there can be no issues with technique or bass playing inconsistency.

Just to clarify, "thick" meant "meaty with an emphasis on the lower mids." You have to go to pretty extreme settings to get mud with the Darkglass.

When I said mid scoop, it can be overcome to my liking mainly by engaging the mid shift and virtually maxing out the mid dial. It works perfectly well in a band mix. The darkglass has a natural tendency to be slightly "thick," but it's just different architecture anyway.

So, I recently acquired a Darkglass X ultra for my studio. I'm using my Tech 21 Dug Pedal in one of my bands. I'm sure some people I'm sure will be interested in the comparison? I sat down the other day with my Rick 4003 and set to work. Firstly, both pedals are brilliant. There is no denying that. Now, let's get down to the meat. The Dug is obviously based on achieving his own tone. Now, not everyone wants that. I don't. However, despite it having a fixed crossover it's amazingly versatile and even at more extreme gain settings is still musical. Now for the downside. The mid scoop. It's there where the problem lies with this. Even with fiddling you can't get it back as the pedal eq just isn't voiced that way. Most of the time this isn't a problem though. The clean tone is a bit so-so and it's impossible to switch from clean to dirty with settings that are workable for either. This then brings me to the Darkglass. It has both a filter for the lows to keep them clean and one for how much frequency wise of the signal gets distorted. Sharp bite to brutal fuzz is possible. The 7 band eq is great as well, so a clean tone is easy enough to achieve. This brings me on to the distortion. It has a different character than the Dug. The only way I could describe it is "Darkglass." It's just what it is. So, can you get the same sounds out of each? Yes, but it takes some effort. At harsher settings the Darkglass fizzes a bit and at higher low end settings the bass turns a bit mushy in my view. However, unless you're mental, you're not going to do that. So which is better? Depends on your point of view. The Dug is £150 cheaper give or take. But it's less flexible. The Darkglass has more things to get used to, but is much more agile to change on the fly. Is that worth the price difference? Depends. On a personal note, I'd use the Dug live as I know it better. However, I feel that more can be wrung out of the X ultra if you choose to try to. The fact it has switchable cab emulation is another bonus. Maybe the inherent "Darkglassness" of it might put people off, but in many ways it's better than the Dug. Possibly, the Dug has a more musical distortion, but that is a very personal choice for the player. I'm a Tech 21 person for life, but always like trying new stuff. Take your pick. I doubt either would disappoint anyone.

Its funny that. I've always had a fondness for delays on bass and long before I ever heard Tool. Funnily enough, I did a solo album last year and one of my mates said I'd went a bit Tool with this song. The fact I'm playing a Wal with delay on it is in no way a problem.

Well, I'm running my studio full time now rather than part time. I came to the decision that if I didn't do it now I never would. That's my shameless plug for this thread now! I might try and get a covers gig for a laugh and see if I can do it. You're more than welcome to pop over if you want Bas. I'm doing 2 original bands at the moment so the variety of instruments is why I have them all. None of them sound like each other.

It's black Trevor and my mum watched High Chaparral when I was a kid. She likes westerns.

So, here we go for one more. I needed a backup bass as it seems quite likely that I'll be on tour next year I'd been casting my eye around for a backup which could also double as my active studio bass. Anyway, I got a backup (No 10) and it kills. Kind of like a Stingray on steroids and it only cost £240! 1. Fenix by Young Chang (short scale) 2. Alembic Stanley Clarke Signature Standard 3. Status Graphite John Entwistle Buzzard 4. Warmoth 8 string Explorer 5. Hamer Chapparal 12 string 6. Eko Florence acoustic 7. Wal Mark 2 8. Fender Classic 50s Precision 9. Rickenbacker 4003 10. Schecter Raiden - Custom