dannybuoy

From an email to Yamaha back in 2011 when I was considering new pickups for my BB415 rather than upgrading to a 1025X:

Part numbers for the BB1025X:

FrontPick-up - WP917300 not in stock it could be 6 weeks delivery on this and it is a retail price of £122.32 inc VAT

Rear Pick-up - WT766600 not in stock it could be 6 weeks delivery on this and it is a retail price of £79.51 inc VAT

 

Part numbers for the BB2025X:

Front Pick-up - WR251000 not in stock it could be 6 weeks delivery on this and it is a retail price of £132.66 inc VAT

Rear Pick-up - WR254200 not in stock it could be 6 weeks delivery on this and it is a retail price of £81.62 inc VAT

I always thought the 1025 and 2025 pickups were the same, but they have different part numbers and Yamaha’s spares dept were charging slightly more for the 2025 ones. They could of course still be indentical!

What else made the shortlist then?

It should work pretty well for low volume practice... I take it you don't already own said soundbar to give it a try?

Horses for courses. It's just a different sound that sounds better for some genres / tracks than regular overdrive - I like and use both. It's also been a studio trick for decades, the modern trend is just distilling that into a convenient pedal format.

Looks like most of those would be coming from China though, so if ordering 10 in one go, you might get hit with import fees!

I'f it were me I'd take a punt on these at £4.49, any issues and returns are easy via Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0768J31QJ

£10 from Andertons:

https://www.andertons.co.uk/9v-psu-aps9v

£9 from Amazon with free delivery + a daisy chain:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Supply-Adapter-Donner-Negative-Cables/dp/B07BS94G7F

Otherwise there are tons on eBay for £3-£4 that are probably exactly the same!

A more concise list with Spotify and other links:

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/list/1500-rolling-stones-500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-2020/?s=asc

I got better sounds from the Aftershock than the BBM! Being able to blend it in parallell with a RAT or a Darkglass style drive gives you a lot more options.

I didn't like the low gain overdrive sounds of the Aftershock, but it was great for heavy fuzz/distortion.

Depends what sound you’re going for. The AO does low gain well but it’s a totally different sound to the Tone Hammer. The distortion all happens in the midrange and it has a fuzz like character to it. If you want a more natural soft and furry tone, that adds a bit ‘squelch’ on the attack of the note when the low end distorts like on vintage recordings, then I’d reach for the Tone Hammer!

I keep flicking between my Tone Hammer and TC MojoMojo at the moment - they can sound pretty similar but the Aguilar sounds better going direct (the AGS adds a HPF & LPF), is more versatile and has the DI!

With the AGS volume boost, yes it’s there. At low enough gain levels you can get it usable as a stomp switch, but otherwise just treat it as a toggle switch that’s there to change the sound and not something you’d stomp on mid-track.

Aguilar Tonehammer is my favourite pre for what you describe. I prefer the sound of this over anything Tech21 or Darkglass have to offer (and I’ve tried most of them) for a warm barely-overdriven tone with my P-Bass and flats, and would expect it to suit short scales well also. I have an Alpha Omega and love it but wouldn’t recommend it as a natural sounding low gain preamp.

It's the same octave up as the older Pigtronix Disnortion apparently, so perhaps there'll be a clip of that somewhere...

I'd seek out bass clips of the Octava first, it might not be what you're looking. Octave up fuzzes tend to only realy be audible on the higher notes, and you can't get a clean octave out of them.

Most of these cheap pedals use the same circuits. The Mooer Tender MkI though was a supposed clone of the EHX MicroPOG, they were forced to stop making it and came out with a MkII which I hear is decent but not quite as good. Mooer also make a Pure Octave which has that horrible out of tune sound you describe, so I bet most of the ones you tried are just like that!

The MkI Tender was going for high prices (higher than the EHX original due to people wanting a small pedal!) when they stopped production, they're pretty rare now though. 

On 02/03/2020 at 18:13, dannybuoy said:

I like the idea of a smaller body and slimmer neck, but Sterling's don't quite sound the same.

On 02/03/2020 at 18:43, lee650 said:

Sterlings have a ceramic pickup! Stingrays Alnico. My sterling has a Nordstrand vintage pickup,which is Alnico and very warm. Best of both worlds 😁

I'd love to play some side by side, but until then I only have Youtube comparisons to go on. Every time I've head the Sterling next to the Stingray, it just sounded like it had less grunt/growl, more sterile. Yet when I hear comparisons of alnico vs ceramic Stingrays, the ceramic ones still have that certain indefinable something. Maybe the preamp is different as well, or perhaps the body has an influence, or it could just as easily be my visual bias and a lack of quality comparisons out there to watch!

So will this have all the Aftershock distortion models built in also?

Dynamic mics are better in an untreated room. Or you could just put a towel over your head!

17 hours ago, fretmeister said:

I did have a good look at that, but it seems almost unavoidable to get a Cloudlifter or similar to get the levels up.

Depends on your interface - but you were looking at getting a pre-amp anyway?

Shure SM7b perhaps? Works great to mic a bass cab also. Might not have the sensitivity of clarity of a condenser, but there's something about the warm sound of them that does great for rock vocals in particular (no idea what singing style you have).

Should've kept my original one too! I bought the smaller one thinking it would be an upgrade but it didn't sound as good somehow.

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

Unfortunately from a cooling requirement PoV it doesn't always work that way. In my guitar playing days I used to run a Marshall PowerBreak with my combo and some of the more extreme effected sounds would send the fan on that into overdrive irrespective of output volume setting of the amp or the amount of speaker attenuation being applied by the PowerBreak. And that fan cooling was definitely being needed with those sounds.

A tube amp with a power soak sounds like a different scenario though, they're designed to push the amp harder at lower volume levels for a start.

Strange how some Class D heads have no fan at all and manage just fine. Neither did my Orange AD200B which put out a lot of heat but no fan needed. Makes me wonder how many of these amps would survive just fine with the fan ripped out as long as there was a decent heatsink!

I've returned an Aguilar TH500 for the same issue. Kicked in after 10-15 minutes of low volume usage, at maximum speed when the amp was still cool to the touch. Even worse is that you can hear a pop sent to the speaker cab when it kicks in.

On my Orange Terror Bass, I've replaced the fan with a much quieter one - much less air flow than the original, I knew I was taking a risk in doing so but it turned out just fine. It has a massive heatsink and more air flow than most amps though, and larger fans can be quieter since they can get good airflow at low RPM.

Most fan systems on amps are under-engineered - low-volume usage seems not to be a primary design consideration, and variable fan speed controllers too much effort to design it seems.

2 hours ago, Stofferson said:

Been using an Ls-2 for some time now for a fuzz with clean blend.

I've had various incarnations of pedal mixers on there, My favourite was the EHX Green Russian then into a boss Eq pedal with prominent mids. Then like suggested have the second chain just for clean blend.

Octave then Fuzz works well too, Octave, Fuzz and mids works very well haha.

Currently got an Orange furcoat in there now, but I am also looking at the Tyler too for even more control.

I like a light overdrive into a blended muff... ends up giving the fuzz a nice boost and making the clean side less, er, clean!

Also give fuzz into octave a go! It doesn't make much difference to tracking (with a muff at least, YMMV) and you end up with clean lows under the fuzz rather than too much low end making the fuzz crap out.

What's the 1st string, E or G?!

If E, you can try a tapered set. Using a tapered B dropped the height considerably for me, I need to adjust it but so far have been really enjoying the grindy sound it produces due to the fret buzz so might have to lower the others to suit!

I found the B too floppy on the Super Brights. Currently have some NYXLs with a tapered B string fitted and like them very much! I might try a few more sets outs but can see myself sticking with these.