dannybuoy

Warning, some compresor pedals distort if you put too much volume into them, and they may not have a high enough ratio to be used as a limiter, which sounds like what you want. I've only tried the EBS and Diamond compressors, both of those clip when I bang my open E string hard, which is why I'm looking at a Maxon CP9-Pro+, as it internally converts the 9v to 18v which supposedly gives it a higher headroom.

Well it's easy enough to upload samples to a hosting service like mp3space.com and post links to them here, I've done that with a few pedals before. What would be good though is to have somewhere like the WIKI or Reviews section like they have over at talkbass.com!

Ha, should've spotted the zombie thread before writing my essay of a reply!

I would go: [b]Tuner -[/b] Korg Pitchblack. Small and sexy, true bypass and it has a nice strobe function. [b]Compressor -[/b] EBS Multicomp / Demeter Compulator / Maxon CP-9 Pro / BBE Opto Stomp / Diamond Compressor (Check out [url="http://www.ovnilabs.com"]ovnilabs.com[/url] for a good roundup of bass compressors). I have the latter on order, but bought it on pure faith after hearing amazing reviews. Fingers crossed! [b]Noise Suppressor -[/b] Only buy if you really need one. [b]Volume Pedal -[/b] Ernie Ball Jr, hands down. [b]Chorus -[/b] Not into chorus on bass, but Analogman seems to be top dog. I get a chorus / flange sound out of my EHX Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai though... [b]Delay / Looper -[/b] EHX SMMH! [b]Reverb -[/b] The SMMH can also do a good reverb sound. But I want the Line6 Verbzilla for it's pant-wettingly awesome 'Octo' shimmer effect. [b]Distortion -[/b] Turbo RAT perhaps? Very lead guitar sounding and works well on bass. [b]Overdrive -[/b] Go for some kind of tube screamer pedal, I use a modded Bad Monkey and it's great for this. [b]Whammy -[/b] Word round the camp fire is that the Boss PS5 is a bit pants compared to the PS3, so make sure you try before you buy! [b]EQ Pedal -[/b] If you can wield a soldering iron, check out the BYOC 10 band EQ. It comes with different resistor choices allowing you to choose your EQ bands, plus it's probably the smallest sized 10 band EQ you can get.

The medium sized Spider case is PERFECT for a Pedaltrain Jr if you buy the one with the soft case and later decide you need a bit more protection. You have a bit of room left down the side big enough to squeeze a volume/expression pedal or a power strip and cables, but the PT sits in there so snug it won't move from side to side. I went from the Spider to the Pedaltrain, and have the Spider up for sale... but I think I'm gonna hang onto it for a while in case I need to take my pedaltrain to dodgy dives where people trample all over your gear!

Not necessarily - the EBS Microbass, Sansamps, various DI boxes all achieve it with a specially shaped low pass filter and EQ curve. No digital voodoo required!

Some octavers I've used tracked really well after fuzz and I also preferred the sound of the fuzz before octave. But I imagine the Bassballs, flanger and wah would screw the tracking up a bit. If it works and sounds good Phil, keep it the way it is - although personally I'd try the octaver either first or straight after the muff and put the flanger last.

I'm not sure the Boss is true bypass. You could by or make a true bypass looper to completely disengage the pedal from your signal chain if you like though, it's a popular option for pedals that suck your tone dry. The FX loop of an amp allows you to run effects in-between the pre-amp and power amp sections. Some effects such as delay and chorus can sound better after the pre-amp, espcially if the pre-amp is set up for an overdriven tone. Most FX loops run at a higher signal level than your basic instrument level though and most pedals won't like the higher voltage coming from your fx loop's send jack. What you can do however, if you have a pedal that can do amp simulation you can plug this straight into the fx loop return socket so you can bypass the tone colouration of your preamp and have all the sound coming from the pedal. I'm not saying you should do this though as I doubt the Boss emulation sounds better than your Mesa would. One way to get the drum machine to work would be to get a cheap little mixer like the Behringer Xenyx 502 and put it in the FX loop of your amp. This will let you blend in a bit of drum machine signal to your main output.

Dave, what would it take to add a switchable speaker sim on the DI/line/headphone outputs? This pedal would really have my interest then!

I think there's 2 BYOC ones, a Ross clone, and an optical one based on an old DOD280 pedal (so look for reviews of those to see how they might sound). I would try and build a compressor similar to the Demeter Compulator (regarded by some as the best bass compressor pedal). I've had my eye on these 2 and thinking of doing it one day, the [url="http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1043&p=12919&hilit=baja+compulator#p12919"]Baja Compulator[/url] and the [url="http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=617&st=0&sk=t&sd=a"]Flatline[/url] [url="http://www.geofex.com/PCB_layouts/Layouts/flatline.pdf"](additional link)[/url].

I'm going down the road of preamp pedals used in conjunction with a power amp / cab combination. I rarely get to take my own amp along to gigs (so I'm selling it), a setup like this lets you take your sound with you wherever you go. I have the VT Bass now, but I get the depressing/exhilarating feeling that I am now going to buy the Tone Hammer as well, and any other preamp that comes out and gets hyped to buggery!

My VT Bass I had on pre-order from the US finally came in yesterday - my board is now looking a bit more full! I'm pretty much done with this set up, I might add a compressor and/or tremolo at a later stage - which might need me to swap the tuner for a Korg Pitchblack to fit them on! Done, yeah right, whatever you say Dannybuoy... I'm going to build a switch box so that I can change the order of the VT Bass and SMMH (SMMH ideally comes last but in some situations I will want the VT last so I can drive a power amp with it or split the SMMH signal so I can have a clean signal to the amp and the VT signal to the desk) and I'm also planning on modding the 442 filter to be able to use an expression pedal. Just a bit too busy at the moment, about to move house and go on holiday in the same week!

You need a pair of winkle-pickers!