dannybuoy

Earthbound Supercollider is my choice... Loads of sample clips over at talkbass.

And the award for most pedals ever squezed onto a Pedaltrain Jr goes too... Nice board Dangerboy, let me know when you're next playing live and I'll try and come down and see it in action! Finbar - The Aguilar Tonehammer might be right up your alley (it's not out yet though), and The Bass Gallery in London sell Aguilar stuff.

I know you said no distortion, but I'm gonna break your rule. Make a synth pedal like this: Octave -> Fuzz -> Filter Octave can be whatever tracks well. Fuzz should be something really heavy with a nice top end, like a Maestro Brassmaster or Tonebender clone. For the filter I would go for a low pass Korg MS20 or a DOD 440 clone, controllable by either an expression pedal or taking an envelope signal from the very start of the chain (so it's clean and hasn't been messed with by the octave or fuzz). Hell, make one of these and I'd buy it off you!

If you don't like it, sell it for £30. You can't lose!

I use the Dunlop Tortex Trangles, nice and big to get a good grip on! Give em a try:

Just buy a pick, it's not that hard to learn. Your hand will ache until you get used to it, but it's all part of learning the instrument and different ways of playing it. A pick will cost you 25p, a Steel Leather pedal will give you more of a spiky transient at the beginning of your note but it won't sound like a pick and will cost a lot more!

If you've got £160 to lay down, I would go for the Demeter Compulator. That's what I'm after next anyway!

The 442 sounds awesome after a fuzz, really synth-like. I've been meaning to make an expression pedal mod to mine, bought everything I need bar the expression pedal which I might get this weekend!

[quote name='JohnSlade07' post='246770' date='Jul 24 2008, 12:25 PM']Thanks guys. As long as it works that's fine. Unlikely (touch wood) to need to use it like that anyway. Out of interest are the amp models/effects on the B2.1U much different from the basic B1?[/quote] I think they're the same, you've just probably got less of them to choose from.

I did this with my Zoom B2 (except I plugged it into a DI box, then the PA) and it sounded amazing. They had a really powerful PA and it sounded better than most amps I've used live. Pretty amazing for a little box that cost me £25 off these very forums! I rarely use my own amp live and usually share another band's amps or use the house backline which varies in quality. Now I'll use the B2 wherever possible as my amp going direct, everything turned off except for the Ampeg amp model, sometimes I use the EQ. I'll probably replace this with a VT Bass pedal in the future (as it's easier to tweak, hopefully sounds even better, and the Zoom B2 is noisy on my daisy chain).

I'm going a similar route, going ampless with a VT Bass (sounds better than a regular Sansamp, with more mids and more tones on offer, apparently) and a Radial JDI. Aguilar Tone Hammer is getting a lot of pre-release hype also. What I've seen someone do before is a use Sansamp BDDI, take the unaffected output to an MXR-M80, and send an effected DI from each box straight to the desk, letting the soundman have 2 pre-amp signals to blend together. Sounded pretty good to me. But this is a good way to blend 2 pre-amps without the need for a separate blender like the Boss LS-2, as long as one of them as a clean output like the Sansamp does.

There's no way those Spider cases will ever fall apart, they are SOLID. I got the medium size one, but now use a Pedaltrain Jr with a soft case as it's easier to carry round on public transport. The Pedaltrain Jr sits snug inside with enough room spare down the side for a large volume pedal or something, so I'm hanging onto it so I can use it for extra protection if needed!

[quote name='Geek99' post='245051' date='Jul 22 2008, 08:17 AM']yes, just got a 64 bit machine that I need to put XP on, so may try again. It'll get a new windows disk (being x64) so may work better as the drivers and stuff will all be more up to date)[/quote] Don't bother with XP 64 bit, you'll enter a whole world of hurt. 32 bit has MUCH better driver support, and Vista is still a little flaky for some audio apps and plugins. XP 32 bit is still the most stable version of Windows for audio production!

I would go for the Jamman or the Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai. Jamman - has an SD card slot so you can put drum tracks on it, or samples of synths/instruments from your PC to use live. I think it has up to 99 loops, and you can plug in an external footswitch to flick between them. Doesn't have reverse function that the Boss has though, but otherwise I think it beats it. SMMH - Only 30 second loop length, but has really excellent delay/reverb/flanger sounds in it that you can use in the recorded loops. You can filter, reverse and speed up / slow down these loops to make really good ambient noise swashes and stuff. If you only want a basic looper (i.e. no multiple selectable loops or undo functions) but with a whole host of features the other pedals don't have I would go for this - I did!

There's a discontinued Trace SMX dual compressor pedal by the way. Meant to be pretty good too.

If you want something to fatten and warm up your sound, try a DHA, EHX Blackfinger, or Jacques Fat Burner. For something more transparent get the Demeter Compulator (expensive) or BBE Opto Stomp (cheap). I'm looking to get either a Fat Burner or Compulator at some point...

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='241068' date='Jul 16 2008, 04:56 PM']Yeah I had a look around to see what else was available but AFAIK the Moog is a 50Kohm pot, and the Meatball filter will close with around 20Kohm so the Bespeco is a better match. I imagine if I had the Moog only about half the pedal travel would do anything.[/quote] I'm not sure if I got this right in my head but,for my purposes at least, the resistance doesn't matter. There are 3 connections on the TRS cable, connected to 3 points in the potentiometer. One connects to +9v, one to ground, and the third returns a voltage between 0v and 9v depending on where the pedal is. Of course I may have got all this wrong, but I'm going to do a bit of checking with a multimeter before I commit to soldering everything down!

About that Bespeco expression pedal, I was considering one myself, but have just ordered a Moog EP-2 pedal from Digital Village for £28.99. Looks a lot better quality and is still pretty cheap. I've just received the bits I need to go ahead and mod my Tonefactor 442 filter for manual expression control, fingers crossed I don't cock it up!

Make sure it's not your cables first of all. If you're going through 2 poor quality cables you'll notice a difference. I don't know about the Sadowksy, but there are definitely a few pedals out ther marketed as true bypass that actually aren't. I know what you mean though with some non-TB effects; I love my Bad Monkey pedal, but it does alter the tone in bypass. It makes it sound colder and I prefer the natural sound of the bass hooked up to the amp in this situation. Funnily enough though, that buffered signal from the bypassed pedal makes the next pedal in line, an Earthbound Supercollider, absolutely sing! The fuzz sound is so much fuller than just using the the Supercollider alone. So I guess it's swings and roundabouts...

Try a Godlyke Power Pump. It's similar to the Diago 18v adaptor but has variable voltage. Also, have you tried the DHA at 9v? It's supposed to accept 9-12v but sound 'weaker' with 9v. You may be happy with the sound though, so give it a shot. They ship to the UK direct form the Godlyke site, or you might find a distributor over here.