hamfist

Yup, I have used those nozzle cleaners many a time on a bass nut. They don’t go small enough for a guitar nut but for bass they are great. Remember to go SLoWLY !!!

Thanks guys. I have now bought one and am very happy with it. It’s not as flexible as the hx stomp I used to use but the sound quality of what it does is better imo. I think it is also more flexible in terms of overdrive sounds. All the hx stomp’s drives tended to have a similar tonality to my ears.

The tuners I have on there are actually a fraction lighter than Ultralites already ! They are super cheapo ones I have had for years, but they hold tune well and are very light !

Difficult to believe but I honestly didn't see it coming ! It was the Ibanez Steve Vai superstrats that gave me the inspiration for the holes. I have never been a shredder but I admired the hole/handle on the Vai strat the moment I saw it. Yup, I'm vaguely with you there, but you try buying a precision scratchplate for a Jazz neck pickup ! Simply not available unless custom made (and thus lots of dosh). The blue plate was one I made up a few years ago and I simply don't dislike it enough to bother making up a new one !

Not noticeable at the moment, although I don't have my normal effects etc at home. I'll find out more definitively playing at church on sunday.

Not noticeably. It already balanced really well, with not a hint of neck dive, and ultimately the weight change was fairly minimal in the end.

That is the exact same bit as my largest holes !

I've been using my homemade bitsa "Jazz with a P body" for about 3 years. Its got a lovely walnut body which was never massively heavy but I have been wanting a slightly lighter bass recently as I have a back problem. I toyed with getting a new body, or a new bass but I love my bass - everything is exactly as I want it. So a few jumbo forstner drill bits were acquired and drilling began on monday. As well as the holes you see there are also a few more under the scratchplate. It went surprisingly well and I produced a vast amount of walnut shavings. Finished off with a dremel and sandpaper. A quick oil and beeswax finish to the new holes and by tuesday evening I was back in business. Only a 0.2 kg saving, but it all helps and its a manageable 4.0kg now. Personally I think it now looks awesome too !

I bought the D7K last year. Unfortunately mine clipped noticeably on the clean signal (with passive J pickups) - which was really annoying. maybe mine was just faulty or maybe they are all like that. If it hadn't clipped on the clean it would have been a really nice pedal. Not the same as a Darkglass B7K, which I now have ..... again, but in the same ballpark. The Demon D7K had a slightly more old school sound I would say in comparison. Mine ended up in the bin though. It was no use with the clean clipping, I wouldn't sell it on and it wasn't worth sending all the way back to China.

I use a comp then B7K straight to desk. The FOH put this EQ curve on it. Sounds awesome.

I used an HX Stomp into a clean amp and/or straight to FOH for about 3 years (with a passive PJ). No complaints from me. I loved it. It has weaknesses (poor synths being one) but lots of strengths. From memory I used to use the Multiband comp, only a pre-amp sim - no power amp sim (which added nothing positive to my ears). HPF of 35Hz. LPF of about 5.5KHz. Parallel paths to mix in some drive on upper frequencies (I forget which drive sim I used). The cab sims were mediocre, but I found one I really liked (unfortunately I forget which). I do remember that I never found it played well with an outboard comp or an outboard drive. Horrible tone. For me I found it best by far used as a sole source of tone modification. TBH I miss it.

Guys, for those of you who use, or have used, a Zoom B6, can you tell me is there a noticeable gap in sound when changing patches ? Or when switching an effect (say a synth) on/off within a patch ?

Have you experimented with different attack times for different frequency ranges ?

Quick release - absolutely. I'm with you there too. So there are at least 2 of us loonies ! Interesting. I have used and liked the dual band comp on my old SMX trace. I do use multiband compression, so I shall have some experimentation with different attack times for different bands. Already there. I use a Hypergravity. Mujltiband and uber-configurable. Completely designed for a compression fusspot like myself. Attack times up to 100ms are available.

OK, I do appreciate this is a pretty nich topic, and I am a bit of a compression nerd, but in all my experience with compressors I have discovered that what I am personally looking for ultimately in a bass comp is one that lets my natural attack come through pretty much unaltered and then balances and adds some extra sustain to the decay of the sound. I find in the context of a band mix it makes me sound the same but just "better" and better integrated with the rest of the instruments. For the purposes of completeness I will add that 98% of my playing is fingerstyle and the other 2% is with a pick. I never slap. So ..... the essence of this thread is that I have found that I want an attack time of at least 70ms minimum (and for me, I am looking for this on lower frequencies, leaving the top end mostly untouched). I find anything less than 70ms just artificially affects my note attack. However, when I look at the attack times of some very successful and well-loved pedals such as the Empress (up to 50ms), Seymour Duncan (up to 27ms), MXR M87 (only 0.8ms !!!!) etc. they simply don't offer those attack times. A lot of comps seem to have fixed attack times or have adjustable attack times but do not quote the actual times (very frustrating). I can't find definitive info on the Darkglass SS, Boss BC-1X, OE Cali 76, Markbass Compressore, Keeley Bassist etc. Am I just weird or are there others like me ? I think possibly a lot of bassists are just looking for limiting and not really "musical compression" as such, hence their appreciation of such quick attack times, which is what one is looking for in a limiter. Really, the longer I play around with this stuff, the more I realise how different the effects we are looking for from our compression.

Yup, ultimately, I think we are fairly agreed that the HPF should ideally go before the Compressor. As for the VT Bass, it comes down to taste. Before and after the compressor will give different sounds. I much prefer the comp before the drive, to even out the drive amount a bit. The comp after the drive will simply tend to trim off the peaks more. Different effects, depends on what you are looking for.,

Agreed. Thats the way I'd go.

Whats the noise floor like ? The main criticism one hears about these (and in fact some other GK amps) is that quite a few units can have a slightly high noise floor. I so so nearly pulled the trigger on buying one of these. I just decided I couldn't live without the 12 band EQ I have become used to on my Trace.

Screenshots in the first post now updated to give a greater range of control for each parameter for greater and lesser amounts of compression used.

OK, I've worked out whats happening, on my pedal at least. The SPectra and vintage dial mappings take on the parameters assosiated in the downloaded toneprint. So in my downloaded multiband (Al's bass), the Attack and Blend dials are now programmed to control mid and lows gain respectively, instead of attack and blend. So ..... on the Spectra and Vintage settings those dials will control mids and lows, not attack and blend. It makes the vintage and spectra behave differently depending on which toneprint is downloaded. Its an odd thing to design, but there it is, thats what they've done.

THats what I absolutely thought it would be, but in use, its different. I'm too busy playing around with other stuff to identify it exactly at the moment though. Does yours function exactly like that ?

Hi guys, I thought I would start this thread to add to the rather meagre amount of info on the www about this compressor when used for bass. The back story is that I have had plenty of experience with compressors over the years including owning many of the big hitters like the Empress, the MXR, the Seymout Duncan, the Compressore etc, and consider myself pretty confident with the various compression values. And this last point is pretty important because the Hypergravity is an incredibly powerful little thing and the "instructions" available anywhere from TC are simply laughable. It also does NOT come set up for bass at all. It also has NO metering so you have to be able to use your ears. I started a long thread a few years ago about the Specracomp, which pretty much has the same brain as this thing but with only one physical dial on the pedal. I initially raved about it but it ultimately let me down as it would not store the settings I was programming. Super frustrating, and I simply could not trust it at a gig so it went back and I lost all trust in all the toneprint-type devices from TC for a few years. I then settled on just using the Dual compressor on board my Trace SMX head, which has been great. Supplemented at times with a multiband comp on the Line6 HX Stomp. THese things have basically been my bass rig for a good handful of years now, and is the reason I have been so minimally active on the board for those years. I've just been playing ! However, it has now come to the point that the Trace really needs new Output caps and I was only really using the HX Stomp for compression and a bit of EQ, so in the interest of tinkering about I decided a whole new rig was required. Incoming has been an Ashdown 12 band 600 head, which in some ways is the natural successor to the Trace SMX (minus the comp). Which left a hole for a compresssor which needed filling. Trying to keep to relatively sane budget I was looking around the £100 mark, and tried the Orange Kongpressor, which was interesting and fun but not really what I wass looking for, so it went back. My interest then started to go towards TC again. Maybe it was time to give them another chance. It doesn't seem like anywhere has Spectracomps in stock at all at the moment so it had to be the Hypergravity. After a week - I am seriously impressed with this little green box. The Toneprint app works well, once you find your way around it. THe pedal has had zero problems with holding the settings I program it with. And the power of a digital thing like this is awesome. I am a huge fan of multiband compression. I like to squash the sub-300Hz fairly well, with a reasonable amount of make-up gain - all to keep a good control on the bottom end. I then like to squash the lower mid range just a bit less, but with less make-up gain (thus lowering it a bit in the mix). The top end I only give a little bit of squash to, as this is where my dynamics live. THis pedal just allows me to completely tailor make exactly what I want to do. Its a pretty transparent comp. Its not exciting, but it can do exactly what I want it to. I love the ability to be able to map any parameters to the front 4 dials. I use .... Dial 1 - Threshold for all 3 bands. Lows mids and highs all at different settings. Lows having the lowest threshold, mids a bit higher, and highs with the highest threshold. You can specify 3 different parameters to one knob, all at differeng levels - cool ! Dial 2 - Overall make-up gain - acts pretty much as a master volume. Dial 3 - Additional make up gain for mids only - this really allows me to dial in my mid range exactly. Dial 4 - Additional make up gain for lows - Allows for exact dialling in of the bottom end. Simply perfect. I still don't really understand what the 3 way switch on the pedal does. Maybe it gives 3 different versions of the toneprint loaded. THe instructions don't really even mention it. I was expecting to only get my programmed toneprint settings on the "toneprint" middle setting of the switch. But, no .....changing toneprint seems to change the compression on all 3 of the settings. Weird, but I shall only be using it on "toneprint" anyway, so it matters little to me. Another minor thing that TC really missed out on IMO, is that users can't easily swap self-programmed toneprints. the only way is by sharing pictures of the settings, which is what I shall do. Compression settings are of course, not ideal for swapping between different rigs or even basses, but here are my settings. For relatively standard output J bass pickups. If you use these, you will likely need to adjust the range of thresholds (and make-up gains) to fit your own bass, but it may be a good place to start. I suspect I will tweak them a bit as the weeks pass, but I'm pretty happy with how these sit at the moment. Hopefully might be of use to someone. Its a good basic bass-oriented multiband compressor with gentle compression of the highs, a bit more squash of the mids and even more compression, and thus better control, of the lows. NB - updated screenshots - 12:18 1/7/22

True, but still very versatile, once you get to know it.

Sounds like a good choice. Decent EQ versatility with drive options. Reasonably portable and light. I was recently torn between going for a Legacy 800 or an Ashdown 600. but went Ashdown in the end (12 band).