alexa3020

Thanks for explaining. Interestingly I’d never think to use a preamp pedal in front of an amp or cab, as I’d use the amps eq (I’d just use it to send signal to FOH). But I have no problem using an active bass and the amps eq. I guess my perception of how you should set up is a little off.

That's good to know. I did wonder as active basses just seem to have a sound that is sometimes difficult to achieve with standard EQ - to me they seem to have a bit more top & bottom end. Perhaps something to do with caps on the pots of a passive? With the John east preamps, I believe you can adjust the cap values to suit the bass.

In my everlasting quest to improve bass tone, I have recently stumbled across the John East J Tone preamp. I have to say I'm really tempted to add this to my MIM jazz bass. I am wondering if there is any significant advantage of this over a preamp pedal in terms of sound? I do have a MM stingray & really like the active EQ at my fingertips. I really like the idea of an active Jazz bass - been quite tempted by the Sire V7, but I'm wondering if its a better move to modify my existing Jazz bass. Any help is greatly appreciated. Alex

This has peaked my interest more than anything they’ve done since stadium - intrigued to see how the lp turns out. BSSM is easily their best work. Enjoyed californication & mothers milk too. Frusciante is an amazing guitarist & if one of his note bends is a little sharp, I suspect he means it. while we’re on RHCP I can’t stand ‘can’t stop’ how that bass line always gets voted on of fleas best I’ll never know.

Is it a keeper then?

I had a TC BQ 500 - Which I think is similar to the BH800 without Toneprint. It was definitely loud enough, but not necessarily good. At louder volume, I definitely think there was some compression going on in the background, the notes would feel unnaturally long and you would lose dynamics. It felt really odd playing in a band with it. It probably (and unfairly) put me off Class D, so I have moved back to A/B.

Mines on pre-order with Andertons. February definitely won’t happen.fingers crossed for March

Looks like most retailers are expecting late February/early March. I’ll probably pre order to try and guarantee I get one

Thanks. guess I should’ve searched ‘oc-5’ instead of ‘oc5’

I recently acquired a TC Nether octave pedal. I like the pedal a lot, it was cheap & the octave is a bit dark/muddy sounding (octave 2 not used)- but it is definitely passable in a live situation. I know now that I would definitely like an octave pedal permanently on my board and I’m considering upgrading to the boss oc 5 and using it in vintage mode only. Apparently it’s super close to sounding like an Oc2 my concerns are: it’s digital not analogue (I think) - this probably shouldn’t matter, but for some reason it’s putting me off. volume - apparently the oc2 had a volume drop. I found the same thing with the EHX multiplexer and although it sounded cool, it was basically unusable without some sort of boost pedal in the chain. I’ve heard the oc5 is loud enough - can anyone confirm? it’d be great to get any other thoughts on this pedal thanks

At least its a single trip from the car with 1 cab I have an Ampeg 410 which is a great cab but heavy as hell (40-50kg I would guess) & just not practical. So I stick with My ABM evo ii 115 compacts - which are heavy, but not too heavy. I think I prefer 15's as a rule.

Bit heavier than the ashdowns though?

Had a play with the pedal tonight. I’m cautiously very pleased as It was a really good mix tonight anyway. It seems to warm and fatten the sound exactly as I expected. What surprised me was how good it made the valve drive sound on the Abm (is that due to gain staging?). I still preferred to use the compressor to even out the tone

I’ve heard good things about the TC spectracomp which looks similar size to the Aguilar and available for around £40-50 used. I currently have a TC vintage compressor (a copy of T. rex comp nova) but have not been using it because it’s a big pedal and I dont have much space on my board. A small easy to use compressor is definitely appealing to me. But with me not really being an expert on compression, I don’t know how much difference a decent one would make to my tone & therefore couldn’t justify spending huge amounts

Yes, I agree it’s ambiguous. Pedal sounded sweet in that video though. I’ll put it through its paces at practice tomorrow

I’ve got on ok with the onboard compressor - just use it to reduce dynamic range and even out the signal, but then again I’ve never really used a pedal - I’m thinking I might be missing out!

At the moment I just use a compressor to reduce the dynamic range and even out & fatten the sound. So it sounds like this pedal may do that job. I'm fairly new to compression & have always used the onboard one on my amp - which is a single pot control. That said I do have a compressor & am interested to see if I can make good use of attack/release controls etc.

Copied from their website: Inspired by an old Akai GX 210D reel to reel tape machine from the 1970s, the JIVE - Reel Saturator was made to give you the gooey and warm saturation obtained when pushing the Akai’s pre-amps to the max. https://www.jptrfx.com/dirt-machines/

Yep, surprised me too a bit. I figured guitarists are often overdriving amps without issue, so I assumed it would be similar for bass amps too.

Spoke to Dave Green at Ashdown. He said you are likely to damage the input stage if you hard over in the red all the time

I thought the Direct recording of the p bass with the jive circuit built in sounded great. I doubt I’ll use it for distortion, just want it to fatten the sound and get slightly gritty. funnily enough, it’s just arrived, so I’ll report back if you’re interested. Check out their business card - looks like it’s an actual functioning PCB board - pretty cool

Tuner on the floor as it mutes when tuning

I’ve ordered a JPTR jive pedal as seen here: It replicates tape saturation & distortion/fuzz. I’m going to run the jive similar to the chap in the video I.e where the signal gets ‘fat’ just before the point of breakup and intend it as an always on pedal. It seems to me this will be doing a similar job to a compressor. Do you think I’ll be able to lose the compressor or should I use it with a compressor? I suppose the answer is to try it and see, but I thought I’d ask basschatters for advice anyway thanks

I'm not & now that I think about it, I can probably get the engaged/unengaged volumes to match by turning the octave volume down & adjusting the blend. However, I would be interested to know the implications if the VU was constantly hard in the red

Purchased a pedal off Paul. Very easy to deal with. Pedal arrived quickly with excellent comms throughout. Many thanks