paulbuzz

I'm with paulears (no relation, despite any coincidental username similarity!) Most unreliable connectors evar. Would never attempt to use unless unplanned silences seemed like a fun idea.

Bought a pedal from Rik - quick and easy; friendly communications. Would certainly trade with him again.

Chiming in with my sound engineer hat on: DON'T get a single coil magnetic pickup for an acoustic guitar. Loads of people have them, for some inexplicable reason, and they nearly always buzz like a bastard as soon as you get them anywhere near any lights. When I am president they will be made illegal, and anyone turning up a gig expecting to use one will be burnt at the stake. Humbucking ones are fine.

Also, you can annoy other family members by attaching pedals to the carpet in your house.

Here's another alternative: [url="http://www.orchid-electronics.co.uk/Amp_Interface.htm"]http://www.orchid-electronics.co.uk/Amp_Interface.htm[/url] Sound-On-Sound review here: [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan14/articles/orchid-amp-interface.htm"]http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan14/articles/orchid-amp-interface.htm[/url] In my experience, all of Orchid's products are very good value, and really good. ---------------------- IMO Radial products are laughably overpriced. [ducks for cover...]

Excellent! I also have a Broadcast pedal on the way... exciting! Would be interested to hear what you manage to get up to with this setup...

I bought a pedal from Carlos - quick and friendly communication throughout; pedal arrived on time and as described. A great person to do business with. Thanks again Carlos.

I'm extremely fond of Dave Vader's band [url="https://www.facebook.com/Carnivala/app_178091127385"]Carnivala[/url]. Also loving the Jetsonics video posted above!

Just for fun, here's a frequency response measurement of the Behringer Ultra-G cab sim alongside that of the Mooer: [attachment=151921:Ultra-G vs Mooer.png] The Mooer cabsim is the purple line, and the Behringer cabsim the green line. In some respects they are similar, but in other ways very different:[list] [*]Both have a similar steep cutoff of the high frequencies above 3 kHz. [*]Within the useable frequency range the Behringer has less bass, much less middle (a significant dip centred around 550 Hz), and more top. [*]Like the Mooer, the Behringer also has a steep bass rolloff, but at a significantly higher frequency. [/list] This is borne out by how they sound subjectively. Neither sounds conclusively better or worse, just different. Each would sound better than the other in certain situations. Apart from the sound, of course, there are various other aspects that might mean one of them suits a given situation better than the other:[list] [*]The Behringer is about six times the size and weight of the Mooer. [*]The Behringer doesn't carry the cabsim sound on its jack output. This may suit some folks better, as mentioned by the posters above. [*]The Behringer is powered either by a 9V PP3 battery or by phantom power, whereas the Mooer is powered via a 9V DC socket. Again, take your pick! [/list]

Danny/Wooks: If you want the jack signal uneffected, I suppose you could just split the signal before the DI box. Alternatively, there are various other cab sim DIs that have a straight pass-through jack signal: [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_gi100_ultra-g.htm"]Behringer GI100 Ultra G[/url] (I've got this - works pretty well, but it's so BIG!) [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/hugheskettner_red_box_5.htm"]H&K Red Box 5[/url] [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_pocket_guitar_di_box.htm"]Harley Benton JDI-01[/url] (So cheap! Haven't tried it though.)

Very interesting plan, Beer. For identical reasons to yours, I have considered a very similar scheme involving the RunOffGroove Condor cab sim, but was thinking of enabling the three different filter stages (low rolloff / mid scoop / high rolloff) to be switched in or out individually. However, my electronics skills are weak - would this require additional buffering stages? Also, although this may not suit your needs, Poodle's Pedal Parts supply a kit for the ROG Condor - [url="http://shop.pedalparts.co.uk/Cab_Sim_ROG_Condor/p847124_11037461.aspx"]details here[/url]. Not sure whether this would be a helpful base on which to make further modifications. In an alternative attempt to address the same problem, I've been experimenting quite succesfully with a Mooer cab sim/DI, about which I've written a Basschat post [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/226592-review-mooer-speaker-sim-di-a-great-little-problem-solver/page__pid__2331803"]here[/url]. I'll be interested to hear how your experiments come along...

So, here's a problem that I've often been faced with, as have, I would guess, many other bassists: You want to use overdrive/distortion/fuzz pedals, but your combo or cab has a tweeter, leading to your distorted sounds being all fizzy and horrible, unpleasantly similar to a wasp in a can. This fizz isn't easily removed by most normal varieties of EQ, as what's required is a really steep rolloff of high frequencies (mimicking the highly-truncated treble response of guitar speakers), and most tone controls on bass amps or mixers just can't emulate this kind of brutal frequency trimming. Aha, you say (only to yourself, I hope!), I'll just turn the tweeter on my cab right down, and all will be well. But at least two possible problems arise: 1) Not all cabs/combos have an adjustable tweeter. 2) Your bass also needs to be fed into the PA. The soundman is in a hurry and a bit grumpy, and doesn't want to mic up your cab. He just wants to plug in a DI, like he normally does for basses. So although you've removed the waspfizz from your backline, your chunky bass distortion still sounds buzzy and cheap through the PA. Enter a handy little solution: the [url="http://www.mooeraudio.com/en/ProductInfo.asp?id=93"]Mooer Micro DI[/url] This is marketed primarily as a DI box, but there are already plenty of them available. More unusually, it's also a speaker simulator, and it's this aspect of the Mooer box that interested me. There are several other DI boxes that include speaker simulation (from Palmer, Behringer, and H&K amongst others), but this particular box has a combination of features that drew my attention : 1) It's reasonably priced (about £50). 2) It's small (and dangerously close to being cute!). 3) It's powered via a standard pedal-type 9V DC connector, so it plays nicely with your pedal board. 4) The speaker simulation, when switched in, is applied to the jack output as well as the balanced XLR DI output. This last feature is unusual amongst the DI boxes that include speaker simulation, and means that you can keep your cab's tweeter turned up, and have a clear idea of the signal you're sending to the PA. There are a few other fairly normal DI box features - a ground lift switch to relieve hum problems, switchable output levels - but it's the speaker sim function I'm mainly interested in here. So - what does it sound like? Well, subjectively, it does the job pretty much as you might expect and desire - the fizzy top frequencies of distortion sounds are trimmed off, and your favourite distorto-pedal sounds much more like it's supposed to, even when fed into full-range bass cabs or PA speakers. I was interested to get a more detailed idea of what it was doing, so I did a quick frequency response measurement using RightMark's free Audio Analyser. (Disclaimer: I'm not claiming to have used any super-accurate testing methods - just a quick test to get an idea ). So here's the frequency responses I measured: [attachment=151899:mooer_ssim.png] The green line is the Micro DI with the speaker sim turned off; the wobbliness towards the top of the frequency range is an artefact of my mediocre soundcard, so ignore that! Broadly speaking, there's a pretty wide and flat frequency response, as you would expect from any reasonably decent DI box. More interestingly, the white line shows the speaker simulation circuit response, and as expected, it's pretty heavily reshaped. The important high frequency rolloff starts from about 3 kHz, and is steep as is required - about 20 dB per octave by the looks of it. This is exactly the kind of tone-shaping that really can't be achieved by turning down a generic 'treble' knob. There's also heavy modification of the low frequency response: relative to the rest of the speaker-sim sound there's a bass boost of around 4dB, centred just above 100 Hz. Additionally, there's a sharp rolloff of lower bass frequencies below about 50 Hz. This bass-response shaping is, I guess, intending to mimic the response of a generic 4x12 guitar cab, but is not so useful for us bassist-types; the steep bass rolloff would undoubtedly be distressing to earthquake fans and dub exponents, but probably not so problematic in most other scenarios. The generalised bass boost is much more easily modified/countered by a tweak of an EQ control, if necessary. The closest competitor I could find for this box (in terms of providing a speaker-simulated unbalanced jack output, as well as a balanced DI output) is the A/DA GCS-2, which does also look really good - it has lots more switchable options, but is larger, costs over twice as much, and has a precariously placed knob (stop sniggering) that looks a bit prone to stage damage from the clumsy-footed. A side-by-side sound comparison with the Mooer would be interesting... So, overall, I think this little box will handily assist in taming the dreaded fizzy wasp sound for me, and perhaps for others too. It's small, reasonably cheap and fulfils a useful role in which it doesn't have much obvious competition. What's not to like?!

Ah, this old chestnut again! This is an everlasting quest for me, too. Meddle made some great points above - his description of "buzzy Papalardi/Bruce tones" describes perfectly what I don't want to hear! Instead I'm after an aggressive, well-defined "cough" or "grunt" at the beginning of the note, which quickly cleans up into the sustain portion of the note. I've been most successful at getting this kind of sound with proper valve amps, but like many these days, don't want to carry them around any more. I have quite liked the Ashdown Lomenzo, though you say it didn't quite do it for you (and it's so big!), also the EBS multidrive, which is another one that distorts the high frequencies only. I haven't tried the VT Bass (but would like to) or the DHA stuff. A couple of other factors which seem to sometimes be missed: 1) If you've got a speaker cab with a tweeter which can't be turned off, you're gonna have a bad time. The distorted harmonics need to be rolled off really steeply somewhere around 3K to 5K, or it's horrible waspy buzz time. One possible solution to this is to use something with a speaker-emulating EQ curve, to kill those upper frequencies, eg Sansamp-type pedals (though you didn't like the BDDI...) 2) You also have to consider what signal you're sending to the PA: even if you've turned off your cab's tweeter, the DI from your amp may well still be sending horrible waspy distortion to the PA! Possible solutions: a) mic your cab into the PA instead of using a DI (but soundmen are often a bit reluctant to do this, and it's always best not to get in a fight with them) b ) use a DI box with built in speaker emulation - the Behringer Ultra-G is cheap and surprisingly decent sounding, or the H&K Red Box is a bit more 'pro' c) use a distortion that already has a speaker-sim type output - back to Sansamp-y things again (though of course there are lots of alternatives to the BDDI, including the VT Bass ) Good luck in your quest for the perfect overdrive sound - you're going to need it!

Interesting experience today with the amplifier from my Harley Benton BA5110C: I was doing an outdoor gig with little PA support so, knowing I would need a bit of extra welly, I was using the Harley Benton head with my EBS 2x12 cab, rather than in its 'combo' format. (Sidenote: what a great extra option it is to have this ability!) All was going perfectly for a while (bassplayer cockups notwithstanding) until the amp vibrated off the top of the cab and plummeted to the ground, followed by a deafening silence from the bass guitar. It was immediately apparent that the amp had landed on the input jack plug, bashing the socket into the innards of the amp. After a few brief curses, we replugged the bass directly into the PA to finish the gig. (It sounded bad!) Got home and decided to investigate the damage. I was fully prepared for the likelihood that the preamp pcb was shattered into several pieces and would be unsalvageable. However, it turns out that, unlike lots of modern amps with jack sockets perilously mounted directly on the main pcb, the Harley Benton's input socket is mounted on its own tiny pcb, and so was just floating loose inside the amp, dangling on its connecting cable. As it's just a standard plastic jack, I just needed to replace the retaining nut (got lots of them kicking about) and... all was restored to life - marvellous! On a little side note: it's been well documented here and elsewhere that this amp is extremely similar to the original Ibanez Promethean, and is, like the Ibanez, manufactured by Beta-Aivin. It has been noted, though, that the Harley Benton (and Red Sub versions) have a different preamp from the Promethean. However, when I had the input socket, with its little pcb, dangling free on its cable, I noticed something (mildly) interesting: the little input pcb has been created (in the manufacturing process) from a cut-off corner of the main preamp pcb. On the pcb, normally hidden from view when the amp is assembled, is printed a big logo: IBANEZ. So... things I learned today: 1) If you're using a lightweight amp, you really need to find some way of preventing it from vibrating off the top of the speaker cab. 2) The Beta Aivin / Harley Benton / Red Sub amps are constructed more sensibly / less flimsily than you might imagine. 3) The preamp in the Beta Aivin / Harley Benton / Red Sub amps may be slightly different from that in the Promethean - but similar enough that it appears to use the same circuit board...

Just bought a pedal from John. Quick and friendly responses to messages, speedy delivery. A+ stress-free transaction, would buy again! Thanks!

Sorry; late to the party on this one, but I can't miss the the opportunity to wholeheartedly recommend the [url="http://www.orchid-electronics.co.uk/"]Orchid Electronics Classic DI Box[/url]. Handmade in Devon by a one-man operation, these cost barely more ( £34.50 ) than the Behringer ones, but utterly outclass them in every way. They work flawlessly and virtually never break. Some of mine are close to 20 years old and still going strong. John at Orchid also produces a compact, stripped down version, and a version with a muting footswitch; also builds custom electronics at extremely reasonable prices. Sorry to sound like an advert; I'm not getting paid for this, honest! Just expressing some customer loyalty and appreciation!