Al Krow

Guys I'm a big fan of the Warwick MEC / Ibanez Norstrand growl. I should add that my Spector EMG 40s also provide a very tasty tone, albeit with a less pronounced growl than the Wicks and Nords. It's my current personal favourite. Have any of you been able to get that in "bottled form" in the shape of a preamp pedal which combines well with more clean sounding basses?

Just seen that a white NE2 has just sold in the FS. Look forward to finding out who the lucky new owner is...

How are you getting along with your B1-4?

What's kinda amusing is that the Reading gig got pulled by the event organisers. But the Rubicon's been crossed and my not feeling that I have to take on every gig with my main covers bands is massively liberating. I think it was just an "emotional" bridge I needed to cross. Feels like we're landing in a pretty good place, as a band, with all the core line-up being on the group chat and always having first dibs at gigs. Deps only get called up when any of the core band can't make it. Means we can do as many or as few gigs as life / other commitments sometimes constrain us to do. There's been some cool words of wisdom on this thread, which have hit the mark! Thank you.

Must be true then! 😁 The most important aspect is obviously the WHU FC colours. @krispnthanks for your detailed clarification on the Stomp btw buddy. Makes more sense now: I, for one, did take at face value your statement that the Stomp can do "anything", rather than what you intended to say which is that it can do "anything Tech 21 of a drive or SH1 nature". My bad... Anyway enough thread derailment!

Why absurd to get a very capable multi fx and expect that it will be able to handle octave up and down functions? Folk surely get a multi fx 'cos it can do a bunch of things, octave down and up included. My point is a simple one: the Stomp doesn't do everything well and I was giving a couple of real life examples of it coming up short to illustrate. My only question on this thread is do fellow BC'ers who have both the SH1 (or dUg or YYZ) pedal and a Helix think the Helix can it do the Tech 21 pedal stuff well? dB has now kindly answered that for me.

If that is indeed the case then those of us who are Helix owners can save ourselves a bunch of cash on all Tech 21's latest offerings ranging from the dUg, YYZ, to the newly released SH! But having seen how the Stomp has not quite matched up on something as simple as octave up and down compared to dedicated pedals, my personal view is the jury is still out. Hence my earlier question to dB.

Yup big fan, here too.

I appreciate you're not a bass synth lover, however, plenty of us are. No one is or was suggesting that the FI or SY-1 are general multifx, so I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is? The Stomp is good, even great, for a lot of things, but it simply doesn't have the capability to do everything as well as or better than every pedal. So if anyone suggests that by investing enough time with the Stomp you can get there on all pedal fx, I'm afraid I'll have to disagree.

Nah, disagree, it has it's limitations. Try getting it do any of the 99 new sounds on the Future Impact v3, or doing an Arpeggiator in the way a Boss SY-1 does. It won't even quite match my Digitech Mosaic for 'authenticity' on octave up. And it's not fair to assume it can, as a £400 stand alone pedal, do everything dedicated pedals can do. But it can get pretty close on some stuff and Tech 21 emulations may be one of them. I'll be interested to get dBs thoughts on the subject.

Be very interested to hear from you on the pro/cons of this vs the YYZ when you've had a chance to put it through its paces, and also whether either is doing something that you can't get to on a Helix.

^^ This.

Heat treatment - Bass Gallery Camden.

Although undoubtedly an example of a front facing driver, right? 😁

Thanks for taking the time to share that. You make some very valid points. The FI is definitely not an off the shelf pedal, but does require considerable investment of time to get the most out of it. Worth having a chat with @Quatschmacherabout what's available in terms of usable bass synth sounds, if anyone can point you in the right direction I'm sure he can! I'll be interested in what you end up getting.

I'm not convinced...** ** thanks to @andybassdoyle for this C5 pic on a separate filter and synth thread, which was very amusing at the time

Tbf you will have gathered my views on Berg cabs from the first sentence of this thread and I continue to be a very happy owner of a CN212 which, for me, is right up there amongst the best, if the not the best cab I've ever owned. However, even the very best engineers / designers don't always get everything right and what can seem a good idea on paper can sometimes fall flat in reality, or take several iterations to refine. If this does represent an "upgrade" over purely front facing drivers, I'd jump at the chance of getting one.

The big fear is holographic = mushy. Love to hear one used in anger.

There are two aspects to how well an octave tracks: - how low it tracks before glitching; - how tightly it tracks (minimal latency). Analogue octave pedals generally tend to be pretty tight (and as compared to digital, which typically have greater latency). So are you mainly focusing on the first aspect? And then there is the question of how the pedal sounds e.g OC2 vs Octamizer for two broad camps, and what you're looking to use it for. E.g.: - thickening up your sound by layering along with your clean; or - providing a synth tone of solo sub + filter + drive? So what is going to be a good recommendation will very much depend on your key focus.

What a fantastic presentation for your review - very professional! Would it be possible to use Google translate or similar for us 'useless' English speakers who have not mastered German?

Loving been introduced to Kinga's work by Q, she is such a fresh and fun and very talented bassist:

+1 ^^

Or may even simply be down to the quality of the sound recording and playback via YouTube and the fact that our hearing is less attuned to the very lowest pitches? I think the fact that your ears are telling you something different when playing it yourself is the better test. I've just spent a couple of mins on my 1825 and compared 'like for like' i.e. the F# on the 7th fret of the low B string with the F# on the 2nd fret of the E string. The low B 7th fret had the meatier sound of the two. The only note on the low B string that didn't punch through quite as much was the open low B itself, which tbf I've never really noticed as it doesn't get used that much (I tend to find myself more using the C#, D and Eb for the very lowest notes).