Al Krow

Nice little review by Andy Irvine, albeit of the HG 410 rather than the 310. He's pretty positive about the "holographic" HG model and some pertinent points about sealed (HG) vs ported (HD) offerings. Those of you who are comfortable with the extra weight of the 312 are going to get a bigger sound still, which I suspect will be awesome.

That seemed to roll off your tongue far too easily! 😁

Haha - I was thinking of something a lot more fun / creative than a Mesa logo! You've got a blank canvas to put on anything you like!

It's crying out for some a-Mesa-ing art work on it, buddy!

Completely missed the arrival of the E7 - will be checking that one out further! Blimey, it's polyphonic and has an arpeggiator! All for £85. If it has decent tracking, then I suspect this could end up in several Xmas stockings. The only other caveat is that it wouldn't surprise me if Mooer release a B7 bass focussed variant.

Yeah I think @fretmeister has been waiting for his for a couple of months. I guess I was lucky in putting a pre-order in and getting one of the first batch to arrive. Seems to me that Boss have underestimated demand for this unit as there have stories of bottlenecks all over the place, not just in the UK.

Picking up on the two points above: for authentic synth sounds - I'd suggest that FI is the winner here (and not too shabby at tracking either). For outstanding, flawless tracking, the SY-1 is gob-smackingly good.

Boss SY-1 will do 80s synth sounds and has an excellent arpeggiator. It comes in compact Boss pedal form factor and is the least expensive of the current "top 3" bass synth pedals (the FI and Source Audio C4 being the other two and already mentioned above). Doesn't require any PC editing, but the flip side is that you'll need to note down your favourite settings as it doesn't store presets (the reverse is true for the FI and C4 i.e. both require PC / phone editing to get the best out of, but can both store presets). I'm a big fan of the SY-1 and also have a FI that has been recently upgraded with some excellent new firmware, which our very own @Quatschmacher was closely involved in developing. Please be warned however, the view expressed by some of our esteemed BC'ers is that these pedals: "just do an array of amusing - but ultimately of little real world use - bleeps, squeaks and farts" 😂

@No. 8 Wire - that's actually a really useful review of the pedal, thanks very much for posting that.

Well funny you should say that...but when I was first in the market for a white NE2 I actually pm'd a chap who had two white NE2s in his collection to see if he would be interested in parting with one. He wasn't, but I subsequently managed to nab one which had originally been owned by our very own TJ Spicer, who very kindly remembered he still had the original paperwork from his purchase from Wunjos back in 2016 and sent it across to me. Gotta love this forum The smart money is on @sadbass 😁

I don't have my Wick any more, but this is not a bad sound sample:

You got a particular model / setting in mind?

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.