Al Krow

Fixed. (For my facts and circumstances anyway). PS I DO have an imaginary friend. But he recently issued me with a non-contact Court order.

...more on the Grizzly Bass. Was checking what the price of these currently are (£220 new) and also found an explanation of why it seems to retain low end so well: "Typical distortion pedals use a ton of gain and clipping. This creates a lot of unwanted noise which needs to be heavily filtered and that thins out the tone. This is why pedals intended for guitar don’t work well for bass. Grizzly Bass borrows analog wave-shaping technology from the Holy Fire to re-shape the waveform and achieve tube-like FX without adding noise or heavy filters, preserving your bass tone all the way down to 20Hz. This makes Grizzly Bass a very musical pedal that responds to your touch. Play with a softer attack and velocity for a cleaner sound, or dig in and the Grizzly Bass goes there with you – with as much grit as you need. It’s here to serve you, not the other way around! Control the effect with your playing dynamics. When you plug directly into a sound system or use a solid-state amp, Grizzly Bass is a great alternative to a bulky, fragile and expensive tube preamp. *For best results use the High-Current output of your power brick (250mA recommended)."

Sounds like a good combination and I agree you won't need more than that!

So @dannybuoy where are you currently landing on your drive quest?

Haha indeed! But I recall you saying you didn't have it long at all before moving it on and this is definitely a pedal that is worth living with for a little while to get under its (very capable!) bonnet

Creation Audio Grizzly Bass I'm finding that as I get longer in the tooth as a bass player I'm ending up with gear that Ed Friedland is already be a fan of! Most recently the Fearless F112 cab which handles the low end superbly. Speaking of which, one of the gripes I've had with bass drive pedals has been the loss of low end. Well that's not an issue for the Grizzly Bass by Creation Audio. This little wonder, which I have had for six months or so now, retains low end better than any dirt pedal I've come across to date. I was introduced to it by young Mr @bassfan and when I first heard its ability to produce a rich tube like dirt, I definitely knew I had to give it a try out! Unlike other drive pedals which have a clean blend to make sure that the loss of low end is minimised but means that half your bass signal is clean rather than driven, there is no clean blend on the Grizzly; it simply doesn't need it! Instead it provides additional tone shaping, allowing both a mid cut and treble roll-off, which allows you to do pretty much what its sister pedal the Funkulator can do in terms of giving a Motown feel to a jazz bass. It has not one but two drive circuits: an overdrive and a separate distortion circuit which let you go from valve break up all the way through to downright driven and dirty! Fully analogue. Well the Grizzly Bass seems to be another piece of kit that the Bass Whisperer is a BIG fan of. Here's a YouTube review of his putting it through its paces:

Hah! Depending on its condition, it sounds to me you've potentially bagged yourself a bargain! Time to change the thread title... I've done a very clever stupid thing. Ebay whizz kid struts his stuff bid dilemma Fixed! 😁

...although tbf 6 string basses are probably the work of the devil. Our Creator clearly meant us to play 5 string basses given how many fingers he gave us, right? 😁

Learn to play 6 string bass and then sell all your four and five string basses! 😉

Nice little shoot out, including several Yammys... Yamaha Nathan East (Pensa Preamp) Sadowsky NYC Chambered 21 Fret Sadowsky NYC Chambered 24 Fret Dingwall Combustion (Sadowsky Preamp Mod) Yamaha 1005 Ibanez ATK Yamaha Attitude (4 String with Pensa Preamp) Fender American Deluxe (J Retro Preamp Mod) Fender American Deluxe (Pensa Preamp) Yamaha TRB5P2 (he would like to try!)

For sure, they don't sound worse than they did before. It's just that once you've enjoyed the almost zero latency of e.g. the Helix pitch shift it does mean that the Zoom pitch shift is not something you're able to put up with any longer! It's like coming back from my parents' place where they have a 4K TV and having to settle down in front of our own 10 year old 720p screen! Equally some newer things can sound worse than the older tech...not found any of the modern Mesa D class amps to be in the same league as the now discontinued but still outstanding Mesa M6.

I'd agree with you on analogue pedals. But not when it comes to digital. As a rule of thumb increased DSP capacity + improved software => better emulations. The Helix Stomp is a step up from the Zoom kit in terms of capability (and price!) no question.

The latest generation chipset Zooms are the B3n and the B1-4. Neither have a particularly good looper, although the B1-4's looper is the more easily accessible of the two. The looper recording time on the B1-4 is just 30 seconds and I think the B3n will be similar. If a looper is important for you, then there are plenty of other options, but that's a whole separate thread! The NUX Loop Core is around £60 and provides 6 HOURS of loop recording with 99 memory locations and seems to me to be one of the better value loopers, although I've not had one myself (I've still got my old trusty Boss RC30, which provides 3 hours of recording also with 99 memory slots). Just as an fyi - there is an almost new B1-4 in the classifieds if you're interested. The seller is a really good guy.

@Quatschmacher do you reckon you could reproduce the synth bass at 0.00 to 0.13 and 1.01 to 1.28 on the FI ?!

Interesting you say that - what's your source? I've not come across any other online rumours / gossip that Line6 are releasing a new version of the Stomp. They may of course be doing a software update (which is to be expected from time to time), but that would be making use of the existing hardware.

Agreed that the drive on GK (and the EBS too) have a quite different flavour to the DG. If you do get to A/B them, be very interested in getting your feedback. We obviously share a fair bit of what we're looking for tonally in both having DG M900s and BF cabs!

Hah! Not at all...it was based on this following comment from Stoo.. But it seems to me from your screen grab that all is in order 😊 and that Andertons caused a bunch of confusion by pairing the back of the 800 model with the front of the 1200 model. i.e. the 800 is 800W at 4ohms and lower impedances. @fretmeister what did you think of the comparison on the EBS Reidmar YT video?

That actually makes quite a big difference if the "800" is 500W at 4ohms / 250W at 8ohms and not 800W/400W respectively. In which case I need to be comparing the 1200 with the EBS Reidmar 750 in terms of pricing. [EDIT] BUT it seems from the follow up comment below that isn't the position and the "800" is 800W at 4 ohms and lower impedances.

The GK legacy head and its range of sounds reminded me quite a bit of the EBS Reidmar 750 - anyone else agree? The comparable EBS Reidmar 750 is £549 vs £849 for the GK Legacy 800 head...Hmmm in terms of a back-up amp, I think I know where both my heart AND head are going to be leading me

You would be very welcome to pop round any time

RCFs are excellent. Be interested if the 732A really could go head to head with a Fearless F112 at the low end, given that the Fearless has more low-end punch than most cabs I've come across (including excellent cabs such as the VK 210 LNT and BF SC)? Appreciate we are really focusing on the first harmonic of the low B at 60Hz and above but the 732A does have a low end f response cut-off of 50Hz, so it's not catering even for the open low E fundamental at 40 Hz and, as a FRFR PA speaker designed to give great performance across the full f range, it's not been attuned to bass frequencies in the same way that a bass cab would be.

Useful parallel thread on whether the BF 110 will be enough - the answer I guess will entirely depend on what setting you're using it in. A BF SC should tick the boxes in terms of compact size and also gives a bit more headroom than the BF 110. They're around £500 used, and do come up from time to time, so that should leave you with plenty of budget for any number of excellent amp heads. Be good to know what 5 string you've just got and what sound are you looking for in terms of sound to give you a steer on amp heads? But if you want a compact cab that not only handles the low B but "bosses it" then a Fearless F112 is unsurpassed in terms of being able to do that and all round quality. It's just awesome. However, new, they are around £810 delivered, which is not going to leave you much budget for your amp. There have been a couple sold for around £625 to £650 used but they seem to be less prevalent with BC'ers and therefore tend to come up less often used. In terms of size, the F112 is also another very compact cab, comparison next to my BF SC:

Lots of good practice amp suggestions already. The other combos that are maybe worth checking out are the TC BG 250 series and the Ibanez Promethean 3110, but you could just as easily go down the separates route in which case you have lots of good options. That Ibanez SR 655 PJ is a nice choice btw - been tempted to get one myself! Please do let us know how you get on with it! There's a bunch of Ibby SR fans on this thread if you fancy posting any pics and a review there:

Welcome to BC! If this is your first multifx, I'd recommend also checking out the Zoom B1-4 (or B1X-4 with the expression pedal included, which is the model I have). The free ToneLib PC software makes creating and editing patches very straightforward and fun on Zoom pedals. In terms of value for money, you'll be hard pressed to beat the B1-4. The Helix Stomp is a step up in quality from the Zoom and has a strong BC following. The additional DSP power of the Helix allows for better effect sims than the Zoom B1-4 but it is about 6 times more expensive!