JobuDRK79

Hello lovelies. Well back at it with my short scale experiments again, This time checking out the Labella White Tapes 760T-S and the Ernie Cobalt Flats 105-45. This is kind of an observation/review/advice/sharing of info type vibe, so here goes. Let’s strat with the Cobalts. I really dug these strings on my 5 string 34” G n L L2500 with EMG DC pups and BTC active circuit. I had to order two sets because I did not like the 100 and the 80 E and A, so ordered a 105 and 85 and they sit happily on it now. Well balanced, sound great, kinda like round wounds but not really. I actually compared them to some rounds and when the cobalts are new they sound exactly like and have the same frequency spectrum as well worn in DR Fats. As that’s my main choice or rounds, they worked great for me. One main gripe was a very rough feeling A string but I digress, let’s move on to the shorts. I ordered two sets of new shorts, the Cobalt and the Labella. My favourite all time flats are the Thomastik for that special sauce that just sits you so well in the mix and can be punchy and aggressive or laid back and phat, or the Deep Talking Labella shirts for the Old School thump. I am gravitating more and more to flats on everything and even more so to short scales because they just tend to sit me in the mix where I want to be. So Cobalts. I actually ordered the Labella copper white as well as the whites but the copper was out of stock so thought I would try these instead. Firstly the G string was a dud. Not rough like the A on the long scale but just buzzed out. Manufacturing flaw. So I took a G from a long scale while waiting for replacement. (Yes you can use Cobalt longs on a short, they are flexible enough). The feel was great. The tension sits right between the Thomastik and the deep talking. I class the TI as low and the Deep as high so these I say medium. Then you have elasticity. Deeps have none, TI has loads and the cobalts at much closer to deeps in the sense that they are stiff. Not tight! But stiffer. Easy to bend but still nice and taught for the picking hand. The one issue I had with the shorts over the long, or their application on the shorter scale is they have less mids and are a little “over bassy”. For example if you play chords with these the notes are no where near as readable as say on the TI flats or even the Deep talkers. It’s not bad but just an observation. Otherwise they have a good punch to them when you dig in, seems to bring some of the mids back to life. Sound great with a pick and slap is useable. By that I mean not Marcusmazing but useable for sure. I personally would use these in a rock setting where the bass is more a supporting role and doesnt really require super articulate but you want to be felt as well as heard. They will certainly sit well with walls of guitars or also would be at home in modern country, blues of even pop applications. Just don’t be hitting too many 3 note chords and expecting anything other than a lump of sound. Ok, now the nylon tape whites. Awesome. Was hesitant to file the nut if I did not like them. And no worries there because I love them! What a great string. They feel amazing and sound great alone and really great with effects. Very useable in the mix and I think a better “round wound sound” than the cobalts and that’s why I got these two sets of strings, I was after a “round presence”. I am sticking with my TI and Deep talkers on two shorts but was looking for a set of strings for both a fretless and fretted short that were “flat wound like” on the left hand and “round wound sounding” to the ear. Both would pass that test in the mix, and for me, I prefer the White tapes for that application. They haven’t gone on the fretless yet. I am interested to see which set the fretless likes. That’s why I had ordered the Copper Whites, they were supposed to go in the fretless. But everything happens for a reason they say. The tension of the whites on the shorty is just right and I actually (just like with the TI flats too) prefer this short scale version over the long scale for both feel and sound. Real killer stuff. I used the 105-45 whites on a 34” and that is the same as using the 115-60 on the short. The tension is the same but the sound and feel under the fingers is just thicker and I really dig it. so let’s see how both sets fare over time as far as longevity goes. If anyone has any questions about shorties? Anything? I have kinda done it all. Pick up mods, body mods, bridges, strings, preamps…..I have been a shorty fan since I started playing 30 years back and have always been on a path of discovery ever since. Even if you want to know what long scale strings work in a short scale without breaking or messing up I can tell you that too. peace out and thanks for reading.

Folks, I have to say, although I love what Darkglass does and thank them very much for what they have done for us bassists, when the hell are they going to sort out their foot switch situation?? Far out. This is the third foot switch to either be delivered faulty or crap out within a few days of use. Normally with my Darkglass stuff I take it immediately to my tech and he switches out what he calls “super cheap and disappointing” foot switches (especially in a pedal ant this price range) and replaces them. But this, straight outta the box? Not cool DG, not cool. Let’s spend a euro or two more and send us SOLID switches. Your gear is already in the upper price range, make it tour ready please IMG_5997.mov

Folks, I have to say, although I love what Darkglass does and thank them very much for what they have done for us bassists, when the hell are they going to sort out their foot switch situation?? Far out. This is the third foot switch to either be delivered faulty or crap out within a few days of use. Normally with my Darkglass stuff I take it immediately to my tech and he switches out what he calls “super cheap and disappointing” foot switches and replaces them. But this, straight outta the box? Not cool DG, not cool. Let’s spend a euro or two more and send us SOLID switches. Your gear is already in the upper price range, make it tour ready please #darkglass IMG_5997.mov

Nice one mate! Thomann certainly do some good gear through their Harley Benton and various other in house brands. I get you with the sub and up, it’s very clean. I am into all the weird and whacky shot so it was “too nice” for me and obviously perfect for what you need. man, I gotta say, big kudos to TC Electronics. Really really good stuff at very reasonable prices. I know it’s off topic but did you every try their bass amps? Mate, when they first came out a mate had one and I tried it and it was very very good. In fact I was very close to connecting with them before I connected with Markbass as an endorsee. I have big love for that company. thanks again for sharing mate, wicked stuff🤟🤓🎶

Mate! They say hell is the place of opinion-less people, so the fact you have an opinion and know that you don’t like it? That’s damn cool✌️🤓 I like this pedal because it’s cold and divisive. You either like it or don’t and actually prefer gear that I love or hate, I have a cupboard full of stinky poo that fits in the middle….at least I’d I love it it’s in general use and if I don’t I sell it😂🤟 cheers for watching the vid bro, more coming soon. Take it easy😎✌️

Yeah my man, Envelopes I personally always found difficult to find one that worked for me. I mean I would hear other folks playing them, sounded awesome, get one and be underwhelmed. I run the Source Audio C4 live and a few I Made in the Line 6 and couldn’t be happier. Finally useful Envelope sounds✌️😂🎶 and for sure certain types and kinda bass have a better relationship with certain effect types or specific pedals, that’s for sure EBS aren’t cheap, but not stupidly expensive. And I said deluxe, but the standard are fine too, I use both. I have all kinds of cables from super high end to solderless to those elcheapo coloured plastic ones and I go EBS every day of the week And yeah bro, I was using it (the ampeg) at the end too! And it is a damn good piece of kit. Very very cool. But I am a massive ampeg fan so I am biased😜✌️ let me know how you go with the EBS pedal if you get it?

Baloney, back again mate!! Loving it Bruv✌️🤓what an interesting, well thought out and original set up and approach! Appreciate it a lot man👽🤟 and stacking drives is always bloody good fun right? I especially love stacking fuzz into distortion for some good old face melting goodness✌️🤓 have you tried the TC Brainwave? Where you could save a couple of your time prints and have the organ and the octave up in one pedal? I tried the brain wave a little while ago and loved it. I never got on so well with the Sub n. Up but then again I never tried to edit my own sounds, just tried a mates, and much preferred some other pedals over it for the octave up and down. A really cool pedal I had going for a while was the Boss multi over tone. It gave me something between the 8 string bass and and organ sound. When I decided to economize the size of my board (I used to run two large boards live) a lot of those one trick ponies got shelved and I “created” them on the line 6. thanks so much for taking the time to share your gear and very interesting bass mate. What you using for power supplies and patch cables?? catch you soon my man✌️🤓🌟

Hehehe, yes you are probably right mate😂✌️ And yeah, it is super chaotic bro however, thin? It can be, for sure, like lots of fuzz circuits on bass, but I stumbled across some very useable and massive sounds, especially when layering with distorted guitars. personally I mixed a lot of clean with it to get a useable sound. That first sound clip is the sounds that are useable for me and I am for real in saying I have nothing else like it, it’s a stand alone pedal and like it or hate it, I was nicely surprised by its “original voice” which I do not tend to see much now days. Rats are great man, nice choice indeed! I personally have been using mostly the Dark Glass stuff for years live (B3k/7K, Alpha Omricon/Omega, Duality Fuzz) but since discovering the Source Audio Aftershock a few years back, that is my holy grail of live drives simply because I have a whole library of presets I made that I just load up what I need when I need it for what ever gig and instead of running 3 or more drive pedals at any time like I used to, most gigs it’s just one (or sometimes two) Aftershocks. And Yeah, I tend to Always have a lot of Clean in my drive BUT my Clean channels in the drive are Always slightly “low gain crunchy punchy” With a Bump at 80, 1.2 and 4K and then i am usually gain driving only above 200 or 500hz which can sound like two basses playing at once or a Clean and dirty Amp and thats really useful to me, especially in a mix and especially in a one guitar band to make that “epically huge sound”.🫣😂✌️There is that lovely phenomenon we know all to well as bassists, where we make an incredible and Phat clean tone or drive tone and then we take it to the practice room or stage and start playing with the other musos and it’s gone, or everyone is telling us to turn down or turn up or we dont hear the phatness and definition or it’s too sharp……. All those lovely things we encounter and gotta deal with when effecting the low wave. It’s like the magic of the P bass, 9/10 it sounds kinda “meh” on its own but then play in a mix and it just sits in the zone. but yeah mate, I reckon this pedal is certainly not everyone’s taste and in fact if I could only have one drive or two, this would not be one of them, it’s too specific in its voice, but I certainly was well impressed by its “Umamainess” so it gets my vote for a good piece of kit. cheers Bruv and Rawk On✌️😜🎶

Yeah buddy, nice one, and now so is this effect club…. if people decide they like to share here ✌️🤓 have a good’un

Mate! Thanks for stopping by. Great stuff! The Catalinbread will be lots of fun✌️🤓 I personally never got along with the MXR envelope. I tried too, really did want to like it. Owned it like 3 times over the years. Just never got what I wanted from it. Having said that, it is actually a really nice pedal and I am a fan of all the MXR bass stuff, especially the M87 Comp and the bass wahs. I use various cables but my fave are the EBS flat patch deluxe and second would be the Rockboard flat patch. The EBS are really flexible, the connectors are very low profile and they are well priced. The trifecta✌️🤓 oh, and the Ampeg SGT is super cool!! Where you going g to put it in your signal chain??

Hey fellow Bassheads! How’s it going?✌️ As an avid effect nut, I would like to start up this club and I am inviting you all to join and comment so we can create a font of knowledge for all things Effects. The premise is really simple. I would like us to share and talk about any of the following: -Our pedal boards -Our signal chains -Our favorite effects -Our least favorite effects -Tips and tricks for beginners to pros -Patch cables and power supplies -New or special discoveries -Tech specs and information -Your own demo videos or those of others you like So basically it’s literally an all things effects club. Can you dig it? You folks up for this?? so the signal path of my live board as it is in running order: 1: Korg Pitch Black Tuner 2: Sadowsky SBP-2 Pre amp. (Under board) 3: Empress Bass Comp mark 2 4: Walrus Audio Stereo Canvass Di box that’s under the tuner (From here one line goes to front of house or to the mix pult as my dry signal and the thru line passes on to the effects) 5: EBS Octabass V.2 (non true bypass version) 6: Line 6 HX stomp Now, the other pedals are run in loops inside the line 6. I have my line 6 predominately set up as my preamp. The first block in all presets is a hard comp comp controlled by foot switch 1, foot switch two is something different on each preset and foot switch 3 is always block two in the path and is my custom whammy on/off which is controlled By the MXR Dunlop mini expression. The Sansamp MIDI Mouse is preset up/down on the HX stomp. Loop 1 and 2 are always on in every preset. Loop 1 is always the third last block, Loop 2 the second last block and the final block is always a preamp without a cab sim and almost always the Ampeg SVT 4 pro or the Aguilar DB 751. Loop 1- Source Audio C4> Source Audio After Shock > Dunlop Mini Bass Wah Loop 2- TC Electronic Corona Chorus> TC Flashback 2 Delay. There is usually an MXR tap tempo that lives between the wah and expression that is the tap tempo for all delay options on the Flashback however I have it off at the moment switching something else, it shall return. So then the signal comes out one of the line 6 outputs back into to the walrus and to FOH and the other goes to my amp. And yes, we use a couple millisecond delay at the mix to compensate for phase issues between the two signals dry/wet. My power supply’s are the One Spot CS 7 and the Rockboard ISO V6. It’s a pedal train Classic 1. I have intentionally restricted myself to this particular board and size. Mainly for travel-ability and also creativity. I had to think really long and hard to get the maximum out of the real estate and I think I did well. Obviously tons of presets on the Line 6 but the Chorus is two choruses and a flanger, the delay is like 12 different delays, the C4 is 6 different synths and the drive is 3 drives. much love, J-D.R.K ✌️

Awesome brother! Sounds like quite a gnarly setup! The GNP is a great flavour of drive. Gregor from bass the world YouTube channel was over my way the other week and he was recommending it too. Great piece of kit. man, my first drive was one of those orange boss horrible donkey guitar drives. One of my mums work mates back in the day was a guitarist and sold me a drive a chorus a phaser a delay a tuner and an octave in a grey boss plastic pedal case for like $300……. Bargain!! This was like 1996 maybe…. Good deal. Especially when I tell you that the octave happened to be the OC2, which of coarse I had no idea what it was or what it was worth and sold it for next to nothing a year later to buy my first wah……a really shitty George Dennis combination wah and volume 🤓hehe. I hated octave, I had no idea how to use it then. But by 1999/2000 octave became a must on my board and have had the same one now for 20 years, to version 2 of the EBS octabass. I have tried every octave under them Sun and this one? Man, it’s my grail, so it sucks I let and OC2 go for like $80 Aussie but if I didn’t I would never have discovered my grail👌😂🎶

Thanks mate! Enjoyed making it. Starting to get the hang of the whole thing now that I am a couple in. Yeah, I hear ya, there are soooooo many choices but that excites me. Being saturated is a better alternative to starved as it was when I was first getting into effects. Infact it’s only really in the last 10 years or so that dedicated bass drives have really come so far and the choice is so broad so I am certainly the “glass half full” in that aspect. The ground and pound is sick!! Damn good pedal! Probably my favourite drive to come out in the last while along with this one. And please, as I said in the previous response to SumOne, that’s how I use my distortions, I specifically go for that “separated sound” especially live. I change it up in the studio but live? Much more clean. Thanks for the reply bro. Btw do you own the ground and pound?? What was your first ever bass drive? (Or drive you used in the bass)

Oh Mannnnnnn, what a great collection, talk about boutique, what a great collection✌️😎❤️ what would you consider to be your two “never do a gig without or would never sell” drives in your collection?? And are you running compression before, after or both or non at all?? And gates?? As far as the Totality, yes, it absolutely needs the clean, for my taste and to be at all useful for what I do with drive. Keep in mind on the first sound demo that is “my sound” so there is lots of clean in it. I am (or was) from the school of two amps. Most of my pro career I was running a clean and dirty amp but also that’s my taste in bass drive, unusually don’t drive any of the frequencies below like 200hz and a lot of times only drive above like 500hz but that really depends what type, flavour and vibe I am going for, that’s just a real general idea. But this pedal does a lot more than I was able to include in the vid. I have to say, I also never liked Animato and truth be told I expected to plug this in, noodle a few minutes, not really be blown away and just move on. I have had, owned and played so many drives it’s rare something actually grabs me nowa days, but I said in the vides it’s “Umamai” and that’s what I feel. I currently run three drives on my touring board as staple, always a Fuzz, a high gain and a low gain tube type crunch which have chnaged over time, and I have bunches of drives on the shelf and nothing I have has that kinda synthy/fuzzy/gritty tone that this has, it’s a sound into it’s own and I really appreciate that in the market…..it’s somehow original and I really dig it. Again, like anything horses for courses. Cheers Bruva!!✌️🤓

No one out there in bass chat land want to banter about distortions??🫣 I am shocked😂✌️. Let me know what you are using peeps, keen to see what we are using most….. high gain, tube, fuzz, low gain……what brands are bringing the goods✌️🤓