Baloney Balderdash

And this YouTube video featuring jazzy post-rock pioneers Tortoise is another of my all time favorite YouTube concerts :

Too square for me! This is where the real jazz is at : But yeah, seriously speaking, to be honest personally I do much prefer above, I think it is safe to say "all star", avantgarde/free jazz band, in fact this is one of my absolute favorite YouTube concerts. Just absolute ferociously uncompromising. And also they are all playing like as if their life depended on it.

I've posted this before, just when it was released, but I think it deserves a repost, have become a part of my list of all time absolute favorite songs. So incredible powerful and heartwrenchingly beautiful, and the video, which Emma Ruth Rundle directed herself, is just as amazing and suits the song perfectly. "Return" from Emma Ruth Rundle's most recent album "Engine of Hell", just absolute breathtakingly sublime! :

Great piece of advice. I already tend to do this though, mix notes from different scales as I see fit, as well as adding some chromatic notes here and there. Mind though that this won't work equally well for everything, so as with everything you need to be mindful of the context. One thing is something fitting in strictly harmonically, or not so well but creating interesting tension, in case of added chromatic notes, but mixing the Pentatonic Minor, or the "Blues" Scale with added chromatic "blue" notes (b5), Minor and Dorian scales, which is exactly what I would do, won't sound very traditional, say in the context of playing traditional blues for instance. But otherwise sound advice to not let staying within a specific scale dictate your playing/note choice, but rather see scales as general guidelines that you can add to and subtract from as you see fit, depending on the specific musical context within they are played/used.

Without knowing I would think the Ultimate Overdrive being an OCD clone, borrowing the name after Joyo's OCD clone, the Ultimate Drive. The Low/High switch on the pedal seems to confirm this assumption, since this match the switch you'd normally find an OCD based pedal, including the original, and not the Vintage/Turbo or Classic/Turbo you'd normally see on RAT clones, as well as the Tone control on RAT variants usually will be called Filter, from the original RAT, and this is just called Tone, as it would on an OCD drive. The Pocket Metal I am pretty sure being an EHX Pocket Metal Muff clone, which the single Mid "Tone"/EQ control knob seems to confirm.

What would the point being of making each half of a P pickup, that by design, being 2 coils in series connection, already cancel out noise, having an additional stacked coil each, they won't cancel more noise for that reason? Each half having two side by side coils in series, like a true humbucker pickup would, now I could see the idea of that, like for instance the DiMarzio dual blade Split P, but I very much doubt this is the case either, with only one row per half of pole pieces on those pickups of yours. Bar magnets under the pickup also usually means Ceramic magnets, with steel pole pieces above to distribute the magnetic field, whereas Alnico magnets used in pickups will usually be the pole pieces themself. So almost certain yours are Ceramic magnet based pickups. Also magnets always got 2 magnetic poles, a North Pole and a South Pole, regardless of type, which is something entirely different than pickup pole pieces.

Basses doesn't automatically adjust themself to whatever you throw at them, that is your problem. Adjust the bass to the lower tension of the lower tuning with the same strings, and I bet your issues goes away. As several others pointed out this is a neck relief, or rather lack of, issue, that is fixed by loosening the truss rod. If that doesn't help you might need higher tension/gauge strings.

I recently bought the Behringer HD300 Heavy Distortion, Boss MD-2 Mega Distortion clone, after having listened to the few YouTube demos (that is predominant the original Boss MD-2) in existence that demonstrated it used for bass, which are all rather lacking, either not being very thorough or just overall having terrible sound quality, as well as I watched a fair share of demo videos featuring it used for guitar. But I thought I could still hear it being right up my ally as far as going bass distortion, and it really is. Genuinely great distortion for bass. With all knobs at noon, except the Bottom knob just boosted ever so slightly, like just barely 1 o'clock, it sounds surprisingly close to my preferred high gain distortion setup, which is: Boss LS-2 [A+B<->Bypass] => [ Effect Loop A: {Joyo Orange Juice (dialed in to a higher low/lower medium gain kind of overdrive) -> Boss MT-2 Metal Zone (dialed in to a higher medium gain kind of distortion)} ->|blended in parallel with|<- Effect Loop B: {Mosky Black Rat (RAT clone, in Turbo RAT mode, dialed in to a high gain distortion}] I would say that The Behringer HD300 Heavy Distortion is probably just lacking the last 5 to 10 % or so, that is lacking some clarity and definition, and also some depth (as in complexity and spatial "3D" like effect), in comparison to my more complex high gain distortion setup, which I guess though is not really surprising, being a single distortion pedal vs. parallel blended respectively medium and high gain distortion with two quite different kind of basic characters, but the actual basic character of the MD300 alone using the above stated settings is actually extremely close, which I think is quite amazing and impressive considering, and if for some reason I had to use just 1 single pedal for my high gain distortion this would definitely be it (except I would probably get the original Boss MD-2 Mega Distortion in that case). Really captures that raunchiness of the Turbo Rat, but with a slightly smoother and somewhat slightly more modern quality, which sort of accounts for the parallelly blended in Metal Zone of my high gain distortion setup, but then a bit tighter sounding, which accounts for the Orange Juice overdrive that I have stacked into the Metal Zone. In a mix with other instruments I think it would be really hard to tell the difference between this cheap Behringer pedal, using the mentioned settings, and then my preferred high gain distortion setup, and by blending in a slight bit of clean signal (which though I have not tested yet), for instance using a Boss LS-2, it might even be possible to achieve some of the clarity, definition and sense of depth that I think this single distortion pedal lacks in comparison to my more complex high gain distortion setup (also it might be possible that the original Boss MD-2 Mega Distortion would have a bit better definition, clarity and sense of depth, compared to this cheap clone of it, though I wouldn't know if this is actually also the case, since I don't own the original Boss pedal). And if one have to stick to a single pedal and is on a budget I can definitely warmly recommend this pedal as a high gain bass distortion. These are the settings I used :

We have been brainwashed by the 4/4, and to a much lesser degree 3/4, unnatural straightjacket dictatorship of the Western music tradition, and any musician, or just music lover in general, ought to do themself the favor of de-programming their brain from this unnatural fixation and misapprehension to make themself comfortable with so called "odd" meters/time signatures. Once you get there a whole new world, quite literally, of musical experiences awaits you. I was lucky being called to arms to serve as the second "lead" bass player in a couple of my old friends and jam partners's math rock project, which eventually set me rhythmically free. One day rehearsing with that band I, quite physically, felt the oppressive bond of the rhythmical norm's restrains in my brain snap. Almost as if I had finally managed to solve some kind of Zen koan. And to this day I navigate fluently in shifting odd meter rhythmical patterns. This is an amazing guide to odd meters/time signatures (well, time signatures in general really) : "Time signatures 1/1, 2/2, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, 7/4, 8/8, 9/8, 10/4, 11/2, 12/8, 13/16 & 14/8 exposed"

!!! Please Delete !!! Posted in wrong sub forum

WOOHOO!!! YES!!! Do I get a price too?

Why on earth would you want to cut everything bellow 8kHz? On a bass there's hardly any signal left at that point, and for sure is way past all fundamentals. You are aware that this is a High Pass Filter NOT a Low Pass Filter or High Cut Filter, right? Even then 8kHz seems high for a bass, regular bass cabs, without high freqeuncy horns that is, usually have a pretty steep cutoff of frequencies beyond about 3.5kHz or so, and, as said, above 8kHz there won't even be much signal left coming from a bass in the first place anyway. Though a High Shelve Filter set at 8kHz on the other hand would kind of make sense for a bass, because a sufficiently large enough cut would create a curve that would start the decline way bellow 8kHz, but then again a 10kHz or even 12kHz High Shelve Filter would probably make even more sense if the purpose is to kind of mimic the roll off of a regular bass cab, however yet again a second order, that is -12dB/Oct, Low Pass Filter set to around 3.5Khz or so actually would be a much more appropriate tool to achieve this and much more likely to give a satisfactory result. Telling us what it is you want to achieve would help, cause honestly to me, and I assume most other people reading your OP, it does sound like you might not be aware of the right tool for the job you want to get done, whatever that might be, but then again I suppose it is possible that you actually do know exactly what you are doing, and that I just can't imagine what application a HPF set to 8 kHz could possibly be good for.

Not quite, I think you somewhat misunderstood the famous ladybug bass pickup trick here. The real trick is to find a handful of 2 dot, and this is essential, ladybugs, and then place one on top of each of the pickup poles respectively. After you tried that there is no going back, absolutely magical tone enhancement.

And a newer photo shot, after a couple of visual mods (including more artistic PhotoShop shenanigans) :

My guess is that managing to de-program your brain from the 4/4, and to a much lesser degree 3/4, unnatural straightjacket dictatorship brainwash of the Western music tradition will likely be the main hurdle to overcome. Once you get there a whole new world, quite literally, of musical experiences awaits you. I was lucky being called to arms to serve as the second "lead" bass player in a couple of my old friends and jam partners's math rock project, which eventually set me rhythmically free. One day rehearsing with that band I, quite physically, felt the oppressive bond of the rhythmical norm's restrains in my brain snap. Almost as if I had finally managed to solve some kind of Zen koan. And to this day I navigate fluently in shifting odd meter rhythmical patterns. This is an amazing guide to odd meters: "Time signatures 1/1, 2/2, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, 7/4, 8/8, 9/8, 10/4, 11/2, 12/8, 13/16 & 14/8 exposed"

Well, this one I stumbled on accidentally, as I fooling around turned a whole buttload of the pedals in my relatively complex pedal setup on all at once, just for the fun of it, but then to my total surprise discovered that it actually happened to produce an absolutely massive, gloriously thick, lush swooshing, quacking phaser analog synth-esque effect with a somewhat pad like quality, perfect for slow heavy melodic synth parts, that I am no doubt going to take advantage of at some point in my compositions. First of all the individual components that this synth tone is made up of and a little about my signal chain to explain it: First of all there is my instrument, which is a Harley Benton GuitarBass, a take on the Fender Bass VI concept, but that I have tuned to G1 standard tuning, that is 9 half steps bellow a regular E2 guitar tuning, or 3 half steps above regular E standard bass tuning. That then, to simplify it a bit and cut it down the essentials, though there are really more pedals involved in this (not least because it is an "amp-less" setup), goes through an always on TC Electronuic Sub'N'Up Mini octaver, loaded with a custom made 1 octave up polyphonic Toneprint, blended with dry signal, to deliver a sound similar to an 8 string bass, though the octave up signal is probably a bit more subtle than the octave strings on an 8 string bass usually would be. Well this then goes into an always on Boss LS-2 with an always on Joyo Orange Juice in one of the effect loops, dialed in to a higher low gain kind of overdrive, which then for my basic "clean" tone is just blended with parallel clean signal (that is {1 Octave Up + Dry}), at about equal measures, from the other effect loop of the LS-2. However in the same effect loop of the LS-2 that always on Orange Juice is followed by a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone, and then finally a Behringer VP1 Vintage Phaser, which is a really great original big box EHX Small Stone clone, set with the color switch engaged. And then In the other effect loop of the LS-2 is a Mosky Black Rat, set to a high gain Turbo RAT distortion, followed by a Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz, octave fuzz, and then concluded with a Monarch MFL-22 Stereo Flanger (rebrand on the identical Arion Stereo Flanger), used in mono. After the Boss LS-2 then is a Boss TR-2 Tremolo, followed by a TC Electronic Shaker vibrato, loaded with a custom made Toneprint consisting of a triangle wave vibrato effect blended with clean signal, effectively making it fuction as a chorus effect, after that then is a Zoom B1Xon digital multi effect, which among other stuff is used for an always on subtle plate reverb into a really subtle spring reverb, and the Zoom multi effect is then followed by a NUX Tape Core Deluxe, which is a really great digital emulation of the legendary Roland RE-201 Space Echo tape delay. Normally how I'd use all this would be either: - Basic "clean" tone: {1 Octave up + Dry} -> [Loop A + B: {Orange Juice overdrive} + {Dry*)}] -> Zoom Reverb - High gain Distortion: {1 Octave up + Dry} -> [Loop A: {Orange Juice Overdrive -> Metal Zone}, blended in parallel at about equal measures with Loop B: {Turbo Rat}] -> Zoom Reverb - High gain Fuzz: {1 Octave up + Dry} -> [Loop A: {Orange Juice Overdrive -> Metal Zone}, or just {Orange Juice Overdrive}, blended in parallel at about equal measures with Loop B: {Super Fuzz}] -> Zoom Reverb - Thick lush Phaser effect: {1 Octave up + Dry} -> [Loop A: {Orange Juice Overdrive -> Behringer Small Stone Phaser clone}, blended in parallel at about equal measures with Loop B: {Flanger}] -> Zoom Reverb - Lush Chorus effect: {1 Octave up + Dry} -> [Loop A + B: {Orange Juice Overdrive} + {Dry*)}] -> Tremolo -> Chorus -> Zoom reverb - Or for an even lusher Chorus effect: {1 Octave up + Dry} -> [Loop A: {Orange Juice Overdrive}, blended in parallel with Loop B: {Flanger}] -> Tremolo -> Chorus -> Zoom Reverb *) 1 Octave Up + Dry Beside of course sometimes using the Boss Tremolo just on its own, or combined by the NUX Tape Delay, as well as sometimes using the Tape Delay just on its own. However this massive faux Synth effect that I happened to accidentially discover is composed of a combination all of that, which is: {1 Octave Up + Dry} -> [Loop A: {Orange Juice Overdrive -> Metal Zone -> Behringer Small Stone Phaser clone}, blended in parallel at about equal measures with Loop B: {Turbo Rat -> Flanger} or {Super Fuzz -> Flanger}] -> Tremolo -> Chorus -> Zoom Reverb -> NUX Tape Delay, set to a single virtual playback tape head delay mode, that in this case is dialed in to really functions as more of an ambient, reverb like, thickening ethereal effect than a traditional delay, clearly discernible repeat, effect. I know it looks like a massive overkill, and way overly complicated as well, and it is definitely not a subtle effect either, or an effect that will work for fast runs, but as a massive thick lush analog synth-esque sound with a somewhat pad like quality it actually works amazingly well for slow heavy synth parts. Who would have guessed, but it really does. It definitely was not intentional in any way, as said I was just fooling around, playing the fun old "everything on at once" game, and there was no way I had even just the slightest suspicion that it might turn out as anything actually even just remotely useful. Honestly I would never have thought this up, it was a pure incident that I fooling around just for the fun of it tried to turn a whole buttload of the effects on all at once, that I otherwise normally use in relatively more limited/moderate, somewhat more sensible, combinations, but then much to my surprise found that it happened to actually turn out sounding totally awesome, and definitely could be useful for some specific stuff down the line, to mimic an analog synth tone. Here's what my entire "amp-less" pedal setup looks like (the HoTone tremolo is really just there to boost, as well as slightly brighten, the Behringer Small Stone phaser clone, which, just like the original big box Small Stone, comes with a slight volume drop when engaged, and the XVive tremolo is exclusively used as a buffer effect, which it works extremely well as (think it's output impedance is something like just 200 or 250 Ohm), before my EHX Black Finger, as that for some reason was designed with a relatively low input impedance, and which I by the way use primarily as an always on tube preamp stage, with the optical compression circuit effectively dialed out of the equation) :

Great late 60's Syd Barrett style songwriting anus 2012:

Edit!!!: Misread the headline and OP New, on topic, edit: Neither my B1Xon or G1Xon are noisy, not at all Original post text: Both my B1 Four and G1 Four are noisy, seriously suck tone, clips easily, the horrible digital kind of clipping that is, and generally sounds pretty crappy, very unlike my previous generation, now discontinued, G1Xon and B1Xon, which I love and both sounds amazing, playing a quite central role in my setup (that is the B1Xon, the G1Xon is just kept as a backup should my B1Xon at some point stop working, both loaded with my own custom selection of that generation Zoom effect models (same as the current production Zoom multi stomp boxes), via the 3rd party unofficial Zoom Effect Manager hack program). In my opinion the new generation of Zoom digital multi effects is a huge leap backwards, more reminiscent of the horrible digital multi effects they put out in the 90's.

From Mudhoney's 1991 masterpiece of an album "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge" :

Does it come with a small zipbag of ketamine as well?

But you can! If the pedal is otherwise connected and you play your bass/guitar. What I did. You could also just have a looper pedal hooked up to it while adjusting.

Meanwhile stinky poo get's censored.

It's a really nice overdrive/distortion pedal for bass, with a pretty wide range of tones and levels of overdrive/dsitortion. But I don't think that demo really does it justice, however it is the only really bass specific one on YouTube properly featuring it. And I would personally not call is raspy either, that is an entirely different much grainier and raunchier quality to me, I would call it grindy though, which is a much clearer/colder, somewhat biting, type of aggressiveness (or that is it has a tendency to get grindy on higher gain settings, and can even get extremely grindy, depending on the specific settings, if one should wish so, which is a type of distortion character that I personally really like for bass, but it is also capable, and even great at it too, of just providing a subtle tube like grit, which I also use it for).

To mimic the detune effect that happens naturally on a real 8 string bass, as a result of the octave strings usually not being absolutely 100% perfectly in tune with the corresponding bass strings, you would want to use the modulation available in the Toneprint editor, which will only be applied to the 1 octave up signal and not to the unaffected dry bass signal, as said a chorus (and not the "TriChorus", just the regular one), or maybe a vibrato effect, but dialed in to only deliver a very subtle effect, and not a chorus or vibrato placed after the Sub'N'Up pedal that would then be applied to the summed "dry unaffected bass signal + 1 octave up signal". As said though I don't have the modulation in the custom Toneprint I made and use activated, as I personally prefer how it sounds it without modulation, as that as far as I am concerned sounds more natural/less artificial.