Baloney Balderdash

Edit!!!: Updated the title to be more in line with the updated thread. Here's my "review": I just ordered a Harley Benton GuitarBass VS Vintage Series from Thomann, which essentially is a Squier Bass VI clone with a fixed bridge, which again is a 30" short scale 6 string bass, but tuned like a guitar, just 1 octave lower, and with typical guitar string spacing. This Harley Benton actually gets really good reviews, and Harley Benton instruments are generally known to be amazing value for the money. Also judging from reviews the quality control has improved since they started selling this model. Should arrive by the middle of next week. I plan on stringing it with gauge .080 - .060 - .045 - .034 - .026 - .018 (plain string) D'Addario XL nickle plated roundwound steel core strings, and tuning it to G standard tuning, that is 3 half steps above regular E standard tuning, as in G1 - C2 - F2 - A#2 - D3 - G3. Will report back with pictures and my personal impression of it once it has arrived and I have had a chance to try it out properly.

Get a Boss LS-2 then. Of course that will take up extra space (if money is no issue One Control makes a clean blend effect looper in mini pedal format, and actually it's only a bit more expensive than the LS-2), but it'll get you a clean blend for the Orange Fur Coat, and as a bonus you can use it for other pedals too, or other stuff. Though personally I wouldn't miss a clean blend for that pedal.

Hate is a strong word, but yes, I really don't like it and don't think it is a great bass pedal. There are even some of EHX's own Big Muff variants that ironically, at least as far as I am concerned, sound better on bass. The clean blend switch on the Bass Big Muff also seems completely useless to me, like, in my opinion at least, they got the balance all wrong, as the clean signal is way to loud, which makes it sound like a dominating clean signal layer sort of laying on top of a background distorted signal, almost sounding like background noise from a faulty circuit, instead of the fuzz and clean signal actually blending together as one single signal, in my opinion they should just have added a regular clean blend knob that let you blend in as much or little clean signal as you liked. I might not be the best person to ask this question though as I generally don't really like Big Muffs, regardless of variant (though some do work slightly better for bass than others, as said the Bass Big Muff ironically not being one of those), for bass at all, they lack definition and kills all articulation, partially because of their baked in more or less scooped tone, depending on specific variant, but even if you do boost the mids that will only improve definition and articulation a slight bit, which will still be far too little, as far as I am concerned Big Muff type fuzz just inherently makes your bass sound like a muddy dull inarticulate definitionless mess. And it's not even because I dislike fuzz and high gain distortion applied to bass, I generally very much like it, I just don't like how Big Muff based fuzzes makes a bass sound. In my opinion this is how fuzz bass is supposed to sound: Indefinitely greater sounding than any Big Muff variant will ever be. When that is said I do actually in general really like how most Big Muff variants sound used with guitar. A guitar run through an OP Amp Muff is beautifully gnarly, through a Triangle Muff lovely gritty, and through a Ram's Head deliciously creamy and gloriously huge. On bass though, no matter the variant, a muddy dull inarticulate definitionless mess.

One of my absolute favorite albums "The White Birch" by Codeine : 00:00 - Sea 07:21 - Loss Leader 11:38 - Vacancy 15:16 - Kitchen Light 18:51 - Washed Up 23:27 - Tom 28:26 - Ides 33:32 - Wird 39:37 - Smoking Room

Lou Barlow :

Sounds like a pure nickle (not nickle plated steel) roundwound string set, eventual with round cores, instead of hex, as well, is what you are looking for. If memory serves me well I think DR got such a short scale set. From what I've read from people who tried or are using pure nickle rounwound strings they are basically going to sound like broken in, but not dead, regular nickle plated steel roundwound strings, that is as like when regular nickle plated roundwounds have settled down and lost their initial metallic zing, which is the sound you describe you are looking for, pretty much spot on. When that is said, from how what you say sounds to me, no matter how much you like the looks of it, your Höfner Club bass might not be the best option for getting the kind of tone you are looking for. They come with their own sort of baked in signature thumpy character, and there is only so much you can do to change that. If the primary function of a musical instrument is making music, which it usually will be, tone should always be prioritized over looks, as you can't hear looks. The way a bass is designed just happened to convey a specific tonal quality and character, some more than other, and in the case of the Höfner Club as well as Violin/Beatles basses the influence it's specific design has on the tone of it is fairly unique and pretty pronounced, and I suppose somewhat of an acquired taste.

Can't remember if I posted this before or not : I. Nothing Left to Die 00:00 II. The Banishment 05:09 III. Obsidian Night 11:27 IV. Separated at Birth 14:10 V. Son of Yule 17:31 VI. Warrior Woman 21:39 VII. Equinox Suite: The Poison Pit 25:49 VIII. Equinox Suite: Thawing Magus 30:09 IX. Equinox Suite: Invocation Pt. 1 34:03 X. Equinox Suite: The Damned and Divine 35:52 XI. When the Raven Calls (anti-war Bobb Trimble cover) 40:54 XII. Stone Evil 44:50 One of my absolute favorite doom albums, and the "The Basnishment" being one of my absolute favorite doom tracks.

Well, no guarantee you'd like the Oxford Sound better, it does sound different, but in my personal opinion better, and as said the range of the controls, EQ points and how they overall reacts and interacts seems to work better for bass as well, at least as far as I am concerned. To me it seems like it is a better pedal all together, and especially for bass, but all that means nothing if the American Sound fits you personal preferences better. Though regardless I'd say that you should definitely try it out, not sure about the return policy of the shop where you bought it, but in any case I would think you most likely would find a good use for it, even if it turns out not to be an improvement to you over the American Sound, if not as a preamp then at least as an overdrive or distortion, cause the overdrive and distortion tones is something else in this too, on bass at least, can get really snappy and grindy. If you liked the Joyo Orange Juice or just like Orange type amps and the drive of them in general I am pretty certain though that you are going to love the Oxford Sound. Like the Orange Juice is to the Oxford Sound what those taste samples you sometimes get in supermarkets is to a full portion/meal prepared of/with the product, to be consequent and stick with the food analogy, not exactly an expert in soufflés though.

Just got mine earlier today, and have now had a chance to try it out properly, and I can only agree with what is said here: Wouh, amazing, works exceptionally well with bass, as does the EQ, mind you'll have to turn up the Low EQ a bit and the High slightly down for it to work optimally, but on the other hand all the EQ points seems to be just perfectly chosen to make the right adjustments and to give a wide variety of tones, at least when used with bass, and it sounds really punchy, snappy and vibrant. I also think the range of clean, cleanish, overdriven and distorted tones available with the Drive knob works really well with bass. Joyo really nailed it with this one, seems a step above all the other Joyo Tech 21 amp emulation preamp clones in the Sound series. Deserves more attention though, in my opinion it beats the American Sound which unlike the Oxford Sound, so far at least, have received a lot of attention and praise, and while that is without doubt a great pedal too, in my opinion the Oxford Sound is even better.

Can't wait for mine to arrive. With a bit of luck I'll have it tomorrow with the mail, more likely and at latest Wednesday though. You noticed any difference in how the Voice knob control works on this pedal compared to the other pedals in this series, as I mentioned in my previous reply having read some people mentioned on the internet, and if so, could you then perhaps in explain in what way (from what I gathered something about turning it above noon not only boosts the upper mids but also tightens the bass response somehow)?

Jesu Død En skikkelse lå der på bakken Så vond at de blomster rundt visnet En dyster sjel lå der på bakken Så kald at alt vann ble til is En skygge da falt over skogen Da skikkelsens sjel visnet bort For skikkelsens sjel var en skygge En skygge av vondskapens makt And for once Google translate actually did a pretty decent job (I corrected a few words though): Death of Jesus A figure lay there on the ground So woeful that the flowers around withered A gloomy soul lay there on the hilltop So cold that all water turned to ice A shadow then fell over the forest As the soul of the figure withered away For the soul of the figure was a shadow A shadow of the power of evil

Sucks... Hope you get it soon. And yeah, agree, as said, the demo sounds very promising, I am so much looking forward to get and try it out. I planed on definitely getting one at some point anyway, but it was that demo that made me decide I couldn't let it wait any longer and that I absolutely had to order one immediately. Should have mine sometime by around the middle/end of next week, since we run into the Easter holidays now. I'll be sure to report back with my experience with it, as soon as I have had the chance to try it out properly.

Finally got down to order one of these yesterday from Thomann. I am a bit surprised there haven't actually been more talk about this pedal. I at least look very much forward to trying it out. This demo of it on bass sounds very promising (even if I wish he would have demonstrated a bit more cleanish/lightly overdriven mids heavy settings, since that Is what I count on be using it for) : What are people who actually got this pedal already's experience with and verdict over it? Does anyone use it as a cleanish/lightly overdriven preamp? I've gathered from people on the internet that the Voice knob allegedly is supposed to work a little differently from how it works on the other pedals in this series, is there anything to that, and in what way exactly?

I. Nothing Left to Die 00:00 II. The Banishment 05:09 III. Obsidian Night 11:27 IV. Separated at Birth 14:10 V. Son of Yule 17:31 VI. Warrior Woman 21:39 VII. Equinox Suite: The Poison Pit 25:49 VIII. Equinox Suite: Thawing Magus 30:09 IX. Equinox Suite: Invocation Pt. 1 34:03 X. Equinox Suite: The Damned and Divine 35:52 XI. When the Raven Calls (anti-war Bobb Trimble cover) 40:54 XII. Stone Evil 44:50

Not really. Compressing a signal will effect the transient, sustain and frequency content of it as well. Turning down the volume will just, well, make it quieter.

Drop that 0, and get yourself a hero!

Yes, it's an amazing compressor pedal, insanely tweakable. You can basically get any possible compression sound out of this. Though in my opinion it does require of you to take the time needed to dial in your own custom settings in the Toneprint editor for this pedal to be worth anything, I didn't like any of the pre-made basic templates as they were or artist Toneprints. If you do though it's one of the absolute most versatile and customizable compression pedals on the market. The Toneprint editor really allows you to tweak every imaginable useful parameter to exactly how you prefer it, making it possible to get the exact spot on compression effect you desire.

Les Claypool, from Primus, and John Lennon’s son, Sean Lennon, and their psychedelic progressive rock project :

Opener from Low's album "Secret Name" :

From Low’s album “Secret Name” :

Ah, I see. I wasn't aware of that. But guess the reasoning being that with such a narrow board people would only have a single line of pedals? Sucks regardless though. But good you found a solution to the issue.

I've had no problems with raising the feet at the back end of my pedal board to a fitting angle, I think you might be doing it wrong. The idea is having the nut tighten against the lower ledge of the back of the pedal board, holding the bolt that the feet are attached to in suspense and fixed where you set them. Works perfectly fine. You just need to tighten the nuts instead of the bolts, the bolts doesn't have to go all way in bottomed out. Hold the bolt at the length you want it and then tighten the nut while keeping a form hold on the bolt. Sort of clamping the nut against the lower back ledge, holding the bolt in place where you want it. This is by the way how my Harley Benton SpaceShip 80 looks currently:

So by a whim I decided to order a Mosky XP Booster, which is a clone of the Xotic EP Booster, that I just received with the mail today, but after experimenting with different placements in my signal chain, as well as minor adjustments of the gain of my other always on pedals, including trying out how leaving some out all together, to counter the slight volume boost that comes with this pedal engaged, even with the boost knob at minimum position, I concluded it was no good for my setup. I mean the thing is everything it is advertised to be, seriously fattens up the tone and adds a certain extra vibrant dimension of presence and life to it, just that in my case it worked something like drowning a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate mouse in the middle in chocolate sauce, just turning everything into a mush, a delicious sounding mush for certain, but non the less mush, just drowning any sense of definition and articulation in the process. To let people know the context I already send the signal from my 28.6" tenor bass, tuned to G standard tuning, 3 half steps above regular 4 string E standard tuning, though following always on secret souse units: a TC Electronic SpectraComp, dialed in with a customized Toneprint to add extra punch, snap and bite, but without effecting playing dynamics much, and mixed with parallel clean signal, then going into a Boss LS-2 that mix parallel clean signal with a low gain overdrive from a Joyo Orange Juice, stacked into another LS-2, that mixes another Joyo Orange Juice, dialed in to a low gain overdrive, with parallel clean signal, and then into my Zoom G1Xon with an always on patch consisting of a very subtle plate reverb stacked into a subtle spring reverb, then after that an EHX Black Finger, used as a tube preamp stage, with the optical compression circuit practically dialed out of the equation, dialed in to mild tube breakup, and finally into an Art Tube MP Project Series tube preamp, also dialed in to a mild tube breakup. I don't really know what I expected to happen, I was already extremely satisfied with my tone, and it already sounded gloriously full, vibrant and present, I guess I just hoped I could somehow take that up yet another nudge, without even being able to imagine what that nudge could possibly be, and I do think the Mosky XP did in fact deliver just that, it's just that adding more air to a perfectly inflated balloon doesn't equal an even more perfectly inflated balloon, but in fact rather in best case a way too bloated balloon, in worst case a balloon blown to pieces. Adding yet another always on secret sauce pedal just happened to be what tipped the balance from deliciously tasty to obnoxiously nauseous. Simply too much of the good stuff. Of course this is a horrible analogy of what really happened, I guess what actually happened was the signal getting over saturated and cluttered with added and enhance harmonic content, in other words an already perfectly full sounding signal getting too fat and bloated. However I can still absolute recommend the Moksy XP Booster to anyone who actually are in need of fattening up their signal and adding an extra vibrant dimension of presence and life to their tone. One should probably be aware though that what it adds is pretty far from as subtle as the various YouTube demos featuring it might otherwise suggest.