Baloney Balderdash

So you did prove me wrong, and I am happy you did so. I apologize for assuming you had ill intentions. Sometimes assuming the worst is wise, other times it's just a jerk idiot move with nothing to justify it but lack of information to prove your absolutely worst assumptions wrong, which is not exactly right or particularly nice or charming, to say at least. Guess in the end I proved to be the jerk here, sorry. However I still doubt I'd like the Alpha Omega based on the demos I've heard of it. In fact not particularly fond of any of the Darkglass stuff I've heard, and that is not to be a contrary marmalade sandwich, it just happens to not fit my personal preferences for distortion. As for the California Sound, I am not sure if this is a fault of the Joyo version, but used for bass, unlike it's more smooth tone used for guitar, it kind of has this rough, sort of brutal crackling/growling breakup that I quite like, beside in this context really mostly used as an extended EQ section for the Rat.

In that case I totally misunderstood your post, I perceived it as a reply to my OP, which you did mention (which I guess is how the misunderstanding happened to me), though I guess you did in fact not actually quote it. It's all fine with me, guess I just misunderstood your intentions with that post. Still I do genuinely appreciate you introducing me to new music that I didn't know existed, even if it wasn't meant for me personally, or that I didn't love everything about it. It was however still an interesting listen and take on the genre.

Doesn't seem to be able to find a way to include a quote in an edit of a post, so sorry for the double post. I didn't really take it as you guessing where I was going with my project, just you listing/suggesting examples of similar approaches, which is perfectly fine, always happy to be introduced to new music I wasn't aware of the existence of, even if it happens to not be love at first listen. I was just trying to explain which direction I was thinking of going with my project, which seemed to pretty much be perfectly in line with you listing/suggesting examples to me. Especially since you seemed to slightly mistake the topic of this thread for also being the main topic of the project I put it in a context with. Calling my project stoner rock might even be somewhat misleading, but put together with the other musical categories I listed (progressive psychedelic stoner rock) I think it is still more describing for what I am trying to create than if I had just made up my entire own word for it, which no one then would have any chance of getting an idea of what would imply. I appreciate your input and thanks for the music.

I kind of doubt that. Doesn't sound very Rat like to me. Also not too fond of cheeky patronizing comments, lots of truly great music was made on crappy cheap equipment, though cheap doesn't necessarily mean it will also sound crappy. Or that crappy sounding gear can't sound good put in the right context for that matter. At least not if you know how to use it properly and actually use your ears. Not apologizing for being poor here, just raising my voice against rich people who somehow thinks it makes them better persons. As for OM I can only agree, but as I said this is not going to sound like OM at all, just more in that direction than the other example of bass driven stoner rock posted. As I tried to describe it: I guess kind of think very early Pink Floyd but with the musical aesthetics of the band Low, then put that into a more stoner and metal type of music context with some progressive attributes, and with the instrumentation I have in mind utilizing, if that makes sense. Just to use known examples to hint in the direction I am going. Calling it stoner rock might even be somewhat misleading, but put together with the other musical categories I listed (progressive psychedelic stoner rock) I think it is still more describing for what I am trying to create than if I had just made up my entire own word for it, which no one then would have any chance of getting an idea of what would imply. I guess being original doesn't necessarily mean you will get popular. I'd rather stay original though, thank you. That's not to say that you are not allowed to like the snips of bass lines for the songs of my project where I utilize high gain distortion that I will post at some point though, as promised. In fact I kind of hope you will prove my assumptions wrong, based on what that comment of yours seemed to insinuate to me, the world already got way too many jerks as it is.

To start with the music you posted, I wasn't aware of the existence of this band, but I actually quite like the music, though the vocals kind of ruin it for me, but that is just me, I am pretty picky about music. Also pretty far from the kind of music I have in mind for my project, though it won't exactly be traditional stoner rock either, but in a way more minimal and far less chord based way, and perhaps more experimental way too. Although it's not going to sound like OM at all either, it will be considerably closer to that kind of thing, than the example you posted. Here's one of my favorite tracks by them, though this is not from their early days where the instrumentation was really almost exclusively consisting of just bass, drums and vocals, since a lot more has been added into their sound, as in this one: Also while a simple loud ultra distorted setup no doubt would generally likely work great for bass driven stoner rock type music, it wouldn't really work either for what I have in mind. While my high gain distortion will definitely be one of my more used effects it won't exactly be a predominant effect that will be on by by far most of the time. And as for how it sounds I kind of found what worked for me, with my setup and the type of music I had in mind creating, by a lot of trial and error and not least using my ears, there wasn't really much acoustic theory involved in my experiments, so theory is really not something I am concerned about, I set it up this particular way because it is what sounds good and works for/to me, so kind of don't care about people telling me reasons why it works poorly in theory when my ears tells me a completely different story, after all it's music I am working with, not theoretical science. As for your suggestion of using an octaver, I did indeed originally, and when I wrote the OP run my bass signal through an always on octave effect, giving an effect somewhat similar to that of an 8 string octave bass, with pairs of bass and octave strings, but recently discovered that unless I wanted to go down the road of running the octave up signal in completely separate chain and use separate effects for that, which would evolve into more of a step dance of turning pedals on and off, I actually got better results just keeping to my plain bass tone, of course then combined with the other effects I use for it. Even though this will mainly just be my bass, played clean, overdriven, distorted and through various mod effects and delay at times, drums/percussion and vocals, with some extra more sparingly added instrumentation and ambient effect, exclusively having a more flavor oriented function, the octave up just kind of sounded messy and not just right when run through effects, even if I actually managed to get a pretty clean, extremely low latency, fairly natural sounding octave up tone, without any glitches or digital artifacts, using the Toneprint editor EQ options of my Sub'N'Up Mini, and to be honest I discovered I kind of even liked my clean bass tone more without the added octave as well. Also I did in fact start out using a 5 string Mikro bass for this project, also with the lowest note being a F#1, as on my 4 string, but with an added upper D3, but as I found I rarely really utilized the extra upper register in my compositions anyway, and kind of liked playing my 4 string better, as well as I actually also really liked the very idea of it just being a regular 4 string bass, even if tuned 2 half steps above regular 4 string, E standard, tuning, that keeping things fairly minimal aspect again coming in play, I settled for just using my beloved 4 string Mikro. I do in fact have a pretty clear idea of where this is going, even if I am still just working on the bass parts for the songs so far, but I guess they are going to play the lead tole anyway too. Something about a fairly minimal sound, with few things going on at the same time, a lot of space, but quite melodic and with the actual sound/tone of what is going on playing a big part, hence why I also use quite a fairly wide array of effects for my bass, and I guess the progressive aspect mainly comes in with the fact that my riffs just often happens to turn out to be in odd time signatures and that it often seems to want to shift over the course of a song. I guess kind of think very early Pink Floyd but with the musical aesthetics of the band Low, then put that into a more stoner and metal type of music context with some progressive attributes, and with the instrumentation I have in mind utilizing, if that makes sense. I did end up making some changes to my overdrive and distortion setup too though, as a natural part of things that kind of worked for the fake 8 string "octave" bass tone not working quite as well for just a regular bass tone, but it's really fairly minimal EQ adjustments mostly, as well as I ended up running my Rat clone in Turbo mode, instead of Vintage mode, and turned up the gain of the California Sound overdrive it goes into a bit, but I am fairly confident that I pretty much got my rig in it's final form now, likely only with maybe fairly minor changes happening at some future point when I get closer to start the actual recordings. One thing I will try to add though is a Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz (generally praised, but super cheap, Boss FZ-2/Univox Super Fuzz, octave fuzz, clone) that I should get in the mail tomorrow, and that I am going to experiment with how will sound on it's own mixed with clean and eventually which of my other dirt pedals it will work mixed or stacked with, as a third kind of dirt flavor, might not turn out working at all for this, but I'll make a serious attempt to get it worked in at least, before eventual deciding if I am going to keep it as part of my setup for this project.

I can totally see how Double Negative could throw off some classic Low fans, on the other hand knowing where they come from music wise and some of the music they love it isn't that much of a surprise really, and as said, there is still something about it that only Low could make, something very unmistakingly Low about it, even if so radically different in other ways from especially their earlier music. Guess you need to love experimental and noisy music to really love it, which I happen to do (just try to listen to some of my experimental dark drone/ambient linked to in my signature and you'll understand, even if you likely won't like most of that either). Admittedly after my first entire listen through of the album I was left with a sense of great disappointment, even if I loved the early single "Dancing and Blood", and kind of found "Quorum" intriguing as well, which I both heard priorly, so kind of know where you are coming from. But then something strange happened on my second complete listen through, which by the way was straight ahead following right after my first listen through, it was like something in me all of a sudden had made a complete 180 degrees turn, like the music made me drop all parades of preconception and suddenly I was deeply in love with the whole album, and that feeling kind of only grew from there for every following listen. Like the point of the album was completely lost to me on my first entire listen through, but that I then all of a sudden understood it it perfectly clear at the second entire listen though. There are other Low albums that took a while for me to appreciate in their entirety, but far from the way this one worked on me, going from complete disappointment to sudden deep love, in a matter of 2 listen throughs, following directly right after each other. Quite a strange experience. Never happened this way with any other music before, usually it is something that either happens immediately at the very first listen, or more often, I find at least, something that fairly slowly just grows on you, from kind of indifference, kind of like a "Nice track, but it doesn't really speak to me personally" thing, but then slowly growing on you the more you listen to it, sometimes ending up with genuine true love, some of my absolute favorite songs were like that, but with this it was just going from true disappointment and mildly dislike to all of a sudden absolute love, like if something had clicked an emotional switch in my head. Though I do suppose it is one of those albums that you either don't get at all and hate, or totally get and absolutely love. I guess all I can do is assure you that the entire Double Negative album in fact is genuine great musical art, and hope you'll be able to get it at some point as well. I never really managed to get to truly appreciate "C'mon" and "The Invisible Way" as albums, even if there are a few songs from those albums that I like a lot, still non of my otherwise many absolute favorite Low songs are from those two albums, which otherwise there seem to be some of on just about every other album Low made, topping with my 5 absolute favorite Low albums of course, that I mentioned in my previous post.

It's not just you, and in fact I did mention and acknowledge that in my OP, and I did in fact conclude it by encouraging people to post audio clip examples and with a promise to do so myself at a later point. When that is said I don't actually think posts without audio clips are in fact totally useless, but actual may still be of some real interest and inspiration for some people. After all people post claims about how awesome this or that effect, bass or amp is, on this as well as just about any other similar internet forum, all the time, without backing it up with sound clips, and that without anyone pointing it out as being an issue.

First time I heard it too, just before I posted it, and Low happens to be one of my absolute favorite bands, if not single most favorite band of all. My favorite albums with them is without competition the hat-trick they made in the late 90's/early 00's with "Secret Name", "Things We Lost in the Fire" and "Trust", together with their debut album "I Could Live in Hope" from 1994, as well as their most recent one, "Double Negative" from 2018. All those 5 albums are genuine equally great master pieces as far as I am concerned, though Low never really made an album that wasn't at least just good, and at least still had a few truly great songs on it. Even if "Double Negative" in some aspects is radically different from what could be considered classic Low, though in other aspects unmistakably still very Low, I absolutely love it to pieces, in my opinion that album is fully up there on level, or even perhaps slightly above, the other albums that I personally consider true Low master piece classics. To me it was like "Ones and Sixes", which is a great album as well, if though not quite on the same level of greatness as the 5 personal favorites I mentioned, was kind of a come back turning point for Low, after, in my opinion, a couple of weaker albums, here I am thinking "C'mon" and "The Invisible Way", that while not exactly bad albums, and while they did still feature a few truly great songs, for me was far from the usual amazingly high Low standards, to the point where I began to be concerned that they might have lost their magic touch. These 2 songs are some of my personal favorites from "Double Negative", and 2 out of many many of my absolute all time favorite Low songs:

Balanced tension when talking strings usually means approximately equal tension, as in balanced, not spot on straight dead on equal tension in numbers, but pretty much in feel. With the kind of tension differences like for instance in the set I mentioned you practically won't actually feel any tension difference when fretting, bending e.t.c in your fingers/hand. You might call it balanced tension feel instead if you please and it bothers you that the numbers are not exact matches. If you were to make a set where the tension numbers were straight dead on equal you'll end up with some pretty odd string gauges, so I guess they just settled for it actually feeling as if they were exact equal tension instead, which is what really should matter anyway, so they wouldn't have to fabricate all sort of special custom odd gauge strings, just to soothe people's OCD rather than fingers.

My current 4 string set of D'Addario XL Nickle Plated Steel Roundwounds, tuned in F# standard tuning, as in 2 half steps above regular E standard tuning, on my 28,6" scale Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass I deliberately chose to be pretty balanced: .040 - A2 string = 28.90 lbs .055 - E2 string = 30.92 lbs .075 - B1 string = 31.20 lbs .095 - F#1 string = 27.73 lbs Really just a standard short scale D'Addario EXL 220S, Nickle Wound, Super Light, 40-95, set, with the .060 string (usually tuned D2, but in my case E2), swapped out with a seperately bought single .055 string. And it actually works really well, plays, feels and sounds great. But honestly not that much of a real difference from just using the usual much higher tension standard .060 string. The 40-95, Super Light, EXL220 set is one of their most tension balanced sets already though, even if they do actually offer a .040 - .055 - .070 - .095 set, called EXL 220BT too, actually labeled as a balanced tension set, where the .070 string, in my situation, tuned to B1, would have a tension of 27.53 lbs, technically not really all that much more balanced than using a .075 string from the regular EXL220 set instead, compared to the average tension of the other strings, I just personally prefer it to have slightly higher than average tension, instead of slightly lower than average tension, hence my choice. Using D'Addario's online string tension calculator "String Tension Pro" : http://web.daddario.com/StringTensionPro/

Admittedly I did let my assumptions get the best of me there, and as it often is with assumptions they turned out to be a bit hit and miss, rather randomly, and mostly misses in this case it seems. I apologize for that. And no, I haven't actually got any first hand experience with any of those units, but as far as I can tell from the controls and manual of the Tech21 DP3X the build in crossover does in fact leave an empty gab somewhere in the mid frequency spectrum, weather you then chose to call it breathing space, room for improvement or Harry Fonder's imaginary unborn son from an alternate universe. Strictly though, as I haven't actually tried it in person, I can't really say exactly how it would actually work in real use, but I can only imagine that it likely could turn out to respectively either be just the right thing or potentially ending up exposing more or less of an issue, depending on the context. The demos I've watched featuring it admittedly actually sounded quite good, even if it still didn't seem to be a pedal I likely personally would have much use of. Regardless Tech 21 certainly do offer a wide range of very interesting products, some of which I personally wouldn't mind owning either, though the 3 you mention is not among those I am glad they work for you. Yes, indeed this thread was intended as a place to share people's personal experience with, thoughts about and solutions to utilizing dirt effects in their bass setup, mainly high gain distortion, I guess I just misinterpreted your initial post pretty badly, and kind of let my assumptions take the lead from there and onwards, sorry about that. I am actually kind of intrigued by the Oxford and the Leeds pedals from the old Tech 21 Character series of analog amp emulators/preamps, though those two specific ones unfortunately have been discontinued, and the clone version that Joyo makes of the Oxford one, the Orange Juice, even though I love it, they chose to size down considerably for some reason, and in that process shaved down the 3 band EQ section of the original to just a standard Tone control, though they did keep Character control, just labeled Voice instead on the Joyo clone, and to my knowledge no clones exist of the Leeds. I could also possible see myself potentially having use of the Geddy Lee YYZ Preamp in a more regular band context, if I should ever find myself in such again, quite liked the demos I watched featuring it, and the SH-1 Steve Harris Signature pedal kind of temps me as well, though in the end I would probably end up finding alternatives elsewhere that would be better suited for my taste and needs. For one the new Trace Elliot Transit B preamp would have much higher priority as part of a possible future ampless rig, as I absolutely love that classic Trace Elliot tone, and then pared with some sort of decent cab simulator with the option for using third party IR's. But really for now I am actually genuinely satisfied with the rig I got, honestly can't say that I can imagine any obvious improvements to how my bass, pickup, pedal effects, amp and cab sounds and works for me, seems to really meet all my expectations and needs, at least for that solo project I mentioned in my OP that I am currently focusing on, and that even if the majority of my bass rig consists of relatively cheap gear. Can't exactly say that I found the cure for GAS though, or managed to break the illusion of the much greener grass on the neigbor's lawn, so there will always be that perpetual persistence itch that scratching will only sooth momentarily, though I think the most sensible thing to do in my current situation gear wise would be just to keep what I got now, and then as the next thing aim to get, well first a proper pedal board to mount my pedals on, as I always have just carried them around in a bag, and then as part of the same pursuit to improve ease of transportation and free mobility of my gear, just get a good preamp to my liking, as well as a quality cab sim to go with it, in order to make it possible for me to carry everything I need for jams and eventual gigs on my person, making a gigbag for my bass, a shoulder bag for my pedal board, and eventual a backpack for additional pieces of gear, all I really will need in order to transport my entire rig, freeing me from being dependent on available car rides and the struggle of having to carry and set up heavy amps and cabs. Well.... That kind of wen't far far off topic. I guess the essence though was just an apology to you for letting my assumptions get the best of me, somehow mysteriously straying off into the spinoff conclusion that I already got everything I really need, and if I am being perfectly honest with myself actually even genuinely love how works for me too, so instead of continuing to pursuit the illusion of imaginary improvements, that ultimately will just conclude in disappointments and utter waste of money, I really ought to instead focus on investing in utilities that will make the gear that I already own easier and more practical to use, as in improve mobility of it, easing setup and transport.

You obviously didn't bother to read my admittedly quite wordy OP. The fact is that there's an area somewhere in the mid frequency spectrum that the crossover of the DP3X simply doesn't cover, no matter how you set it there will always be that gab with no signal, but as I also pointed out that isn't necessarily a bad thing and might even be desirable in certain situations, but regardless of weather it will be a desirable effect in the context you plan to use it in or expose an issue for you in a different context I think it really is a piece of information people should know about this unit before buying it. The fizzy highs will be on your own account entirely, I mentioned that absolutely nowhere. Neither did I say anything about any kind of ponies. But if you had bothered reading my OP I actually think you would probably had been able to understand that with my bass as the primary and often only driving melodic instrument, beside vocals, in the specific context that I use it, I would personally most of the time want my bass to fill out as much sonic space as possible, as there would by far most of the time be literally no other instruments to really leave any sonic space to, beside drums and percussion. No need to get offended because the approach you use, that I by the way have no doubt works perfectly well for the music you play, wouldn't work as well in the context of the music I happen to play. It seems to me like you are suggesting that there is only 1 right way to approach this that will work absolutely perfectly and flawlessly in any possible given situation and context, and to be frank with you to me that seems like pure utter nonsense. Non of the pedals you suggested can do and even less sound anything like the setup I use and described in my OP, that is not to say that they are somehow bad pedals in any possible way, or that everyone else should do exactly the same as I did, and will have no use of those other pedals, that is just to say that those pedals won't do what I need them to do and that what I did is what works for me in the context I happen to use it in.

Well, as I wrote I am not a subscriber to the otherwise very popular clean bottom/distorted top end solution, and have somewhat other specific needs regarding high gain distortion tone, partially due to how I tend to use my bass. The units you mentioned are fine options for someone who are after that type of dirt effect though. One should probably be aware though that the Tech21 DP3X, due to how the build in crossover works, kind of leaves a hole in the mids, neither filled out by clean or distorted signal, which might or might not expose an issue, or even be a desired feature, depending on what it is you are aiming to achieve and the context it is used in.

Have you managed to get at least close to what you believe might be the ultimate high gain bass distortion setup, and would like to share how you approached it, or do you just want to share your general thoughts about this topic, then this thread would be a chance to do so. I for one think I may have found the ultimate high gain distortion tone for me, at least for the musical project I am currently working on . I know that these days it seems popular to split you bass signal up in a lower clean register and a parallel upper frequency register distorted signal and then mix the 2 signals together, or even use a separate wet and dry rig to do so, but personally I don't really subscribe to that recipe. As an example of a professional bass player who doesn't use this approach either I know Lou Barlow from Dinosaur Jr. doesn't either. As far as goes for his heavy overdriven tone, which in my opinion sounds awesome, at least live he overdrive both his lows and highs and then leave his mids clean, though he doesn't exactly isolate the specific frequencies either, starting by splitting his bass signal up in 3 separate parallel paths, one path going to an overdriven Xotic Bass BB Preamp boosting a Ampeg SVT, for kind of his lower register overdrive tone, then a second path going to an old solid state mids heavy Peavey bass amp, which he runs clean for his sort of mid frequency tone, and finally a third parallel path runs his bass signal through an overdriven Marshall JCM 800, for a more upper frequency emphasized overdrive tone . All 3 signals just kind of mixed and overlapping a lot frequency wise, without any kind of fancy crossover or further EQ filtering going on, just as they come out of the separate cabinets of the 3 amps, and the result os an absolutely crushing, yet quite well defined, fairly heavy overdriven main bass tone. Anyway back to the topic of my personal take on heavy bass distortion, as said, I think I finally managed to nail the perfect tone for me. Mind though that this is specifically for a sort of progressive psychedelic stoner rock project of mine that I am currently working on some songs for, and since the plan is for my bass to be the main instrument of this project, with the additional primary instrumentation predominantly consisting of just drums/percussion and vocals, though with some more sparingly added extra instrumentation that exclusively is going to serve a secondary, more flavor oriented, function, also the bass lines for this project typically won't primarily have a supporting function as otherwise is the most common traditional role of bass, but will serve a much more structural dominant and explicit melodic role, and doesn't necessarily strictly has to fill out the traditional sonic spectrum of a bass either, for one it is tuned 2 half steps above regular 4 string, E standard tuning, as in F# standard tuning, F#1 to A2, like the 4 lowest strings of an 8 string guitar, and is further more run through an always on polyphonic octaver, adding a 1 octave up effect in addition to the regular bass signal, giving an effect similar to that of an 8 string "octave" bass, with pairs of respectively bass and octave strings. This of course does give me some more freedom of choice regarding my high gain distortion tone, compared to if I needed to still primarily fill out the more common traditional role of a bass. What I managed to achieve is a massively heavy and absolutely thunderous crushing distortion tone with a quite raunchy fuzz-esque quality, but at the same time having a grinding somewhat clanky overdriven edge that actually prevents it from getting too muddy, despite a lot of low end heavy distortion going on, and which contributes to the distortion still having a great deal of well articulated definition. The first attributes to a Moksy Black Rat, Rat clone, in Vintage mode (classic Rat type distortion), with the gain turned about half way up (which would actually equal to a fairly high gain distortion tone), and the high end slightly rolled off, though still enough to give it some of that typical raunchy fuzz-esque grid of a classic Rat type distortion, stacked in front of a Joyo California Sound, which is a Tech 21 California preamp pedal clone, meant to emulate a Mesa Boogie type amp/drive, and which is fairly dark voiced, set to a medium gain but quite hefty kind of overdrive, both placed in parallel effects Loop A of my Boss LS-2 (parallel effect loops mixer/switch pedal), and the latter attributes to a Joyo Orange Juice, which is essentially a seriously sized down and scraped clone version of the Tech 21 Oxford preamp pedal, meant to emulate an Orange type amp/drive, set to a somewhat clanky and quite grinding kind of medium overdrive, placed in parallel effects Loop B of the LS-2. Loop A and Loop B is then mixed together at an about a 50/50 ratio, and actually kind of fusing relatively smoothly/seamlessly together, without ending up sounding like 2 distinctly different signals sitting on top of each other (which is kind of my biggest issue with how the popular clean bottom/distorted top approach often end up sounding), but as said, with the grinding, relatively bright sounding, medium gain overdrive from the Orange Juice preventing the quite bottom heavy, raunchy and fuzzy, high gain distortion from turning into a muddy blurry mess, but in fact actually ends up making it sound surprisingly well defined and articulate. I realize this is a lot of relatively abstract explaining, filled with more or less vague adjectives that people will have no possible chance to get any kind of verification of, but I hope it might still be of at least some interest and inspiration to some people, and I will try to pull myself together to actually record some audio samples of my miked up rig, demonstrating how this actually sounds in reality in the nearest future, and update this post with some links to the uploaded examples of my high gain distortion tone. In the meantime I hope others will contribute to this thread with their thoughts about and personal approach to high gain bass distortion, and even though I initially failed to provide any actual audio examples to back up my words, I hope others might be more capable of maybe delivering some audio clips or videos to back up their thoughts and claims on this topic.

Agree on all your points, except this: Absolutely not true in any possible way!!! ... Well, as far as I am concerned at least. To me this amp has a very full and meaty, yet really clear and punchy tone when set flat, and that goes for most of these old Trace Elliot amps really, in fact back when I owned this exact amp it was the absolute best bass tone I ever had (mind with some relatively insignificant minor adjustments of the build in graphic EQ, but essentially pretty much used flat), and I still regret selling it and ponder on getting another old Trace Elliot amp at some point. Personally even prefer it over the Ampeg B-15S 60W tube amp I also owned at some point, even if that no doubt was an amazing sounding amp as well, just in a completely different way. Also I for one absolutely hated the 2 terribly horrific and obnoxious sounding mid scooping pre-shape presets that you could activate on that Trace Elliot. Might in fact be the only truly bad thing I have to say about this amp, well beside it's monstrous weight, but hey, just don't activate the pre-shapes ever and you'll have an absolutely truly amazing sounding amp. No one ever sounded good with the mids scooped out of their tone, and that goes for both bass players and guitarists, in my opinion at least. I agree though that this amp isn't exactly anywhere near transparent but does add quite a bit of coloration to your tone, though I have a hard time imagining anyone not liking what it does to your tone, but apparently people who don't does exist, as the above quote from your post should be proof of. I for one absolutely love it. Also kind of doesn't agree that it won't be worth more than 100£, I mean they do go for quite cheap these days, and it would definitely be stupid to pay much more than what they typically go for for sure, but to me at least these old Trace Elliot amps are really worth much more than what they typically go for, some of the absolute best amps ever made, and the only issue they really got, as far as I am concerned, compared to today's standards is their ridiculous heavy weight, in every other aspect they are superior to most more modern amps on the market today, and certainly compared to similar priced amps.

Happy Birthday Ian, RIP.

So, what is your favorite delay pedal? Tell us a bit about it and why you like it. My absolute favorite delay pedal got to be the Nux Tape Core Deluxe, which is a truly amazing, but actually quite cheap (about 63 Euro / 59£), digital emulation of the legendary Roland Space Echo tape delay. Sounds absolutely amazing, and with the software editor you get access to all the features of the original tape echo unit, plus a handful of additional very useful ones. Only downside really (I guess some downsides have to come with such a cheap price), is that the quality seems to be somewhat inconsistent from unit to unit. Mine for example I discovered sucked my tone slightly, which though was fixed completely by the buffered pedal that I have sitting right in front of it in my signal chain anyway, as well as, even though every other settings dialed in with the editor was saved perfectly well to the individual respectively 7 modes of the pedal (representing the 7 possible combinations of the 3 tape play heads), just as they were supposed to, it refused to save the "Auto Tap" setting if activated (a setting that makes the pedal automatically detect every time you tap the foot switch more than 2 times in a row and make that your tap tempo, saving you for having to activate the tap function by pressing the switch down for 2 seconds first), which I managed to solve as well though, by downloading the Firmware Updater and Editor software again, even if it actually appeared to be the exact same versions as the ones I had previously installed. Also heard reports from some people having some noise issues with this pedal, which I think though was mainly an issue with some units out of the earliest batches of this pedal, and which seems to have been fixed with later versions. Also this is not exactly common issues, even if it does certainly seem that issues are considerably less rare with these pedals than usual with more expensive and generally acclaimed brands. But if you make sure to buy it from a company with good return policies it should really only be a minor annoyance that won't actually cost you anything but your time, and for the sound quality of the delay you get, if the pedal works as it is actually supposed to, which by far most of them in fact still does, for the relatively cheap price you'll have to pay for it, I'd say it's all absolutely worth it. In my opinion the Nux Tape Core Deluxe is simply the absolute best sounding delay effect in pedal form at any price class. Here's how it looks: And here's how the software editor looks: My preferred settings (this is for my bass setup, currently working on some songs for sort of a progressive psychedelic stoner rock solo project, which primary instrumentation is going to consist of just bass, drums/percussion and vocals, with the bass tuned in standard F# tuning, as in the 4 lowest strings of an 8 string guitar, 2 half steps above E standard tuning, and running the bass through an always on 1 octave up effect placed as the very first effect in the chain, mixed with the regular clean bass signal, giving an effect similar to that of an 8 string "octave" bass, with pairs of respectively bass and octave strings): Wow: 70 - Flutter: 70 - Bass: 38 - Treble: 38 - Saturation: 80 - Reverb: 14 And then I have the Auto Tap feature turned on, so I can just tap the tempo without having to repress the foot switch for 2 seconds first to activate it. Mostly using just Head 3, and without rhythmic note values synced, with the Mix control knob set at about 1 o'clock and the Repeat control knob set at about 11 o'clock. But I might find use for the other play head combinations and other settings at some point as well. Probably not going to ever use the SOS mode (the loop function that this pedal features as well) though, as I will probably get a dedicated looper pedal at some point anyway, but what a delay effect! Here's a couple of YouTube demos demonstrating it (on guitar though):

Out of those options the black looks best no competition. I am an incarnate tortoise hater, looks kind of smarmy in the cheap synthetic kind of way to me, sort of gets my associations falling in line with the absolute worst sides of typical 70's style (mind there were lots of cool things about the 70's too though in my opinion), as well as somewhat reminding me of a dirty and smelly old pub with a thick layer a nicotine and char from years of heavy smoking and far too little cleaning covering everything, including the heavily outworn and partly holed red leather covering the furniture, and accompanied by the pungent stench of urine from the, in line with the general sanitation of the place, rarely cleaned toilets and way too drunk customers persistently having failed to aim their golden bodily fluids in the direction of the devices designed for that purpose properly. Though if I had the option for freely choosing any pickguard for that bass I'd probably try out an anodized/oxidized copper or iron one. Or perhaps even an engraved brown or black leather one. Or how about a dark wooden one, a piece of thin ebony plywood perhaps, or maybe oil treated mahogany?

Well, 4 string basses actually cover a lot of ground. That is not to say that there aren't any real use for basses with 5, 6 or even more strings. 5 string basses actually even seem to be pretty common in certain forms of what I would call mainstream music, whereas 6 or more strings probably will remain a niche thing. And nothing wrong with that really, I for one mainly prefer non mainstream and music that would probably be considered pretty niche for most people. True innovation rarely happens within the mainstream anyway, and while that can be considered a fairly sad fact it's not exactly anything new. It's more or less always been that way really. And even if I don't consider myself belonging to the mainstream movement I still prefer playing my 4 string bass. Nothing wrong with that either really. Instruments are just tools after all, it's what you create with them that matters, and while a 6 string bass definitely got more potential possible uses than a 4 string, it doesn't necessarily mean it is automatically always the the better choice or that it in any possible way is always the right tool for everything. If you expect truly new ground to be covered within the mainstream you have seriously lacked paying attention to the music scene for ages. Just not going to happen, and if it does, be sure that they weren't even the first to do it, or even the best, they just managed to degrade it into a pop form, that's all. And while there are plenty of truly and genuinely amazing 6 string players if you dig a little, there will still be people who do just as amazing stuff on an old fashioned 4 string. The instrument is just a tool, what matters is the player, and if he or she happens to be a genuinely and truly great one he would be able to do amazing absolutely mind boggling stuff stuff on whatever instrument he prefers playing, regardless of the number of strings and amount of fancy advanced features it might or might not have. For instance I seriously doubt this would have been even greater if he had just used a 6 string bass:

Well, if you like that, then you are going to love the pick storage box I just invented. Depending on the thickness of the picks it can hold up to 10 picks at any given time. Unfortunately it doesn't have a hip brand name on it, but for just 15 Euro extra you can get your own name engraved by hand. Here the magnificent wonder box of pick holding is: And it can be yours for the ridiculous cheap giveaway price of just 45 Euro. And in all 100% genuine pure aluminium.

I always welcome more options for short scale bass choices on the market. Though I am not personally really in the market for a vintage specked short scale P bass, even if I converted to playing almost exclusively short scales long ago and I like the tones P pickups are capable of, but when that is said I think that headstock looks awesome, would far prefer it over a traditional Fender one, which to me has always come off as a bit bulgy and clumsy looking, regardless of the fact that I really prefer 2+2 kind of headstocks in the first place. I think that headstock looks absolutely great though, but I realize that is not to much use for you since you clearly have a completely different taste in aesthetics, at least when it comes to bass headstocks, than me. To me though that there is a vast improvement over Fender's headtstock design, and as far as I am concerned it fits the rest of the bass perfectly fine as well. To each their own I guess.

Adrian Belew Power Trio with monster female bass player Julie Slick and of course the legendary guitar wizard, former King Crimson member, Adrian Belew himself:

Just out of curiosity, anyone who also uses an always (or almost always) on 1 octave up effect to emulate an 8 string bass, or a real 8 (or 10) string "octave" bass as your main? Currently my main bass is an Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass with just a DiMarzio Model P pickup wired directly to the output jack socket, tuned 2 half steps above E standard tuning, as in F#1 to A2, which I run through an always on TC Electronic Sub'N'Up Mini octaver pedal,. which is set with a 1 octave up blended with the clean signal. Actually manged, thanks to the EQ'ing of the input signal that is fed to the octave engine and the processed output signal that the Toneprint editor allows for, to make the octave up tone sound pretty realistic without any digital artifacts whatsoever, just using the stock polyphonic octaver, on which the octave up signal has as good as perfect tracking and very short, almost unnoticeable, latency, and in my opinion already without utilizing the Toneprint editor sounds much more natural than for example the EHX POG pedals, which while also tracking as good as perfect with very short latency (and for some reason lower latency on the octave down signal than the Sub'N'Up), , has a somewhat organ or synth like quality to it. I use it as the main instrument for a progressive psychedelic stoner rock solo project I am working on at the moment, which instrumentation I plan predominantly to consist of just bass, drums/percussion and vocals.