admiralchew

I think it’s capable of a lot. One of the reasons I like it is it has proper tube tone because of the 12AX7, but the other features that made it worthwhile to me were the excellent switchable cabsims, headphone out and effects loop. Of the other preamps I’ve tried, I found it most similar to the Jad Freer Capo, in case that’s a helpful analogy. I find both fully featured, with a good natural tone that sounds even better with a bit of hair. Something like a Noble is cleaner but the SLO still sounds pretty good without the gain up.

Owing to my working hours I can't commit to being in a band (which is a shame given my brother's a good drummer) so this board is just used for whatever I want to play while practicing or jamming. I play a lot of heavy rock, metal, grunge and, more recently, doom. I try to play a bit of everything though because I just enjoy playing (or trying to play) bass. I've been on a bit of a Tool journey recently so I have a bit of a flanger obsession. The SLO can get very gritty so it covers most of the rock tones on its own, but the MBD-2, Parabellum, Calamity, Heliotropic and Life pedals are each their own flavour of dirty or destructive. I really like gain into flanger into delay so they each get playing time with the flanger setting on the Utility Knife and the Echosystem (again, Tool-tastic). My main aim was to replace my old practice board which had on it most types of pedals I could think of so I could try to adapt it to most things, even if not perfectly. This board more or less does that and the Element means I can play to my music using bluetooth too. Plus, I really like messing about with pedals and building pedal boards so putting together something quite big was a lot of fun.

Absolutely correct! It’s the only reasonable conclusion. I bought a 4003 specifically because I loved how the Ric sounded on this video. This video has a lot to answer for!

Thanks! It weights a ton though! I bought the SLO direct from Shift-line; I gather they are still shipping to the UK but I think you need to contact them directly. It’s one of my favourite preamps, particularly for the great cabsims they do) but it was worth getting a Cioks Crux to power it given its power-hungry 12v requirements. I’d been meaning to build a board around it for a while. The Rusty Box looks great too. I think they are being sold directly on Reverb again if I recall correctly and I think there is one in the classifieds. Although I know that just because they’re on sale doesn’t make playing them magically possible!

I posted my updated practice board a while back but I thought I'd provide an updated picture showing the two outboard pedals, the Mission EQD-1 that controls the Life pedal and the JC Wah. The two outboard pedals just plug into the patchbay (including, in the case of the JC Wah, for power). It's an aggressive board with a lot of dirt and gain but that's perfect for what I typically enjoy playing. It's portable too (if you have several strong friends willing to do you a favour).

I really love Thunderbirds (the basses, not the puppets, although that wasn’t bad). I wanted to play one after watching this video where the growl was just amazing: I know they aren’t everybody’s cup of tea but I found it really suited me. Mine is close to being my lightest bass and it sits in a really nice place when I’m seated (although I would have preferred the jack to be in a different place as I pluck with my right hand balance the bass on my left leg so it occasionally digs in). I play mostly 5-strings though so decided to take the plunge and order a Dingwall D-Roc 5 to see if that can give me the best of both worlds.

Oh that’s fantastic! It works so well! Cool colour for a bass too!

Yep, I collect headstocks and neck fragments. It’s much cheaper than buying full basses and easier to take photos of.

It’s not the best picture as it doesn’t quite capture how nice the ultra faded black is but it gives an idea. I was very tempted by an NS6XL recently but it seemed a bit daft to make the leap when this EuroLX is so good and I play a 6-string so infrequently. I’m sure the US-made basses must be in a different league but it’s difficult to see how they may be much of an improvement. Here’s the Bass Direct photo:

Haha, I'm doing my best! But it's the only 6-string I have! It sounds great too and has sustain for days. That said, 5-strings are more my thing so when I'm toying with whether to downsize the Spector springs to mind first (through no fault of its own).

Slightly OTT post, sorry. I’ve been wondering what this would look like for ages.

The Spite Box is really underrated. Great board as always!

I recently sold a pedal to Ordep and it was a quick and easy transaction with quick payment. Thanks! His pedalboard looks great to boot!

Possibly not in time for Christmas (although they are batched I think, so maybe) but the Triungulo Lab Barbanera is the funkiest, wettest filter I’ve used. The Broughton Josh Wah is well worth a look too (and should arrive from Canada in less than a couple of weeks). Broughton pedals punch well above their retail price.

I was using this as a pedal-testing board until recently (which is why there’s a slight gap between the Stomp and Element). It’s a Rockboard (2.1 I think) and has a Cioks DC7 underneath if I recall correctly.

That's an absolute beauty! Congratulations! The fingerboard looks phenomenal too. It's been blowing up on Instagram all week so I'm glad that it's not in Bass Freaks' store to tempt.

The BF-3 Flanger is my favourite Boss pedal. Do it!

I just listened to Bayou and Third of the First; both are right up my alley. Great stuff and massive tone! It reminds me of how thick the tone is in Raging Speedhorn’s Gush. I think I detect a decent amount of flanger too?

I’m a pedal obsessive, enjoy putting boards together, and collect pedals as well as use them. That probably puts me in the category of annoying pedal users but it’s something I really love and I’ve met some great people in the bass community all over the world because of it. The boards I put together are used for home recording so have to be fully functional - I’ve seen plenty of boards that look amazing but I’m not sure how easy it is to play a board consisting entirely of fifteen boutique synth pedals - but don’t necessarily have all of my favourites on. I used to have a big board of favourites but deconstructed it when I was moving last year. Since then, I’ve made a board of minis to see whether I could recreate my old big board in small format, a board of Broughton pedals which does basically everything I want a gigging/practice board to do, and most recently built a board with a lot of my favourites on again. Given how much I enjoy messing around with pedals I’m planning to put another themed board together and a couple of crazier boards with some of the collection pieces on. I always enjoy seeing the posts on here though seeing the different boards, seeing what people are using them for, and battling crazy GAS.

That’s great! I really like how clean it is. I’m worried about the answer if I ask how you got them lined up so straight? A ruler?

How do you like the latest MBD? I love the 2.

Probably none or maybe a few? I like pedals as works of art in their own right though so boutique pedals appeal to me. I had a board made up of MXR and Boss pedals that sounded good and I have a board made up of pretty, painstakingly hand built pedals that sounds good too. That said, the Doom 2 is more synthy than any fuzz I’ve tried, the Octabvre tracks superbly well and the deep switch sounds great, and the FX loop in the Chromatron allows for a lot of flexibility not always available on envelope filters. They may not sound so different to anything else live to substantially change how a song sounds but I’m always happy when I use them.

I love that board. EAE and Lusithand stuff is fantastic.

Haha, fair point. I just really like basses and pedals, both for what they do and aesthetically. They can be things of real beauty. That’s one of the reasons I really like @BillyBass’s rainbow collection. With apologies for derailing the thread, on the pedal front, I’m hoping to put together several boards and will put them on Basschat when they’re done. I’ve been periodically adding to this too to keep a record of some fantastic pedals: https://www.instagram.com/admiralchew/ Sadly, basses and pedals don’t make up for my lack of musical talent.