SumOne

I'd pick your time if buying new - a couple of months ago the Stomp was £399, now they seem to be £529 in most places - add extra footswitches/expression pedal and the cost and size creeps up. I've owned a Helix Effects and Stomp and was impressed but in the end they weren't quite for me. I think most mid-range individual pedals do their specific jobs better, and I prefer their separate controls. Depends how much you also want the less-used effects and routing options all in one box to make up for that though (I concluded that I was better off spending on a few decent 'core' individual pedals).

Yeah, a few reasonably priced or multi-functional pedals have been mentioned but plenty of people's favourites are quite specific effects and >£250 which I would have never considered buying a few years ago as there are £20 Behringer type options that get the job done perfectly well......I'm starting to convince myself that >£250 is reasonable though if it's a pedal that is better (for me) than all others for that particular thing and I'd want to keep it forever and would be hearing it's noise for 100s of hours (and they don't lose their value too much if something more shiny came along and caught my eye!).

I'd perhaps consider if one 'do it all' pedal is the best option. If I had no pedals and a £300 budget I'd get separate second hand pedals that could each potentially do their individual jobs better: - Practice tool: Zoom b1 four for home use (headphone, Aux in, drum machine, looper, and all the other occasional fx) (£50) And if you don't want to use that for live stuff and want other core microbass 3 things covered: - Tuner: A separate tuner has a more obvious screen. (I just got a Korg Pitchblack micro for £30) - EQ pedal. Potentially can do more than a 'do it all' pedal EQ, I just got a source audio EQ v1 for £70 which has 8 bands +-18dB that can be saved in 4x presets you can select by footswitch. - Compressor, could get something like a spectracomp second hand for about £50 which you could fine tune to your setup and stomp on/off when needed. - Distortion: Something like the Source Audio Aftershock for about £100 would cover more distortion sounds. - DI. Is it needed? Amps have DI out and if playing ampless then how are you monitoring? If it is needed there are cheap utity XLR DI pedals.

I kind of wish you hadn't said that as I was checking that pedal out earlier today as am looking for something that does the double-tracking and pitch bend type effect of the Digitech Luxe (which seems difficult to get hold of in the UK) but then saw the price tag and moved along. If it's also good for the low-gain too then perhaps I should re-consider!

I've been searching for a Digitech Luxe for the exact same reasons: I like the chorus 'thickening' by doubling of the signal with a slight de-tuned version but I'm not so keen on the modulation that chorus pedals also add - I find that gives a slightly seasick/drunken feeling. There are a few pitch shifting pedals and double-tracking pedals but I don't think they are quite the same effect as the Luxe. I usually end up running chorus pedals with minimum speed settings which sort of gets around it but ideally I'd like to get a Luxe because it gets rid of the modulation completely and gives precise control over how much it is de-tuned.

Traded pedals with Marcin via post so that takes a bit more trust on both sides than the usual buying/selling and it all went well with the pedal arriving when expected, as described, well packaged etc. Thanks!

Bought a pedal from Dan and it all went well - good communication, quick postage with good packaging, and it's all working as expected. Thanks!

I'm only asking so I can add them to my shopping list!

Yeah, I've owned a lot of source audio one series pedals and can't fault their sounds or versatility. My issue has always been the interface with that annoying little toggle switch & that little hidden 'alt' switch (or long hold footswitch), I wish they had a small Preset counter to scroll through (something simple like the Boss rc3, or zoom ms60) or like their EQ pedals where you can hold down the footswitch to scroll through a few presets. I'm hoping the next generation of one control pedals include something like that.

I've had Tinnitus for most of my adult life due to to clubbing and DJing, I invested in some quite good earplugs a few years too late and the Tinnitus at least doesn't seem to have got worse. Luckily I've got quite used to it so it doesn't annoy me too much - it's been so constant for so long that I only really notice it when I think about it (in the same sort of way that you only notice you're breathing when you think about it).

What pedals have ended your pedal search for that particular effect/utility? These are my favourites that I don't have any desire to change: Korg Pitchblack Mini. Does what it's supposed to do accurately and reliably in a small size, any smaller and it'd start being difficult to read or would move about when stomping it on. Acts as a mute too. I got rid of my old one when I got a multi-FX with tuner but have another one on the way now and will be keeping it multi-FX or not. FEA Opti-FET Compressor. Sounds good and has foot-switchable sidechain which I think is a fairly unique feature that I use a lot so I can't see myself wanting a different compressor. MXR Brown Acid Fuzz. I went through about ten different Fuzzes before landing on this one, it's all subjective but this is my favourite. And honourable mentions to: EBS DPhaser. The best Phaser I've used, lots of control for a variety of phaser tones and internal adjustability too. Ideally I'd like the internal switches to be accessible on the outside and for it to have individual clean/phaser volume controls but it does fine without and not many phasers seem to have that level of control. MXR M82: Have owned and sold three as I always think the next envelope filter will do more but I think for it's specific thing ('quacky' bandpass sweep up- good for slap or responsive quick stuff) the M82 is hard to beat and next time I get one I'll keep hold of it. One Control Crimson Red: A decent EQ and preamp combination or Amp & Cab sim gets very close, and having tapewound strings helps get close too - those things never seem to get quite as good though for that one very specific heavy 70s dubby sound. Again, next time I get one I'll keep hold of it! Saying that though, I've gone a bit mental with pedal buying/selling/trading over the last year and part of that is that I enjoy finding out their differences and it's probably about the journey as much as the destination so I'll probably always be changing things around a bit.

Welcome! Nice Bass, I've got a Sandberg California and in hindsight it would have saved me a fair bit of ££ and faff if I'd have just got it as my first Bass rather than building up to it. Like others have said - it's probably worth getting a few face-to-face lessons booked in. I only booked in for four but found them useful after a few months of playing because the tutor picked up on some technique issues like the fact I was doing unintentional string bends so I got rid of that before it became too much of a habit. Watching online tutorials wouldn't have pointed that out to me - I guess I would have realised eventually but those few lessons probably saved me a lot of time. He also recommended that I always play to a metronome or beat, which I think was good advice.

Sounds good, I'm now going the route of separate pedals (mxr brown acid fuzz and xotic robotalk 2) and an EHX Switchblade Pro to do series order switching/parallel/clean blend.

Good communications and pedal arrived as described and was posted quickly - all good. Thanks!

Nice one, I'd be star struck... And yeah, id be shocked if someone said Jimmy Cliff wasn't nice.

There's something really cheesy about that but Jimmy Cliff can get away with it with that voice (he's always had some cheesy tenancies!), I like it. An interview with him in the guardian yesterday: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/06/the-return-of-jimmy-cliff-rebel-spirit-is-still-in-the-jamaican-people

Faith No Ministry Pistols

Yeah it's similar to the BEF (x2!), I seem to remember that going a bit more extreme - more quack and resonant big peaks that could do with a compressor after it, the Robotalk is better behaved (not sure that's necessarily a good thing from a filter or not though)....it is possibly just down to me now using quite dark/thuddy tapewound strings though - I used steel strings when I had the BEF.

Quite a few pedal changes lately, I'm liking this lot: Switchblade Pro: Very useful - great if you've got a pedal with volume drops or needs a clean blend, or want to engage more than one pedal at once or bypass them completely when not in use, or want to change the order of pedals, or run pedals in parallel, or boost your clean signal...or probably more I can't think of right now! Loop A: Robotalk 2 - only got it today but first impressions are it's really good. 2x envelope filters in one and each channel has more control than a lot of singe envelope filter pedals have. EBS DPhaser - the best Phaser I've owned, lots of control (and quite a few internally adjustable controls) and lots of usable funky sounds. MXR Brown Acid Fuzz - my favourite fuzz. Loop B: Zoom B1 Four - only recently got this but so far I'm impressed, it's good value for money even if just using for Tuner + EQ + Chorus (the main things I wanted it for) but also includes Preamps, Looper, Drum loops, and FX like delay that I don't use often enough to need separate pedals for. Being in a Loop B of the Switchblade Pro means I can do things like use the Zoom for EQ ahead of pedals in Loop A, or use it after Loop A pedals to do things like add delay). VT Bass - Good tones and 6x presets to add the final stage of EQ or overdrive. I bypass it if using things ahead of it that I want completely unaffected (like the MXR Fuzz or some Zoom preamp settings), I'm not using the VT FX loop because if you bypass the VT presets it also bypasses the FX loop. I like the VT Deluxe but I think I might replace it with separate pedals to give more flexibility and to have a DI after the compressor: A dedicated foot-switchable programmable EQ (a Source Audio EQ v1 was for sale 2nd hand for £80), dedicated simple Preamp/Overdrive pedals (like the One Control pedals or the Solid Gold FX Beta which I already have but has been sidelined due to boardspace), and a simple utility type non-preamp DI after the Compressor. FEA Opti-FET Compressor - the best compressor I've used, footswitchable sidechain is great. I put it at the end of the chain as it adds a subtle bit of tone enhancing that gets lost if other things are after it.

Ah, that's a shame. I guess it's not such good value in that case.

If you could only choose one filter pedal - get one that gives you two! I just got the Xotic Robotalk 2 and it seems decent. Two bandpass filters that can be combined, each with independent footswitches, volume, decay, sensitivity, resonance, and there's a clean blend. (Ideally I'd like a up/down sweep switch, and low pass/bandpass switch...but that's probably being greedy).

As always from Harley Benton this looks like good value: (EDIT: Don't listen to me, check out the posts below from those that actually know!) https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_custom_line_bass_di_expander.htm?sid=cc29ebe2215ef12e2a2a0c2a4f34f245

Yeah that's all good, but it needs a separate DI box at the end - which is kind of what I'm concluding, that ideally I want separate footswitchable preamp/eq/od/effects/compressor pedals that I can turn on/off individually and use in different combinations, and a separate utility type DI that is always on at the end chain as it isn't any type of tone enhancer and works well with any combination being before it.

That sounds exactly what the VT Deluxe is great at. Something I've found useful is this post 10 years ago on talkbass by Tech 21: Nov 18, 2011#7 tech21nycCommercial User