SumOne

Are you using a stereo connector?

https://thepedalclub.co.uk/rent-effects-pedals-i416 £30pm per pedal subscription. I haven't used it though so can't say how good it is. Personally, I just take the p*ss with shop return policies. Or the amount of buying/selling/trading I do via basschat is pretty much a pedal exchange club!

Yeah, in an ideal world I would have both but I think budget and board space probably limits me to one or the other (although also have my eye on the Future Compact re-housing so that might help with board space - but not budget!). From what I can tell, the C4 is perhaps better for envelope filters and potential for stereo sound whereas the FI is a bit better at the Moog type synths and more in-depth editing? I've put my C4 up for sale which is perhaps a bit premature as I think I'll buy a 2nd hand FI (a couple for sale on here for similar sort of price to the C4) to test them side by side to hopefully whittle it down to one or the other.

@prowla I realised later that the B string was in-fact tuned to Bb (thought it felt & sounded a bit off- I blame my fading eyesight and relying on the Helix tuner!) so the C4 will track very low even with muddy tapewounds. It does 2 octaves up/down and does a good tremolo and there is a way of doing a pseudo chorus thing but it wouldn't replace a decent chorus pedal, likewise with the phaser/flanger, it can sort of do it but I wouldn't use it to replace them (I use the Helix for those modulation effects though so haven't really looked into it, perhaps others have found ways of making the C4 do them better). Synth, octave and filter sounds are all good though. Give me a shout if you fancy trading the Future Impact for the C4. They are probably similar enough so I'm not sure why I want one in place of the C4 other than curiosity/a change is as good as a rest, shiny new things etc! I think the Helix covers some of the things the C4 is stronger on like stereo effects and low tracking for octaver and the FI can get more in-depth into sculpting moog type sounds. C4 is smaller but needs at least a DMC micro

I didn't get sent an activation link either so I clicked the re-send and that time it worked (to my junk folder)

That's not a bad idea! Describing tone is tricky, but comparing it to pizza types kind of works.

You can find it anywhere, you know what you get - it'll get the job done. It's similar to a thin crust margarita ('clean' tone?) but with added fatness, everyone thinks it's okay - it's not divisive but it's not overly exciting.

Sansamp BDDI must be a deep pan margarita

I've got mine up for sale too because it's too big to fit on my pedal board and the Helix Stomp and Solid Gold Beta go a long way towards sounding like it.....I think I'll probably want it back one day though. If I could make it smaller and make the boost and colour switches as one footswitch it'd be perfect.

I've been through a few and still think the DHA VT1 EQ it hard to beat, especially as it has so much control to suit playing style/setup and the tones you want: 3 band EQ with sweepable mids, input, gain, boost and level controls and switches for boost, colour, bright. Downside being all that takes up a lot of space and I don't have enough pedal board space for it. I'm tempted to try and squeeze it into a smaller housing but I don't think I've got the skills to not wreck it. Nearest I've found is the Solid Gold FX Beta for the lower gain settings, it sounds different at high gain though. I guess it's a bit like saying what the 'best' pizza is though, it's mostly down to personal preference.

That's a good video for showing different synth sound techniques without using a synth pedal. The mxr envelope filter only sweeps up though - he kept saying to use it for things like chameleon that use downward sweeping filters.

Pushing the limits of what can go in a Reggae thread, but this is new from the Bug and Logan:

I'm not really an Oasis fan, less so a Liam Gallagher fan....apart from his quotes: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.shortlist.com/news/best-liam-gallagher-quotes-funny/amp

Am still loving my TM5 SL after owning it for about 6 months - it's my favourite Bass I've owned. Tapewounds are the finishing touch:

A month into owning a Stomp and it has replaced: Tuner EQ x2 (a 7 band and a parametric) Preamp/DI/Cab sim (Bass Simplifier) ......and it will also replace my Chorus/Phaser pedal. Replacing more pedals will start being a bit of a compromise though due to block space/footswitch control/tones etc. so I think for me the Stomp isn't going to be a 'replace my whole pedal board' type of thing (I didn't expect it would though) but is certainly very good and replaces quite a few pedals and acts as a hub for a other pedals to be put into it's effects loops. Overall if anyone is wondering about getting a Stomp I'd say go for it - I'm very impressed. But it doesn't replace everything without some compromise - especially without buying additional footswitch controllers (and even then you might run into trouble using up all the blocks if you rely on it for everything), the more pedals it replaces means more of a preset-planning mindset is needed rather than 'one footswitch per effect' mindset to get the best from it.

Nice! Ideally I'd like the real one but I was only ever considering a far cheaper pedal-form copy: the Boss RE-20 (about £200 new, or £150 second hand on Reverb).

Yeah, doing the whole mix via laptop speakers would be a bad idea (I guess unless your whole audience listens on the exact same laptop speakers), but a check on how it sounds through them at some point is probably useful. To the original headphone question: I mostly use closed backed AKG ATH-M50X, but also open backed Sennheiser 599, and KRK Rokit 8 monitors (and then other things too towards the end). I'd recommend any of them.

Yeah, that is probably more sensible!

If you want to make the Helix Stomp volume control less likely to be accidentally turned then a lego tyre pushed on does a good job:

I found the EHX Switchblade Pro useful for this sort of thing - put the phaser in a loop and you can control its level and how much clean is mixed in, also how much of the second loop is mixed in and if it's parallel or series. And then it can switch the loop order e.g. Phaser before/after overdrive.

There is a place for high-end neutral monitors and headphones but it's probably worth checking via the ways listeners are using too. A lot of people nowadays are listening to music via laptop speakers, phone speakers, alexa devices, cheap/tinny in-ear headphones etc.and from low quality/compressed sources like YouTube so a couple of amateur producers I know take that into account - basically by listening via those methods.