carlsim

Thanks for the comments guys - I spoke to a friend last night and he said the same thing - the battery won't be able to generate enough power to do what needs to be done. I have some working out to do!

THIS MADE ME WET MESELF!!

Hi all, I am trying to power my Chocolate Plus MIDI pedal and GP-5 via the power supply I already have - standard 9v daisy chaining thingy. Not expensive but I don't have loads of pedals. Chocolates will only run via 5V USB so I need to adapt my 9v PSU to run a 5V supply. A friend of mine (also read this online) told me a standard USB cigarette lighter will work with 9V so try one of those. I had a spare, took the innards out, fashioned (quite crudely) a 9V supply via a 9V battery and YES! It came alive! I wanted to double check the output was 5V - so I plugged in an old USB cable, stripped back the wires and measured across the red and black and yep - 5.10 volts. Perfect. It's stepping down the 9V to 5V. Just what it should be doing. To be sure, i plugged the same stripped cable into my PC which I know powers and charges the Chocolate plus and again the voltmeter reads 5.06 volts. Connect the chocolate to the PC USB port and everything comes alive. Chocolate charges and powers up and the Valeton GP-5 also comes on. Connect the same cable to the 9V powered USB and the chocolate will charge but as soon as I plus in the USB host cable to power the valeton, the charge light goes out and the GP-5 it doesn't power up. Is there not enough in a 9V battery supply? Will connecting it to the mains 9V power supply make a difference? I am at a bit of a loss here - both outputs read the same voltage - one works and one doesn't. Is the battery not man enough to maintain the voltage when the draw is too much? I am going to try it out connected to the 9V power supply but wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my time before I did so! thanks for any advice guys! Carl.

The scratchplate is coming off and I want to get some caphead screws to go in the holes... I may try some dark wood and glue to see what it looks like but I reckon some capheads will be the way to go. Someone else on here did it and it looked much better! It's gotta go - a crime to cover that wood!

Basically, I just watched the video below. It's pretty straightforward to follow (it's good to have an understanding of MIDI implementation first but not essential) and it doesn't take too long. Make sure you check out the MIDI implementation in the back of the Valeton manual so you can assign the correct CC / PC number to the chocolate depending on what you want the pedal to do. I have my 2 most commonly used patched on the first 2 buttons and then patch up and down on buttons 3 and 4. I also set up some additional patches on a 2nd bank which is easy to do.

So I have umming and arring for a while between one of these and a Sadowsky MetroExpress Modern 5 for some time now, watching prices and seeing if any offers popped up. The GB5 Modern was listed at around £1200... pricey but I was tempted. GuitarGuitar then had them for £999 - oooh, that seems a good deal but a Sadowsky is only a little bit more... Hang fast Carl... you never know what will pop up on the Black Friday deals... So, I keep looking, thinking something might pop up. I think I prefer the Sadowsky but the spec and hardware is better on the Cort. Then on Thomann, Cort GB5 Modern at £666 - pull that trigger Carl! Arrived Friday but have only just had the chance to unpack and play as I was away over the weekend. What a great bass and for the money - hipshot ultralites, Nordstrand big singles, Babicz bridge and Mark Bass preamp, it's amazing spec for that money. Add in a lovely loooking thing and a good quality gig bag to boot and it was an amazing deal - A very happy punter! I had read about some QC issues with these but this one is all good, no blemishes or marks and compared to some other basses I have had, it's light as a feather. I can see this as a mainstay for future gigs! Anyway... enough gloating... here's some pics...

👍

I must admit, setting up the chocolate plus with the Valeton was an absolute doddle!!

Well, they haven't contacted me about it yet and I reckon that if they were that fussy / hard nosed about it, then EB would have wanted the old bridge first before the new one was delivered. I'm going to assume that if I hadn't heard anything by Christmas then I will look to offloading it in the new year. After that, if they come calling for it - tough! Should have been a bit more on the ball!

Yeah the octaver is definitely the weak point with the pedal. Saying that, it isn't strictly an octaver, it's a pitch shift effect so maybe an octave is too far for it (anyone using a transpose function in a DAW will know this). I sold an OC-10 recently and it was a cracking little pedal so it is a shame this part is so weak. Again, as @Al Krow mentions, an analogue pedal vs a digital recreation is always going to be poor mans version. Saying that, I don't see myself using it for this anyway, and as a preamp / modeller / NAM pedal, I think it's a cracking bit of kit. My only gripe is that the mod effects don't have a wet / dry mix control, delay and reverbs do, but I would have preferred to be able to control how much chorus I add to my sound. Yes, I can tame it with the controls but a wet / dry mix level should really be there in my view.

No worries.

So, a very quick and rough bash with some recording. SRay5 straight into the GP-5, into my interface. Haven't set it up as an independent interface yet. Bass mp3 file - 2 NAM files downloaded from Tone3000 - EBS Bass Rig first, GR Bass Cube second and then the standard finger bass preset the GP-5 comes with. the rest should be as they are described. very much FX loaded as they come - very little faffing or editing (please excuse the playing) - will hopefully give you an idea. The only thing for me is controlling how much FX (chorus etc.) that you can add - no wet / dry mix level - or am I missing something here?? I would have liked a touch more chorus and phaser. But, I don't really need a phaser so it's a moot point for me! Anyway... I hope this helps. It's a great little pedal - I only really intend to use it as a preamp / NAM loading pedal with maybe a smidge of chorus so will suit me perfectly! Carl. So the order is: Bass with Chorus and reverb Bass with chorus Bass drive (preset) Bass and octaver - probably it's weak point Bass phaser Bass slap (preset) Bass NAM files and bass finger preset Bass Chorus Reverb.mp3 Bass Chorus.mp3 Bass Drive.mp3 Bass Octaver.mp3 Bass Phaser.mp3 Bass Slap.mp3 Bass.mp3

I found them on prime delivery but at £42... would rather wait a few more days and get it for half the price!