pantherairsoft

Sold Mike my Lekato Looper. Easy transaction, great comms and all the usual kind stuff that everyone else has said about him! Thanks!

Sold Lee a pedal this week. Easy transaction, great communication, friendly and with a sterling taste in noise making paraphernalia. Great stuff!

Sold Roger my Vintage Micro Tubes. Easy transaction. Perfect!

I did this for a while and went through quite a few. The EBS Microbass always seemed to be the one that sounded most like having a rig behind me and was also the one that sound-men seemed to be most impressed with. If I went down this route again, I wouldn’t hesitate to get the Microbass.

The DC7 is a monster. It runs my entire board and I’ve not even managed to light the 40% of load light yet. Insanely good, plus it fits under a Pedaltrain with no modification to the board needed. It’s not cheap, but worth every penny for me.

All the foogers’ were sold over 3 years ago and getting them now is hardly an easy or affordable prospect. I’d probably pick up the Cluster Flux again, given a suitable opportunity, but the others, I’ve learned to live without/appreciate the alternatives.

The most amazing thing about the DC7 - it could probably power that entire board from one output!

I’ve never been one for subtlety in dirt and while I do think the old Fuzzrocious BDPG is the nicest low gain overdrive ever made, the mantle for high gain stuff has firmly been taken by the Mastotron IMO for a long long time. Ive had a lot of pedals that did that kind of tone, but none of them ever got quite there. My only niggle with it was that without the sub switch, it was a bit lacking and with it was often too much. As a result it took a lot of work to get it to sit right in a mix without dominating. Fast forward to 2021 and while the Mastotron has a special place in my heart, I’m now rocking the Dr. Scientist Frazz Dazzler as my primary dirt pedal and DAMN is that thing intense! Huge fuzz saturation, with a 2nd switch to engage ‘stupidly high gain mode’, three band EQ, a clean blend, gated, and a voltage starve for spluttery synth tones. It even has expression control over the mix so you can blend it in and out, though this particular feature is one I’ve found little practical use for. I’ve been using it daily, exploring all its options and how it plays with other pedals, and right now, I just can’t imagine anything knocking it off its perch. It’s basically everything I ever wanted in a high gain pedal.

Actually the Nemesis came first. One thing I really love is stacking delays - it makes for very complex and beautiful textures. I was using a Flashback as the 2nd delay and a Neunaber Immerse as my reverb (which is actually far nicer than the Collider as a stand alone reverb). In the interests of trying to condense things and work with more planned functionality, the Collider offered a solid replacement for both, with some additional signal routing options and little flourishes that make it quite nice. The Ventris is overkill for my reverb needs and if I was to stick with a standalone, the Immerse would stay without a doubt. But yeah, the overall point was to have two delay pedals in series and as I love the Nemesis tone, this made sense. Thanks!

I've been on a rampage over the last couple of weeks to get my set up well refined and nail down to pedals that really gel with the overall sound of the new project I'm working on. I've pretty much auditioned three pedals for every space on the board and made more signal chain tweaks than I can count. Finally, I'm happy with the set up. So much so that I have pledged to myself that I won't buy another pedal for at least 6 months... I'm going to work this set up hard! For those of you interested in such things, here is the signal chain being used (note, this is for some ambient, synth textures)... Input -> Boss OC-5 Octave -> Dr. Scientist Frazz Dazzler -> Darkglass Alpha Omicron -> Red Panda Bitmap 2 -> Bananana Matryoshka -> Wampler Terraform -> Iron Ether Xerograph Deluxe (+ Moog EP-3 Expression Pedal) -> Digitech Whammy Ricochet -> Source Audio Nemesis Delay -> Source Audio Collider Delay + Reverb -> TC Electronics Polytune 2 Mini -> Output Everything is powered by a Cioks DC7 (which hasn't even hit the 40% load light yet - what a power supply!) and cabled with EBS gold flat patch cables. The Bananana Matryoshka was originally on the chopping block, but I had space for a mini pedal without ruining the ergonomics of things. Originally, this was being used exclusively as a bit crusher (before the Bitmap 2 came along), but it's worth keeping here for the Arp and LFO settings, which allow for layering some nice textures and soundscapes. I have a pile of pedals to move on now to recoup some costs! I'm super happy with this set up. Endless creative options and everything plays really well with each other.

Given that I rarely play 'normal' bass and spend my time creating synth overtones and ambient soundscapes, octave down effects always go first (to be fair, that's one thing that almost always has no place being anywhere else), but pitchshifters like whammy's are always much farther along, typically alongside modulation. Polyphonic pitch shifters don't struggle to track in the same way as many classic octave effects and using a whammy-like effect after your dirt and filters sounds WAY more synth-like than shifting the pitch of the input signal to dirt pedals and the like. In many ways, then become an EQ control to enhance the synth-like nature of the tone. I rarely use compressors at all these days, but when I do, your point about the blend is sooooooooooooo important. The difference that makes to the overall dynamics can't be understated.

This recipe is certainly the ‘norm’, but there are always exceptions and importantly there are no ‘wrongs’. For example, synth pedals often sound better after distortion pedals. Filters sound very different before and after both distortion and modulation so it depends on what you’re after. In a traditional synth bass setting where you create sounds by using Octave > Distortion > Filter, it’s common to place the compressor last in the chain, not first. This allows it to act as a limiter and it works to increase output consistency, much more like a keyboard synth. This is how I typically use compression. Whammys and pitchshifters usually go first in the chain for tracking as they sound most natural there, however, if you’re going for synth bass tone, pitch shifters will normally go along side modulation as the deliberately unnatural sound to pitch swells makes it sound even more synthesised. There are of course many more... but what I’m trying to say is, there are no specific rules. Always try everything in every position to see what works for you. It’s too easy to get trapped into what is considered the ‘norm’, but often it’s not the most optimal.

Bought a Boss OC-5 from Gaz. Super easy transaction, good comms and it arrived really fast. Couldn't be happier.

These are notoriously bad for your jack sockets as it forces pedals to bend and flex against each other and the weight of the plug. With a cable, when pressure is applied to a pedal and it slightly moves, the cable prevents anything else from moving with it. With a coupler, that force is directly applied to the jack sockets of the connected pedals. I’ve heard nothing but bad things about them, though I admit, I’ve never tried them myself (on account of them historically being considered a poor choice).

I used to be all about the Lava Cables and George L's, but I've moved over to EBS flat patch (gold version, but I'm sure the regular are fine). Personally, I'm super impressed with them.

Bought a pedal from Darren. Excellent communications and super helpful.