harmonicfish

If you can, your best bet is to get into a guitar/bass shop and audition a few different pedals. OD's especially seem to be very subjective. (Although I realise this may be easier said than done, a lot of shops just seem to ignore the existence of bass effects.) Having said that, I'll subject you to my views anyway ... I was recommended the Boss ODB3 and the Ibanez PD7 by one of my bass playing friends, but I was very disappointed when I demoed them. Both left my output sounding way too thin for my liking. Plus points, the Boss is built like a brick and the Ibanez is pretty cheap. Lomenzo Hyperdrive: Versatile for a single pedal, can get a lot of useable tones. I find I can get a nice clean boost out of it too. Lets you blend in your dry signal, so good for retaining that bottom end. If you whack the blend to max you'll only get the middle driven frequencies though, so not quite so good for all out distortion (but then it doesn't sound like that's what you're after anyway). Mine broke, but I am sooo tempted to get another. Digitech XBD bass drive: Opposite to the hyperdrive. Good for distortion verging on fuzz (although I prefer a Big Muff for this), not so good for light overdrive. The 'morph' control seems to go straight from no-effect to noise with nothing in between. Probably not very good for Clash covers. Eats batteries, so make sure you have some other power source.

Tried buying one of these about a month ago, and as many people have said you can get some fantastic sounds out of this thing. I was wondering if anyone else had had any problems with the foot switch though. I was finding that very occasionally, when switching it on, the light would come on, but no sound would come out (either dry or distorted). In the end I had to take it back. Losing sound completely, however infrequently, just isn't workable. I find myself missing it now, but I seem to remember reading a similar post about foot switch problems some time ago. I'm reluctant to get another if it's a common problem. Thoughts? Similar (more reliable) alternatives?

Funnily enough my current gigbag avoids too many positioning issues. It only has a single shoulder strap, so it sits diagonally across my back, thus avoiding the wheel. As I say though, it has absolutely no padding. Of course after wearing it like that for more than an hour my shoulder starts to feel like it wants to part ways with my body Guitarists get it easy. Still it could be worse. I've seen people cycling with cellos, and apparently one of the local orchestras even had a cycling double bassist at one point

[quote name='yorick' post='528696' date='Jun 30 2009, 03:21 PM']My advice would be to get a Steinberger Spirit bass that comes with a gigbag and use that.[/quote] Interesting suggestion. Part of me is tempted, part of me thinks the other half is suffering a GAS relapse The status streamliner also makes for an (expensive) alternative that avoids that 80's look [quote name='Beer of the Bass' post='528992' date='Jun 30 2009, 07:21 PM']I'll put my gig bag in a rear pannier on one side, with a couple of bungee cords around it. The body fits neatly in to the pannier, with the neck sticking up to somewhere well below shoulder level. Much better visibility and balance.[/quote] Attached to one side? Surely that would send you off balance even more? Besides, the last time I attached anything to a pannier (a bike lock, so not exactly heavy) the pannier detached from the wheel, got tangled in the chain, and I ended up stopping very abruptly whilst attempting to navigate a roundabout [quote name='sdgrsr400' post='528689' date='Jun 30 2009, 03:15 PM']The Bass Gallery have an excellent selection, you could give them a call.[/quote] Yeah, looks like a trip to London might be in order at some point. (Although I might wait until we're not in a heat wave first). Thanks for the input everyone

Wondering if anyone else has any experience with this. Rather than spend my money on taxis/parking, most of it ends up going on gear, and so I end up cycling to gigs/practices instead Currently I use a really cheap gigbag, and I'm not at all confident in it's ability to protect the contents from a falling leaf, let alone anything else. I need something tougher that can still be worn whilst cycling. Semi-hard/polyfoam/casebag/whatever-you-want-to-call-them cases look promising, but I've not found much variety locally. -Tried a TKL Zero Gravity case, but it hung so low that it was bashing against the saddle and even the rear wheel -Things like the Incase look nice, but expensive and a pain in the neck to get shipped. -The tribal planet GSX5 looks promising, but I don't know how well it will work with a bike. Anyone got a photo of the straps on the back? How high/low does it hang? -Any other hard/semi-hard cases I should be considering? Thanks