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Microtubes X Ultra


Cuzzie

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FYI from the newsletter by DG

https://theomnific.bandcamp.com/?mc_cid=d966099fc0&mc_eid=d03ab5748f

on the setting used on this video: «For this playthrough, we demonstrate how to get a nice clean bass tone with a little bit of crunch exclusively with the Microtubes X Ultra. Turning the drive completely down still allows for a little bit of crunch, and you can adjust its clarity and by opening up the high band filter, we had the high band set at about 800hz. 

We used the built-in cab sim that came stock with the pedal and blended it with the line-out to taste. The rest of the tone comes from our fingers, our Musicman Bongo 5’s and a little bit of extra compression»

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  • 6 months later...
10 minutes ago, CalDeep said:

So did anyone actually buy one and have anything to say on it? 

I got one for my studio. In direct comparison to the Tech21 Dug Pinnick I'm going to do a comparison because only by doing that will it make the review seem fair. 

The Dug has a fixed crossover so it should be the inferior pedal. It isn't. The Darkglass by having an adjustable low and high pass makes everything too fiddly. You'll get a wider variety of sounds, but it'll take you longer to find them. In itself it's a great pedal, but not the most intuitive thing. The EQ is great as is the adjustable cab sim. It honestly depends on how many sounds you need to get out of it as it does take a while.

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On 27/02/2020 at 10:12, Wolverinebass said:

I got one for my studio. In direct comparison to the Tech21 Dug Pinnick I'm going to do a comparison because only by doing that will it make the review seem fair. 

The Dug has a fixed crossover so it should be the inferior pedal. It isn't. The Darkglass by having an adjustable low and high pass makes everything too fiddly. You'll get a wider variety of sounds, but it'll take you longer to find them. In itself it's a great pedal, but not the most intuitive thing. The EQ is great as is the adjustable cab sim. It honestly depends on how many sounds you need to get out of it as it does take a while.

Having played @Wolverinebass 's X Ultra, I agree with this, although unfortunately I struggled to find a tone I was happy with.  But then, me and Darkglass have never really got on.

The Dug is pretty much there straight away.

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The X Ultra is the best bass preamp I have used. Once you learn how to dial those frequencies in (its not a quick one), it sounds absolutely huge.  My entire tone relies on it now!  I haven't come across anything that can replicate the clean low frequencies and boost them in such a way, its wonderful :D

I did try the Dug out and its a cool pedal, but for me lacked something.  Body, 'X' Factor?  Don't know, but I can see why some like it.

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6 hours ago, Kev said:

The X Ultra is the best bass preamp I have used. Once you learn how to dial those frequencies in (its not a quick one), it sounds absolutely huge.  My entire tone relies on it now!  I haven't come across anything that can replicate the clean low frequencies and boost them in such a way, its wonderful :D

I did try the Dug out and its a cool pedal, but for me lacked something.  Body, 'X' Factor?  Don't know, but I can see why some like it.

Share a good setting you have dialled in?

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10 hours ago, Kev said:

The X Ultra is the best bass preamp I have used. Once you learn how to dial those frequencies in (its not a quick one), it sounds absolutely huge.  My entire tone relies on it now!  I haven't come across anything that can replicate the clean low frequencies and boost them in such a way, its wonderful :D

I did try the Dug out and its a cool pedal, but for me lacked something.  Body, 'X' Factor?  Don't know, but I can see why some like it.

I hasten to say my comment was based on people not having the patience to sit down and fiddle. It takes a bit of time, but you can get some great sounds out of it. As a pedal it's great and I have used it to record on a few clients songs to great effect. The point I was making was that the Dug (to me at least) is more intuitive to use, but the Darkglass has a bigger feature set. As it should really as its about £150 dearer.

I like to fiddle about with pedals so none of this bothers me. Some don't and they'd be frustrated.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Iv has an X Ultra for about 6 months now and honestly i have no regrets on getting this pedal. It replaced my sansamp as my main clean EQ and replaced my Darkglass B3k as main main distortion pedal.

I played around with the cab sims but found the standard Nolly one was the best for my tone. I also always have the full band compression activated. 

The 6 band EQ is a great addition and I found that adjusting these slightly can provide a monster distorted tone, but I was expecting that having owned Darkglass pedals in the past. The main thing that has really surprised me is how warm and rounded the clean tone is.
 

I really recommend this is you need a great clean and distortion tone in one pedal which can be tweaked to give a great range of sounds 

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  • 1 year later...
On 27/02/2020 at 11:12, Wolverinebass said:

I got one for my studio. In direct comparison to the Tech21 Dug Pinnick I'm going to do a comparison because only by doing that will it make the review seem fair. 

The Dug has a fixed crossover so it should be the inferior pedal. It isn't. The Darkglass by having an adjustable low and high pass makes everything too fiddly. You'll get a wider variety of sounds, but it'll take you longer to find them. In itself it's a great pedal, but not the most intuitive thing. The EQ is great as is the adjustable cab sim. It honestly depends on how many sounds you need to get out of it as it does take a while.

I can only confirm how fidgety it is. I replaced a Le Bass Two Notes with this, due to the Le Bass being non-intuitive. Well, this thing turn out to be even less intuitive. Especially with the distortion on. 

The EQ is great when you use it in single channel/clean mode, but once you engage the distortion, all bets are off. It be becomes a guessing game of which knob to turn, which slider to slide or which button to push to achieve the sound you're looking for.

This is after a few hours of messing around, mind you. But from my experience with the Le Bass, it won't get any easier. It might be a common thing among these biamp devices.

My main issue with the pedal so far is once you engage distortion, you have almost zero option to minimize it to a level where it doesn't fully overdrive the sound. In this regard, you have a bigger window with Le Bass. For the clean sound using the DG EQ is far superior on the other hand.

Also, one thing that I didn't see mention is that Darkglass doesn't include a 9v adapter for the unit. You have to buy it separately. Which is kinda ridiculous in this price range.

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On 28/04/2021 at 04:25, puffneki said:

Also, one thing that I didn't see mention is that Darkglass doesn't include a 9v adapter for the unit. You have to buy it separately. Which is kinda ridiculous in this price range.

I never understand complaints like this.  A regular 9v pedal coming with a power supply would be a complete waste of plastic for me.  No use for it, surely 90% of users will already use a superior power supply to use with their board.

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