GAS - Gear Acquisition Syndrome (Part 1)

Gear
3777

@Koldunya , have you had a look at this pedal? nice features for a compressor and priced very affordable. If I didn’t have so many already, I probably would have it in my cart right now.
as a matter of fact, I may just use my Amazon Library card and check it out for a week or two and send it back, just to see if it lives up to what it looks like it may be able to do. Its like $64

The CALINE DCP-10 Stella Compressor Effect pedal
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As far as the San June, I see no difference in the red and black one other then color and a $10 price hike for the red one. I would still go with the black one.

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Flamma was a company thats sort of came out of no where. They had a reverb pedal, a delay pedal and a combo reverb / delay called the echo verb.

I A/B/C/D/E/F/G beta tested reverb pedals, using my amazon library card, ordering at least 3 at a time, and recording them in GB, keeping track names of what pedal it was, with what settings.

I ended up picking the Flamma. It was very easy to program and use, it is pretty neat looking, it is not very expensive, and best of all it had the ice cold reverb I prefer to the warm welcoming type. I couldn’t do the Boss RV-6 cuz they changed it colored the sound way too warm, unlike previous versions that now sell for higher then the rV-6. I know there are RV-6 uses here, and I am not picking a fight, it is just not for me, and I know a lot of long time Boss reverb pedal users had similar feelings. If you have one and love it, awesome, it just was not for me.

That said, this Flamma reverb has really suited me well, and was like $70.
Easy to use and has the simple type reverbs I like, and although you can easily turn on tails, and have a sparkle shimmer reverb, it overs way more than that. Now about a year later, they have blown up and seem to have every type of pedal out from minis under $40 to MXR she for around $80.
NO
I couldn’t find a compressor, but if / when they do make one, I would sure be interested to try it. They really seem to be less CLONES and more trying to make their own mark in the pedal game, Ian excited to see what comes in the future, will it be horrid crap, or another hidden gem?

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Look at that , they have the Reverb pedal, FS02, and the mini FC02. I am curious to see how the mini holds up to the big daddy. Quick read seems like it just uses 3 of the 7 types of reverb off the FS02, but IIRC, those werethethree that I liked best and would use, a couple I can take or leave and at least one I could do without, but that was what made it a good choice for me, because many reverb pedals are either way too simple, plate / spring toggle, or way way way over kill (Boss RV-6, and many many others), where I would never use most of those sounds. I found that I could use all but one of the Flamma ones, but still preferred a couple to the others.

Again, I await the day for the Flamma compressor, I will almost certainly use my amazon library card on it.

Just food for thought, not trying to complicate things anymore for you.

I wonder @Koldunya , have you looked up that Omnvilab website that does all the compressor reviews? It is a bit dated, he stopped doing it sometime in 2018, was it became a full time job he was doing for free, and interfering with his family and career, so he called it quits (If memory serves me right thats around the time he quit, and sort of the reason)

Please Please Please read his whole review on the Markbass Compressor. You can find them relatively cheap used, once in a while, and as he says straight out of his review, it is pure gold.

On the Page that directs to his top picks, which he breaks up in budget, mid grade, money is no option, and something like wild cards, and he has the one at or near the top of his wild card compressor.

Also read the Vox snake Charmer. I just did, and after reading it I am more and more ready to take a deep dive into the pedal now that I have some time before more surgeries. It says it can be a good compressor and also act a little like a reverse envelope filter , so that really excites me, and shows why, I like to have more then one compressor. sometimes one compressor into another and then another can get really awesome results. sometimes overdrive / distortion, other time modulation type effects.
Both of these units, plus my san June are here to stay. will they be the only ones, that is a question for another day, as I just slipped my finger and ordered that caline to give it a try. I am 99% going to check it back into Amazon for the credit that I am using to pay for it now, but you never know, it could be another hidden gem

I will say hands down, the Bass Preacher by EHX is the worst pc of crap compressor I have ever used. It just completely sucked the tone out of everything. You would need about 4 boost pedals before it in your signal cain to get any kind of volume with your amps.

Again, I am sure there are some here that use it and love it, and as I always say, one mans trash is another mans treasure , in this case it is like my crap is somebodies smoothie (sorry had to go there, but if you have a bass preacher and love it, good for you, possibly the few I tried were defective, anything it possible. )

5 Likes
3778

I’ve read that about stabilization, it’s drier/more stable, etc. Which I feel is mostly marketing speech, or they’d have been doing it as lot longer, imo. Are they roasting any other wood for this purpose? No? Right because most other wood is darker already :eyes: (and yes, I am sure someone is about to dredge up something from Warmoth or the like where they offer roasting on some other wood lol. I seem to vaguely recall it being out there…)

That is clearly a thumb rest (right now) lol. It is the worst thumb rest ever in the place shown, unless you’re just chilling and hanging out while the singer yaps about something inconsequential to entertain the audience while someone goes to the bathroom XD

And yeah, I swiped that pic from BestBassGear; it’s the Hipshot “thumb rest.”

I think they call the process “aging” or something? I swear I’ve seen something about Yamaha “aging” wood for some of their instruments. I think Billy Sheehan mentioned it for his basses.

I need a bit to digest all that. Didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you when responding to others lol.

Also holy crap it is almost 2am, and my fingers smell like “bass strings” (these Cobalts seem to do it more than my nickel strings? Or is my sniffer out of whack…)

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3779

Yeah, they call it something like “heat ageing”

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3780

I once worked in a music store where the guitar department manager would run pink noise generators in the acoustic room at night to age them. He swore it had to be pink noise, though.

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3781

JBL does this for all new speakers, max volume for 24 hours apparently :slight_smile:

(or at least they say they do, who knows if they actually do)

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3782

I almost bought JBL 8" studio monitors. XD (I ended up with PreSonus Eris E8s; zZounds sold them buy one get 50% off)

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3783

I wonder now after reading this. One of the things it says is the wood reacts significantly less to changes of moisture in the environment; also it’s lighter, and more brittle. Might be something to it

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3784

No offense taken, I know my posts can be a bet extreme in length sometimes. I just like to be thorough.

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3785

I have a pair of JBL 305P II’s and they are great! The 8" ones would be overkill for my place but look awesome too.

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3786

I realize you two are coming to the realization that this is more hype then not, but
I thought this whole tone wood argument has gone on long enough.
the wood of the body, the wood of the neck, and the materials of the hardwares all mean DICK.

3787

We’re actually discussing something very different than tone.

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3788

Some brands struggle with cracks on fretboard. This is one way to handle that problem and it looks/feels nice. I see it more often on guitars and my Sire P5 bass has it too.

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3789

Wood workers seem to think it has that effect, I will know more in a year. Through the winter we have variable weather and all my basses go out of tune the same way - either sharp or flat - at the same time. If the roasted maple neck reacts different then the other basses, we’ll know.

But it will need to wait for winter. Weather is pretty stable otherwise - tune a bass and pick it up a month or two later it will still be in tune.

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3790

My Kingdom for a fretboard that won’t shrink on me until I start slicing my fingers on fret ends… or in the case of my C-5 GT, cracks the fretboard binding -_-

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3791

Ok, missed that. I am not one to debate the beauty and feel of awesome wood for basses and necks, they really have some quality stuff out there, and I own some of them, and, yeah, you can feel the quality built in, but its more then just wood selected, its master craftsman. I am just point again (possibly as a response to the wrong conversation, but tone wood means squat. can it be more appealing to the eye, yes, can if feel lighter or heavier to hold, yes, can is feel nice to touch, and rub your hands all over, yes, can the same be said for a neck, yes. does any of that matter, Yes, a great deal, but not for tone, not one bit.

I love the look and feel of a lovely natural finished bass, like my LTD B-4E, sometimes I just want to grab it and sit with it, not necessarily even playing it, but just having it in my hands, cuz it feels so nice.
My EBMM id so the same for different reasons. that is pretty much USA master craft built, so yeah, it is nice to just hole the quality.
Same can be said of my Fender road Worn Vintera. Those TWO USA basses are a whole different breed. not insanely better, and I am not good enough of a player to even own one of them, but I can and do, and I can enjoy them for different reasons of craftsmanship, including wood, brand name, location in CA it was made, etcllll
AND still love many of my quality imports (mostly from Indonesia) like my LTD B-4E or the Yamaha SBV-550 (it is not my favorite bass, and is an investment in the long run, but it is Yamaha Japan, so it is superb in every way as far as build quality.
Then the featherweight Danelectro, I like it for other reasons, and tone woods might make the most difference on it, being halo body (yet I still sense it would be measured by a number preceded by a decimal point and a bunch of zeros.
I didn’t mean to start anything or point fingers or anything, but I saw this today, and this was the first sort of chance I got to share it.

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3792

And is is just me, or is anyone else tired of roasted maple necks yet?
Its one thing if they toasted it to a light golden brown, but they practically burn the damn toast with them.
And I am a lover of Maple necks and fretboards, but its because of the light wood tones maple has, so anything other then a quick warm in the oven, and maybe some burn marks across the back of the neck for cool appearance (like seen Guns n guitars do, and I imagine is somewhat how the big boys do it)

I Really Really Really loved the Ray 34 Natural Ash before it started getting burnt maple necks on them, now the dark neck and. headstock and fingerboard, kind of defeat the purpose of what I liked so much about it.EBMM and SBMM really do stellar maple necks, or did before they burnt everything, I am so glad to have my Stingray SLO Special, which is pre toasted maple necks, and has a great light wood and beautiful fingerboard.
My Ray4HH (and ray4’s that come with maple fingerboards), don’t get roasted maple necks, and honestly, I like them a whole lot better then what they have been throwing on the Ray34.
Also, is it just me, or is this more of a trend with SBMM on the Ray34 then industry wide? do most other manufacturers not burn there toast as much as SBMM does with Ray34 necks? IDK, thats a real question.

2 Likes
3793

No worries, I didn’t take it badly, just didn’t want to go back down that particular rabbit hole again.

“tone” woods do have physical characteristics other than tone. Mahogany is heavy. I passed on a Warwick bass today because it was heavy, probably due to it’s Mahogany body. I also passed on a P bass because it had a Pine body. Pine is soft and dings easily.

Quarter sawn wood reacts to moistier 50% as much as flat sawn wood. So get a quarter sawn neck.

There are physical considerations of wood beyond tone.

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3794

I couldn’t agree more, and kind of made up for it with my last post

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3795

Yup, couldn’t agree more with your post. Tonewood absolutely does matter, just not for tone. About as mistitled as the thumb rest above.

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3796

Kiesel sent a guy a guitar with a maple fretboard completely unroasted. the guy went to customer service (had ordered roasted, which the neck clearly was; they don’t seem to go super dark with it, iirc). They told him he could pay $200 for a rebuild, refusing to believe they had do something wrong. I know if I ordered roasted maple neck and fretboard, I’d expect them to match. Well, the guy went to the internet to complain about this, and Jeff Kiesel doubled down and went full douche bag mode on IG or Facebook or some other social media with lengthy videos about “common sense” and “we can’t make trees grow darker wood” (bruh, you are cooking wood to make it darker lol, and that fretboard was clearly pale as hell unroasted maple). In response to the customer “dealing with stuff” he commented they all were, and then flexed his bicep and said “because we’re men” :woman_facepalming:t2: He gave the customer three choices: deal with it, pay the $200 rebuild fee, or get a full refund and be blacklisted from purchasing another guitar. This guy had 20+ Carvin and Kiesel instruments at the time.

So I guess Kiesel roasts maple to two levels. Done and none XD

I will never purchase another instrument from them after seeing those videos. Long Live The Beast, maybe it always play true…

1 Like