The Caveman Audio BP1 has become a big one in this area also.
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I loved my EBS ValveDrive. Best tone on any preamp I tried.
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And I’m still loving my Blackbird tube pre. It’s always on by now.
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Yeah my ValveDrive was as well. Just a great bit of warm compression it adds. Love that.
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It’s like using a Neve DI or getting to play into a REDDI for the first time. You can’t unhear it after that. And nobody makes a knockoff of the Noble either. Which fascinates me. A world of klon clones, but no Noble copies. 
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I’d recommend trying a range of tube preamps. There’s a bunch of them and they all have their own character.
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Well then…
After 7 months of research and some trial and error, I’ve finally completed my first pedal board:
Signal chain: Bass (passive Laklands) → MicroBass 3 (tuner, pre dirt eq, drive) → Hyper Luminal (compressor) → Poly Blue (octave/fuzz) → Big Muff (fuzz) → Alpha-Omega (distortion, post dirt eq) → M83 (chorus) → Mercury 7 (reverb) → MicroBass 3 (fx return) → Headphones + Amp + DAI
I ran into surprisingly few dead ends along the way: exchanged the Pedal Power 2+ for a Pedal Power 3 after a couple of weeks (needed more juice), exchanged the MXR M87 compressor for the Hyper Luminal (my passive basses were unable to make the M87 happy enough), and returned the Darkglass Element preamp/cab sim/amp sim for a refund (it was a letdown). The rest of the pedals ended up being as good as I expected them to be, or in some cases even better.
I am especially very happy with the preamp (EBS MicroBass 3), because
- FINALLY everything’s permanently plugged in (bass, aux, headphones, amp, DAI), and I no longer have to plug anything in or out when switching between headphones and amp and recording
- the adjustable input gain is invaluable for my passive basses: I can now dial them to exactly where they need to be, which gives sufficient (and predictable) signal level to the rest of the pedals, and drastically reduces the overall noise level
- it has a built-in tuner and compressor, so I was already able to get rid of my TC Poly Tune, and I might get rid of the Hyper Luminal as well eventually
- it has a stereo FX loop, so I am able to use the chorus and reverb in stereo, which is absolute eargasm
- I love the low-gain drive
Obviously a pedal board is never finished, and I still have more ideas, but this is it for now - I have everything that I originally wanted, and I am happy with these pedal choices.
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this is a good looking board 
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Very nice!
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I would be so confused. So, I just stick with one BIG pedal. The Boss GT1-B. For now, it satisfies my needs.
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I love that you’re rocking both the EBS and the A-O. Two awesome preamps, great options for drive and distortion.
I assume you’re running both a dirty and clean channel to your DAI? Good move if so. In the DAW, I’d just leave both in the mix at various levels and get effective double tracking. If you added a tiny amount of phase delay or stereo distance to the dirty channel it would make the bass sound huge 
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Your pedal probably knows just as much as my entire board, you just don’t see all the options all at once.
I spent almost a year trying to decide between one multi effects pedal like yours, or a pedal board with individual pedals. (I even made a thread about it.) In the end I went with pedals because I simply did not see myself scrolling through menus to tweak things one at a time. I wanted to have everything laid out in front of me, see what’s dialled to what, and be able to just reach down and tweak a knob.
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That is a really nice board and good choice with your signal chain. I would have done the exact same path. Big fan of the A/O too 
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There’s two XLR outputs on the preamp, and a button can switch their behaviour between stereo post, or mono post + mono pre. It’s currently set to stereo post, because… STEREO And yeah it sounds massive. I’ll see if I can make a B2B cover with some ridiculously over the top stereo octave fuzz distortion fuzz chorus fuzz. In stereo.
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Sweet. Double tracking with stereo width is such a simple and effective way to make an instrument sound big, without being too loud.
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Heheh, can’t wait 
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seeing as how i’m exclusively using it these days while the new practice space is being built (well hopefully starting soon), i decided to redo/upgrade my mini pedalboard. swapped my older cheap-o power brick for the much teenier caline cheap-o brick. added the fantastic empress bass compressor, a keeper for sure. i can even live with the gimmicky (but defeatable) tone switch. and wanting to add a little tubey warmth i replaced my caline wine cellar, which wasn’t adding much to the party, with the jive. i can’t get away from this pedal, this is the third time i’ve bought it. you can get some really fuzzy metal tones out of it, which i am completely uninterested in. but you can also turn all that off and just get a fat, warm tone out of it which is perfect for me.
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Cool! I ordered the mini Jive a long time ago, but got the big one by a lucky mistake. Too bad I kinda blew it up the first time i used it on 18v. 
The light popped but it still sounds dirty/unique. Killer pedal imo
Pretty sure that would always be set to off for me 
Funny, it seems we got similar interest in pedals and amps.
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Hound Dog with all pedals on (except compressor), just for shits and giggles
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Glorious 
Love the slides, and the bass as well! What is that again, a Skyline 44-64?
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