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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’ve decided I need some sort of drive pedal, be it overdrive, distortion or fuzz (though I think fuzz would be my last choice). What I really want is something which has a blend control so I can retain some of the clean tone. I know most of the more expensive bass-specific drive pedals have some form of blend, but I’m looking for something a little more affordable (ideally under 100 GBP/USD). Any recommendations?
I’ve actually already got one of those, but I don’t generally use it as it alters the tone quite a bit. I’m looking for something I’d kick on for choruses etc rather than an always-on pedal. Perhaps there’s a way to get just a driven boost from it without any other colour - it’s been a while since I used it so I can’t remember how all the controls work together. I guess I should have a play, since I already have it