@terb and @howard (and others): extremely fascinating to hear you guys discuss (and fuss) about these minutiae of sound shaping - and I don’t mean that in a condescending way at all; more wowed by what you guys can hear and discern!!
However, if you were taken out of your carefully arranged soundscape in your home, could you reproduce that sound in a satisfactory way somewhere/anywhere else? Would taking your own bass and your pedalboard with you be enough to achieve this goal in any venue/setting??
That’s actually the biggest reason to buy these as pedals rather than just apply effects in a DAW. Well, that and pedals are just cooler than effect VSTs.
Basically I want to have a modular little set of sounds that’s portable and doesn’t require an amp to achieve.
Well, problem solved for now. Thanks everyone. Once I resigned myself to having to buy new, this happened rather fast, since the best price locally was Amazon with prime
It sounds great. It’s preamp is pretty neutral and clean, but was easy to dial in some nice tones right away. And my very first attempt at dialing in a clean, modern overdrive distortion sound with it was close to acceptable:
I’m sure with tweaking it will be even better for that. It also does a nice warm overdrive as well - the multiple EQ options for the drive section is pretty killer. All in all happy with it so far.
I tried out a TC Electronic SpectraDrive at my local Guitar Center. When the guy working there asked what I thought, I shrugged and said, “I guess everything did what it was supposed to do.” Not a glowing review of a pedal. I don’t want to spend that much money unless I feel somehow inspired.
The SpectraComp affect on the SpectraDrive was interesting enough for me to want more. but not enough to sell me that pedal. Where it fell apart for me was the drive side of the SpectraDrive. I think what I was looking for was that Battalion sound. The SpectraDrive sounded really weak by comparison.
The only negative I’ve seen on the Battalion was that it didn’t give enough control over the noise gate affect. Was this even an issue for you? What do you think of it? I’ve watched videos showing the function of a noise gate but I’ve never played with one and don’t even know if it’s something I would, or even should, care about.
So far I am not impressed with the noise gate. All it has is a threshold dial and it audibly clicks when activating sometimes. For now I am just leaving it off. Frankly my first impression is the noise gate simply sucks. I’ll play with it more though.
The compressor is hilarious. The dial’s range is basically “no compression” to “LOL wtf”. There’s some nice compression in there in between. I think it will actually be useful even though I have a nice compressor already.
With regards to the SpectraDrive - bear in mind you can download new toneprints for the overdrive and compressor in to it. That said, as I mentioned way above, other than the AfterShock I have yet to hear a digital overdrive that I like.
One other interesting thing - I haven’t taken it apart yet but apparently there’s a few trim pots inside for things like the compressor gain. Veeerrrrry interesting.
dear friends, here is a piece of gear I have for years : a Rocktron EQ6. this thing is an old USA-made rack-mount equalizer with all-analog 6 full parametric channels, grouped either in 1 or 2 channels and with all the routing and switching options you could ever imagine :
I decided to start collecting early (to avoid saying “vintage” ) Line6 bass preamps. Those things are particular in my opinion : they sound agressive and sharp (more than realistic probably), which I like, and I never found this characteristics on other modeling devices (more modern Line6 gear or other brands). Currently I record with an old Line6 TonePort UX1, mostly with the POD Farm software which has this agressive/sharp tone, but this thing is more a DAI than a preamp and it only works when connected to a computer. So I wanted the real preamps to use without a computer and with a real amp. I’m looking for different preamps : Bass POD (the very first Line6 bass specific preamp, and very probably the best one), Bass POD XT (the next version), Bass Floor POD (which seems to be the preamp section of the LowDown bass amps, with very few but original models). All those things have different processors and modelings, they don’t sound the same at all. Also all those gear are getting a bit difficult to find in good shape, at least here in France, and the prices are way less cheap than what I expected. So I want to get these preamps before they become too rare and expensive.
The piece I just got this week is a Bass POD pro, the rackmount version of the first Bass POD. I paid the price of a brand new Battalion for it … it’s twice the price of a normal Bass POD (bean shaped) but it’s a full metal construction, rackmount, and with a much better connectivity. it has two XLR DI (pre AND post), two effects loops (pre AND post again) and such great features. What I like with this one is that it can be used more or less like a traditionnal amp, you choose your model and you dial the pots, and you never feel like you have to program a computer. I plan to use it as a preamp, plugged into the power section of my Ampeg with the special cable I built when I was recording my Brassy cover. There is a “Live/Studio” switch that allow the thing to work like a normal preamp (“live” to be plugged into a power amp with no cab simulation) or like a full amp simulator (“studio” with cab sim), this should be very useful for my needs.
So here is the beast, it’s in excellent shape as it was rack mounted in a recording studio and has never been used for gigs or rehersals :
my idea was to use it with my Rocktron EQ6 with one EQ channel into each effect loop (pre/post) for ultimate tone shaping, but I’m not sure it will be so useful. at this point I have to spend some hours for various testings !
Wow, great find. The only Bass PODs I have seen are the beans and the multistomp XTs. I just checked and found an old auction for one of those you got for about 20 euro but it was being sold as junk as it would not power on. Would be funny if it were just a bad switch or something. All the other auctions for it are like 180+ euro.
yeah, here in France there are very few of them on the auction sites, and they sell for about 150€. the bean are good too but I really like the extended connectivity of the Pro models ! I have to test everything but I hope it will work for me as well in live situation than for studio work, we’ll see !
Thanks guys… you are all costing me more money!!! From following this post I just ordered the Alpha Omicron. I’ve messed around a little with distortion pedals, but once I researched the Darkglass stuff I had to pull the trigger. Musicians Friend often offers that 15% discount so that took a little bit of the sting out of the expense. I will update once it arrives.
