alm

alm's Reviews

11 reviews Back to alm's Equipboard

alm
alm

292

A little dissapointing

When I acquired this pedal I was as excited as a child on Christmas morning. But with extended use and as soon as regency bias had faded I asked myself: "Do I really need this?". The answer was unfortunately no. It's a fun pedal, don't get me wrong, but I can hardly think of a practical use case that warrants the hefty price tag and the even more hefty 1000 mA current it needs from your board. The lack of a blend knob on the harmonizer function means that the harmonies absolutely overpower your clean notes. The "detune" function (which i experienced as just chorus) are nice but carry a large flaw. The pedal, being a pitch shifter, is meant to go at the front of your board and chorus should go almost last which makes the function nearly unusable with other effects.

Tldr. It's fun for going "Weeeeeee" but lacks the practicality for most pedal boards that a bassist would reasonably use.

alm
alm

292

It works

You can't really expect more or less from an audio interface. It works well.

alm
alm

292

Underrated

For me this pedal is a no brainer. Its almost always on for some extra dirt in the tone as well as a slight midrange boost. It sounds warm and makes the bass fill out the room. Also just look at it, it's a beautiful pedal.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Gain: 7 Volume: 3 Nature: 10

alm
alm

292

I swear by these

For budget bassing you really can't find anything better for the price on the secoundhand market. With onboard eq that can be turned on and off and a warm sound profile it goes will with basically any pedal ive tried through it. It has two patches for bass and treble boost which is endlessly practical. These patches can also be used as a gain boost when both pressed in. 300w gives you plenty of headroom but if you want to crank it you absolutely can without problems. The one issue ive had is one that goes with any piece of older gear, but this one more than most. Some of the pots are scratchy, for me its the gain and lower mids knob. I generally avoid touching them because of the very unpleasant noise they make but they give me no issues if left untouched. You could probably replace them yourself if you have the know-how, I am atleast thinking about it.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Treble boost with both patches pressed in and medium high gain.

alm
alm

292

Don't listen to the forums!

I bought this to compensate my pretty one sided bass sound (two precision basses) and as soon as i had this instrument in my hands and heard it's sound I immediately disregarded all the blasphemy thrown its way by the wonderfull people of the bass forums. The neck humbucker sounds absolutely enormous and the minibucker compensates the lack of high end although you do have to raise its volume for optimal sound. It sits right in the mix with little to no eq. I personally love to turn the tone all the way down and solo out the mudbucker for smooth bluesy sounds, but it also sounds great with overdrive, fuzz, distortion and any modulation I threw at it. The one gripe i have with this bass is the ergonomics. You do need to wear a wider strap to prevent the neck dive and even then it would be clever to keep a hand on the body just in case. However, you quickly get used to this problem with extended use. You could probably add a counter-weight on the body or something if this really bothers you. But aside from that my experiences have only been good.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Tone down with mudbucker turned up for smooth bluesiness. Tone up with mini turned up for heavier clanky sounds

alm
alm

292

Handles everything I throw at it. Sounds amazing.

I've run bass, synthesizers and guitar through this without any issues. It sounds brilliant and is very affordable. With or without gain this is an amplifier I'd trust with anything.

alm
alm

292

Oh my lord this pedal

Found at a discount price due to a "defect" (which was immediately fixed upon factory resetting the pedal this thing is absolutely amazing on any and all instruments you can dream of. I mainly run it through my bass for synth like textures but its intended function (being the reverb) is too absolutely phenomenal. You can make notes last forever and when you then turn the pedal off the notes continue to sustain allowing you to solo over it. I'm still learning new things about this magical feat of technology and i grow more pleased with every feature i discover.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Shimmer with time and tone set to max :)

alm
alm

292

In all the ways that this bass isn't terrible it's a really great bass.

That being said, it's still terrible in a couple of ways and i would never trust this thing on a gig. The battery drains even when its not plugged in. The electronics are both confusing and fragile. But for about 100€ you can't really expect more. Its good for practising on and for getting good at the instrument. Personally I've found it very handy because the scale length is much shorter than on say a p-bass. But thats about all it's good for.

alm
alm

292

It's a big muff for bass

Nothing more can really be said. Personally i use it with relatively low sustain for distortion and fuzz. Wether or not a bass player needs a big muff is up for discussion, but as i play in a trio band the answer is definitively yes. It sounds like a big muff and it functions like a big muff. And the big muff works and sounds great.

alm
alm

292

Solid in places you didnt expect.

When I started building my rig this was all I could get my hands on. My expectations were all over the place as I only owned a single pedal before it. For being so small it sure is a LOT of functions. The first pedal is only ever really used for the monophonic octave. and monophonic needs to be said with a lot of emphasis because this thing does NOT like chords. The volume goes a little berserk when the tracking fails but still it's a solid octave for the function that it is advertised as. The second pedal is weird. It has all these drive functions but they are all so digital and the ones that are supposed to be digital (synth 1 and 2) aren't customizable enough to be fully utilized. The effects that are used on the second pedal personally are the compressor and the distortion. But where this thing really shines is in the third pedal. The reverb when cranked to a high level makes your tone sound like god himself is singing it down onto you, the chorus sounds absolutely insanely good for bass and the delay is very fun to play around with. The same goes for the final pedal with its volume and wah. I had to adjust the pedal because it required immense pressure to switch between modes but the process was easy and now it works just fine. So today it's my reverb and chorus machine + a tuner and volume switch. And for the price tag it does all of these functions damn well.

alm
alm

292

A smart little box of functionality

It does what it says it does, it powers your pedals and costs pocket change. I use this for my current rig and I've never had issues with this (which says a lot for a Harley Benton product) and you can ask nothing less of it. Its solid construction makes me trust it. As a bass player 5 outputs of 9v is the sweet spot for any rig i may have in the future.