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Green Rhino Mkii on Bass

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cole_swank
cole_swank|122

Hello everyone! I am new to this website and must I say it is rather addicting!

Anyways, I'm a bassist in two different bands (a black metal band and a hardcore band) and I've recently gotten around to playing with different types of pedals. I tried a Swollen Pickle fuzz on my bass and I absolutely loved how well it retained my low end and responded to my low B (pedals either don't grind up my B enough or make my B too muddy/mushy, even if its a pedal designed for bass). However, right now I'm much more interested in getting an overdrive. I was wondering if anyone on here has had experience with the Green Rhino overdrive and curious about peoples' experiences with them.

My main concerns are will it retain the low end really well and and will it react with my low B in a nice way. There isn't a music store nearby that has one and I'd like to see some feedback on it before I order one. Thanks in advance!

boom762
boom762|12239 MODERATOR

No green Rhino here, but I have a couple of distortions that I love.

ISP Theta Pedal You can add 2 channels of gain into 1 out. It gets pretty crunchy

Digitech BP-200 It sounds digital to the ears, but the distortion I made on it years ago is stil the best bass distortion Ive used.

If you want something a bit lighter,

Darkglass B3K / B7K SansAmp Bass Driver DI

I use the sansamp for going into my mixer.

My advice would be to go lighter than heavier. Alex Webster uses a light growl to his tone (My favorite tone in the world) so he can cut through the HEAVILY distorted guitars in Cannibal Corpse. The older I get, the cleaner the tone I tend to like anyway.

I don't think there are very many bassists on this site. I've noticed a ton of coffee shop style guitarists with 20 different Fenders or PRS in their profiles and the bass players of those bands either don't exist or are untouched gear wise.

This is pretty much the deepest well of Bass guitar knowledge on the net. http://www.talkbass.com/categories/general-forums-bg.246/

I have the same name over there. If you head that way, give me a shout.

boom762
boom762|12239 MODERATOR

Oh yeah,

ISP came out with a bass version of that pedal called the BETA that has built in compression too. Both feature the G-String II noise gate circuit.

cole_swank
cole_swank|122

Hey! Thank you for the reply. I've looked into the B3k, but my biggest deterrence is the $250 price tag. I just haven't really gotten myself to justify spending that much on a type of distortion when I haven't really played with a whole lot of em yet. I'll definitely look into the ISP Theta/beta as well.

I have two pedals in my possession right now for distortion: OCD by Fulltone and the EHX Bass Soul food. Really wasn't pleased with the soul food, its only really great at being a clean boost. However, the OCD is really nice. To me, it definitely sits in the distortion range on my bass and I was hoping that I'd get an overdrive just so I'd have something a little bit lighter on my board for the parts in my songs where I don't wanna give it a big push. I'll also end up getting the Swollen Pickle as a fuzz eventually (Black metal needs big doomy tones okay? :P)

I noticed that you recommended me a sansamp. What would be the advantages to having one? I feel like I get the tone I'd like already out of my head (Hartke LH500) but if there are any other advantages to getting that preamp (or others) I'll definitely check it out. The local GC around here has them.

Also I've looked around on Talkbass a few times. I might actually go sign up one of these days! :)

boom762
boom762|12239 MODERATOR
In reply to cole_swank:

The SansAmp is superb at tone shaping. You can use it BY ITSELF in a studio for recording or at a gig playing live. No amp needed, hense the name "Sans Amp - Without Amp)"

At a large venue, your onstage cabinets are pretty much just a monitor for you to use. The sound the audience hears will be from the PA system. The SansAmp would allow you to use your speakers for monitoring your playing and use the parallel out to go into the PA. That's if you wanted to lug around speakers though.

I use a Sanamp Bass Driver DI Pedal for recording. This was $200 WELL spent. The quality on it is awesome. The potentiometer knobs are really nice feeling and heavy. This thing feels like it would be very hard to break open with a hammer. It comes in a nice looking Tin box for the product and of course comes with a warranty. There are certain companies that make gear that gather a great following with high marks for customer service. Hartke is one of the best on the planet. The owner has been known to fix problems personally on the rare occasion people have issues with them. Tech21 is becoming another one.

I use a Sansamp RBI Rack (The rack version of the Bass Driver) and run it in series with the Sansamp RPM. This way I can get the best of both worlds out of those tones. I use the LH1000 as a 1000 watt power amp. When you run things the way I had to, to use both sansamps I had to cut access to the Hartke EQ. I liked the Hartke tone by itself as well, but it I like having more control than it allowed me to have. I'm a tone snob and If I want to make a certain tone I don't want to be hindered by my equipment.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/KaiNHooD/20150516_155543.jpg

I learned the hard way. Don't be afraid to pay good money for good gear, especially if it's half off and used. If you take care of it, GOOD gear retains value and can be sold for near what you paid for it. I used to only buy inexpensive items and these days I can't even sell them. I literally can't sell some of my equipment because some of it goes for 90 bucks or less new. No one wants it, and I don't want to just give it away. It's fine to have a cheap bass to do experiments with and such, but don't make your whole arsenal low quality. Every-time I upgrade gear, I realize I cannot go back. When I had a $150 bass, that was the range I looked at. When I had a 400 buck bass, I looked at that price range and didn't want the 200 basses anymore. I am now on a Spector Legend 5 for $800 and I don't want to even look at a bass under 600 now.

It's amazing how a bass you used to play every day for years suddenly feels like junk after playing a higher quality bass. My Spector is so comfortable for me to play now, my last main feels like junk. It's hard for me to put the Spector down now and I will likely go for another spector when I get G.A.S. again.

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