96 posts
I suppose so Paul, wonder how long it'll last. Every time I get some time to indulge, things change, like a curse.
Thanks sheep. "up front and aggressive"...I hope that's not a polite way of saying there's a bit too much of this or that, lol....I'm running out of things to tweak and excuses to keep experimenting. :P
The only thing that song is missing is bass... but I realized upon listening that there literally is no bass in it yet. So that solves that.
Now with video, lol...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNM4-g6WxbE
Sounds great. Good job D.
Thanks man. I know the vid is short, but it won't be for long now that I have things sorted out (and documented, lol). I still need to actually come up with something for the rest of that track, map out drums, etc, but I will. And I can just add to this video whenever I'm done, so no biggie. Was fun to make a lil jam video like that. Surprised at the decent image quality from my android, lol! :o
I'm getting weird youtube crashes today :/
got a still shot... but that was it. will try again later.
cool vid! looking forward to the rest of it <whipcrack> ;)
sonic hottie... hmm, if/when I get the red pedal, I'll have to do a cover of the song from that christmas special...
Thanks!
I'm lost on that one, lol. "Put one foot in front of the other"???
year w/o a Santa Claus!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGRkNaMFp6w
I'm Mister Green Christmas,
I'm Mister Sun.
I'm Mister Heat Blister,
I'm Mister Hundred And One.
They call me Heat Miser,
Whatever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch.
I'm too much!
I don't remember Snow Miser's... Family favorite when my kids were little :)
I watched the whole clip. :) Haven't seen that in years. Warms the heart...but kinda creepy when you were younger though, lol. They (network tv anyway) don't always show that one each year, and also the other one with the song I was referring to...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OORsz2d1H7s
hah, yeah - that winter warlock guy was scary! pointy shoes that curl over... got me every time. well, and the pointy teeth. ;)
just arrived... and it's jam night! perfect.
Congrats! Curious to read your thoughts after you've messed with it a bit.
Yeah, think you're gonna dig this one!
(Until you sell it and build a clone. :))
Oh and just so you know, you win. I made clips 4 days ago but I'm having some issues and they aren't worthy of being put up here. So you can put some up first :)
Verdict's out. There were definitely some things I liked about it... it's got some good gain, some nice compression, and lots of options. Definitely a sound I don't have yet.
I'm not happy with the EQ section. It doesn't seem to do much of anything at all... I dropped the treble to zero and it was still pretty bright, but it's definitely unlistenable all the way up. The mid control and the bass control don't do much either. The various switches affect the eq more than the EQ knobs! One guy totally dug it and a couple of us liked it but weren't over the moon. Considering that it's the most expensive pedal in the studio, I have pretty high expectations.
I have a feeling if it ends up being keeper, it's going to have to go under the knife... the EQ needs to work!
That's odd, my experience is different. I agree about the mini toggles and how effective they are (I love the mellow position), but I found the dials to be sensitive. In fact, I was making scratch track recordings and listening to the playbacks while dialing the treble in on the pedal because it was touchy, the slightest moves, like 1/8" distances, made a noticeable change. In the end, at least for the treble, I even had to take a white colored pencil and place a tick mark where I liked it best (I have a habit of tripping over my pedals). Not saying yours is not working properly or anything, just saying I definitely hear the knobs being effective...maybe not as much as the toggles, but they're working well for me.
Here is what I've found, related to the EQ. First of all, let me state again, that this thing sounds FANTASTIC through my Budda SD 18. Those of you who know anything about them know that the clean channel is considered to be "Voxy." When I play this pedal through my Tweaker, the EQ reacts differently depending on which amp setting (Fender/Vox/Marshall) I am using. As you can imagine, the Fender is the brightest setting and EQ changes made to the treble control on the red are clear and minor adjustments change the tone. Just as another example, on the Marshall setting the bass must be adjusted as the amp has more bottom and low mids in this setting. And, with this setting the bass control on the Red is very effective in taming and shaping it. I do not think they are radical tone shapers though. It looks like he tried to voice them so that their whole range is "usable" rather than massive shifts in tone.
I think the tone controls all work as expected, and their overall response varies by the amp being used. Charger, what amps did you try it with, and did you try it with more than one?
Last night we were using it through our latest Hammond amp project, which is voiced between a Fender and a Marshall 18 watt, but cleaner (it's got a boost that makes it grindy, but that was off).
First off, any time we start talking about "you have to use the right amp" you lose me, because besides the cheap shit that ends up on the shelf, most of the pedals in the studio sound good in every amp. We move pedal boards and pedals from amp to amp all the time, and 'm not looking to buy a $240 pedal that works with one amp on one setting, ya know? I can move any other pedal in the room to any amp.
So, the pedal was very bright, and the EQ settings were not very sensitive. I'm not the first person to experience this, I have read this on a few of the boards as well. The fact that I could drop the treble all the way to 0, and still have plenty of treble in it was pretty surprising. First comment I heard was the exact same thing I was thinking--"we need to change that EQ". I'm thinking revoicing it to use the actual Bogner EQ section would be a good start. It's possible that the designers combined the presence and treble into one knob or something, or maybe the gain section just didn't sound good with the real XTC EQ. I'm perplexed that you all find the EQ to be sensitive... that was not my experience at all... anyway, it's possible I can fix it...
Just to add a little food for thought. Perhaps their tolerances aren't that tight. I remember a time when at a Wateringhole stock we had 3 XXL Tech 21 pedals and they were HUGELY different in sound, volume, and tone and they were the same damn pedal. We didn't even use batteries when we shot them out.
Maybe that's what you have going on.
I would be surprised if that was the case. A Cursory glance over the components shows that the parts are all pretty tight tolerance, high grade parts. The pedals are also assembled in the US, so I'd imagine there is some level of real QA that goes into them. Or other people could just like brighter stuff than me.
As for the pedals having usable EQ throughout the entire range, that would be neat, Howie. I'd love to hear a clip of yours with the treble dimed, because to me, that was like shaving glass. I could just be spoiled by the Wamplers etc. I've been playing with, Wampler pedals have treble that is actually very effective, but can be dimed and still sound good.
Charger, I didn't say "you have to use the right amp." I said that the voicing of the amp used was part of the overall tone, and cited two examples where the EQ worked fine with very different amps.
Matt, not likely because A) the Bogner uses some really nice parts (Wima caps) and B) the pots are where you have a NORM of 20% tolerance. When we had those XXLs, if you remember, your was about the same volume with the level on 10 as mine was on 10:30 and Jamie's was on about noon. But if you evened out the volume, they all sounded almost identical. Some of the higher end pedal guys buy tons of pots, test then and use about 25% that are closest to spec and sell off the rest. One luthier told me that he bought guitar volume pots in lots of 100 and only kept 25% of them.
Anyway, there are SO many controls on that pedal that I can't fathom it being too bright if you didn't have one of the other switches that adds treble on, or were using the less bright amp settings. Just saying, it can easily be bright if you put it with the scooped (20th) amp setting, the B1 or B2 on, and the Tight, etc.. each ads treble or removes bass. Just saying, I found it's EQ could be ALL OVER the place and with any amp I tried it with I could make it dark, bright, or just right. Also, I liked it MUCH better with the Greenback clone than the G12H. I'll try it with a V30 and report.
FWIW, my Uber pedal is flacid thru my Engl.... I was ready to return it until on a whim I tried it thru the krank. The matchups matter. Heck, people love the JB pickup. I find it to be kind of nasal and a bit muddy in the low end. Guess what, thru the Uber pedal I don't have those issues with it...
I understand your perspective though charger, if it doesn't fit your particular needs, it doesn't...
Had another thought - how high was your output level on the pedal? I have noticed that if I set it too high the tone knobs lose their range and become fairly useless...
Output level was a little under halfway up... basically set it for unity gain with the bypassed tone. Like I said, one guy really dug it, so we didn't all have issues with it. It's just when a new pedal hits the jam you're hoping for unanimous approval. Last night, everybody loved the flashback X4... Likewise when I brought in the two honeybees... We've got three Sobbat Drivebreakers in the studio because they sound good with everything and everyone wants one. So you can imagine when I show up with something with tons of hype, beautifully crafted, with a name like Bogner, we expect a lot... and it's not unreasonable to have high expectations of a $299 list pedal! I want it to sound better than something I can build for $30!
I liked it best set to Mellow, 101A, EQ settings not really important as long as the treble was below half, gain about halfway up. I liked the variac switch too... mellowed it just a bit more. I just found it too bright and lacking in tone adjustment on the whole. It's probably possible to sell it for what I got it for a few months at least, so I'm going to hold on to it until I finish my seventh heaven pedal, then I can do a side-by-side comparison--or until I tweak the EQ to get it working the way I want.
Okay, I spent a lot of time with this on my Fender Super Champ XD combo. This is a far better combo for it because it's already a fairly dark amp, and I've got a 12" Weber Silver Bell speaker with a hemp cone, for even more dark. The key is dark.
The variac switch on is a necessity... that switch just sounds great, looks to me like it drops the voltage from ~25 to 17v, circuit seems to bear this out. I don't have a verdict on the pre switches, they don't do a whole lot but generally b1 or n seem to sound least bright to me. The 101 has a lot of bass and a little more treble than the 100, without adding too much gain. The 100 setting is overall flatter but sounds kind of thin and weak to me. I have no use for the 20th setting... more treble and gain... pedals got enough of both. I almost always use the "mellow" mode but "full" is OK--again, adds more treble. There are about 9 places in this pedal where it adds treble. I guess they like treble! Gain about halfway up is about as far as I like to go. I don't go past the halfway mark with the treble, as that way lies madness. Bass sounds good halfway up, as does mid, though mid I can push up higher. The EQ is voices completely wrong... if you turn it up and listen to it, the bass is centered very low... it's almost like cab thump. Turning it up doesn't make the bottom harmonically richer, just the bottom lower. The Mid setting is really almost exactly where the bass should be, probably within a fifth, and if the Q was slightly narrower that would be excellent... when you cut it to 0, instead of giving a scooped mid sound, it cuts out a lot of the bass and thins everything out... And boosting it higher actually gives some nice lows. The Treble is my main beef, though... it's all wrong. It's voiced well above where any self-respecting treble control should be. On any tube amp, I'd call this "presence." It could be an octave lower easily. So for me it's stuck at noon and slightly below... dropping it lower makes it a little unsparkly, pushing it higher makes it ear-splitting.
The 7th heaven, which I'm almost done building, uses the actual bogner eq values, so it's got a separate treble and presence. I'm not completely blown away by the Bogner yet, but I'm cautiously optimistic. Once I can compare the two pedals, I'm going to dig in and see if it's possible to change the eq values in the BR to make it a little more usable for me.
I asked what amp, what about guitar. What are you using? Even with the single coils on the Carvin I didn't turn treble below noon. With the humbuckers it lives around 1:00 most of the time.
Guitars that sound good with every other pedal I own. Is this a serious question?
well it was, but forget it. Just trying to help. Mine isn't bright.
I suppose it just comes down to the sum of all our own gear and ears. I don't find mine bright at all either when set fairly neutral. It can be dialed in bright of course, but for the most part, I personally find it balanced and only have to turn down the mids as I'm running into Greenies. I have my treble set to 12:30, middle at 10:30, bass at 12:00. Pre Eq at 'n', mellow position, variac off. Those are the settings used in the clip I posted and no matter where I shared that, I got no comments about it being too bright. Honestly, its only got a lot of positive remarks (not that anyone asked, just tossing that out there).
I really like the structure tool...the 20th setting has the most gain obviously, so that is great for solo tones, but then I hear a little bump in the mids when switched over to the 100 position, so that is also kinda a cool tone for soloing, less gain yeah, but a sweeter mids focus, possibly at a different freq. A learning curve to these puppies, no doubt. Heh, anyway, I'm fully enjoying mine!
this would be a lot easier to understand, as a spectator, if you guys weren't so damn clip-stingy. ;) ;D
Kabala — Mar 19, 2013I suppose it just comes down to the sum of all our own gear and ears. I don't find mine bright at all either when set fairly neutral. It can be dialed in bright of course, but for the most part, I personally find it balanced and only have to turn down the mids as I'm running into Greenies. I have my treble set to 12:30, middle at 10:30, bass at 12:00. Pre Eq at 'n', mellow position, variac off. Those are the settings used in the clip I posted and no matter where I shared that, I got no comments about it being too bright. Honestly, its only got a lot of positive remarks (not that anyone asked, just tossing that out there).
I wouldn't say it's bright for you, those are the tones you like, but brighter than I would use for sure. And that's the difference between 12:30 (your setting) and 11:30 (my setting) on the treble knob! That's kind of my point though... you tend towards brighter sounds, and even you've got the treble only at 12:30... There's a definite lack of usable range to that knob. It can't be dimed. Most of my pedals with treble knobs can. I'm not saying they are better or worse... just different. This pedal's got some nice qualities, but the range of the EQ is IMO not one of them. I'm not trying to start a religious war here... if you believe the EQ is great, more power to you. Personally, I think it can be improved, and a good place to start would be to use the actual Ecstasy EQ values...
DreamTheaterRules — Mar 19, 2013well it was, but forget it. Just trying to help. Mine isn't bright.
Even with the single coils on the Carvin I didn't turn treble below noon. With the humbuckers it lives around 1:00 most of the time.
In this alternate universe, this pedal isn't bright, but you, Howie Coleman, are running the treble between noon and 1.
Like I said, I'm not trying to start a religious war.
Do you think you could use this pedal with the treble dimed?
With the treble at 3 o'clock? 4 o'clock?
It's okay to like the pedal and not like certain aspects of it. It's pretty simple for me: I spend a lot of money on gear, but I use that money wisely. A $300 pedal in my estimation should be incredible up and down--as a point of reference, even at $239, that is the single most expensive pedal I have ever bought. It shouldn't be the kind of gear where it only works with certain amps or the right guitar. I've tried it now with two amps (one bright, one dark) and twelve different guitars. 4 strats, one with a bridge humbucker, two Yamaha Pacificas, a hollow body Oscar Schmidt with humbuckers, two teles, a Les Paul, a Les Paul copy, and an Ibanez 540. I'm about three days away from attacking the innards with a soldering iron.
again, my question was to find out your frame of reference. If you answered my question with "a strat copy," I would have gotten out my strat or Tokai strat to check and see how I liked it with them, and if it were bright overall with those type of pickups. I wasn't trying to start a war either. Just asking for your frame of reference. You already indicated that at least someone in your group loved the pedal. Maybe he was playing his humbucker guitar and you were playing a strat. I have no idea. That's why i didn't care for the sarcastic reply. We just talkin gear here man. I'm not questioning your hearing or sanitiy, just talkin gear. You don't have to respect my opinion, but no need to publicly act like it's stupid. :) (I'm not saying it's not stupid, just that it's not nice to point it out. ;D )
No worries here, I'm happy as a clam with mine. If you're not 100% satisfied and feel you can improve/fix it then I'm sure you will! If I felt in any way a piece of gear could be improved (even just the slightest sometimes) and it's something within my ability, I usually tackle it as well...and I don't even shy away from digging into a brand new, expensive piece for that matter. That white US Charvel in the vid I posted came stock with too shallow a pickup cavity for my old Super Distortion - I never hesitated when I busted out the chisel and chiped away at that thing. It's all good when it's for personal pref!
DreamTheaterRules — Mar 20, 2013again, my question was to find out your frame of reference. If you answered my question with "a strat copy," I would have gotten out my strat or Tokai strat to check and see how I liked it with them, and if it were bright overall with those type of pickups. I wasn't trying to start a war either. Just asking for your frame of reference. You already indicated that at least someone in your group loved the pedal. Maybe he was playing his humbucker guitar and you were playing a strat. I have no idea. That's why i didn't care for the sarcastic reply. We just talkin gear here man. I'm not questioning your hearing or sanitiy, just talkin gear. You don't have to respect my opinion, but no need to publicly act like it's stupid. :) (I'm not saying it's not stupid, just that it's not nice to point it out. ;D )
But flip that around... you're asking a person who spends hours and hours every week building effects, guitars, and amps, and playing through 60+ pedals, 20+ guitars and 8+ tube amps, if maybe he picked the wrong guitar.
no, again, your taking it wrong. Derek says his isn't bright. I say mine isn't. You say yours is. So I first ask what amp, then what guitar, because I'm trying to (foolishly, I know) help figure out if it's just not a match for whatever you played it with or PERHAPS you have one that's out of spec somehow.
You made those comments right after you got it, as well. So it was safe for me to assume that at least the first time you said it, you hadn't tried all 100 guitars and 50 amps. Hey, I pulled out a Tokai strat last night and played for an hour. Every amp and pedal I played through sounded bright, because I played them with a PRS the night before. Adjusted, not bright any more. When I switch back they'll all be dark until I readjust. And forget the year at BG where I had a Strat, a somewhat bright amp with a brand new not broken in and clearly "not the right" speaker, sitting on a concrete floor with a concrete wall behind it, and you STILL to this day think I like everything ultra bright because of it. Not even close to the truth. But I know from prior comments you are just thinking "you like everything bright so you don't think this pedal is bright." LOL
You being Mr. DIY now, know that the pots are the wild cards in many devices. 20% tolerance on even the better brands. I would think that regardless of what you think of my opinion, if I say mine isn't bright, and Derek says his isn't bright and MOST other people say the same, (yes, I've seen a few comments that it was) that you might consider the possibility that it could simply be this tolerance that's off... hence the "troubleshooting" type questions I was asking.
Thus, not sure why asking a question is somehow insulting your knowledge. I was more thinking you had a bad one somehow, more than that it didn't like a guitar/amp combo you used to check it out. hey Bogner's own demo of this pedal sounds bright BUT BUT BUT, the amp itself before they turn the pedal on sounds bright and thin! (Fender Supersonic, set bright and thin. Guy is even using a Les Paul and it sounds thin! I didn't think it was a very good demo, actually, due to that.
And not to make it a cock fight, but I may not have a studio and hundreds of instruments. But I do have a music room full of PRS, Taylor, high end Fender, Budda, Egnater, VHT, Bogner ... EVEN LINE 6! ;)
But hey, I can stop asking questions if it offends you. I didn't take my Tokai in the room where the Bogner Red is last night. If I try it and my Strat with the Red and find it bright, I'll let you know. I know the Carvin isn't as bright as either, so just using SC's on those isn't necessarily indicative.
I'll just keep reporting what I find, and won't ask questions. ;)
I think you're missing the point I made two posts up. You both say the pedal isn't bright. But you are running it at a max of 1:00, Derek at 12:30. Two things can be equally true--the pedal can be "not bright" for you when you set it that way, and bright for me, who expects to be able to use the entire range of the treble knob. In fact, it's very bright, on par with the brightest pedals I own--if I turn the treble up to max. It's not overly bright at 11:30 where I run it, but I do believe the treble could be revoiced and it would be a lot more usable through the entire range of the knob.
What did you think about my other comments? That the treble seems to be voiced up in the Presence range? That the mids seem to be voiced too wide and too low? That the bass seems lower and less impactful than it should be? I am actually interested in hearing some thoughts on this... can you cut the Mids to 0 and have it sound like scooped mids, or do you lose a lot of bass? Does the bass seem to be in the right range? Does the treble seem to be in the right range? You don't answer any of these... telling me I'm not using the right amp or guitar doesn't answer these questions either. I've run through this thing top to bottom, left to right, even taken it apart, and if you aren't hearing what I am with the EQ controls maybe I've lost my mind. I do find it interesting though that most demos I've seen and most accounts I've read, people use the EQ knobs pretty much at noon. Not a lot of wild EQ tweaking going on. You can imply that it just sounds great straight up from that, or you can take the view that I take and say the EQ doesn't work all that well at the extremes. But I don't know because you're not telling me how the EQ on yours works, just that it doesn't sound like mine.
I wonder if some of the EQ choices that were made were because of assumptions of how the pedal would be used - basically as an extra channel plus boost for a clean amp. Because it does seem odd that the values are that far off.
Charger, actually I sort of agree with some of your comments about things other than the brightness. When I say "sort of" I mean I agree with some of the thoughts but just don't find them to be as negative as you are finding them. Yes, the Treble control is higher than norm. I would estimate somewhere between many amps treble and presence range. But, I don't find that objectionable. I will roll through some strats, but the 2 PRS's just LOVE that (that are fat, not bright, guitars). Can't wait to try the Wolfie but need to restring it.
I also agree that the mids are a bit lower in frequency than many but I remember when Chase had the 101B at Bowling Green that it had this luscious low mids and I think this knob is voiced in a similar range (although I didn't knob twist on the amp much). It's funny, in one of the videos with the man himself, his specifically mentions the mids and the bass. He said he voice them that way to be like the amp.
I will try a strat or two, a tele, and my "rock" guitar, the Wolfie with it and see how varied the results are. I expected that with all it's tuning abilities, they should all be great, but that is only an assumption at this point.
p.s. and HOLY CRAP the switches make so many different kinds of differences that I'm constantly playing with them, then adjusting the tone knobs accordingly to what amp/voice and the treble or treble and mid boost switches, I'm using.
Range of the controls: You got me on this one. I've gotten so many GREAT tones out of it, I haven't varied anything past 2:00 or below 10:00. I will check the more extreme settings out more as well.
Lastly, if you've already looked, I trust you that they aren't like the real amps tone stack. He says he voice it like the amp, but if they aren't they aren't. I found it interesting that one of the official Bogner videos used a Fender Supersonic to demo the pedal. I assume he did it so people could hear a relatively standard "Fender Clean" pedal platform. But they have the amp set (or at least the video sounds) bright and thin. That pedals has a great character to the mids that you can't even hear in the vid because its bright and thin. Ha, honestly, sounds like what you are describing! But now tone stack on my Tweaker sounds that thin or bright, and the Budda SURE doesn't.
I've actually been surprised how many of the videos I've seen are through Fenders, and even Blackface Fenders. That seems like a pretty magic combination, which is surprising--not exactly warm amps! I haven't played an XTC in real life ever, but I know the schematics I've seeing are not what I see in the pedal for the EQ--there are some caps hidden in the goo block which are a mystery... I have played a Shiva, and the EQ is different enough from this pedal to make me wonder... I'm not sure how far Bogner strays from one amp to the next in EQ design. Anyway, I've got another jam tomorrow night and I'll probably be done with my seventh heaven clone, which is a direct clone of the XTC 101 circuit, using the amp EQ values... also has both treble and presence pots... I also included a switchable 9/18v option so I can get a little closer to the XTC pedal. I was out of two values in pots and picked close but not perfect approximations, crossing my fingers. I'll be able to run both side by side and get a little more of a clear picture. Also going to use the Tweaker, that's likely the most neutral amp in the studio... the Hammond clone I used last week runs bright and is more like a Fender.
I didn't remember that you were not at BG the year Chase brought the Bogner 101B