Zvex Box or Rock + Bassman LTD = What to expect?

[RDM]

Anyone running this pedal in front of this amp?

[re-animator]

flubby bass.



Don't get me wrong the BoR is an excellent piece of work in the distortion category, but when running it through an openback 4x10, you're just asking for trouble. Expect 0 cut in a live band situation.

[RDM]

Are you talking about distortion in general or just the BoR? I've been running a Tube Zone through my Bassman and the bottom end has been very tight. My amp is going to be mic'd....will that make a difference?

Have you owned this combination...or are you just generally speaking?

[re-animator]

The box of rock, not OD's in general. I owned a Box of Rock through a fender super reverb reissue.... similar amps, different preamp schemes. The end result was just too much flab to deal with, which is a damn shame because the BoR is such a great pedal. If Zach could make one with 2 or 3 band EQ, it would really be "the ultimate" in distortions I think, but that's not the idea. The idea is to provide an alternative to attenuation/iso cabs/power scaling for JTM 45 owners.

[frizbplaya]

If that's the problem you can put an EQ pedal just before or after. if you put it before and lower the bass frequencies the BoR won't distort the low end, then bump the bass on the amp and you'll have cleaner bass and more distorted mids/highs. I don't have any experience with the BoR but I've seen their demo. EQ can change a distortion a lot though.

[sabby]

You may want a Mule. It gets great early Marshall/bright Tweed grind, it's very touch sensitive, and it's transparent so it won't overload any section of your EQ.

They're relatively inexpensive and love Tweed Bassmans.

[re-animator]

actually for a bassman, I might try a fulltone OCD. Still bass-heavy, but not quite to the same extent... its a bit more juicy sounding.

[RDM]

Isn't the Mule low to medium gain?

I tried an OCD and there was too much bass for me.

[RDM]

I'm thinking maybe another Tube Zone or a Crunch Box. The Maxon Sonic Distortion sounds good as well.

[dahn8]

If you thought the OCD had too much bass, then the BOR probably will be worse.

That being said, I ran a BOR in front of my Bassman... if you tweak the pedal and amp well, you can get some pretty good tones. But the BOR had a tendency more often than not to make the bass flubby.

[sabby]

Originally Posted by Mr_Maxwell

Isn't the Mule low to medium gain?

I tried an OCD and there was too much bass for me.

Yeah, sort of. It's a weird beast in the world of ODs. There's a lot of crunch on tap but very little -- I'd even say no -- compression. If you dig in with the gain up, it's hardly cleanish. The thing is you can pick lightly with the gain up and it can be rather clean. It's more like an uncompressed, uncolored fuzz than a traditional grit+compression OD. The bottom is more furry than tight -- you could call it compressed, but not in a TS way -- but I'd guess that's a good thing for you. You're getting compression from your speakers. Anything with too stiff a bottom will give you flub.

If the grit is not enough, there's another big caveat: there's move volume than you could ever reasonably use. You can slam the limited headroom of a Bassman. If you get a Mule working hard with your Bassman, I'm guessing you wouldn't neatly toss it into low-medium gain camp.

My idea of good R'n'R tones have a lot less gain than what many here prefer, so take the above with a grain of salt. That said, even if it's not exactly what you're looking, I'd wager you'd get a lot of use from the Mule. It's such a great fit with Tweeds and Browns. It definitely would get you comfortably into AC/DC territory.

:BEER

[guitarplayaman]

try a menatone king of the brits......I get a killer Jimmy page sound out of a 4-10 super reverb but my amp aint no reissue....