Chase Bliss Brothers

[Jwar]

I'm going to check this out down the road I'm sure. It looks cool, but not a high priority. I do dig the tones though.

[chaseblissaudio]

These fuckers are hard to get.

Sounds like you got it all sorted, we are starting to ship the 2nd batch this week so there should be more around now. Thx so much for scooping one up!

[popvulture]

Yeah, dude! Got it all sorted indeed—thanks for checking in! And y'all must be enjoying this high demand... not a bad problem to have

[popvulture]

Ok, so... it arrived this morning. I spent about 30 minutes with it, which is obviously just a taste, but I'm really glad I took the leap. Just as I suspected, it sounds way different (read: better) through my amp vs. the little headphone amp setup I tried during SXSW.

This is a total Captain Obvious statement, but it really dawned on my after messing around with it for a little bit how big the range of possible sounds is. Pretty nuts. Anyhoo, yay

[Wittgenstein]

Does it do weird shit well

what's the best video with someone using it experimentally

Every video i've seen is just sweet riffz and radiohead covers

[popvulture]

I wouldn't describe it as weird.

[yeatsvisitslincoln]

Just got mine in. It doesn't do weird at all. It sounds fantastic and makes my guitars sound vibrant and alive. But, even the fuzzes stacked into each other still sounds like a guitar to me. And that's not a bad thing. It's just not going to destroy your signal like a ss/BS pedal will. I can see why it plays well with synths, too. It's gonna play with your signal some, but whatever comes through is recognizable as it's own. It's not going to mangle a synth sound beyond recognition, it's just going to add to it or bring out underlying harmonics. Also, first impression is that the tone knobs are a little limited for my taste. I'd like a little more range.

Anyways, I need more than half an hour to get a better grip and see if it's really something that is for me. It's no where near as mean as an HM-2 or Quantum Mystic. It could easily become the go to dirt for all things normal, though.

[yeatsvisitslincoln]

Okay. I cranked the gain on the fuzz on both channels and maxed out the treble on both tone knobs and it started to get kind of nasty. I also found that if I played around with stacking the drives, I could get close to the Quantum Mystic sound, but the QM is still way ahead with it's EQ. Playing around with the stacking and tones seems to get a wide range, but it's no where near as easy as just dialing in an EQ. Will post clips in a few days when I have the time.

[Dungus]

Okay. I cranked the gain on the fuzz on both channels and maxed out the treble on both tone knobs and it started to get kind of nasty. I also found that if I played around with stacking the drives, I could get close to the Quantum Mystic sound, but the QM is still way ahead with it's EQ. Playing around with the stacking and tones seems to get a wide range, but it's no where near as easy as just dialing in an EQ. Will post clips in a few days when I have the time.

My problem with it was that I feel like it was primarily designed to only really work to its fullest with both channels always on at the same time (ie. with a Faves). I couldn't find the sound I was looking for through each individual channel with just the one tone control (and couldn't afford the Faves footswitch), so I moved it on. I think Joel is pretty much a genius, but this one hurt a bit.

[yeatsvisitslincoln]

Yeah, I definitely feel like you need to have both channels on to get more tone shaping. I can't say that I feel like either of the boosts do to much, but I've never really been a boost kind of guy or a light OD/Fuzz guy, either. Both the drives seem to get fuzzy at the top, too. The only other sound that I've really liked is one Fuzz and one Drive in parallel with the Fuzz mixed low to get some pleasant noise in the background. Oh, and using an EXP to make it into a fuzzy volume pedal.

[popvulture]

Hmph.

I rigged up a new board config yesterday because I'm likely joining a friend's band and have my first practice with them on Wednesday. I really had a blast playing around with the new config, aside from the Brothers.

It's weird. I was trying to get a couple of different OD settings, one with the less compressed left side, one with the right. I fucked around a bunch trying to find out which one I liked better for lower gain settings, and which I liked for more medium. At this point I don't have a Faves, and am getting heavier/fuzzier tones from a Fuzz Face next in the chain, so focusing solely on OD. Biggest comment: the volume levels when switching between the two sides can get really uneven, depending on the gain.

I've achieved better sounds mixing the two channels, which isn't really a surprise; there's a lot of room for complex tweaking there. Oddly enough though, the parallel switch setting seems oddly quiet when mixing lower gain settings. Like, almost drastically noticeable volume cut when switching from stacked to parallel. Almost made me wonder if there's something wrong with my pedal.

Overall though, I've been a little disappointed that the tone feels a bit muffled. I just decided to compare it against some other ODs I frequently use, first being the Blues Driver, which I like because it's more of a wide-range OD than a more compressed/mid-focused drive like a TS. They were very comparable, but the Brothers did sound a bit more compressed (and as I mentioned, muffled), so the BD-2 barely edged it out, in my opinion. After that I decided to test it against a Mini, and dammit... the Mini just killed it. I mentioned in the beginning that my one big wish/worry for the Brothers was lack of some kind of bias knob... the Mini has that extra advantage (plus separate bass/treb), and it really does the trick.

So, I dunno. I'm going to hold on to it for a bit so as to not make any hasty decisions, but my current impulse is to flip it and just stick with what I love. Bit of a bummer! In other news, I'm fucking in love with my recently procured Spectre.

[JonnyAngle]

In response
To the above:

I play bass so you're stuff is completely different but...

I like to have the left channel on fuzz with the tone at like 11:00
I like to have the right channel in od with tone at like 2:00
Gains are in the 10-2 range but I have the left feeding into the right.
It's not like a bass and treble knob but sounds good

[popvulture]

Will def give that a try!

Seems like if I had a Faves or a MIDI switcher, it'd kill the problem of having disparate volume levels. That's assuming you can set the master level specifically from preset to preset--not sure why you wouldn't be able to, but I haven't tried yet...

[JonnyAngle]

Will def give that a try!

Seems like if I had a Faves or a MIDI switcher, it'd kill the problem of having disparate volume levels. That's assuming you can set the master level specifically from preset to preset--not sure why you wouldn't be able to, but I haven't tried yet...

I used an expression pedal originally. Faves is ideal

[peaches]

Interesting observation with the Mini too, my Brother knocked my mine off my main board for sure. It can replicate the style of my favourite Mini settings very well (even lower bias settings by mixing fuzz/clean and drive parallel) , and even get some slightly cooler stuff going. Plus it's got a fair few tricks the mini doesn't have.