It’s back from the dead! The TB Mega Thread.

[Jwar]

Why won't anyone make me trade offers for my bass now? No one is pming me. Before I was at least getting low ball offers. I don't even know if I really want to trade the damn thing, but it's the principal of it. You know? I'm depressed and bored, so they could at least entertain me. Sigh. TB is soooooooooo stupid.

[MSUsousaphone]

Count me in on not liking the clean blend hype. I mean, some people do it right, and some effects need it. But OD, for example, is not one of them. Probably the biggest reason I didn't find the B3K all that. And if you mention it on TB, it's like walking into a baptist church and saying you're any other religion.

[Deltaphoenix]

Sometimes clean-ish blend is cool, like a lpf on a clean blend. Only some low end umpph added. It sounds weird to me when I am playing higher notes, like the clean blend can be shrill sounding.

[SmallEQ]

Not trying to pick a fight with people who like it, but I am always constantly annoyed that everyone's solution to make something "bass friendly" is just to slap a fucking clean blend on it. It's such a fucking lazy cop-out solution; not everyone likes the stacked parallel signals sound.

I get that as well, but the clean blend isn't what makes that reverb bass friendly, it's the high pass filter control. The same thing that Taylor is doing with the nimbus. Most reverbs have a mix control anyway, but without the ability to select a high pass frequency, you usually get nothing but mud.

[Jwar]

I also don't like clean blend unless it's done right. The disagree about the B3k though. I think that's an instance where it's done perfect. TB is right about that pedal at least. It's fucking amazing and the best OD I've tried for bass.

Fuzz with clean blends can annoying the living shit out of me unless done right too. The only really good example of a clean blend that worked in my mind is the Depth Charge. Seriously, fucking great fuzz for bass.

[behndy]

i'm.......... a huge fan of clean blends. i even like the way the B3k sort of forces blend action on to fuzzes after it. when i have a fuzz going if i turn on the B3k it pushes them hard enough that on most i get a little more articulation and underlying clank. good stuff.

but yeah, some bends suck the balls. i love the B3k's, Brian SS/BS/DFAS's always sound good, and a huge fan of the one on the PPB.

[My name is Mudd]

I like the concept of a clean blend in general, depending on how it's actually implemented...like what Os did with the Gemini Drive. And I'm slightly surprised that the M5's blends as well as it does.

All that said, I didn't care much for how the Barge Concepts VFB worked. Anyone have/had an Xotic X-blender?

[Grrface]

Argh. My TAFM will arrive today, probably around 2pm, and I'm in Washington DC for a week. Bogus.

[Deltaphoenix]

I had a similar situation with my Megalith Grr

[MSUsousaphone]

Yeah, the TAFM is perfection. The Oxide has a good one, too. I just prefer the TAFM's voicing.

The once thing the B3K did that no other pedal I've heard can do quite as well is the coloring it has with other pedals. It's really fucking sweet and delicious. I just couldn't pay that much money for a pedal colorer. The Elements going into this Mesa Strategy 400 is like a B3K on 'roids. That same dark sound but totally fucking beefed up through and through. I'm pretty sure my Swell B-Drive is going up for sell a few days after it comes in. That thing was a neccessity when I had a SS amp but it's a bit obsolete with this 16 holy tubes of power amp.

[behndy]

I had a similar situation with my Megalith Grr

hah! i had my Dingwall get done and shipped about a month and a half sooner than quoted. very cool, but that means it hit my house like 3 days before i went to Japan for 3 weeks. allllllllmost cancelled my trip.

[bigchiefbc]

The TAFM is an awesome fuzz pedal, but not for the clean blend. My favorite blend setting on the TAFM was all the way down.

As I said, I'm not trying to start shit with people who like it. I just think that clean blended fuzz or dirt sounds like stir-fried awfulness, at least through every rig I've ever played. I just hate that layered sound where you hear awesome fuzz/dirt, and then that clanky clean tone on top of it. Yuck.

[phantasmagorovich]

The TAFM is an awesome fuzz pedal, but not for the clean blend. My favorite blend setting on the TAFM was all the way down.

As I said, I'm not trying to start shit with people who like it. I just think that clean blended fuzz or dirt sounds like stir-fried awfulness, at least through every rig I've ever played. I just hate that layered sound where you hear awesome fuzz/dirt, and then that clanky clean tone on top of it. Yuck.

I love clean blends to mix two fuzz sounds. That's what I love. But using them for actual CLEAN blend? Meh. Not what I love. But mixing a fuzz into another fuzz. I love that.

[wsas3]

phantasm has a good point,thats the only use i see for it

[D.o.S.]

I piss in the direction of blends and their ilk.