I got the Science Amps/Electronic Audio Experiments collaboration Mother Preamp Pedal.

I used to have one of Science's Mother Amps which this pedal is based on. A 200 watt monster with KT88s that was sorta based on a Hiwatt. A great amp that I am a little sad I got rid of, as it was excellent for bass and guitar. I was starting to consider buying another, and then they released this pedal, so I decided to see if this would scratch the itch.

I put it in front of my main amp (72 Orange OR120) and it quickly replaced an always on pedal I had on the board. The "A Channel" on the Mother pedal dialed in with low gain adds just a little hair on my clean sound and it reacts real well with the amps natural character when I strum hard and settles down when I lay off. Really gets the sound I want without having the amp loud-loud. The A Channel stacked with the EAE 0xEAE Boost is gnarly and rules The B Channel on the pedal offers a real nice distortion sound (can dial this to be just past crunch to a nice warm thick distortion) which you can push to be louder than the A Channel if you want to use it as a boost. Stack that with a Muff style pedal and get out of the way.

I also tried to pair the pedal with a solid state poweramp (SD powerstage) and while it loses a little of the tube amp characteristics, the essential sound is still there, and if I were to play a fly in gig, I'd be 90% happy with the sound into a borrowed cab.

Still haven't played around with it on bass yet, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't excellent there as well.

So yeah, I spend $300 on it and now I don't feel I need to buy a $2500 amp.

That looks really cool, and I love that it has a control labelled “Absence” - guessing that’s like a presence control in reverse?

Nico Adie wrote: Sun Feb 25, 2024 5:21 pm That looks really cool, and I love that it has a control labelled “Absence” - guessing that’s like a presence control in reverse?

Exactly correct. The Depth control is cool too because it adjusts the low end frequency before the overdrive stage in the preamp so it really can alter the feel and texture of the breakup/distortion. This coupled with the Bass control that is after the overdrive stage can make it really versatile.

Nate Dort wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 12:01 pm

bassdriver wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 10:59 am Great job, Nate! What’s the going price for those Trace Elliot amps?

Thanks!

There's not much reverb history on these. I've seen a few older listings on talkbass in the $1500 range, but I think that's really optimistic. I'll probably put them on reverb starting at $1300 and see what happens.

Sold both of them in less than a week. Profit margin was the highest I've ever had in my many years of doing these fix-n-flips. Even more than the ridiculous '65 Ludwig kit craigslist score from 2017.

T.C. Electronic Cinders. Its a direct clone of the Boss Blues Driver. Part of me wishes I got the BD-2 instead just to have the buffer, since the Cinders is true bypass. Not a big deal, though since it's half the price.

I also picked up the T.C. Electronic Zeus. Its a great Klon with a FAT switch to give it some girth. Its oddly smaller than all their other OD pedals. Sounds great, probably my favorite OD at the moment and the best Klon I've had. Just great, tight overdrive tones with lots of clarity and the FAT switch adds some nice body, where other Klons tend to be more shrill.

I love that the T.C. pedals have smooth footswitches that don't click. I've watched more than a few engineers remove pedal clicks from recordings to really appreciate these little details.

For those who were following the other saga in the Small Questions thread about the unidentified monster vented 4x12, I screwed a sled to the base and got it in the house finally. I have some regrets about the cost and wish I could have figured out a way to do it cheaper. With all the screws, casters and small sheet of 1/2" plywood, this sled ended up costing me almost $70. They had some screw on casters and was thinking about using those w/ some T-nuts but since there was the tear out right at the corners, using the sled gives me a wider wheel base and this thing is so unbelievably heavy, it needs all the girth it can get.

Anyway, I only got to play it for 15 minutes on lunch today with bass and as I expected from what I heard at Thundersnow, it sounds incredible. Much more hi-fi than I was expecting for a cabinet & speakers that are at least 50 years old at this point. Those Altec 417 series are known for their high-end response and it compliments the bass guitar in a way I am really digging. Plenty of low end output too, even w/ The Duke which is short scale (honestly kinda the worst-sounding bass I have but also kinda my favorite) and anything on that E string isn't going to ever sound great.

More to come. Want to try it out w/ guitar next.

This thing's going to be parked in the basement probably indefinitely. Handles will get added but FFS I hope I never have to try to get it up those stairs. My TL-606s can go back in the garage in hopes that some day I'll be playing bass in a band again.

What a nice bonus. I wish I would have been able to get it south of the bridge sooner.

I’ve been meaning to get casters for some non-amp related stuff and yes, the cost is prohibitive. Not like break-the-bank expensive so much as I intellectually refuse to accept that they’re like $15 a pop

Electro Harmonix Eddy - I’ll probably rarely if ever use the chorus on it, but the vibrato - mamma mia! It does the warped record/wow and flutter sound I’ve been looking for for a long time. Love it.

Noise Ensemble - utterly chaotic sounding fuzz based on a PT2399 chip. 2 knobs, volume and chaos. The chaos knob increases the amount of gated fuzz, reverb, chorus delay and vibrato all in one. I fucking LOVE this thing already. Sounds like this:

That vibrato is nice. If you like just the Vibrato, for half the price you should check out the T.C. Electronic Shaker Vibrato.

I like to use my Shaker with a 3rd Dimension Chorus. It's nice to see both of these things in the same pedal though. The Eddy chorus reminds me of the 3rd Dimension, getting that sweet 80's Crimson vibe. Love that it has an expression pedal input.

cakes wrote: Thu Feb 29, 2024 10:44 am That vibrato is nice. If you like just the Vibrato, for half the price you should check out the T.C. Electronic Shaker Vibrato.

I like to use my Shaker with a 3rd Dimension Chorus. It's nice to see both of these things in the same pedal though. The Eddy chorus reminds me of the 3rd Dimension, getting that sweet 80's Crimson vibe. Love that it has an expression pedal input.

It’s got a VCF too, so you can set it so that if you hit a chord hard the depth or speed of the vibrato or chorus increases then slows down, or vice versa. Very cool.