I’ve just sold my Heat. Not because it’s shit, I think it’s great, I just ran out of uses for it, as it has been largely replaced by several vacuum tubes and a bunch of other distortion options with other gear.
If I was looking for something similar for cheaper, the Erica Acidbox III would be the first thing I’d be looking at (will probably end up buying one myself, one day). If I was feeling even cheaper, I’d be looking at FX pedals, most likely some of the Sunn Model T clones, which can be had for somewhere in the 100s of quids.
Heres a pedal I use with bass, it’s probably the best bass distortion ive ever used. Retains all of the bottom end and is crazy versatile. Works really well with synths, too.
The EHX platform sounds very „Analog“ even if is digital. It’s a real keeper but I had problems with interference when I hand midi devices in the same AC outlet so I have sent it back.
Hah, it truly is. Ive gone through around 20 different distortion pedals for bass over the years, from a vintage rat to tech21 bass driver to different preamps like a beta bass pre amp, and nothing has come close to that one. Its so gnarly yet versatile and quite small compared to some of the higher end pre-amps. I only wish there was a stereo version for synths.
I keep wanting heat and then asking myself what do I want it to do. Answer is warming in synth/sample bus (i.e. OT main outs), I have a tonne of other distortions for channels, drum bus etc. Then I think buying heat and just running clean boost/enhance and leaving it is a bit of a waste. I could get some stereo vaccum tube unit instead.
Which are you using @Fin25?
(I may have asked you before/in another thread, memory is not what it was!)
Only 20 Bass drives we should form a club, or help group.
I’m finally at peace with a Bogner Wessex on parallel, or straight into an OTO Boum at 50/50 with some gate to keep it tight.
Well I just bought an Erica Fusion system, which has like 7 tubes in it and several ways to route signals through them. I’ve also got the Lyra’s distortion circuit and the many different options for distortion and dynamics with the OT.
I liked using the Heat across the master, but found that I often hid behind it a little bit instead of working a bit harder on my mix.
Yep, I’m using these on Bass guitar. I resigned to mostly using a clean channel mixed with a 50Hz high passed channel that goes to the drive boxes. Though I don’t low pass when using the Boum since it has its own low and high pass.
I like the idea of a stereo tube preamp, where the tubes could be changed for different character.
And as an aside to the ProCo RAT comments, I’ve tried everything I can get my hands on for my 303 and I keep coming back to the RAT
If it’s just for sound quality and to glue mix or submix at the end of creating process, really don’t mess with hardware. Put a good plugin on your recorded track and you have what you are looking for. Plugin Alliance, Fabfilter, UAD… they did the job…
Check A/B comparison, blind test on saturation plugin vs hardware, you really have to go to very high end and expensive gear to really notice a difference.
Not the same deal if you want creative distortion in live set. In this case AH is a good candidate.
The acidbox III is really nice for that duty. Sounds better than any plug-in I used ( even the PA stuff) it gives a decent saturation combined with analog limiting. Doesn’t kill the Low end like Elysia Karacter. Everything sounds more in your Face and Instruments kinda find their place in the mix even if u play live. I mainly bought it to Filter digital sound sources (as a filterbank) but the warming unit part blew me away
I looked at some 500 stuff for a while… The Colour module stuff can give some fun options, where you can swap in/out different circuits! DIYre, LTL, KRK all have good kit for this stuff.
Indeed, if you’ve got budget, you can suddenly step into a totally different league. I heard the Overstayer (I think it’s called Modular Channel Stereo) recently, and holy crap, it’s incredible! Or the real-life Vertigo etc. Those units that are £3-8k are just a different world.
I’m really enjoying your posts, because you’re confirming everything I hoped when I ordered the AB3!
Agreed, especially with pedals, which so often seem to suck low end. Not sure if anyone has experience with Source Audio After Shock? That’s had some good reviews I think, and looks like an interesting prospect for anyone in this thread, not just bass peeps. Stereo, midi, presets, loading algos from any of the Source Audio distortion pedals etc. The only thing I’d be concerned of is losing low end - I had a Source Audio Chorus pedal which was both very noisy and sucked the lows… Weird, because my Ventris gets used all of the time and I love it!
Obviously not as capable as the Heat, but I’ve started running everything through my Midiverb II, even with all effects disabled. There’s something about its DAC, maybe, that just adds the perfect texture to whatever I run through it? It’s also super-easy to overdrive, and the distortion is nice and smooth. Oh. And it does some reverb, of course, if you want it.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s all in my head. But if so, please don’t tell me because I love this particular placebo. For the $50 it cost me it sees way more use than any of my other kit.
we should form a club, or help group.
