About a week ago, I posted a guest post by Chad Beeler of BassEFX, where he reviewed the Pigtronix Bass Envelope Phaser. This is a great pedal for bass players, and the review is worth a read – more info here. Chad was kind enough to send that pedal by Pigtronix to me.. to give away, and I’ll be more than happy to give this guy away!

First off, I want to mention that if you play bass… YOU NEED to check out BassEFX.com. Chad is the man, and will help you find the tools to shape your tone. He’s put together this website for bass players out there. Not to mention that Chad is a great guy, and very good to deal with. Got a question, send him a email, he’s more than happy to help.

We’ve had the chance to demo Pigtronix gear in the past, and it’s fair to say that Pigtronix makes absolutely amazing pedals. I’m very pleased to give away this Pigtronix Bass Envelope Phaser valued at $200!

Here is the official description of the Bass Envelope Phaser from Pigtronix’s website:

Since the inception of Pigtronix in 2004, our Envelope Phaser pedal has been celebrated by bass players as one of the most expressive, corpulent and downright funky pedals of all time. With the introduction of the Bass Envelope Phaser, Pigtronix has responded to customer feedback by creating a small size, dedicated envelope pedal that is tuned especially for bassists. This no nonsense, straight ahead design is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other envelope pedal on the planet with its earth shaking low end and unique, vowel like articulation in the mid and high frequency ranges.

Included in this design is the Pigtronix staccato envelope circuit, which auto closes the envelope between notes, for un-matched articulation of high speed finger techniques and slap bass. Running on a stout, 18-volt power supply, the Bass Envelope Phaser has all the headroom you need to deal with active bass pickups and onboard preamps. A simple control layout of SENSITIVITY and RESONANCE knobs gets you to a wide array of perfect sounds within seconds and the UP / DOWN direction switch provides two distinct modes for laying into the various flavors of funk.

Okay, how do you win the Pigtronix Bass Envelope Phaser? Read below:

I’m going to select one random entry on May 31st. I will email that random entry asking for the answer to the question listed below. They will have 24 hours to respond with the answer. If the 24 hours passes and I don’t hear from that finalist, I will select a new random entry and repeat the process until I receive confirmation from the winner. This is open to everyone. Yes, that means international! Also, one entry per person. Please read that last sentence again… “one” “entry” “per” “person”.

The submission form will be open until May 31st (Friday) 2PM MST.

On top of that, I’m going to sweeten the deal. If you ‘LIKE’ EffectsBay on Facebook and you’re selected as the winner, I’ll throw in an extra prize – A free Pedal Label System pack (learn more at PedalLabels.com)

On top of that, BassEFX is going to sweeten the deal even further. If you ‘LIKE’ BassEFX on Facebook and you’re selected as the winner, they’ll throw in an extra prize – a free Bass EFX T-shirt!

So, it’s pretty much a no-brainer to like Effectsbay and BassEFX on Facebook! Just click the ‘likes’ below.

So the question is…. “What is your favorite bass line – song/band?”

I don’t regret missed shows that much, but in June/2012, I felt like an idiot missing Thurston Moore in my home town, at a tiny venue. That was a missed opportunity to see a great doing what he does best in a intimate setting. I doubt it will happen again, especially in that setting, but you never know.

But recently, a friend posted some photos, which included a shot of his pedal line. Pretty cool! Thank you Kia! She was kind enough to let me use the photos for this particular post. I know there are some pretty serious Sonic Youth fans that read this blog, so here we go. I posted his pedal line while Sonic Youth was going strong, and he’s kept it pretty similar but with a few changes.

Here is a breakdown of pedals for June/2012:

Boss GE-7 Equalizer
Mutron Wah-Volume
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff (Sovtek version)
ProCo Turbo Rat
Fulltone Octafuzz
MXR Phase 90
Boss TU-2 Tuner

I also wanted to post this great photo of his 1960 Black Jazzmaster that was stolen 6 months later in 12/12/2012. A lot of the photos showing the  stolen guitar, had the old pickguard with stickers. As you can see in this photo, this guitar has a ‘fresh’ pickguard. Same stickers on the body, but no stickers on the pickguard. Any one know if this guitar was found??

Do you like Thurston Moore? Love to hear your thoughts.. comment below!

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These are definitely some of my favorite posts to do. Just recently, I announced the winner of the Stone Deaf PDF-1 (Parametric Distortion Filter) give away winner – Kirk T. He was kind enough to send a photo of himself with his newly acquired prize!

This is what Kirk had to say about the pedal – “It sounds awesome!  It gives me the rich Foo Fighters sound that I have been trying to achieve for years!” Awesome Kirk, glad you’re liking it!

I want to say thanks once again to Stone Deaf for offering this great pedal to a lucky EffectsBay reader. Please, please take a moment and visit Stone Deaf also, be sure to follow them on Twitter and like their page on Facebook!

I’ll be announcing a new give away very soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

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The kind folks over at Electro-Harmonix sent over the EHX Talking Pedal. I was really curious about this pedal. First off, this is a ‘Next Step’ pedal which is Electro-Harmonix’s new proprietary design where the wah has no moving pieces. Normally, with wahs, you have to deal with a few failure points, primarily, the switch, and tone pot with rack and pinion mechanism. These parts definitely wear out, and with EHX’s new design, there is no switch, no rack and pinion.

Additionally, I was also curious about the Talking Pedal, since this is NOT a traditional wah, but uses a two filters that give the tone of vowel-like vocal sounds.

Now, let’s get back to the design. To activate the pedal, you simply rock the pedal forward, and then you rock it back and forth (similar to a wah). Prior to playing, you’ll need to calibrate the pedal, which is quick and easy, letting the pedal know what is level. The whole pedal moves while you rock, so your cables do move with the pedal, and having this pedal on a pedal board could be an issue (but I personally prefer my wahs ‘off-board’ as well, but you might not).

The Talking Pedal also has a fuzz circuit that dirties up the mid range giving some growl and grit to the tone. The fuzz level is controlled by a scroll wheel on the side of the pedal.

For this demo, we have Jimmy Rolle playing is American Fender Stratocaster into a Germino Lead55 Head through a Germino 4×12 cabinet. There is nothing between the guitar and the amp except for the Electro-Harmonix Talking Pedal. It is important to note that the Germino Lead 55 is a non-master volume amp. Audio was recorded with a Fathead Ribbon Mic and a Shure SM7B, both close mic’d.

You can listen to the high quality MP3 clips via SoundCloud

As you can see/hear, this is a very unique and interesting pedal. I definitely see this as great piece in the tool box for creating interesting tones.

Currently, the Electro-Harmonix Talking Pedal is available from dealers worldwide.

Today’s pedal line is from Shawn Downer. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedallineeffectsbaycom. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

Short Bio,  I have been playing music on various instruments since 1976.
I started on guitar and that is my main preference, but I also play bass, and can keep a beat on the skins.

Well as far as my rig goes,

Starting off with the classic Crybaby

Voodoo Labs Giggity, is a awesome analog pre amp, I use to to round off the mids and highs, but it also works well for fattening up the bottom end.

Devi Ever FX, Rocket Mangler Dual fuzz with add VFM drone tones, this is an amazing fuzz pedal offering many variations of fuzz controlled via a joy stick.

Cusack Tap-A-Phase, a great phaser pedal with a vast amount of character…

Visual Sound, Son of Hyde Distortion pedal, set up for a classic british tone, this pedal offers player specific tuning, meaning you can open it up and change it to how you want it…

Visual Sound Clean boost, this is a excellent pedal to boost the signals that might get lost, also great for getting a little more boost at the certain point of a song that you need to highlight

Rocktron  Phaser, well because, I figure you can never have enough phasers…

Shawn Downer…

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EHX Big Muff is an extremely popular pedal. I’ve been a fan of the Russian version for year, and know of a lot of musicians personally that own various Big Muffs. One Big Muff that I’ve always been interested in, but for some reason, haven’t picked it up yet, is the Big Muff with Tone Wicker.

It’s a tweak to the original Big Muff. The Tone Wicker switch is a mid boost (which is very nice to have) and a tone bypass switch, which removes the tone stack out of the circuit.

Here is a great demo of the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi by Scott Sill

I really think this is a great sounding Big Muff. It’s slightly more expensive than the standard Big Muff, but well within the affordability range. You can currently purchase the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi with Tone Wicker for $90.47 at Amazon

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This give away was in the top 5 for the amount of entries. This was a cool pedal, and it was clear that people wanted this pedal. I want to send a special thank you to Stone Deaf for sending the PDF-1 (Parametric Distortion Filter) for us to demo, and for the opportunity to give it away to a lucky EffectsBay reader. Please take a moment and check out Stone Deaf!

Okay, without further ado, the winner of the Stone Deaf PDF-1 is Kirk T. of Bono, Arkansas! Congrats Kirk!! Hope you enjoy the pedal, and please let us know what you think of it.

For those of you that didn’t win. Sorry… but there will be another give away in the very near future. Hint. Oink.

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This video caught my eye this morning. First off, I like it when anyone takes a couple of minutes and talk about gear, and secondly, I like to check out new bands. I wasn’t familiar with Taylor Madison or his band Daylight, so had to explore. Daylight has that very thick guitar sound that I certainly can get into it, almost reminded me of Seam or something. But like me, they probably hate comparisons. If you’re interested, check out their bandcamp page and listen to a few tunes or check out their official website.

Here is a listing of pedals that were mentioned in the video above:

Way Huge Swollen Pickle MKII
EHX Russian Big Muff (black)
EHX NYC Big Muff
ProCo Rat (modded)
Home made pedal (BYOC?)
MXR Distortion+
TSVG Keystone Fuzz

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The following is a guest review by Chad Beeler of BassEFX.com . If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

“When pigs fly!”  It’s a snarky comment used when there’s belief that something will never happen.  In the world of David Koltai, President of Pigtronix, pigs not only fly, they have jet packs launching them into deep space.   Motivated by the passion to build modern analog effect pedals in a digital age, Koltai, longtime friend and Pigtronix CEO Brian Bethke, and legendary electronics guru Howard Davis have made “Futuristic Analog Technology,” (aka F.A.T.) their mantra.  Creating completely unique pedals that mash up different effects without borrowing or emulating other designs, Pigtronix has become one of the fastest growing pedal manufacturers.

The incubation of Pigtronix started at Middlebury  College in Vermont, where Koltai and Bethke were students.  Koltai was working toward a BA in music when a mutual friend, a physicist nicknamed “Pigpen” built a couple of pedals featured in Craig Anderton’s classic ‘70s DIY book called “Electronic Projects for Musicians”.  One was a basic optical compressor.   The other one, however, combined an envelope follower with a rotary phase shifter.  Koltai totally dug it and asked Pigpen to built him another one with some additional switching features.  That one didn’t work quite right, so Koltai decided to tear it apart and tackle the problem himself.   Grabbing the Anderton book, he sought to make the pedal even better.  He did.  And thus the first “Pigtron” was born.  Spark causing the resultant fire, Koltai was stoked to keep learning, developing, and creating unique effect pedals.  The first Pigtron became the Envelope Phaser 1 (EP-1) and it was time to see if there was a market.  Where to look?  NAMM Show!

Koltai and Bethke had to sneak the EP-1 into the 2003 Summer NAMM Show in Nashville in order to get some feedback from industry types and other builders.  I’ve been to around a dozen NAMM shows and I can tell you that sneaking anything in is a difficult task.  Destiny was sealed when the pair got to meet Bob Moog and Electro-Harmonix creator Mike Matthews.  Koltai and Bethke came away from the show with the necessary feedback and a clear vision.  Pigtronix was born.  The EP-1 was put into production, which started in China for cost reasons, but Koltai ended up taking apart all the imported pedals just to make sure the quality control was solid.  This massive time suck led the company to cease Chinese production and start building at home in New York;  first, in a small apartment, then a slightly larger apartment, and so on until they could secure a warehouse for design, production, and distribution on Long Island, New York.

Wanting to push the creative design envelope, Koltai was in search of a guru to work with.  It was suggested that he get in touch with Howard Davis, former head of Electro-Harmonix in the ’70s and creator of the Electric Mistress, Deluxe Memory Man, Poly Chorus, and other legendary offerings.  Turns out that Davis lived somewhat nearby.  The two met, talked, hit it off, and ultimately teamed up in 2005.  An explosion of designs came to life:  Disnortion, EP-2, (the latest update the Envelope Phaser) Tremvelope, Keymaster, Echolution, Mothership Guitar Synth, Philosopher’s Tone, Philosopher King and others.  This rapid and successful industry climb has led to the creation of three Pigtronix pedals exclusively for bass players:  Bass Fat Drive, Philosopher Bass Compressor, and the Bass Envelope Phaser.  In a nod to the pedal that started it all the Bass Envelope Phaser has the fat and unique qualities of the EP-2, (which I should point out is already used by bass players,) but with a simplified feature set that makes it easier to dial in the effect.  When I was informed that Pigtronix was working on bass specific pedals, I said “Sign me up!”  I didn’t have to hear them to know they would sound great and have that ultra cool Pigtronix graphic design.  The Bass Envelope Phaser is of particular interest to me as I’m a huge fan of all envelope filters and their individual qualities and features.  Plus, as a bass player, it’s just a super cool effect that immediately moves one to that scrunched up “funk face”.

The Bass Envelope Phaser has a basic layout:  “SENSITIVITY” and “RESONANCE” knobs and an “UP” OR “DOWN” sweep switch.  The BEP runs off an 18v power supply, which is included, so there is a bunch of headroom, but it’ll behave differently with active and passive basses, so you’ll need to take note if you’re switching instruments mid-set.  The “SENSITIVITY” knob allows for quickly pin pointing the sweet spot based on your attack, however, you’ll need to dial it differently depending on “UP” or “DOWN” usage.  As a dedicated envelope filter it sounds great, getting help from the “staccato” envelope circuit which auto closes the filter between notes for extra clarity.  What really kicks it into gear and makes it totally unique is dialing up the “RESONANCE” knob, which introduces the almost humanizing effect of the phaser section of the pedal.  It’s here that the BEP makes its mark and allows for the broadest range of sounds and sets itself apart from other envelope filters.  Like all other Pigtronix pedals, the BEP has parallel processing of features, so the various effects are stacked on top of each other.  Additionally, the clean signal is blended with the effected signal to maintain clarity instead of using a high pass filter, resulting in low end loss.  So as soon as you kick it on, the BEP gives you the sound of your bass with the effect, without robbing the fundamental punch.

Like all other effects, there are many envelope filters on the market.  Most of you probably already have one on your board.  If you don’t, the Pigtronix Bass Envelope Phaser is a solid choice as a super fat envelope filter that can stand on its own.  But here’s the thing:  the Bass Envelope Phaser is unique enough in sound and performance that if you already have an envelope filter, you may want to add the BEP to your board anyway.

In a little less than a decade, Pigtronix pedals have been found in the hands of Victor Wooten, dUg Pinnick, Doug Wimbish, Tony Levin, Bakithi Kumalo, and Juan Aldrete among others.  It’s a rapid rise based on design ingenuity, unwillingness to clone other pedals, and an unflinching belief in “Futuristic Analog Technology”.  Yep, at Pigtronix, pigs are not only flying, they’re going supersonic Blue Angels style.

About the author:

“I created BassEFX.com because the bass community clearly needed a place that would consolidate all the best effects pedals in one place.  BassEFX.com  gives bass players – and only bass players – a resource that showcases what’s available, offers the best advice and gets you the right effect.  My background: I co-founded Bass Northwest, the world’s largest bass-only retail operation, and ran it for 15 years, (1994-2009.)  In 30 years as a bass player, I’ve seen, heard, and played just about every amplifier, bass, cabinet and effect pedal imaginable.”

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Happy Saturday everyone! I wanted to take a minute and remind people about the give away that will be ending soon, also for any new readers out there that haven’t heard about it at all.

The give away I’m talking about – the Stone Deaf FX PDF-1 Parametric Distortion Filter. Stone Deaf is builder out of the UK, and the PDF-1 is a great pedal giving MANY tonal options. A while back we shot a demo of this pedal:

To read the full review, please go here – “Stone Deaf FX PDF-1 Parametric Distortion Filter Demo”

I’ll be accepting entries till 5/13 at 2PM (MST). To enter, simply go here and fill out the form – “Stone Deaf FX PDF-1 Parametric Distortion Filter Give Away“. While you’re at it, might as well check out Stone Deaf’s site for more info as well!

Good luck everyone!

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