I just felt like demoing my new POG with two of my basses. Its an extremely cool pedal and is by far my favourite octave pedal. The low octave sounds rich and warm, unlike most octave pedals which I find sound choppy and loose, especially when playing below an open A. The upper octave is extremely cool for soloing and melodic applications, as well as achieving an 8-string sound.

When I tried it out in the store, I was also trying a Boss OC-3 and an MXR Bass Octave. The Boss is the standard, but I found that this pedal really raised the bar. The only thing it doesn’t do is get that dubby drum and bass tone that we associate with the OC-2.

Im playing with a Lakland Darryl Jones and a Fretless Fender Jazz through an Ampeg Micro VR

The amp has 4 presets: Clean, R&B, Rock and Grind w/a 4 band variable EQ, headphone jack, etc. etc. Great practice amp, would be fine on small gigs and sounds great in the studio. The XLR out on the back makes it very easy to plug and play in the studio and get a good tone right off the bat. I am a little old fashioned when it comes to bringing an amp this small to a gig though in any venue larger than 100 capacity, but if you were in a situation where the FOH engineer could give you the stage volume you needed in your monitors then you could definitely count on the sound guy being happy with the direct out your were sending him. Still, for all practical purposes, a studio or practice amp. Favorite preset: GRIND

Please note: Video was shot on the fly using an iPod Nano, so please excuse the narrow screen view. I was, however, pretty happy with the quality of the audio from the Nano recording, so the listener can get a good feel for the sound of the amplifier.

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Anyone who knows me knows that I’m the last person in the world that wants to talk about gear… but I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what I use for looping when I’m home practicing so I ran the camera for a minute to illustrate the setup. I’m using the new Flashback pedal from TC that they just sent me very kindly, and in this video I’m using the TC electronic Nova Repeater for the delay sounds. This is all running through the RH-450 head and a 2×10 TC cabinet. You do see the Line6 DL4 make an appearance in the video, but I wasn’t using it at all this time. I’m hoping this smaller looping setup will make it onto my main pedal board and save me some space and weight on the road!

Check out part two at www.janekgwizdala.com/videolessons

I’m testing several bass books, playin’ some grooves at various levels.

first video is a groove taken from “Slap it!” by Tony Oppenheim, the second from the book “Ultimate slap bass” by Stuart Clayton.

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A short demo of the Particle Beam overdrive pedal by Daring Audio

Review of the Musicman Classic StingRay 4 Bass Guitar, Black, 4-String, Single Humbucker, 2-Band EQ, Black Pickguard, Maple Neck.

I’m very much enjoying playing this right now, particularly slap style as the action is perfect and it feels really responsive.

Hope this is a useful insight into what the bass is like, it’s not an exhaustive review, there’s many more sounds that can be got from the bass from your hands and different EQ settings.

Trying out the 3Leaf Audio GR2 Envelope filter.
Bear in mind, that im playing my amp at a low volume, and that my speaking mic is picking up the acoustic sound of my bass, hence the “roomy” sound.
Bass: Sandberg California JJ
Strings: Dunlop Nickel plated Medium gauge 45 -105
Amp: tc electronic RH450
Cab: tc electronic RS410
Stompbox: 3Leaf Audio’s GR2 Envelope filter
Soundcard: Apogee Duet
Computer: Macbook
DAW: Logic Audio pro 8
Camera: Creative Vado HD 3rd generation (only video not sound)

Download flash .flv

Download iPod m4v

Hey everyone, check out this video on getting some great tone out of this 400 watt 5lb amp called the Headlite from SWR. I endorse SWR and am thrilled about this sound!

Click here to view the embedded video.