So, first off, I guess I didn’t strictly have to create this post, but - after having gotten such a nice welcome - I thought I’d at least give a brief update to the (bass) community here on how things are going.
Well, I got the Dwarf about two weeks ago, and it has been a very pleasant experience so far. I started off with some of the shared boards, and some of my own ideas, and after some reading and tweaking and more reading and more tweaking, I got a really nice first working board. I even took it to rehearsal and it worked very well there also. I have the Dwarf on a little physical pedal board with an external tuner and an external EQ pedal, as it is just much easier to do the final EQ adjustment on that pedal.
Really pleased with the way the Dwarf is set up though, how I can design my virtual boards and how I control virtual pedals and (some of) their settings when not connected to a computer.
The computer/web interface works; I wonder though whether the skeuomorphism gets too much at some point. I already now have a bit of a cable salad going on
It’s great to have a first working board, as mentioned, but there are so many options still to be explored, and I also have a number of things I need to check/understand better - so, more reading, learning and potentially a few questions for the good folks here (Lots of answers already found as well!)
From a bassist’s point-of-view, being able to split the frequency range and treating the different parts differently (i.e., even using “guitar” effects) is absolutely the way to go, and probably one of the greatest features of the Dwarf for bass.
I’d love to see some more variety in shared pedalboards focused on bass!
As I’m still very much a beginner in the bass world I have no idea what kind of effects chain would work well.
So please do share some pedalboards if you have any (basic) setups to recommend!
I don’t think I am much ahead of you, but it is really easy to experiment with the Dwarf, and no real danger to harm any equipment in the process (I think).
So, I got some pointers from the boards that Paul Henshaw had shared (sorry, I can’t @ him, I don’t have his handle), like this one:
Or this one: Install Pedalboard - MOD Audio (not sure why this link looks differently!?); for some reason, this one is quite noisy… (warning: the link is probably directly installing this board)
I also used a trick I found in here to activate two virtual pedals at the same time with one foot switch. I use this to get some volume boost after the modulations effects, but only when they are engaged.
Here is my current board for trying and “studying”:
I normally play with a fairly clean tone, only compressor and a bit of reverb pretty much on all the time. Using the board, I can then easily add: chorus/flanger, phaser, boost/fuzz and octaver, and I have assigned knobs to tune those effects on the Dwarf. I have tried to get the same volume in all case, apart from the boost of course.
Note: the initial signal path switch is meant to provide a complete bypass option for the board.
Other note: I pretty much relied on my ears and what I liked to hear, and wasn’t too much worried on what the gospel is regarding where effects should go in the signal path.
Hopefully, this gives you some pointers and ideas for your own board.
Final note: the results are very dependant on the bass you actually play… this is kind of “optimized” for an active jazz bass. I also use an EQ pedal after the Dwarf to do any final adjustment (for example in a rehearsal or gig situation).
Nice to know that they helped, and thanks for sharing. My handle is pslh. My current board is PH Bass 231227 - MOD Audio (you need to enable Beta plugins in order to find it, since it uses the excellent Ztoggle4 plugin by @zwabo.
I sometimes use disabled TinyGain Mono - MOD Audio plugins to keep the cables tidy. I guess this might increase the CPU load slightly but has not been a problem for me so far. If anyone has a better idea for fixing cable positions, please do share.
(Lots of answers already found as well!)