Valeton Dapper Bass Effect Strip

So, yesterday after work I got home early enough before my gig to have a quick play with this. So far I have only tried It with my upright, but hoping to have a proper play with this and my electric bass later today. Basically, I got in and played with it for long enough to get some settings I liked and like enough to take it along last night.

A tad daunting putting my faith in this without properly trying it and deciding to test it live at a gig but oh well.

It's a great little bit of kit though and I love it. From my basic limit test here's what I thought of all the sections in turn...

The tuner - hold the comp/boost switch to kick in the tuner. For its first time it took a few seconds to wake up and realise what it was doing, but after that it was fine. I'll A/B it with my polytune clip later on, but all sounded fine. It also activates a mute whilst tuning.

Comp/boost - this was the only section I didn't use last night. Before the gig I found that the boost switch really can add some though, without altering the tone at all. The compressor needs a bit more time to play with.

Dirty Q - It's their attempt at a baseballs. With an upright it doesn't work as well (in fact with the fuzz engaged it doesn't work at all), but I imagine it'll be good with an electric bass. For upright though, I found that with the sensitivity turned up to anything beyond 11 o clock all you get is high pitched pops and clicks. Keep it at ten to eleven and you get an awesome little envelope filter/auto wah. I used it briefly for the second half of a solo but would rather practice a little more with this before using it live again. *NOTE - the Fuzz can only be used with the filter and cannot be used as an independent fuzz*

Bass Amp - Again, would need to try this on its own, preferably straight into headphones to see how good this is. Last night I had it set so that for a couple of our original songs, I could have some boosted bass and scooped mids. For the tracks I used it on, with the settings I had, it made my upright sound like my electric and it can add its own boost too. My plan with this section is to find some settings I really like, dial them in and have it as an always on.

Octave - One of my favourite bits on this so far. I've very little experience with octave pedals, so I've not really got any comparisons I can make. The first knob is your blend/volume, the second is level for one octave below and the third knob is the level for a second octave down. With a bit of tweaking you can get a sound similar to a meatbox but without destroying anyone's speakers or trousers. Where we do a cover of Gangsters paradise, I've currently got it set just right for the bass sound on the record. After hearing it my singer/guitarist described it a second "haunting"

Chorus - Simple one knob chorus. Sound great though and got a fair bit of use throughout the night. The knob seems to only control depth, so there's no way to alter speed, but that isn't really needed. It's not a fast chorus and on upright sounds great both plucked and bowed.

My plan with this is to try it with my electric next, incorporate it as an extra to my pedalboard (using the effects loop on this) and toy with running the thru output to a Headphone amp as a personal monitor.

Would I recommend it? Yes. Definitely. It's a great piece of kit, bloody sturdy for its size (during our break I left it on tuner, to come back to find a few lights on where some woman had drunkenly walked on it. No problems at all. Like I said, despite the size it's solid), very lightweight, and fits nicely in the laptop bag I use for carrying my leads, head, invoices and spare bits. The lights are cool too.