The Honey Bee Challenge

[Donner]

or just drink enough so you wake up drunk and keep going ~~ white russians for breakfast ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[BJF]

Lots of water and fresh air is the best I've found. Then a LARGE English Breakfast when you wake up, or a few more pints of ale, whichever tickles your fancy. I also have these new "super painkillers" I picked up from a local chemist, they have all sorts of stuff in them to wake you up, calm your stomach and kill your headache; Genius!

Hi,

Indeed a great breakfast, and a Large English one is a good way of starting the day.......what kind of ale? Back on the Boddingtons,eh? Yes will do.
Certainly when mind conditions equal
posting the wrong link and not checking that;)

Ah, yes White Russian for breakfast
Or perhaps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exxwrob92qE

Have fun'
BJ

[briggs]

A few Boddingtons will steady you up! 2 pints of Boddies + 2 eggs, 4 rashers of bacon, 2 sausages, 2 slices of fried bread and a tin of baked beans. Hangover = defeated

[Donner]

or perhaps a mouthful of Honey Bees would wake you up ?!!?!?

[Bobby D]

mmmmm......english breakfast.....i miss the UK

[polifemo]

Today Björn and I had one of our regular (well, irregular might be the correct word ) "Lunch get togethers" and when we split up I was lucky enough to have Soulsonics Folk Driver in my pocket
(Don’t worry Soulsonic, it was protected in a nice box: "We just can’t ruin this wonderful paintjob" as Björn so wisely put it)

I’ve been able to play it a bit, but at a very low volume I must admit and here are some first impressions:

I must start with explaining how I use the Honey Bee:

I set my amp clean and use the pedal to create some light breakup tones with its drive set at about 2 o’clock.
Regarding volume and EQ I always adjust this to be as close to my amps tone as possible. (Unity gain and "UNITY EQ" as I call it!)
This is important to me, as well as to the soundman, as the amount of low end/high end will not change a lot during a gig when engaging various OD/Distortion boxes. (The mids however may change a bit as far as I´m concerned)
My overall tone will also be percieved as beeing "a unity" instead of "tons of different sounds".

On the Folk Driver I ended up with both the knobs set at about 10 o’clock in order to achieve this "Unity gain/UNITY EQ-thing".

I now adjusted the Honey Bee to sound as close as possible to the Folk Driver, and my settings became:
- Drive: 8 o’clock
- Nature: 11 o’clock
- Volume: Max

This is much lower gain than I expected!
Hmmm... Back to tweakin´ the FD.

I turned the tone/drive control fully counter clockwise, got more gain but also more lows and volume.
OK, lowered the volume and got a better balance.
Still the sound had a little to much low end and after some tweakin´ I ended up with the controls set as follows:
- Volume: 9 o’clock (slightly above)
- Tone/Drive: 9 o’clock (slightly below)

The combined tone/drive control on the Folk Driver is very clever but personally I would have preferred separate controls.

Don’t get me wrong, this IS a nice well-made pedal, but I found that I could not use it the same way that I personally use the HB.
Others will most definitely use it differently!
The pedal has some really nice qualities - it manages to sound both full and clear at the same time - and it is obvious that it´s built by a master craftsman!
With the controls at about 9 o´clock the Folk Driver sounds really nice, but I would have loved to max the gain and lower the bass a bit. (As you might have guessed, I could do with some more gain as well )

Soulsonic, I would love to hear how you use the pedal yourself and at which settings!
- Do you push an already distorted tube amp with it?
- Do you combine it with other pedals?

Any info would be much appreicated

It’s been a pleasure to be able to play your Folk Driver and I´d love to build one myself!


/Prof. Polifemo

Ps I hope to be able to play the pedal at louder volumes in a few days, but I thought that it might be of interest with some initial thougts about the pedal. ds

[soulsonic]

I'm glad to see your review.
Did you try it with the Timbre control turned up to maximum? This is more gain with less low end. The 12 o'clock position is minimum gain, but the gain increases whether it's turned clockwise or anticlockwise. I personally like the sound with it at maximum when using humbuckers.

I haven't really had a chance to play with this pedal very much. The first one I built is the one you have now, and the second one I just finished and it will be on its way to Donner tomorrow... so I haven't had the chance to build one for my personal use yet.

[polifemo]

I´m extremely busy right now, but from what I remember I lost to much lows with the tone/drive knob turned past "noon".
I´ll give it a go again tomorrow

[soulsonic]

That may very well be possible - there is a substantial cut in the lows. Swapping one of the coupling caps could easily tune it more to your needs.

[polifemo]

Tried the tone/drive knob to the far right, and as I wrote previously I don´t get enough lows in that position. (For MY way of using the pedal, that is!)
I like the pedal the best at full gain but I get a little to much low end in one position (far left) and not enough in the other (far right).

If building one I´d (if possible):

1. Increase the overall gain a bit.
2. Mod a little low end out of the "far left position".
3. Make the pedal retain more low end in the "far right position".

I´ll return the pedal to Björn in a few days so I´d just like to say that it´s been a pleasure takin´it for a lttle test ride.

Thanks!