Cave Passive Pedal "RFF Tour" begins!

[JakeK]

Update bump?

[Ivan3000]

Where is the pedal in the world right now?

[cjj]

I sent it to Joshua in Colorado a couple of weeks ago...

[Ivan3000]

I sent it to Joshua in Colorado a couple of weeks ago...

Okay, so its still out west, slowly making its way to NEPA!

[JakeK]

I sent it to Joshua in Colorado a couple of weeks ago...

What were your thoughts on it?

[Ivan3000]

Anyone try it with a Hofner yet?

[T28]

Joshua pm'ed me a couple days ago and said he had the pedal and was gonna hand deliver it to me.
He also mentioned maybe trying to get a few Ric members in the vicinity together for a bit of fun.
Haven't heard from him since. I hope he is alright.

[Ivan3000]

Joshua pm'ed me a couple days ago and said he had the pedal and was gonna hand deliver it to me.
He also mentioned maybe trying to get a few Ric members in the vicinity together for a bit of fun.
Haven't heard from him since. I hope he is alright.

Well he posted in another thread just yesterday, so everything appears to be okay!

[cjj]

I sent it to Joshua in Colorado a couple of weeks ago...

What were your thoughts on it?

It's a nice little unit, but the effect is quite subtle. Almost too subtle to be useful in my opinion, but that could be a result of my setup. I tried it direct from the bass to the pedal, and then into my SansAmp RPM. There was a bit of grit there, but nothing like I can get with the SansAmp itself (which isn't really a surprise).

Being a passive pedal, it has to get the energy from something to do it's job (there's no "magic" involved, I'm sure), and that would be the signal from the bass itself. I figured that maybe I didn't have enough output from my bass so I hooked it up to the hottest thing I have, my 1958 Rick 708 Console Steel (I can actually engage the 20dB pad in the SansAmp with that and it has PLENTY of drive. I guess the magnets on those shoes are still in great shape ). Amazingly, the Cave pedal seemed to have less effect with that. Perhaps the frequency range is too high, not being a bass.

Or perhaps the Cave pedal works best with a different amp input impedance. The SansAmp is pretty high, 4.7M ohms. A passive device is going to be a lot more sensitive to the overall system impedance than an active pedal. For some reason, it didn't occur to me to try it in the effects loop. But things were pretty hectic at work and I just didn't have time to spend messing with it. I should have tried it with my 4004 to see how it worked with HB-1s, with toasters, RIHS, etc., but I figured I should get it sent on to the next person in line.

All in all, it's a nice, well-built little unit. I've heard plenty of recordings/videos that show it really can produce some good sounds, I just couldn't manage it. It's quite small so it would be easy to carry along, but almost so small that it could get lost in the maze of cables that seem to happen in a lot of live situations. A dedicated pedal board would fix that, but I've never been much of a pedal guy anyway...

[jdogric12]

update?

[johnallg]

update?

Last I heard Joshua has it and then sending it on to me.

[cassius987]

Yes, the pedal is on its way to John as of the end of last week.

I made some recordings, but I just don't think they're worth sharing. Partly because my setup for recording was not very good for the last several months until a couple of days ago, but also because the change is really subtle and didn't shine through my interface very well.

With a good, well-buffered setup this basically does (to my ear) a combination of gentle grit/dirt and some high-end roll off. Ironically it's reminiscent of tube warmth with the right setup. Not a bad pedal to have around by any means. But it's subtle, and works best (IMO) as a texture more than a big, eye-popping attention getter.

[johnallg]

Pedal arrived today and I had about 15 minutes to experiment. So far all I can say is it is really load dependant, and using a 76 4001 and a Jazz, all I heard was a little low end rolloff, and a fair loss of volume compared to bypass. I have next week off so I plan to try 3 different pickup-type Ricks, and straight and buffered combinations.

[weemac]

Just make sure your volumes on the bass are dimed when using the grunt pedal, also remember the pots on the pedal work backwards to normal...

Eden.

[johnallg]

Just make sure your volumes on the bass are dimed when using the grunt pedal, also remember the pots on the pedal work backwards to normal...

Eden.

Yes they are and yes they do.

My amp at home is an Ampeg SVT-3 but I couldn't find out what the input impedance is. I also tried into my Aphex Punch Factory, figuring it was high impedance in. Lots of combinations to try with having basses with regular gain (I'm trademarking that!), higain, and HB1 pickups. It will be interesting to see if there are differences with the HB1s.