by Stratly » 15 Jul 2020, 22:42
Hi there! I hope you are all safe and well.
I have a Gemini III Bass roll-off filter pedal which I use before a Line 6 amp with the usual emulations. I’m using a 1991 Strat Plus with Lace Gold pickups, and Ross Hall’s Echoes on a Zoom G3.
The results are very acceptable indeed. I actually turn the Bass on the amp up!!! and it gives warm authentic mids, with the Gemini on Stage 1 removing the Bass mud.
(My playing is still pretty poor, but at least the tone is close to ‘that sound’!)
I think a bass roll-off filter like Gemini, Cutting Edge or Ariab or Patrice Bastien’s PB Box is easier to use than a multi band eq pedal.
None of the above four units are currently being manufactured, but you can get a circuit for the Cutting Edge off Charlie Hall and Friends website, I think, and with his permission you could make one purely for your own use. No battery in the Cutting Edge so little chance of frying your kit if you solder it wrong!
Easy to make, apparently.
Incidentally Lace GOLD pickups were supposed to emulate the 50s pickups’ bell like chime and clarity but without noise. They need height adjusting carefully, but then with close attention to amp eq and the aforesaid Bass roll off filter you can get close enough to ‘that sound’ without swapping out pickups. The Lace Gold pickups have never been very highly regarded in Shadows sound circles, or so I understand, but they’re actually not bad at all IMHO, IF you’ve a bucket load of patience with amp eq controls! And you adjust their height correctly. (The Lace site tells all.)
(There are several ‘colours’ of Lace pickups, but the Golds are the ones supposedly most ‘50 ish.)
Stay safe!