Usually if the cables do not move a lot or get bent all the time, they should last for years. If there is any abuse, they should be inspected if something seems to change. These patch cables tend to be so short, their performance should be near excellent. My personal preference is to solder all cables from high quality silicone cables (Cordial, Gotham...) to reasonable lengths. Neutrik or thinner angled metal plugs. However if you are getting significant signal loss with an active bass, your bass already has a buffer in it, and adding another one won't make much difference. Signal loss after a buffer stage often means you have a damaged patch cable somewhere! There I am delighted: it retains the possibility of a slight push and drive, in addition, we may well distort the sound!

I plan to test systematically the board removing one pedal at a time, to see if the effect is mostly due to a single pedal...Q2: Cables. The patch cables I use have been accumulated over the years. All kinds and varying in length to fit. Whenever I identify a bad one, I throw it away... but that doesn't mean that they're all great... and perhaps the cumulative effect of all those cables, if a few of them are not great, can have a noticeable effect... so my question is... there are lots of patch cables advertised everywhere, some with pretty amazing claims (of course) so it's hard to decide which ones are really good and which ones are just exaggerating: which patch cables would people here recommend for a pedalboard the size of mine? Most can be pretty short but I need a couple of longer ones. Compact plugs are a bonus as they allow to organise the pedals better. I'm using a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus, there's plenty left on tap as most of the pedals I'm using are very low current draw. It's a little overkill for my needs, but I bought it at a time when I was using a couple of hungry digital pedals plus the wireless system, and this coped with the lot very well, so I don't think power is the issue here. Easy to operate. The pedal works in Standard, Flat and Tubeism mode with controls for Distortion and Output - simple but effective! The MetalDrive uses True Bypass. It can be set to get only slightly distorted as a drive or weigh (attention is not the pedal that will completely transform your sound mushy metal!)

The exact chain looks good. Now, there are a few units, there which means that it is reasonable to estimate the power consumption. The thing that puts me off solderless kits is that I *feel* they're not very solid. Maybe it's just my feeling and they work beautifully, I don't know. I'm happy to solder anyway... but I prefer them already made (while I can solder well, I prefer to use my time doing other things, like reading BC 😛 ) Q1: I generally use active basses, either a Stingray or a Schecter Model T (EMG)... which I thought would go some way to help matters, but perhaps I should consider putting a decent buffered bypass pedal first in the chain, especially as I sometimes use a passive Precision too. Probably a tuner would be the best idea although I like the one I'm using now (small but bright, good visibility in all conditions)... so maybe a dedicated buffer would be a good thing to use, such as the TC Electronic Bonafide (also small footprint). Any suggestions? THE EBS METALDRIVE DELIVER PURE, MEAN, METAL DISTORTION FOR BASS - AND BEYOND. A NATURAL EXTENSION OF THE MULTIDRIVE, FOR THOSE WHO NEED MORE...

EBS MetalDrive SE Bass Drive Pedal Overview

The 2015 Studio Edition comes with a complete new design, optimized signal path, a new signal relay switch, protection against over voltage use up to 18V and can be powered with anything from 9-12V DC. Features