Ashdown bass drive. Problems with active basses?

SC Bassboy · #1 01-15-2008, 02:25 PM

I recently traded for an Ashdown Bass Drive Plus. Someone asked me if it was an older version or a newer version and then explained that some of them have problems with active basses. Mine is an older version (without the lit VU meter) but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the input stage. Does anybody know if ALL the older versions were faulty, or if this was just a hit-or-miss problem?

SFjonstarr · #2 01-15-2008, 02:30 PM

If there's no problem what is the question?

SC Bassboy · #3 01-15-2008, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SFjonstarr

If there's no problem what is the question?

Re-typed my original post. Sometimes I ramble and miss the point. Sorry.

bongomania · #4 01-15-2008, 02:40 PM

It's a distortion pedal. The pedals that had problems, mostly the envelope filter and the compressor, the problem was that they distorted. Now, if your distortion pedal starts distorting, how will you know?

speak_onion · #5 01-15-2008, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bongomania

It's a distortion pedal. The pedals that had problems, mostly the envelope filter and the compressor, the problem was that they distorted. Now, if your distortion pedal starts distorting, how will you know?

I assumed people were trying to say that they could hear the difference between the distortion from overloading the input stage rather than the clipping stage (this infers a lot about the way the pedal works that I dont' really know). I don't know first hand, people just say that actives would overload the input stage and sound bad.

I have one of these from the first production run, which I use with an active bass, and I love it. I think I'm TB's biggest booster (no pun) of this pedal. I've been looking for one of the later production models though for a comparison. That's why I asked the OP (in his FS thread) whether it was from the new or the old production run.