Hello all! This is my first post of this type so bare with me. After noticing so many of my favorite bassists used overdrive tones, even if it wasn't obvious in the recording, I decided to try it out for myself. I didn't want to spend much money on something I may not like so I looked towards the affordable. Having been a fan of the Danelectro Cool Cat series for guitar effects, I thought it would be cool to try their Transparent Overdrive with a bass. Not expecting much, I was quite surprised how good this pedal turned out to be. I'm mostly just looking for a slight overdrive tone, but I was surprised how crunchy this pedal gets.
I decided to record some samples at various levels so others could get an idea of how it sounds. I set Gain knob at 4 different levels. I set the Treble/Bass knobs at two levels (Flat and Max). The tone knobs are cut/boost so flat is at 12 o'clock. The Volume was adjusted to keep the output level more or less the same.
I'm playing finger-style on a G&L L2500 Tribute. Both pickups are on and in parallel mode. The preamp is set for passive mode. The bass currently has a new set of Circle K strings. I'm plugged directly from the pedal into my MacBook. I'm recording the samples directly from Amplitube 3, which is set for Ampeg B-15R with a flat EQ. Here are the samples:
NOTE: "Tone" refers to the combination of the treble and bass knobs.
Clean (Pedal Bypassed) No Gain - Tone Flat Gain 9 o'clock - Tone Flat Gain 12 o'clock - Tone Flat Gain Max - Tone Flat Gain 9 o'clock - Tone Max Gain 12 o'clock - Tone Max Gain Max - Tone Max
One thing I've noticed from testing is that with the tone knobs set for what the manual calls "Flat" you can definite hear a roll off of highs. This didn't bother me as I usually roll of the highs anyways. I found the treble knob very effective at putting high back, however. What I was looking for overall, was an overdrive pedal that didn't kill the lows, and I feel that this pedal delivers on that. It's hard to tell from these recordings, but when I'm using the pedal live through my Markbass setup, the lows are rumbling very nicely. I'm not looking for high gain so the gain knob will probably never go as high as 12 o'clock, but at the low gain levels it has a nice, light, musical overdrive that I think I'm really going to enjoy using more often.
Well, that's it for my long-winded post. I hope I can convince at least a few people to check this pedal out.
