Fulltone Bassdrive Low End Loss in vintage/FM mode

[anyonefortennis]

Hi -

I got a bass drive for xmas and I have to say I love the compcut mode to add some grind to my bass sound.

On the other hand I find the FM/Vintage modes useless due to the tremendous loss of low end when engaged.

Is this normal on the bass drive?

I can't find the manual it came with and fulltone does not have it on it's site so if anyone have it so I can read what to expect from each mode that would be awesome.

[Rasmus_OlesenDK]

I use both the Fulltone Bassdrive (2006 pre-MOSFET) and Fulltone Fat-Boost.
They both change or heavily color your sound depending on how you perceive it. They are both really thick in the mids, which I think comes from the “drive” part of the pedal. Although the bassdrive is capable of dishing out some serious distortion when used right, it is an overdrive pedal. I don’t know if this is a justification for the heavy coloring of the sound, but I have tried it with 5 different basses, and always with the same result. Low end loss compared to the clean signal, and a boost in the mids. The Comp mode is the least coloring of the 3 modes. But in general I think of the pedal as a mix of EQ-Comp/Limiter- Overdrive/Distortion pedal.

EQ - Comp/Limiter part.
It cuts all or a lot of spikes from your signal. This can be a real pain to control when balancing out levels. You can have the pedal turned on and the amp showing lots of headroom with no spikes. Going to clean sound with the same volume, your amp starts clipping because of the shift from heavy mids to heavy lows, and all of the normal “spikes” from your bass reappearing.
And to make life even more difficult, the distorted sound just sounds louder than the clean sound on the same level. This isn’t the pedals fault though, but just how frequencies and loudness are perceived.

Overdrive/Distortion part.
Comp mode: This is the most natural boost of the 3 modes I think. And it quickly becomes insanely loud. With the level knob at max I found that it could be used as a two channel preamp connected directly to my poweramp, with distortion levels controlled by the two drive knobs.
FM mode: modern distortion with heavy mids and loss of low end.
Vintage mode: Vintage distortion with heavy mids and loss of low end.

All things said. I absolutely love this distortion pedal, and the fat-boost to for that matter. The sound is just amazing. But I have always had level problems no matter how much I turned knobs or EQ’ed. So for me it is an “always-on” pedal and as soon I get the money for a Blowtorch, it will probably get retired to recording pedal.
Again, this is such a great sounding pedal, and I absolutely love it. But live it just has to big an influence on your sound to be flexible the way I think most people would prefer.
Ohh… and don’t get me started on the “how to match the drive channel with the boost channel” issue….

I hope that you got something from all of this. And that you enjoy your bassdrive. It has a hard learning curve, but tons of potential.

[anyonefortennis]

Thanks for the response Man. Very useful and right on the money!

[dirtgroove]

I use it with a looper to get around this problem. love it again these days.

[Jazz Ad]

It's not a loss of bass as much as a massive gain of mids.

[OshKoshJoash]

Originally Posted by Jazz Ad

It's not a loss of bass as much as a massive gain of mids.

i agree. i don't hear any low end loss, but the mid boost may be perceived as a loss of low end.

[assboglin]

Turning down the tone knob helps a bit, but in my experience you will always feel like you're losing bottom in FM and Vintage modes. Especially in a band setting, when I kick on FM or vintage it sounds like the bottom drops out. So I stick with comp cut mode with the boost engaged around 9 o'clock. Run at 9 volts, that seems to get me just enough dirt.

[OshKoshJoash]

after spending a few more months with the bassdrive mosfet, i have to agree that at louder band gigging volume, there is a low end loss. before having only used it as rehearsal and in my bedroom, it was imperceivable.

i am thinking of picking up a blend since i loooove the tone as it is.

[bassman251]

I do not really notice any low end loss with the pedal. I do use it with a boss LS-2 loop pedal & mix equal amount of distortion with dry signal.

But even without the loop pedal still don't notice any loss of low end.

The loop pedal is great for matching the same volume with/without distortion by the way.

[rustynuts]

Originally Posted by assboglin

Turning down the tone knob helps a bit, but in my experience you will always feel like you're losing bottom in FM and Vintage modes. Especially in a band setting, when I kick on FM or vintage it sounds like the bottom drops out. So I stick with comp cut mode with the boost engaged around 9 o'clock. Run at 9 volts, that seems to get me just enough dirt.

+1. Exactly as I see it too.

[Justin Tuskey]

It does lose some low end AND bump the mids. But I recently got a Barge Concepts VB-jr blender and I love it now. its always on and minimal gain and blended at 60% wet. although some may see this as useless, it is just the tone for me

[scotch]

I had been using the original Bass-Drive for over 6 years. It was great, but I see what you are all talking about with the low-end loss & mid emphasis. I recently replaced it with the new Mosfet version. Between the FM mode & Mosfet setting, I'm getting a lot better performance and flexibility from the pedal.

I do think that these pedals get sort-of "misused" sometimes, leading to a perceived loss of low-end. Any overdrive is going to introduce more mid frequencies and a whole slew of extra harmonic content. This sometimes leads the user to set the output lower to compensate for the change in perceived volume. Along the way, the other frequencies not being "emphasized" or "boosted" get turned down. If you are trying to get your od tone the same volume as your clean tone, then yes- you'll need a blender or a more sophisticated pedal. However, if you use the od pedal like a guitardist does, you expect more volume when the od is switched on - presto your low end is back!

Yes, I'm aware that bass is different than guitar. My point is that by finding the correct overall level for the Bass-Drive, you can largely eliminate low-end loss & not get lost in the mix. It took me a long time to really figure this out with a variety of pedals - and of course, YMMV - but I do have a lot of stage & studio experience with this stuff. (allright, I'm sounding a little cocky....)

Consequently, my original Bass-Drive did exhibit a little low-end loss despite my best efforts, but was still very usable. The newer mosfet version is a huge improvement in the low-end department, however.

[Mark Olson]

While that's all true, I found that even with tweaking the volume I lost too much low end in a band situation.