HAO Rust Ride opinions
 

Can't find much info or clips but one has come up cheap locally and Im on the hunt for a bass distortion. Any and all opinions welcome on tone, versatility etc.
Genre will be hard rock/metal distortion. From medium to heavy gain. Pick style playing.

Local...try it out.

Sorry. Just to clarify by the term local I mean "within Australia"! The pedal is in another state but quite cheap.

I haven't heard it mentioned for a while but some people have said it's one of their favourite distortions.

Rust Ride was the very first "bass specific" overdrive I ever bought.
It only does one thing: extreme OD/Dist
The EQ switch is nice. All three EQ settings sound good in their own way. "Warm" was my favorite.
Sounded like it lost some lows to me, maybe it was just the overbearing distorted mids. Not what I expected from a pedal marketed for bass. It would make my bass sound like lead guitar. It was more useful in a blend loop bringing the lows back in and having the extreme distortion on the top end.

Been a few years since having the Rust Ride and I've tried many many more bass overdrives since then so I'm not too sure how much different my perception would be now that I've compared so many others. One things for sure, I've never heard another that sounds like it.

It is a heavy OD/distortion.

For the sake of reference, the two pedals that I'd say it's closest to (IMO) tonewise are the Tech 21 XXLB and the Landmine LD-1 though both of those have more control over the tone.

It has a great sound but it definitely cuts lows. I had to run mine in the loop of a blender for it to be usable in a band context.

The Hao rust ride is one of my favorite pedal. It sound like a hot tube screamer but it's really well done. It's a no thrill unit with 3 really well defined EQ.
Warm which is bassy tubey and woolly. Bright, which is brash and a little aggressive and yep bright. Normal offers a good compromise between the two. It's not a tweaker pedal, you only have the eq and volume to adjust but the tone is really great. If you playing live and want a pedal you don't have to fuss with, this is it.
I love it in front of an SVT on normal or bright.

It did have a pretty good sound, but I do agree with the comments that it seemed to drop some lows.

The one knob control is pretty much why my Rust Ride didn't stick with me for very long. With only one knob, if you wanted more gain you also got more volume. I'm totally OCD about my signal level being unity, so that didn't work for me. Ever since then, separate gain and volume controls have been a must in any overdrive pedal.

5sg.