Best bass overdrive?

[el murdoque]

There is no such thing. A bazillion good and great ones, yes. But not the best.
Most of the Sushi Box FX pedals can do varying amounts of great, saturated tube drive.
The Fairfield Barbershop gets a lot of love here, and it earns every bit of it.
The SS/BS Mini is the pedal that I kept after trying out dozens - but these are hard to find nowadays.
There have been various votes for the MBD-2 already, and they are right. It is a great pedal.

 

[Aqualung60]

 

[groove pump]

I don't get to use dirt or drive with my current crew, but if I eventually go shopping for that, my first look will be the Damnation Audio MBD's.

 

[themickster]

Ok so I know this is a loaded question, but just trying to get a general consensus here… if you all had to pick only ONE bass overdrive, which would it be? Just looking to add some grit for the more rockin’ songs.

Boss BB-1X has a blend knob and doesn't lose the lows, even on full overdrive.

 

[dave64o]

Honestly, there's SO much variety out there and when you accont for how different basses could sound through a given pedal and how they fit into your band's overall sound, it's an almost impossible question to answer. I have three ODs on my board now, another seven that I like too much to consider selling even though I'm not using them at the moment, plus I don't know how many more I've sold in the last couple of years.

Ignoring that reality ,I think my favorite overall is the Blueberry circuit. I have a Bearfoot FX Queen Bee, a One Control Blackberry, and a Bearfoot FX Blueberry. The added capabilities of the Queen Bee and the Blackberry are pretty cool, but my preference out of those is still the Blueberry. It works well with all of my basses with minimal tweaking, it does an outstanding low to lower-middle gain OD, and the interaction of the Gain knob with the "Nature" control (a tilt EQ) give it a lot of flexibiilty.

That being said, none of them are on my board right now. Lately I've been enjoying my Spaceman Effects Saturn VI as my always-on, standard low OD tone. I then use a Broughton SV-Pre to give me a little more dirt with a little brighter tone and a Broughton FlipTop for a little more dirt with a little darker tone. I think those three also do a really nice ODand are great choices.

My Blueberry was previously in the role that my FlipTop is currently serving, but I bought the FlipTop most recently and just started gigging since New Year's Eve, when we played our first gig since coming out of the pandemic. So I've been enjoying my new toy for a while before deciding whether to continue with it or put the Blueberry back on my board, or perhaps do something different and unexpected after a while. I've been intrigued by all the great reviews I've seen of the Damnation Audio MDB-2 here on TB, so maybe I'll give one a try.

Bottom line ... there are so many choices that the only way to figure out what you like and don't like is to do some research to try to understand some basic flavors of the ODs that are out there and then just start trying some. But watch out. It's easy to fall deep into that rabbit hole!

 

[FunkHead]

I went through a ton and came back to Darkglass B3K. CAL Grizzly would be a close 2nd.

 

[vvvmmm]

For me, various Earthquaker, Fulltone, TC and EHX, the Pigtronix Fatdrive, plus the Blueberry and Butler/Tubeworks BlueTube.

Or my PF50t with no pedals.

 

[Skullheadrac]

Ampeg V5.
I have a sansamp bbdi, thr ampeg scr di and SVTs. The v5 is by far the best for overdrive. I've been impressed since I got it

 

[foal30]

Big fan of the Free The Tone Bass Blaster


Quite like the Wounded Paw Battering Ram v2.6

 

[willsellout]

There is no best. The best for me is the Reinier Gasoline Overdrive. Just such an amazing sounding drive pedal.

 

[mmbongo]

Not to derail but what do you guys tend to like for OCD settings on a P bass? When I play around with it in Helix... I don't get it

OCD is in my top five worst sounding pedals ever made.

 

[willsellout]

OCD is in my top five worst sounding pedals ever made.

The sound is terrible for sure for me. Its made worse because mike fuller is involved.

 

[Lammchop93]

Spaceman Saturn VI for low gain. Fuzzrocious lil fella for medium to high gain.

 

[pbass2]

Xotic BB, hands down.

 

[secondbestcody]

I’m a big fan of the Darkglass X series pedals. I like having the low and high pass filters to get exactly the amount of drive and low end that I want. They also keep the low end clean and only overdrive the highs so you don’t lose yourself in a mix.

 

[perfektspace6]

I have a Sansamp Bass Driver and agree it is good. However, I found that post-production, I was able to create a warmer more natural sounding overdrive using EZ Mix. I applied the Distorted Wide Compression setting to my recorded bass track and was pleased with the result. It's not overly saturated but has a nice distortion that still sounds clean. Live I would probably use the Sansamp to replicate the tone on the recording but I find the Sansamp to be a little harsh and artificial.

 

[tbz]

Got a darkglass Microtubes 500v2 head recently. It, more or less, has a built in B3K and VMT.

If I could get a pedal with that sonic profile, that’d be my choice. VMT and B3K combined cover everything I’d personally ever need in a single pedal.

 

[rylie]

source audio after shock is all you need

 

[madmaskbass]

MDB2 for sure. Mine died not long ago missed it ever since. Minotaur on Helix is my other always on for bass.

 

[Aidenn7]

I have many great sounding distortion.. my always on as a preamp is fea labs growler.. I been using.. a subatomic multi distortion.. master effects 300.. damnation audio MBD-1.. Free the tone Bass blaster.. boss bb-1x.. boss ds-1x.. lone wold audio Crucifer.. Cat king.. Idiotbox bass blower.. depth charge.. sandford and sonny bluebeard.. thinman overdrive.. fealabs proton II.. boss hyper fuzz.. heiro russian fuzz and BEAD.. and that's just what I remember.. plus a pignose armored cable plugged into a thunderfunk- ampeg SVT 212r