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Best overdrive that won't kill my tone

jacoby75

jacoby75

Supporting Member
Mar 11, 2010
5,661
10,716
Coldwater, MI
Disclosures
Endorsing Artist: Mike Lull Custom Guitars, DR Strings
#1
Hi gang,

I recently joined up with a classic rock trio, and I'm looking for a good overdrive pedal to add just a slight bit of gain to fatten up the overall bass sound. It would be the sort of thing that I would probably leave on all of the time, and might turn up the gain on slightly for a solo or something. I don't need a high-gain big-muff sound. Something subtle for the most part, but gritty.

The trick is, I have a really great tone to begin with, and I want something that won't suck the greatness out of my tone. I have used pedals in the past, but always find that the pedals color the sound too much when bypassed, or that I lose some low end and tone, so my basses sound better plugged straight into the amp and I wind up selling the pedals. However, in this situation, I need to find something that works.

Here is my setup:
Mike Lull P5 - Demeter tube preamp - Carvin power amp - Epifani 4x10.

I have done some research on the boards, and the favored pedals seem to be sansamp stuff, and maybe EBS. I have owned the sansamp bddi and rbi in the past, but felt that the two colored the tone too much when not overdriven, so I ditched them. Like I said, I have a phenomenal tone to begin with, I just want to all some light to medium drive without losing tone and low end.

Any suggestions?

Thanks so much.
 
#2
When I started using dirt pedals with bass I came from a similar point of view. I really didn't want to compromise my bass tone nor lose the weight and bottom end of the sound just to get a dirt tone. On the other hand, some grit is often a great touch.

The best solution I found was to get a parellel effects pedal, the one I got was the Lehle Parallel and they also sell pretty much any configuration of bass(es)+effects+amp(s) routing you could want. I run all my dirt pedals in the parallel loop and blend it in with my dry signal. Works out really well and I don't have to worry about whether or not a pedal sucks tone because of the parallel loop, in fact I'm using a few guitar dirt pedals that when a bass is run direct through sound like absolutely tone-choked garbage, but mixed in sound unbelievable. There's a button on the Lehle pedal too that will disengage the parallel loop and only let the dry run through if you are bothered by any bypass tone coloring from the dirt pedals in the parallel loop.

I think it's a better and more versatile approach than trying to find pedals that either don't mess with the low-end or have blending on their own, albeit more expensive. My justification is that it works perfectly for what I need it to do with the dirt pedals and has many other potential future applications.
 
#3
Any pedal with true bypass will leave your incoming signal unaltered when the pedal is disengaged. For a clean drive tone a lot of people here are fans of the Way Huge Pork Loin, Xotic Bass BB, and Fulltone OCD. There are plenty of drive descriptions and soundclips in the wiki, so I'd definitely check those out too!
 
#6
Great suggestions. Thanks a lot. I'll have to do some more research on these pedals. That's why I always come here first. I'll always find someone with experience with things I've never even heard of before like the Xotic and Pork Loin. Great stuff. Thanks.

As for true bypass, just as a side note, even pedals with true bypass I have found do affect it slightly. For example, the EBS Multidrive. Not quite what I was looking for pedalwise. But regardless, even when bypassed there was a loss of tone. I'm sure it also has something to do with having to throw another cable into the mix (which I always use monster bass cables), but regardless, maybe some minimal tone loss is inevitable. I guess part of the difference maker might be getting a drive that has an eq built in, as opposed to just a tone knob, to compensate for some of that loss. Like the EBS Valvedrive as opposed to the Fulltone OCD, for example. I dunno. More reasearch ahead for me!

Thanks!
 
#7
FWIW, I do have an effects loop in my preamp. I might try running something through that, but I'd like to have a pedal so that I can just get a pedalboard to mount that, a tuner, and my wireless to for ease of setup.
 
#8
If you're planning to leave it on all the time then bypassed tone doesn't matter. I love my BB, but for a more classic sound I'd say the Pork Loin is a good way for you to go. Aguilar Agro might be good too, and don't ignore the digitech bad monkey
 
#9
Touche "blast". What I mean by tone loss, though, is not necessarily just when in bypass. There is that, but I also mean something that maintains the essential tone of the bass and just adds grit. Not like the Sansamp stuff which, in my opinion, alters the tone a lot to make it sound like you're playing through an Ampeg SVT. That's fine for some folks, but not for me. I have a great sound that I want to keep sounding great, and just add grit to. Thanks.
 
#10
Oh yeah, I totally got that, I was just pointing out that it sounded like in the past this was something that might have steered you clear of pedals that might otherwise have sounded good. Taking that out of the equation frees you up a bit. The pork loin has a blend, I believe, and in your case a pedal with a blend might make a lot of sense since you're so committed to your clean tone (sounds like you have reason to be). Sparkle drive is another...alwys wanted to try one...
 
#12
I know you can get the Xotic BB, that's one that I'm looking at right now. And maybe the X-blender to compensate for any tone suckage. Looks like a really good combination for use with overdrive or any other effects for that matter with bass. Keeps the clean signal in there while you dial in the level of effect.
 
#13
Jacoby,

You might look into the VT Bass (or VT Bass Deluxe). Here is the link for that:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

One other pedal that comes to mind that definitely will not suck out the low end is the Creation Audio Labs Holy Fire pedal that runs on a whopping 48 volts (power supply included). At that voltage, there is no loss of low end, and there is tons of headroom. Here is the link for that:

http://www.creationaudiolabs.com/holyfire

For the record, I have no affiliation with any of the products listed above.
 
#14
When it comes to what you are asking, always best to use the effects loop. Putting the effects in front of the tube preamp is just another way to screw up everything.

I use the Hartke LH500 with a 4x10 and the Hartke VXL Attack pedal. The pedal has tube emulation and provides quite a good overdriven sound however when I put it in signal chain before it goes into the amp it pretty much defeats the purpose of the tube pre-amp. I use the effects loop so that I can get the most out of the pedal and the pre-amp.

As a degreed materials engineer, I don't care how little oxygen and how low the porosity is in any cable, signal loss is signal loss and the cable will effect your signal chain, period. And you can play with it all you want, basic instrument cable of low grade isn't going to be that much different, even to the highly trained ear. Electrons are electrons. The shorter the distance the electron has to travel, the less the loss will be. Anything that lengthens the travel or adds impedance (cable, pedal, yada yada) will effect the electrons.

I actually have been trying to figure out all the buzz over the DR set of Hellborg strings. The vibrational pattern isn't significant enough for the human ear to pick up any of the nuance that Jonas thinks. And the pickup winding effects it too.

My two cents.
 
#15
I really like my Catalinbread SFT because its pretty darn touch sensitive and seems to not color the tone too much if you play lightly enough not to overdrive it, but I know next to nothing about how it compares to other pedals.
 
#16
Zeibek GeminiDrive
has a clean and a overdrive volume control
also can be used as very clean transparent boost if you want it too
does ad some good light overdrive not fuzz at all just good overdrive sound has a tone and gain control on the overdive channel can really crank some dirt if you need it too
 
#17
I have an OCD but have recently replaced it with an Xotic BB bass pre amp. This is the best, most transparent, high quality overdrive I have ever found for bass. Very high quality pedal. I can't imagine anyone looking for a high end bass overdrive not being happy with this one!
 
#18
surfingbird1 said:
Barber ltd sr , you'll see!
Click to expand...

dude, honestly.....the LTD SR, in my opinion, is the most transparent OD out there. i've owned and gigged an embarrassing amount. i sold mine because i prefer some color. i see them on TGP for around $110 all the time, and i can't stress enough, if you want a slightly dirty version of your existing tone this is the way to go. very high quality build too.
 
#20
I use mine as more of a lead boost, or for songs that need me to cut through a bit more, but I went on a similar quest last year... after ultimately being dissatisfied with a Fulltone Bass-drive (serious loss of low end).

Went out and played a number of pedals... the Pork Loin was one of the top contenders for sure. Everything it had to offer was on the subtle side, and it was very transparent. I had been recommended the Xotic BB by many folks on here, but I was doubtful as I didn't like the tone I heard in most of the demo videos. Unsurprisingly I hated that pedal, as the tone was exactly like the demo videos... gnarly, unnatural, almost synthetic sounding drive IMO, though I can't argue with the fact that a lot of people love it. Just not for me, I guess. I have yet to try a Barber LTD SR, and I suspect I'd like one...

In the end I played through a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive and knew it was for me. Its deceptively simple, and its probably not as boutiquey as some of the other stuff out there. However, it nailed the tone in my head, and the blend works wonders for me. I know some people have had them modded, I don't see the need to as I like it the way it is.
 

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