Drive vs. boost

[Phendyr_Loon]

After years of fight with my tone, I've switched to active for my main bass.
I've gotten enough gain out of the active preamp on my bass and dialed in the settings on my WT300 for adequate grit.
Now I want to go for a more dynamic sound in terms of being able to switch some more "oomph" on and off per song in the band which I'm currently playing with.
I'm a bit confused in the subject of drive vs. boost vs. gain.
I want a bit more out of my signal and every boost pedal I've tried out or watched a demo on YouTube for just made the bass overall louder.
Conversely, all the OD pedals seemed to add too much distortion even on the lighter settings.
Now I've got a BBM that covers the "dirt" in my tone, so I suppose what I'm looking for is some sort of drive/boost which is clean as far as not breaking up my tone with distortion, but rather acts as if I've just jacked the the gain up and just adds balls to my tone.
Any suggestions?

 

[bongomania]

I want a bit more out of my signal and every boost pedal I've tried out or watched a demo on YouTube for just made the bass overall louder.
...I suppose what I'm looking for is some sort of drive/boost which is clean as far as not breaking up my tone with distortion, but rather acts as if I've just jacked the the gain up and just adds balls to my tone.

"Jacked the gain up" basically means "just made the bass overall louder", so you may need to clarify for yourself (and us ) exactly what you want. "Adding balls" isn't enough, because that could mean any of a dozen different things, or combinations of things.

My first thought is you might want an EQ pedal. That way you can boost the low mids, for example, giving more "balls", without "just being louder".

Also there are "dirty boost" and "dark boost" pedals that are designed to color the tone while boosting. The ones that I've heard myself were more subtle than I cared to bother with, but there are plenty I haven't actually heard yet.

 

[Vlad5]

I agree with the eq pedal suggestion, specifically, one with parametric/selectable mids.

I'm using an EWS BMC to boost just 500-600Hz and it adds 'balls' to my signal for sure. None of the other frequencies are messed with, so the low end doesn't get muddy and the trebly twang doesn't get overbearing.

Selective frequency boost is the way to go if you want to shape your sound without coloring it. The BMC is just one of many products out there that will do that for you. Xotic and EWS (same company, really) offer a few bass Eq's. I choose the BMC because it is only a single frequency booster, and it is selectable in the range I want. I don't really need bass or treble boost.

I too have tried a lot of clean and dirty boosts and have come to realize that selectable frequency boost is key to generating a unique 'clean' sound. Full range boosters are too heavy handed tone shaping. (But they can be awesome for the job they were designed for)

Hope this helps.