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EBS Valve Drive anyone owned one?

#3
Good pedal. Very "hot", I always have the switch on -15db, and I play a passive j-bass. It can warm up your bass or it can do very heavy fuzz equally well. I use the modern tube switch to warm my sound and the vintage switch for fuzzyness. I would say it is mostly on the fuzz side rather than hard destortion the even with the gain cranked. No problems with my bypass, but I leave it on all the time. It is usually pedal one or two in my chain.
 
#5
haellou,have one for more than 1 year and have no problem,use it many times live and endless reherseals ... very nice od sounds,a real beast :D its no problem to change the tube ... mine was 280 euros ....prety expensive ,the only bad thing concerning the pedal is that : made in china ..... for his enormous price,but hope its well done :)
 
#7
I absolutely love mine! Great, natural organic overdrive & can make a great preamp as well. I actually ditched my $1500 LA-610 in favor of the Valve Drive as my primary studio bass pre. (well, I also employ a GT Brick, but the "heart" of my tone comes from the Valve Drive)

I have had reliability issues with EBS footswitches (both my Valve Drive and Octabass), but nothing I couldn't easily work with.
 
#8
I have had reliability issues with EBS footswitches (both my Valve Drive and Octabass), but nothing I couldn't easily work with.[/QUOTE]


I heard others complaining about this....actualy what was ur problem with the switch ? how you manage to fix it ?
cheers
 
#9
dream_bass said:
I have had reliability issues with EBS footswitches (both my Valve Drive and Octabass), but nothing I couldn't easily work with.
Click to expand...


I heard others complaining about this....actualy what was ur problem with the switch ? how you manage to fix it ?
cheers[/QUOTE]

With my Octabass, I had to actually replace the switch altogether. It took about 10 minutes to do. For the record, I had been using the pedal for many, many years before the original switch gave out...

With the Valve Drive, there was some noise issues with one of the switches. I cleaned it out with contact cleaner. This cured the noisy footswitch, but in the process the yellow led stopped working.... weird.
 
#10
I play 70ies-style progressive rock with a ValveDrive as main OD (into an EBS TD650 hybrid head), and I'm very happy with it, I get a good Squier:esqe bite switched to Modern with gain around lunch.

Actually, I use the ValveDrive for pick play and a MultiDrive for slighty less agressive fingerstyle, but I would really like another VD :-P
 
#11
scotch said:
I heard others complaining about this....actualy what was ur problem with the switch ? how you manage to fix it ?
cheers
Click to expand...

With my Octabass, I had to actually replace the switch altogether. It took about 10 minutes to do. For the record, I had been using the pedal for many, many years before the original switch gave out...

With the Valve Drive, there was some noise issues with one of the switches. I cleaned it out with contact cleaner. This cured the noisy footswitch, but in the process the yellow led stopped working.... weird.[/QUOTE]



thanx m8 :bassist:
 
#14
I'm really considering getting one of these right now. Just to get it right, the active switch activates the preamp and the vintage switch is OD right. I need a preamp pedal (Sadowsky or Tone Hammer) and I've been meaning to try a dirt pedal with a tube in it for a long time (this or the English Muff'n) so being able to get both in one pedal would be awesome.
 
#15
OptimusPrime said:
I'm really considering getting one of these right now. Just to get it right, the active switch activates the preamp and the vintage switch is OD right. I need a preamp pedal (Sadowsky or Tone Hammer) and I've been meaning to try a dirt pedal with a tube in it for a long time (this or the English Muff'n) so being able to get both in one pedal would be awesome.
Click to expand...

Sort of..... There are two "Active" modes: Vintage and Modern. Both are capable overdrives, but the Modern setting is able to function well as a virtually clean preamp at lower gain settings. The Vintage setting doesn't clean up as well & lends itself more to distorted sounds.
The "Active" switch either:
a) engages the pedal or switches to true-bypass -or-
b) engages the pedal or mutes the output entirely (there;'s a switch on the back panel for this option...)

In Modern mode (led red), the signal can go from extremely clean to very gritty. The signal is very broad and the upper frequencies are very open.

In Vintage mode (led yellow), the signal is compressed a bit and the overdrive leans more towards a big-muff borderline-fuzzy tone. Even at low gain settings you will still hear some nice clipping in Vintage mode.

Both modes retain low-end very well. There's actually far more bottom available with the eq than is needed. Remember that the 3-band eq is similar to the classic Fender tone stack: "flat eq" is with Bass & Treble set near to minimum and the Mid control set to maximum.

I would characterize the Vintage mode as a "fuzzy" overdrive, and the Modern mode as "gritty" overdrive. At least that makes sense to me! ;)

You can set-up the pedal as you describe (with Modern set for clean and Vintage breaking up), but there will be some slight volume loss in Vintage mode due to the compression (if you leave all the knobs set the same).
 
#16
Further uncompensated endorsement endorsement of the Valve Drive:

This pedal really has exceeded my expectations! I was originally only interested in using it as a replacement for the "light overdrive" that I got from my Fulltone Bass-Drive. The EBS aced this right away! The more I play with the pedal though, the more I keep unlocking potential. It's now my studio pre, dedicated tone shaper/eq and best bass overdrive! I've never been more happy with a "pedal" purchase.

A lot of the engineers & musicians I use it with have been asking to borrow it. The Valve Drive really does make a huge difference - even set flat!

Also, the Valve Drive actually responds to tube changes. I agree that different devices respond differently to preamp tube swaps - some don't make any marked difference at all! While 12ax7 swaps are certainly subtle, you will be able to get different overall timbres with the Valve Drive by trying different tubes (and not just gain differences).

Even despite questionable EBS footswitch reliability, the Valve Drive is one of the few pedals I recommend for bass without reservation (also on this list: Xotic RC Booster, updated Fulltone Bass-Drive Mosfet, and Loop-Master TB boxes)!
 
#17
scotch said:
Sort of..... There are two "Active" modes: Vintage and Modern. Both are capable overdrives, but the Modern setting is able to function well as a virtually clean preamp at lower gain settings. The Vintage setting doesn't clean up as well & lends itself more to distorted sounds.
The "Active" switch either:
a) engages the pedal or switches to true-bypass -or-
b) engages the pedal or mutes the output entirely (there;'s a switch on the back panel for this option...)

In Modern mode (led red), the signal can go from extremely clean to very gritty. The signal is very broad and the upper frequencies are very open.

In Vintage mode (led yellow), the signal is compressed a bit and the overdrive leans more towards a big-muff borderline-fuzzy tone. Even at low gain settings you will still hear some nice clipping in Vintage mode.

Both modes retain low-end very well. There's actually far more bottom available with the eq than is needed. Remember that the 3-band eq is similar to the classic Fender tone stack: "flat eq" is with Bass & Treble set near to minimum and the Mid control set to maximum.

I would characterize the Vintage mode as a "fuzzy" overdrive, and the Modern mode as "gritty" overdrive. At least that makes sense to me! ;)

You can set-up the pedal as you describe (with Modern set for clean and Vintage breaking up), but there will be some slight volume loss in Vintage mode due to the compression (if you leave all the knobs set the same).
Click to expand...

scotch said:
Further uncompensated endorsement endorsement of the Valve Drive:

This pedal really has exceeded my expectations! I was originally only interested in using it as a replacement for the "light overdrive" that I got from my Fulltone Bass-Drive. The EBS aced this right away! The more I play with the pedal though, the more I keep unlocking potential. It's now my studio pre, dedicated tone shaper/eq and best bass overdrive! I've never been more happy with a "pedal" purchase.

A lot of the engineers & musicians I use it with have been asking to borrow it. The Valve Drive really does make a huge difference - even set flat!

Also, the Valve Drive actually responds to tube changes. I agree that different devices respond differently to preamp tube swaps - some don't make any marked difference at all! While 12ax7 swaps are certainly subtle, you will be able to get different overall timbres with the Valve Drive by trying different tubes (and not just gain differences).

Even despite questionable EBS footswitch reliability, the Valve Drive is one of the few pedals I recommend for bass without reservation (also on this list: Xotic RC Booster, updated Fulltone Bass-Drive Mosfet, and Loop-Master TB boxes)!
Click to expand...
Damn, thanks for that guys. So I can't use it like me Hematoma and leave the preamp on, then stomp a switch to turn on the OD? Too bad.
 

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