Anyone have recommendations for clear, modern sounding bass overdrives?
My current bass driver is a BDI-21 and it has a nice, vintage-like warm overdrive, but I am looking for something more modern (clear, tight, cooler, aggressive) sounding. Here’s what I have come to so far:
BDI-21/SansAmp BDDI - I love this pedal. It has a nice warm kind of vintage overdriven tone, but requires considerable tweaking to get it to really distort hard, and then it can be noisy. Boosting the bass and treble works but then it is kind of indistinct and farty sounding while distorting. Not the sound I am looking for with this post. Other than that, everyone should try a BDI-21 - huge bargain for some great tone.
Ampeg Scrambler - attempts to be very vintage, but not very well in my opinion, and definitely not what I am looking for (at least the version built in to the SCR-DI I owned).
Ibanez Bass Tube Screamer - this is likely the best classic sounding overdrive I have heard but not the modern sound I want. If I wanted to do classic rock or '80s metal I would buy this in an instant though. It’s a really versatile bass-oriented version of the TS9.
Zoom overdrive models - I loved my Zoom pedals in general but really did not much like the overdrives on them. Just very noisy and not super impressive.
Darkglass - All of these - at least the Microtubes X/X7, Alpha Omega, Alpha Omicron, and B3K/B7K - are exactly the sound I am looking for. However they are also really expensive.
SourceAudio AfterShock - this one is a digital pedal but all examples I can find actually sound pretty good. It comes preloaded with a Darkglass soundalike (“smoked glass”) which is somewhat close. It’s also editable and highly parametric with lots of downloadable parameter sets. This might be a contender but I am a little leery of digital overdrives.
I guess what I want is other examples and options of a Darkglass-like sound.
Additional data points
Fender on-amp analog overdrives - these sound great but are not portable and are not especially modern sounding.
EHX Big Muff - sounds deep dirty and awesome but is a fuzz distortion, not a drive, and thus is not capable of subtle overdrive. That said I am never selling mine ever.
@howard I’m having trouble hearing what the downside is on the AfterShock unless you want a pedal that just does it’s job without all the fiddly bits. For me, the AfterShock is a bit overwhelming but you seem to sift through being faced with a million different options pretty well.
My only problem with it is this fear caused by the fact that the other digital overdrives I have heard did not impress me. But every sample of it I have heard sounds awesome. Their Darkglass-like sound, while not the same, still is really good in the samples I have found.
If I see a used one I should probably pick it up. I could always sell it.
There’s a few big differences with the modern overdriven sound over the vintage tube overdrives. The vintage drives tend to be very warm sounding, flattening the lows, boosting the mids and the high end. The sound I am looking for has a more booming low end, retains the high end, and flattens or scoops the mids. It sounds clearer and cooler, not a warm fuzzy overdrive like a Tube Screamer.
Some pretty good examples of the sound starting here:
G-K amps do sound great and have a nice clear punchy tone though, yeah.
maybe you could look to distorsion pedals (and not overdrive) ? those things usually sounds less vintage/natural/warm than overdrives, maybe worth a try
I was thinking about that too, yeah. But I like the non-distorting drive tone on the Darkglass a lot too.
It sounds like the AfterShock does that pretty well too. Intro riff to this is apparently the darkglass setting with stuff mostly neutral. Of course part of it is also that Warwick - damn
Howard, I own a alpha omega which acts as my pre-amp and distortion pedal. I really like the modern clean and aggressive tone + all the extra EQ options on this thing. The reason I bought this was that I rather have 1 good pedal then 4 subpar pedals (+ I’m a minimalist). The downside is that it has depleted my bank account… so I was quite happy with that BDI-21 tip you gave me since I do like a warm vintage kind of tone as well.
Cool! I really like the tone of the Alpha Omega and it looks like a great preamp/DI.
Thank @terb for the BDI21 tip as he tipped me off to it
Ooh. The Black Haze sounds good, the Drive Me Crazy pretty cool too. I knew EBS but hadn’t heard these yet. Thanks for the tip.
The Palisades… wow that thing has a lot to it. Sounds awesome. For that money I could get a Darkglass, but it’s got quite a range to it. This bit where the guy jumps in with the Dingwall is pretty solid:
I hadn’t heard of it before, thanks again!
And yeah, I am a firm believer that everyone that likes fuzz/distortion at all should own a Big Muff. It’s inexpensive and excellent. I’m a huge EHX fan.
Yeah that kit I linked looks promising. Sounds like you need to SMT a couple IC though, which is probably beyond my basic soldering skills. It wasn’t clear to me why socketing wouldn’t work or them.
The “Dry EQ” setting on the Battalion distortion sounds great, using that it sounds like you can dial in a nice bassy low end on the dry signal and it clips/distorts the highs. The Bass Big Muff has a similar setting that sounds awesome, it’s always on on mine. It’s what he’s doing at the start of this vid:
Actually the Battalion is probably a pretty good option here, yeah. Thanks for the reminder. I do want one eventually, it seems like a great preamp.
what you say is funny because, as you know my BDI21 is modded and I can manage this contour / mid scoop , but lately I’ve been using it almost with the same scoop than on the original circuitry this scoop can bee too much sometimes but it also is a part of the SansAmp/BDI tone, and it doesn’t sound bad at all ! especially with a bass with loads of mids like a P.
Meanwhile, the more I think about this, I’m thinking the right answer at least for now is probably the Battalion, especially since I already wanted one anyway.
They never* turn up used here though, which kind of sucks. I hate buying new gear.
*Actually one sold used here 11 days ago but I missed it. But it was only the third I have seen even looking back three years.
yeah, I think we’re in a very similar case in fact. we both like the same kind of tone obviously (at least when we’re talking about those fat/agressive distrorted tones) and if we sum up we like the same things : the agressive Ampeg (SVT-CL), the Gallien Krueger RB series, the SansAmp/BDI21, Darkglass and EHX stuff.
I often ask myself if I should sell my Ampeg and try to find a vintage GK 800RB, this thing is on top of my amp wishlist. But I’ll need a cab anyway, that’s too much money for now.
I might try to find old modeling preamps, I’m very curious about what I could do with this kind of stuff plugged into my Ampeg. I’m especially looking for a Line6 Bass Pod (the very first version) which sounds more agressive than realistic. Those things sells for about 60€ here, maybe worth a try.
Oh and also thanks for the BDI21 tip!
this scoop can bee too much sometimes but it also is a part of the SansAmp/BDI tone, and it doesn’t sound bad at all ! especially with a bass with loads of mids like a P.