Maglor64
Always On Tube Warmth
When I first plugged in to this pedal I had the drive too high. To my ear it had a bit of that broken speaker sound I don’t like. I let the pedal sit for about a week then plugged it in again after noting that my BB Bass Preamp was sucking a little life out of my sub range lows. This time I set the drive to about the 10:00 position and the mix all the way to the left (contrary to what you might expect, this position is not fully clean). With some tweaking I ended up with the bass and treble at about the 2:30 position. Unity output was achieved with the level knob at about 10:00. So when kicking the pedal on what I get with these settings is a slight midrange bump - in a really pleasing range - and a nice subtle break up. It adds both fur and punch, a combination I find rare. I went back and forth between this pedal and my BB Bass Preamp, and to my shock I like this one better. The BB has a little more modern sound I think. There is a top end sparkle to it, even with the treble at low settings. On the other hand, at low settings, the Bass Tube Screamer really sounds like a tube amp that is breaking up slightly and rolling off a bit of the highs. And, unlike the BB, there is no detectable loss of sub range lows (perhaps thanks to the blend knob).
And when playing with a band, I could hear myself more clearly in the mix without feeling like I needed to be loud - something about the way the pedal saturates the midrange and increases sustain.
I’m really really pleased with pedal. I have it after my Keeley Bassist compressor pedal and I think I will be leaving it on almost all the time almost like an analog tube amp simulator.
It’s “built like a tank” as everyone says, and it looks cool too. Highly recommend!
