Fulltone Bass-Drive

The Fulltone Bass Drive is an overdrive pedal that is designed for use with electric bass guitar. It's similar to the Full Drive pedals that are designed for guitar, but this one is obviously designed for bass. The pedal's got 1/4" connections for input and output and I believe it requires power from a 9 volt power supply. It isn't a rackable piece of gear as it's a stomp box.

UTILIZATION

The make up of the Fulltone Bass Drive is really simple and is again a lot like the Full Drive pedal. The parameters that are offered up here include knobs for volume, tone, overdrive, and boost. It also has switches for a vintage/comp cut setting and for a mosfet/standard setting. In addition it has two buttons to press - one for turning the effect on or off and one for using the boost section of the pedal. A manual shouldn't be something that's necessary here.

SOUND QUALITY

While I should say that I'm not the biggest fan of bass overdrive in general, the Fulltone Bass Drive is one of the best bass overdrive pedals that I've used without a doubt. I'm primarily a guitar player but I do play bass, however I was using this pedal on a session where I wasn't playing and was actually the engineer. We wanted a little bit of overdrive on one part of a song so we tried this out which they had on hand in the studio. I'm really happy that they had the pedal as it gave us the fullest sounding bass overdrive I've heard to date. It's also a very transparent effect, as you can hear ever note being played...

OVERALL OPINION

The Fulltone Bass Drive is definitely a professional bass player's pedal, as it has a truly awesome sound. Most bass overdrive effects that I've used before end up sounding really muddy in the mix, but the Bass Drive is very transparent and cuts through well. While it's somewhat expensive, it's about the price you're going to pay for a top end overdrive. If you're really serious about getting a killer bass overdrive sound, the Fulltone Bass Drive is the perfect way to get the job done.