Free The Tone Custom Series BB-2 Bass Blaster Overdrive Pedal

The Bass Blaster is an overdrive pedal designed especially for bass players. It really sings whether played with fingers or played with a pick and this makes it quite different to most other bass overdrives. Most other bass overdrives will only respond well to a hard attack like when you use a guitar pick, but that leaves out the fingerstyle bassists.

The Bass Blaster was voiced so that it responds to dynamic playing by reading the incoming signal. So softer attack will give a cleaner, mildly driven sound but when you really dig in, it creates a lot of dirt. This is great for playing in a band because when the band play softly the pedal will follow the dynamic by adding less dirt to the signal.

Internal Voltage Boost

Internally, the voltage is boosted up to 15v. The higher the voltage in a pedal, the wider the dynamic range will be because higher voltage provides more head room. So you will have greater dynamic response for the pedal to clean up with soft playing and dirty up when you really attack the strings.

Here's what Free The Tone say about the BB-2

The FREE THE TONE BASS BLASTER is an overdrive pedal designed especially for basses. The voltage is boosted internally to ±15Vdc in order to easily be able to control the wide dynamic range of the bass guitar. It has excellent touch response that bassists request, and the sound characteristics are not lost regardless of whether the bass is played with a pick or fingers. The pedal creates the fat overdrive sound that most bassists are looking for. Treble and Bass tone controls are perfectly matched to the characteristics of the bass and provide a wide range of tonal adjustment.

• Wide dynamic range and powerful expression based on ±15 Vdc internal boosting.
• Excels in the reproducibility of touch every bassist seeks and never loses the bass’ original sound characteristics whether it is played with a pick or fingers.
• Drive sound with presence not buried in nor masked by band sound.
• Astoundingly excellent Signal-to-Noise ratio
• Exceptional sound stability by using long-life high reliability components

NOTE: Due to relatively large current consumption, we recommend to use an AC adapter.

BACKGROUND & DEVELOPMENT

The design of the Bass Blaster started as an idea from the Tube bassist Mr. Hideyuki Kakuno. In order to give a strong impression of the existing bass sound, similar the driving sound of a tube amp, with a slight amount of distortion audible if you listen to the bass by itself, but without being able to hear the distortion when listening to the bass with the whole band, I was asked to create a pedal that could recreate this kind of sound. That's how the development of this effect pedal began. Also, another important factor is for the sound to be more distorted with a stronger touch and a clean tone when playing softly. Mr. Kakuno tried many variations of the circuit as I was developing it, and I was finally able to create the first Bass Blaster, which has now won high praise from many professional bassists.

I have made a custom Bass Drive Console for several famous bass players and I installed the Bass Blaster circuit into it. This pedal shows its real ability when played in a band setting. Please check it out.”

Specifications

• Input impedance: 1M
• Output load impedance: max. 220
• Controls: GAIN, TREBLE, BASS, LEVEL
• Terminals: 2× 1/4" phone jacks (for input, output), 1× DC9V input jack (for AC adapter)
• Power supply: 9-volt battery (PP3/006P), AC adapter
• Current consumption: approx. 90 mA (max.)
• Dimensions: 100W × 123D × 52H mm (incl. protuberances such as footswitches, jacks, etc.)
• Weight: approx. 340 g (excl. battery)
• Accessories: warranty card, manual, battery (PP3/006P), 4× rubber feet