20 Best Overdrive Pedal For Bass (2022 Updated)

The pedal has a lot of great tones in it straight out of the box, and would be a good value right there. But, when you add into the Neuro App, you can teak the stock tones to your liking to tailor fit your desires past the knobs on the pedal.

Or! you can change out the stock tones for a 30-40 different tones, from a Russian Big Muff, Darkglass, TS, and synth bass tones, to name a few. Then you can tailor fit THOSE to your liking with the app and knobs.

Its a great value.

With this pedal you get more than 50 various drive engines, that are hidden inside. You can use 2 drives at once – in parallel or cascaded one into another. With the mobile app you have so much controls it can get even confusing.

Don’t want dig too dip – use mobile app just to assign 3 favourite drives on 3 mini-switch positions, that’s it. Awesome pedal, much more interesting than my previous MXR Bass Distortion.

I got this pedal to add a distortion unit with midi functionality to my board and this doesn’t disappoint. Drive + Parametric EQ and with tons of different distortion types. Yes please. It can be routed numerous ways (my favorite being Mono effect plus dry through) and having this, or any source audio pedal to the board elevates your sound!!.

I bought this to replace a Green Rhino Mk II that I was using for my overdrive for bass. I liked the versatility of the Pork & Pickle drive/fuzz combo and the clean tone blend, plus the smaller size is a bonus.

I’ve played with it for a few hours now – no gigs yet, thanks to the virus – and it really does the trick. For low gain tones the Pork sounds similar to my Rhino, but with a less muddy low end – clearer, punchier, better.

The Pickle sounds great, too. The only downside is that in stock configuration, just flipping the switch from OD to Fuzz doesn’t really get me a good fuzz sound; I have to fiddle with the knobs to get a good fuzz on.

I hope this can be solved using the internal trimmers, but I haven’t had a chance to get inside yet.

Going from the original to this one the fuzz sounds much better having a british preamp on both the overdrive and now the pickle fuzz part! Idk how way huge made it smaller but thats a great thing for crowded pedalboards! This pedal is really small! Smaller than your typical EHX pedal thats for sure! Great tone!.

This is an amazing pedal, definately the best (for Bass) from Boss. It keeps the basically unaltered low-end while crunching the highs, Great for rock and metal. You can also just use it as a booster for a Bass solo.

You can change the OD/distortion from a normal Bass with some grit on top all the way to a tuned down Bass-less guitar, and everywhere in between. Mine doesn’t eat up batteries like the other person said.

And the light tells you when the batteries are low by getting dimmer and dimmer.

I got this mainly out of desire rather than necessity and I didn’t keep it very long. It was fun to tinker with but for me it wasn’t what I was looking for. I like a high gain distortion and I couldn’t adjust my amp, bass and pedal enough to get a sound that I liked.

The slightest movement on the strings would make that screaching sound. The low gain sounded muddy and drained my tone. I liked it for the fun factor but I couldn’t use it with my band. I’ll recommend it because the majority of people like it.

i bought this pedal used at the local samash store just to experiment with and i got to say i found it very usefull, if you play hard rock or metal this is a must have, sure there’s more choices out there but in my opinion this pedal is pretty good.

, it doesn’t suck up my tone in any way and its true what the other guy said, u can use it as a boost pedal too, i keep my on the crunchy side anyways i’m glad i bought this pedal. PS:one person says this pedal eat batteries like crazy well ” MOST PEDALS WILL EAT YOUR 9 VOLT IF YOU USE IT FOR MORE THAN 4 HOURS STRAIGHT” if u have a pedal board u got to have a power supply for your pedals.

(im just saying).

What I gathered from reviews was that the Pantheon could possibly replace multiple pedals on my board. It seemed very versatile and very open sounding, the way I like my dirt. I also was prepared to have it not quite live up to what I hoped.

Turns out it did exactly what I hoped and did it better than I thought it would. I used to run three dirt pedals on my board. Lightspeed for really low transparent gain, Southland for middle of the road overdrive, and a BE-OD for the higher gain stuff.

The Pantheon easily replaced the first two pedals, and offers more variation in the tone controls. The BE-OD will stay, as it’s voiced more aggressive than the Pantheon, though the Pantheon gets pretty close in the high gain department.

I could easily live with only the Pantheon for dirt, everything from clean barely there breakup to heavy rock tones. The fact that it’s purple only sweetens the deal.

I have played for thirty-plus years but really never started seriously chasing tone until the last five or so. In that time, I have been looking for a transparent overdrive pedal. A lot of them made claims that I found to be less than true, at least by my definition.

I want an OD that leaves the EQ profile of the guitar and amp that I am playing as close as possible to what they are with the OD off. There are many pedals (and clones thereof) out there that claim to do this but I have been less than satisfied with most of them, at least the ones I could afford.

A few months back, I started hearing about clones of the original BB pedal that I remembered coming out in the late ’80s. The most popular was out of my price range (aside from having a two year waiting list) so I started researching the Pantheon.

I liked what I found in the reviews and videos I watched so I started looking and found one here at MF on an open-box special. I am happy with my drive pedal for the first time in years. It has all the gain you could ever need for anything short of hardcore metal styles.

It has a responsive tone stack and presence control that make it easily adjustable to multiple guitars. In addition, there is a dipswitch for gain level and clipping style. Miraculously, all of these are accessible from the front of the pedal.

This is a major peeve of mine. I have had other pedals where there were switches and trim pots that were only accessible with the back removed. That’s ridiculous. I ended up drilling holes in the back cover and keeping a tiny screwdriver handy but that is, at best, a crummy solution.

I have only two negatives. The clipping switch has three selections: soft, hard, and a combination thereof. I would have liked a no clipping setting. Aside from that, as listed in the con section, this pedal is so versatile it can be overwhelming if not approached in a very organized fashion.

First, I run two clean class A amps stereo clean. I have 4 wampler pedals for my desired amount of drive that I use. The Pantheon is my medium drive go to pedal for lead and or Rythm. Caution can be very bright so star with presence almost all the way down.

I run it at maybe 9 oclock. Very notable feature here- you do not loose your low end with this pedal. With the treble, bass, and presence set appropriately you can retain most of you guitars original tone for decent transparency.

This pedal sounds great with the Tumnus deluxe as well so i believe it plays well with other pedals. which is Important. Theres plenty of room with the tone shaping and a amount of drive this pedal offers to please most players for sure.

Its certainly a great addition in any line of pedals.

I’ve been lusting after Darkglass products for a while. I’m old school in that I have this sound in my head that I only got from my decades-old Trace Elliot full stack. My back can’t handle moving that behemoth so I finally got around to getting the Alpha Omega Preamp, Distortion, DI.

I’ve tried many overdrive, distortion, and fuzz pedals in the past on bass but never got the sound I had in my head. Finally, the Alpha Omega (more on the Alpha side), I got that organic, warm, tube-overdriven sound I was seeking.

I could tweak the amount of distortion from mild to metal and everything in between. It all sounded great, even through a little 100 watt amp and 12″ cab. This is the center of my pedalboard from now on!.

Super versatile product! Amazing quality, and sounds great! I love using it at a very low level giving it a classic cranked up tube amp sound. You can also crank the pedal and get a lot more if you want it, or anything in between.

Im very happy with this product.

After researching all the many offerings for Bass DI, I saw a lot of hype on the MXR M80 DI+. The online reviews, and demos were tops, and the comments great. Thus, I decided to get one. After setting it up with my BB 424x, Amp and DAW, I tested it out.

And I was amazed at the difference the M80 has on TONE. I’m a TONE seeker. For decades I’ve played guitar and use low watt tube amps like the Tweed Deluxe, and silverface Princeton Reverb to get the best tone I could without pedals.

That’s something I wasn’t able to do with a bass guitar. But now, the MXR M80 allows me to get a wonderful tube tone for recording at low volumes. And I can now go direct into the interface for 2 great sounding bass tracks.

And both give me a good bass tone that’s easy to fit in the mix. When I play only with the amp, I leave the “Effect” and “Color” on all the time. It’s just that good. The character of the “Color” is what I like about this pedal the most.

It tightens up the sub frequencies, and rounds off the 80 to 120hz zone. Much like how I would EQ the DI signal. But it adds a smoothness that my Acoustic Amp doesn’t have. Nevertheless, the M80 has all the features I need for recording: like Phantom power, and 3 band EQ to shape the Color tone much like a preamp.

Also, it has a distortion feature with blend and gain controls with a gate, to tweak just the right amount of edge on the tone. And the signal is clean and strong. No tone sucking here, and no line noise unless you crank up the distortion.

Yep, all they review hype was correct. The MXR M80 DI+ is a solid piece of gear that’s a great addition for Bass guitar recording.

Whenever I turn on this pedal, distortion or not it sounds like someone just woke up a beehive, The actual clean sound is pretty good but when you really dig into the pups it starts to make that pop sound louder which is a big issue for me at least, (shouldn’t be due to volume increase) when the distortion is on, there’s even more buzz AND it’s a very bad distortion.

The distortion also doesn’t have a wide range of sounds and is only really usable at minimum gain and the blend knob almost all the way back, just get an OD , and an EQ pedal, trust me.

Overall: I personally love all of Darkglasselectronics products. The microtubes X Ultra is now my favorite. The tones you can create are endless from sub bass to blistering distortion and everything in between sound amaizing.

The Darkglass suite works flawlessly with there products. The cab sims sounds real and impressive. The addition of auxiliary in and headphone out is brilliant for silent jamming on the road or in the bedroom.

The direct out is top notch and silent, the compressor works great for both the drive section and clean section(turned on in the Darkglass suite) when compression is ingauged in the suite the lights go from red to blue by holding down the bypass switch for a few seconds.

The eq is clean and works verry well. Buy one you will be happy you did ,cheers!.

I recently purchased a Darkglass microtubes X7 from American musical supply. I can’t say enough good things about this pedal and the service provided by American musical supply. I’ve been a bassist for over 36 years and believe me when I say “Darkglass really hit it out the park with this one.

” Everything from thick compressed vintage sounds to razor sharp defined distortion and everything in between. I use this with my American made musicman stingray 5 drawing with right round wound for the most incredible metal tones and with my American made Fender precision 5-string strung with flatwounds for the most incredible vintage tones.

Incredible product, incredible customer service! Thanks American musical supply.

Does exactly what I wanted – adds some grit and clanky-weight to the bass without totally changing its sound.

Perfect pedal for the price range, very usable, with the right amp and guitar set up it can sound very similar to an ampeg classic.

I have tried several different overdrive pedals including a few that were considerably more expensive than this one. The Nobels OD-1 is the best sounding one yet. The bass switch is also a plus, so make sure the one you buy has it.

The three control knobs are the same as others, but seem to be more effective allowing me to get exactly the sound I am looking for. The Nobels OD-1 has been around for a long time, and a favorite for many musicians and now I know why.

It’s a great pedal at a fair price and is my new #1.

This is my first dedicated overdrive pedal. My reference point are overdrive plugins in Logic. The pedal works, and there is some sound shaping ability, but the effect is not exactly subtle. Setting it for minimal overdrive still sounds pretty over driven.

You can modulate that some amount by dialing down the wet dry to a pretty dry setting. But overall the overdrive comes on pretty strong, pretty quick. The treble and bass knobs are a nice addition. First Behringer pedal.

Case was plastic. Not sure how durable it would be. Ended up returning, mostly because I lost the gig I was going to use it for, and dont have a real need for OD. Recommended if you want some obvious overdrive at a cheap price point.

I get a variety of good, useable tones out of this one box. In fact, this has replaced the distortion patches I was using on my trusty DOD Bass 30 entirely. To say that I am happy with any stock stompbox is a big deal, because I have only a few left in my collection that I haven’t modified the circuitry in to better suit me.

This is one of the few originals, and that says volumes. I step on mine regularly, and haven’t had any issues with it. I’m not a bass player, but I play one on my records. I’ve been playing lead guitar for 20 years, and I know good sounds.

I say this to inform you that my credentials are in good order. You can get any sort of growl you want, thick or thin- and as much or little of the clean as you need to retain the punch at the same time.

The only thing I would change is the color of the box. Since that has absolutely nothing to do with the sound it makes, I’m fine with it. Seriously, I was skeptical too when I saw the price. Don’t let it, and the silly color fool you- Let your ears be the judge.

Being a man with ears, fingers, and experience beyond my years, I highly recommend it to everyone.

I got this a while back to add a some gain to play a bit of metal with a bit of overdrive on top as well as fattening the sound of the bass. Unfortunately this will never give you a “smooth” gain sound like having a guitar amp’s gain around 2.

Having gain down all the way shuts off all sound to the amp, and having it around 2/10 puts on a harsh brittle overdrive no matter the EQ. Sounds a little better with flatwound strings. This pedal goes all out or nothing.

If a “Hysteria” sound is what you’re going for, this will do it but not a true amp low/med-gain sound.

First off I dropped pedals a long time ago. They were simply too noisy and, with regard to distortion, too fuzzy or buzzy. I did once own an Ibanez SM-9 that I’d consider an exception and that I’d wished I had kept.

All that aside I just didn’t like mucking up the chain with battery hungry devices anymore especially considering that software and modeling technology can do all of that and more. I was using PODS up until recently and decided to ditch those for plugins exclusively because I was able to get pretty good tones from them but I noticed that I needed a boost.

That’s where this pedal came in. I probably tried one at some time or another but never actually had one. I love this pedal! Not only am I getting the boost I need but I see they have improved the signal to noise ratio.

It also seems to get a lot more usage per battery than the old pedals of back in the day. I am very pleased with the output of this pedal, I can get my tone through and not have it lost in the gain. Also very simple settings, Tone, Level, Distortion.

Nothing that will take a long time to dial in. Very happy with this little pedal!.

This is the amazing Boss DS-1 distortion pedal, loved by all who use it. Amazing value at just £55. I won’t bore you with stories about how robust it is, because we all know Boss equipment lasts forever.

It looks and feels great, but most importantly, sounds incredible. I play punk rock, and with my Gibson SG Special, plugged into my Marshall JCM 900 this delivers exactly the sound I want. I loved that in the manual it gives example sound setting, one of which was British Punk.

That just made me smile. I knew instantly it was right up my street. Oh, and if you’re into electronics, this thing is made of pin-through-hole components, so it leaves it open for a good bit of modding.

There are plenty of guides for that online. Sitting in my Boss BCB-30 pedal board this never fails to make me smile.

Now I don’t hate it, but Its not my first go to pedal. I like the more modern BOSS “Metal Core”. It is however like all BOSS PEDALS built like a tank, extremely reliable and a great first pedal. For the money, this is a super value.

I found that I like it for “Gain Stacking” in combination with the BOSS MD-2″Mega Distortion” and a few other pedals. Even two DS-1 DISTORTION together improve the performance to me. Overall it’s not terrible and I see were for some it could really be a price but I lean towards Heavy.

Heavy Metal and for that it’s more a corvette when you need a Lamborghini. Do I hate it, NO. I actually own two of them.

The Battalion is great. Spent a long time trying to find the best distorted signal for my playing and finally found the right thing for me. Has plenty of options and a variety of other really useful features.

The noise gate, although simple and the envelope being a bit too long is still really useful for it’s intention. The Compressor is again basic but works as intended and gives the sound way more punch.

The EQ is true and allows for a greater deal of control over the signal. It’s just brilliant overall, feels sturdy and can imagine using it for a very long time!.

I got my unit slightly used for less than $98 and I am super happy with it so far. Preamps are just plain expensive. You definitely can get some great sounding units for $250+ dollars. but for what all this baby does (e.

g. gate, distortion, preamp, di with ground lift and dedicated volume, bi-amp ability via dry second TRS output, compression, input pad) you cannot beat the value. Especially if you buy used! I always buy used.

Also some of the most expensive units I looked up clone schematics & they could be built for a 1/3rd the cost. not this SMD latent behemoth! I looked under the hood & it is a tiny city of wave soldered proportions.

GOOD LUCK fitting all the through hole equivalents into a same sized box. Thanks EHX you make good gear for nice prices.

Overall: I’ve tried several other bass boost/distortion pedals, but they were always too “harsh” or “metal sounding. ” They were good for that sound (grind, dirt), but it was too much for me. After reading the review on this pedal, I decided to try it.

After three days, I’m thrilled! The clean boost is just that, the distortion goes from very smooth to the raunch some people like (but I don’t). This pedal is perfect for setting up a boost/smooth distortion that is perfect for soloing with just that little extra edge on it.

The tone control set on higher treble can also boost the upper-register tones on leads. It works, with some tweaks, on everything from my ’70 P-bass to my Carvin Icon 5 fretless to my Ibanez 3006 6-string.

I recommend this pedal very highly. If you want warm, tasteful distortion for your bass, this is the way to go. I’m a 30+ year Boss user, but this eats the Boss Bass Distortion alive for smoothness and taste.

Wow man Wow!!! Where has this pedal been all my life ? And more importantly WHY HASENT ANYONE EVER TOLD ME ABOUT IT BEFORE!!! Have a super clean amp and just want to add a little Grit? Have a tube amp and want to push it over the edge? Going direct using a Preamp pedal and want to add a “Second Channel”? This is NOT a fuzz/Distortion.

This is just an amazing gritty tone machine.

As I’ve started to go back to my first love, bass playing, I decided to do as much research as I could into finding a nice pedal that would give my playing some bite. Having recently picked up a pedal that seemed inclined to disguise or mask the original sound of the instrument, I really wanted something that would retain the original sound while giving it just a touch of color.

The Bass Soul Food shines in this regard. To me, it’s simply a pedal that I can leave on at all times while I play. It sounds similar to some of my favorite bass guitar players from the late 70’s to mid 80’s punk era, low end with attitude.

I’ve been playing with a Russian Big M*ff for about 20 years and it finally gave out on me. Not the pedal itself, but the LED indicator which tells me if it’s on or not so I figured it was time for an upgrade.

Man, am I glad I did. Big M*ff pedals are the best distortion/fuzz pedals out there for bass as far as I’m concerned, but I am so blown away by how this pedal handles my 5-string. On my old M*ff, the low B string sounded muddy.

It just couldn’t handle anything lower than the E string. On this one, you can even get some punch and clarity on that low B. Not only that, it works great as a pedal for guitar. ESPECIALLY if, like me, you play a lot of stuff in C-Standard.

You can get some nice fuzzy Fu Manch-type tones. If you switch on the Bass Boost and crank the Tone and Sustain nobs to 11, you can even get that bass-heavy crunch Kyuss was renowned for. If you want a distortion pedal than can handle your five string, if you want a great distortion or fuzz pedal, this little green hulk can handle all of that and then some.

NOTE: I had to edit the word M*ff in this review because the word is flagged by MF’s profanity filter. Go figure.

I used to have one of those early 90s army green sovtek muffs that I absolutely loved. Hands down it was my favorite pedal. Unfortunately it was stolen. I bought this pedal to replace it since everyone seems to say that it is the closest thing going.

I think this pedal sounds really good but it just is not quite as smooth and creamy as those old russian muffs. I like the little bass boost switch and both tones are very useable but if you really want that super fluffy, marshmallowy, siamese dream-esque distortion you might just have to go find an old one.

I have also found that it sounds completely different depending on what amp you have it plugged into. Not just a little different but almost like it is not even the same pedal. This is to be expected of course but I was really suprised at just how much the tone varied.

Into my fender twin it really does not sound that good and I like my mini fuzz face 10x more. Into the effects loop of my orange rockerverb 100 it really comes alive and has a great tone. It also sounds pretty good in the loop of my mesa express5/50 combo but if you are planning to pair this up with a fender you might be sorely disappointed.

Sound: The sound quality of this pedal is very high. Very good for recording and live performance. Features: Very sturdy housing that can take a beating. Good quality knobs. Ease of Use: The pedal is very easy to use and get a great sound out of.

Quality: I have never had any problems with this pedal and it gets used a lot. Value: For the price you pay you get a lot of pedal. Lots of Big Muff tone shaping. Manufacturer Support: I have never had to get manufacturer support.

The Wow Factor: Very aggressive yet clear sound. Overall: Been using this pedal for a couple of years now. Would not trade it for any other fuzz pedal. I love the heavy earthy, dirty sound that I can get from it.

It retains a great presence in the mix. Highly recommended.