The first thing I think of whenever I hear distortion is that raw rock sound, usually a guitar palm-muting away at some thick power chords or someone squeezing out a ear-ringing solo. It seems like in the here and now, distortion and electric guitars practically go hand in hand, creating a sound that can range from ethereal to ruthless, from clean soft rock solo to mosh pit chugging riff. If you listen closer, through all the static and wall of sound, you can hear the low pounding notes of the bass keeping the rhythm alive while the wailing guitarist takes the limelight of center stage.

The bass guitar has never had many effects options; however, we've seen more recently as the advancement of musical technology is breaking the uniform rules of instruments. One of the most common effects now for the bass, is in fact, distortion. Just crank up some Motorhead or Nine Inch Nails, and you quickly get the feel. Distortion for bass is a controversial subject given that the frequency of the notes of the bass are more felt than heard. However, I believe this effect can be one of the edgier sounds to come forth from your bass cabinet. For this review, that distortion sound was attained through a nice little maroon pedal I just received from DigiTech®. This pedal from their X Series® is called the Bass Driver.




The first thing on the agenda was a quick skim through the little manual that came with the Bass Driver. I then decided to take a look at all the features that this pedal had to offer, which included the typical knobs for a distortion pedal; level, tone and blend. However this product has an additional knob called “morph”; a little dial that can give the sound a complete 180. The “morph” will transform your signal from a lightly overdrive tone, to a fat warm distortion, and climb all the way up to a super high gain fuzz to create a brick wall of low end rumbling static.

Another cool feature, along with many DigiTech® pedals is the two outs; one for the amp and one for a mixer, which will definitely be a very handy feature for many players with more complex setups. The last thing to check was the pedal press which was practically silent, with no clicking. This is especially nice when recording. An AC adapter, 9v battery compatibility, LED activation light, and input jack were some of the other more common features.

Features at a Glance:
• Level - adjusts the overall effect level.
• Tone - uses special Spectral-Contouring equalization. This adjusts a broader range of frequencies, which provides greater tonal control than is found in typical stompbox tone controls.
• Blend - adjusts the mix of the dry signal with the affected signal.
• Morph - selects or morphs through 3 overdrive models, including the TS9 Tube Screamer™, the Rat™ and DigiTech®’s DigiFuzz™.
• Dual Outputs. The Normal output is for connecting directly to the input of your bass amplifier. The Mixer output utilizes CIT™ and is for connecting directly to a mixing board or headphone preamp.



I was now ready to take the Bass Driver for a spin, so I grabbed my Greg Bennett Delta Bass, and plugged in. First I set all the knobs with the exception of “level” at minimum, or zero. Twisting the first knob (level) from 0 all the way to max created the familiar volume change with a smooth, linear advance in output.

Next, I nudged the tone knob, but this one doesn’t produce much until the monster is released through the use of the bass driver knob. The blend is where the beauty of Bass Driver comes into play. At the 9 o’clock position, you will notice the sound waves start to "wobble". You will find the resulting sound to be very subtle at first, but still noticeable. This setting would be good for a relatively natural bass sound that stands-out more in the mix. I then turned the “blend” to 2 o’clock, and twisted the tone up to 1 o’clock. The outcome is a good clean ruckus, almost the perfect balance of low end rumble and trembling resonance.

Finally, I grabbed the morph knob and cranked this little beast to 4th hash mark, or in this case, 10 o’clock. Oh boy did my grin stretch from ear to ear! With this setting, I achieved a powerful low-end with some incredible static growls. This quickly became my favorite setting with the Bass Driver. I found it extremely fun to say the least. With 6 notches left to go on the morph, I decided to slam this knob to maximum just to see what would happen. I was blown away the powerful Industrial-style sound, paired with a sledgehammer deep-end, with an overtone resembling the scream of a mountain lion in the dark. I was absolutely stunned, yet pleasantly amazed.

If you play bass, this pedal would be perfect for adding some some crunchy tones from classic Sabbath rock to power metal. Maybe you’ll even get a sliver of that guitarist’s spotlight on yourself!

The Bass Driver is something that my particular sound was craving. I feel I have put another piece of the puzzle into my personal quest for killer tone, and consider it to be my secret weapon. I highly recommend the Bass Driver to any bass player looking to take their sound to the next level. It did it for me, and it just might do the same for you.

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