This is an update/clarification after Gish sent me a PM. I have the DHA VT1 Purist (for guitar) pedal. Maybe an odd choice for a bassist but I got it slightly used on eBay. The seller is a big fan of DHA and he can be located on Plexi Palace with the s/n Brycebites. The non-bass version doesn’t have i/p pad but, despite my using an active bass, I had no trouble getting settings I was happy with.
Although this pedal is suggested to cover blues warmth to rock distortion, I had no problem going way past this to John Spencer Blues Explosion bass-fuzz, which I sometimes need. However, I haven’t really spent time with a passive bass through it (the active preamp will be putting through quite a signal) and, in any case, bass fuzzes much quicker than guitar (that’s why bassists are always yakking about headroom and 1200W amps). To top it off, I always play through all-valve amps so this pedal is giving me an extra twin-triode gain stage before it goes into yet more valves.
If you’re looking for more hairy OD/distortion and even fuzz for guitar, the VT1 Purist is probably not the one to go for. The VT1 Mk3 has the Ge and Si clipping options, which will give a harder fuzz, and there is also an op-amp boost to increase wht’s heading into the amp (esp useful if your amp has a valve-driven preamp). The VT2 Dual is a bit more money still, but there is a second 12AX7 that can be kicked in for serious cascading gain stages. Even so, I had a guitarist contact me because he found the Purist a little bit too hairy when all he wanted was a little blues-warmth. I sent him some different valves to soften it, but I think he still found it too “rawk” for him (and I never got my valves back). So the Purist is not entirely “blink and you won’t hear it” subtle. I’m a rubbish guitarist, but I’ll have a try through it myself to see what I get.
There are sound clips on the DHA site and the guitar ones are quite good. However, I ought to offer some better bass ones. Not criticizing the playing, but the bass tone is awful even in bypass mode. Once the OD is added, it just sounds fuzzy-awful. I can get really nice bass tones out of mine.