Dunlop expands their bass effects line with the new MXR Bass Distortion pedal, co-designed by Fuzzrocious Pedals founder Ryan Ratajski.
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This new dual-voiced distortion pedal for electric bass is designed to add grit to your tone without compromising clarity, by having the ability to separately mix and control the Dry and Wet signal levels.
Ryan Ratajski, described by Dunlop as a bass dirt guru, had a hand on this pedal’s design. He worked together with the MXR team to retool a popular distortion circuit to work for today’s bass players.
Today’s gigging musicians are required to have flexible gear, and this does not exclude distortion pedals. To address this need, the MXR Bass Distortion comes with two distinctly voiced distortion circuits controlled by a switch.
The default setting is SIL, which refers to the use of silicon clipping diodes, resulting in a more biting and aggressive tone with some compression. This should give your bass a fuzz like effect. Switching to LED routes your signal to LED diodes that result in a more traditional open sounding distortion that has more gain. Switching between both modes will let you cover a wide range of bass distortion tones, and all done by a compact regular sized pedal.
Another cool feature of this pedal is the addition of independent level adjustment knobs for the dry and clean signal. This will let you dial in your un-effected sound to taste, so you still get clear notes without having to utilize complex signal routing equipment. Dunlop explained, “Back in the day, if you wanted to use a distortion pedal and keep your low end intact, you had to split your clean and dirty signals between two amps. With the MXR Bass Distortion, there’s no such need—this pedal puts control over the clean/dirty mix right at your feet with separate Dry and Wet level controls.”
The other two knobs let you adjust the Tone and Distortion level. The Tone control only affects the distortion (Wet) signal, and is a straightforward high cut filter for dialing back the top end. This is useful mainly for matching the pedal with the various types of electric bass guitars available today, and you can also use it to shape your tone. Finally, the Distortion knob lets you adjust the intensity of the distortion signal, from subtle to out-of-this-world high-gain.
Check out the official video demo:
The new MXR Bass Distortion is now available for $139.99. For more information, head over to Jim Dunlop.
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