Favorite bass overdrive circuit?

drgonzo1969

drgonzo1969

Well-known member
A friend of mine was looking for a good bass overdrive. He mentioned the Boss OCB-3. So I was digging around and came across the GCI N.E.W Bass Overdrive which is inspired but with more tonal options. What is your guys experience with bass overdrives? How does the GCI N.E.W. compare to the boss original? any and all input is welcome. thanks in advance
 
The N.E.W. is great, but maybe a tiny tad greater might be the Zorg Glorious Basstar. You can get just the PCB or kits (or the pedal).
Short blurb: "The Glorious Basstar is a 3 bands overdrive: it cuts the signal in three frequencies bands : bass/mids/trebles. Each band can then be saturated independently and mixed according to your taste."
 
Never liked my stock odb3, love the n.e.w. version. It and chuck's klon are on my board right now. Sigh.... of course I'm going to have to look in to that zorg now.

On my bench currently are the N.E.W. C.T.G. and G.C.I. bass brutalist but I'm waiting on some components so it will be a little while. There's an aion L4 sitting there half stuffed too so that'll be an exciting delivery day. I suspect the L4 might serve both my pre-amp and light dirt needs so my N.E.W. Bass od may get the boot. Fingers crossed.
 
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I didnt know about the bass klon. let me see if he is interested in that instead of the OCB-3 or N.E.W. overdrive. or honestly i will probably build both for him and see which one works best.
 
drgonzo1969 said:
hahaha dirtbox layouts just posted another hm-2 variant too. theres always room for more hm-2's and muffs. I feel myself becoming the memes of guys building too many hm-2s and big muffs.
Click to expand...
I just had someone contact me about building an HM2. Looks like I’ll be building my second one.
 
I used the EF120 Overdrive (clone of the DA120 from Dunwich, I think) on a recent EP where I played rhythm bass, but it's just distorted all the way through, and I'm not a bassist. It did seem to work pretty well though, with the adjustable input cap (I think that's what the 2P6T does?) and decent EQ options.
 
Mentaltossflycoon said:
Never liked my stock odb3, love the n.e.w. version. It and chuck's klon are on my board right now. Sigh.... of course I'm going to have to look in to that zorg now.

On my bench currently are the N.E.W. C.T.G. and G.C.I. bass brutalist but I'm waiting on some components so it will be a little while. There's an aion L4 sitting there half stuffed too so that'll be an exciting delivery day. I suspect the L4 might serve both my pre-amp and light dirt needs so my N.E.W. Bass od may get the boot. Fingers crossed.
Click to expand...
Ha-ha, zorged! Sorry.

And if it's not "too late", I added clipping options to the Bass Brutalist (stock LED – none -SI) and can recommend that move - and the Bass Brutalist in general, although I'd say it's rather distortion than overdrive.
 
AFAIK there's no project for it, but I did some recording recently using the zvex box of metal (the production one) in a loop with a clean blend and it was an extremely pleasing bass sound.

For a lighter drive, the barbershop is really good - I'm pretty sure there's a vero out there for the V2 version if pcbs aren't available.

Megalith is fantastic on bass for heavier sounds.
Hotcake is a great light/med drive, I use it for tracking bass a lot.
 
my go to used to be the D.A.M. Ezekiel, especially on LED mode. Green Russian muff can be cool, a turbo rat is ok, but I really vouch for the GCI NEW bass overdrive. I love mine but usually just use LED clipping. the tone shaping options make it really versatile and short of fuzz it's the only bass drive I really need.
 
May be too “basic” for the likes of most, but the Obsidius (darkglass B3K) is a pretty great bass dirt box/pre
 
I think I am going to build the N.E.W. bass overdrive for my buddy for sure. He is borrowing an Aion Helios(rat) that I built for another friend and he loves that on bass but my other friend is itching for his rat back hahaha. So I think I am going to build a rat variant for him as well. The Fuzzhead FX Green lemming sounds pretty sweet. I've also got a couple two tree big muffs on the bench and one is a green russian, so im gonna send him some muff action too. I probably gonna do a bass klon too. Im doing all these on vero so I will need to check and see what values to change for bass klon.

Dirtbox Layouts

dirtboxlayouts.blogspot.com dirtboxlayouts.blogspot.com
 
I like the plain old stock Boss Blues Driver on bass as an OD into a bass amp's drive channel, or a into suitable dirt pedal and then into a clean amp. Madbean's Blue Steel has options specifically for more bass, and Chuck's suggestions for the Cobalt could be focused toward bass.
 
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