Radial Engineering Ltd.
Bassbone OD™
True to the Music
®
11
USING THE OVERDRIVE
The Bassbone OD is equipped with a great sounding overdrive circuit that
can be used to add a slight bit of grit to a signal or be pushed hard to create
excessive distortion and harmonics. What few realize is that by adding
distortion, you can do a lot more than simply ‘freak out’ for soloing... adding
distortion is actually a form of compression that can even out the peaks of a
signal without overbearing the audio system. For instance, when applied to
in-ear monitors, a bit of distortion can actually create a more realistic sound
as if moving air.
The overdrive has four controls
and is activated using the left-
hand OVERDRIVE footswitch.
The 3-position EFX switch lets
you assign the footswitch so that
it turns on the overdrive (DRIVE),
the effects loop (LOOP) or both
(BOTH). Ensure the overdrive
controls are set to the starting
position as shown.
The DRIVE control works in conjunction with the channel input GAIN to set
the overall amount of distortion for each channel. These work like a typical
guitar amp whereby if the GAIN controls are set low, you will have less
distortion. Increasing the GAIN will in turn increase the distortion relative to
the DRIVE setting. Try increasing or decreasing the DRIVE to get a sense of
how the overdrive controls work together with the channel GAIN. Use this to
give one channel more distortion and harmonics as you to toggle between
clean and dirty sounds.
To the right is the MIX control. This is used to set the amount of distortion
and/or effects relative to the original ‘dry’ signal. A common problem with
pedal effects is that when on, they often reduce the bass content so much
that the fundamental bass frequencies becomes inaudible. The MIX control
lets you retain as much of your ‘dry’ signal as you like and then blend in the
‘wet’ to suit. Start with the MIX control set to 12 o’clock and then experiment
as you rotate the knob in either direction. The MIX control will blend your ‘dry’
instrument signal with either the overdrive, effects loop or both depending on
the position of the EFX switch.
Some effects will invert the phase of the signal passing through them. This
becomes audible when using the MIX control to combine the effects with the
original bass signal. If this occurs push the effect loop -180° phase reverse
switch inwards. This inverts the effects loops and mixes it with your orignal
bass tone in phase.
The TONE control is used to tailor the sound of the overdrive. You can use it
to tame ‘buzzy’ distortion or add a ‘fuzz-like’ shimmer to the overdrive. There
are no rules, have fun and experiment.
