Bass Boy

JFET PREAMP / OPTICAL COMP / EQ / D.I.

The Bass Boy is my offering of a bass pedal for my friend Emilio to give him his complete performance tone in one box.

A dual JFET transistor preamp gives some harmonic rich pre-gain into an ultra-smooth optical compressor, and then finally sculpted by a three-band active EQ going out to 1/4"/XLR D.I. out/ Headphone out or any combination thereof.

It has two modes to tailor it to your preferences:

MASTER:

The preamp passes through the compressor and the MASTER knob acts as a master volume for the compressor output. 

In this mode the PREAMP knob controls the gain going into the compressor. If you turn up the preamp, there will be more gain into the compressor and it will compress harder. You can use the two knobs interactively to dial in the compression threshold and saturation of the preamp.

MIX:

The preamp runs into the compressor as before, but the MIX knob crossfades between the output of the compressor and the input of the compressor, sampling the preamp without compression and allowing you to dial in the sweet spot between original dynamics and smooth compressed peaks.

In this mode, your total output volume would be controlled by the PREAMP knob.

Turn the preamp up and the mix all the way to DRY and you can get distortion.

EQ: The three EQ knobs actively cut or boost your signal at three different frequencies. allowing you to shape your final equalisation.

D.I. OUT:

The onboard XLR/D.I. out jack is ultra low impedance to run to recording or amplification devices. There is an internal switch inside the pedal to add or remove a CABSIM, which is a pre-set active EQ to make the D.I. sound more naturally like a bass amplifier, rather than a flat EQ that the stock D.I. exhibits naturally.

Headphone out:

There is a 3.5mm headphone jack on the right of the pedal to plug in headphones. The output volume can be adjusted with an internal trimpot inside the pedal.

Runs on standard 9v DC center negative