Bassman Pedals: A New Series of Fender Bass Effects
The new edition of Fender Bassman Pedals includes five effects optimised for bass guitar, with a design inspired by the Fender Hammertone series of guitar pedals that the Californian brand introduced two years ago. All collection representatives share an aluminium chassis with front-mounted connectors, a pad switch for instruments with active electronics, a trio of potentiometers, internal trimmers, and two slide switches that provide functions dependent on the specific type of effect. The innovative series was created by Fender as a tribute to the legendary Bassman amplifier.
Bassman Driver – overdrive with a wide range of gain, from light tube crunch to hi-gain punch, is able to produce a clear tone that retains low frequencies thanks to the Blend parameter. The pedal with JFET circuitry and speaker emulation simulates a boosted tube amp, the Voice switch adds an extra portion of distortion, while the Mids switch affects the midrange (400/500 Hz) and an internal mini potentiometer determines the amount of treble.
Bassman Fuzz – Heavy distortion with solid bass, offering two different sound modes (Vintage/Modern) and a Focus function for selecting any of the three frequency characteristics, with each setting leaving plenty of room to blend the right amount of clean signal with the distortion layer. As with the Driver, the fuzz has a small treble-adjusting trimmer, a Blend potentiometer and a quiet true bypass footswitch.
Bassman Compressor – professional RMS compressor based on studio rack models features simple controls in the form of Level, Comp, Blend potentiometers and parameter switches Ratio and RLS offering two carefully tuned compression / limiting presets. Further sound adjustments are enabled by the internal trimmers Attack and Release.
Bassman Delay – an effect with two high-quality DSP algorithms designed specifically for the bass signal. The Type switch lets you choose between a warm analogue or a more detailed-sounding digital mode, and the Low switch cuts the low bands (210 Hz / -6dB). The design allows you to create a clear delay for percussive grooves or ambient soundscapes with articulate expression. In addition, inside the chassis, there are High Cut and Low Cut trimmers (-6dB / 40 to 420 Hz) for treble or bass suppression, and a choice of true and trails bypass.
Bassman Reverb –digital reverb with Room/Hall modes (Type switch), an analogue path of the original signal, Time, Low Cut, Level potentiometers, and a Pre (delay) switch that is tied to an internal trimmer with a range of 25 to 100 ms. A second internal mini Damp potentiometer determines the amount of treble in the effects circuit and, similar to the Delay, there is a true bypass/trails switch.
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