Budda Phat Bass

easy as hell..but lacks some bottom I think. I play rickenbackers 4001 basses.
I have it in front of my Mesa 400+.
In studio, I use only the budda stragiht into the desk..
the manual is ok, you don`t need it..it`s easy.

it`s noisy when the gain is cranked, but you can use other tubes..an example is shown in the manual.

Mine have been thrown around the stage and have been drowned in beer..and it still lives,coldn`t belive it :)
you have to change tubes some times, have spare tubes.
the plastic feets broke during a punk show, replaced them with some rubberfeet of softer material..

Never contacted them.

great sound!!! a war-machine!

Simple knobs...easy to use.

Sound IS amazing! I can get a nice lite touch sensitive tube OD to a big overdriven SVT drive. I Own an SVT...this pedal doesn't make you sound like an SVT but it bas a big tubey sound and an SVT like growl and drive.

As for the Tim Commorford comment below. Thats just not fair. When Tim plays live he uses 3 amps with 6 bchannels. 2 clean , 2 dirty and 2 big time overdriven. No one box will make you sound like Tim. But you can use the Budda to help get you there.

If you want to sound like Tim, FIRST get a 70s Fender Jazz bass or forget it. I spent a year trying to get that tone and was going crazy. I bought 70's Jazz bass, strung it to B-E-A-D and everything else fell into place.

I use 2 rigs...3 would just be too much to me. With two rigs to get close to Tim's sound I think you need to run one a little dirty and one big time overdriven. One completely clean and one with big OD doesn't quite make it.

I have a clean rig (Aguilar DB 680) with the Budda out front. I set the Budda just a bit dirty, a few degrees past touch sensitive so it is always distorting just a bit. Tweak the tone setting to get as much of your original ton e through.

On the Big OD rig mine is an SVT2Pro (Which is what Tim uses) crank up the OD and the bass eq. Also have a compressor in front of this stage and keep the gain on it high. Put a volume pedal in the efects loop to regulate how much of this you mix in. This is your secondary channel not your main channel.

Last I pump both of these through a BBE sonic maximizer.

IN any case I love the Budda. It absolutely rocks with a P-bass.
I would recommend this to anybody that wants to add real tube tone to their rig.

My only complaint is that the eq section is not to great. When I turn the bass knob up you lose some of the tightness on the low end...therefore you have to adjust your eq on your amp to compensate.

Very easy to use knobs. However, that god damn wallwort sucks! There is nothing worse than being at a gig looking for an outlet for that stupid thing! Because of the wallwort, I lowered the score.

Ok at best.
Doesn't retain lows like several other pedals available.
Accentuates high WAY to MUCH!
Chinsaw distortion- nothing smooth about it. FORGET tring to get a nic Tim Commerford (Audioslave) overdrive.
I A/B with a Boss bass distoriton I had lying around- they sound pretty much the same. Very subtle differences- nothing anyone in an audiance would hear.

Other than replacing the tubes- fine

Never had to deal with them.

This is an OK, not bad, pedal.
For the price, it faces VERY stiff competition.
Don't buy it without listening to it.
If your using a solid state head go with the EBS multicomp- much more rugged, no wallwort, and KILLER tone. If you are using an all tube head like me (Mesa 400+) I still havn't found a decent overdrive pedal (I am awaiting a fulltone bassdrive).

4 KNOBS- GAIN, BASS, TREBLE, VOLUME. SOUNDS GREAT WITH KNOBS IN ANY POSITION. SIMPLE AND EASY!! NO MANUAL BUT WHO NEEDS ONE. IT IS EXPENSIVE BUT WELL WORTH IT. TONE BABY!!

I USE A WARWICK FORTRESS BASS WITH DUNCAN QUARTER POUND P AND J PICKUPS, A MIJ FENDER FRETLESS JAZZ BASS, AND A FENDER JAGUAR BARITONE CUSTOM THRO A RED FACE SWR BASS 350 WITH A 2X10 SWR CAB AND 1X15 SON OF BERTHA CAB. WHEN RECORDING I USE A SANS AMP PS-1 OR A BASS DRIVER DI. THIS UNIT IS NOT NOISY AT ALL EXCEPT AT THE HIGHEST GAIN SETTINGS WHICH DOES NOT MATTER BECAUSE AT THAT POINT ALL YOUR DOING IS MAKING NOISE ANYWAY. THIS UNIT REALLY SHINES AT THE LOWER GAIN SETTINGS IT TURNED MY DULL LACKLUSTER SOUNDING SWR INTO A CLASSIC SOUNDING RIG (SVT) IN 2 SECONDS FLAT. THIS UNIT DOSE NOT GET TURNED OFF FROM SONG TO SONG IT ONLY GETS A TWEAK EVERY NOW AND AGAIN. YOU CAN REALLY ADJUST YOUR TONE JUST BY HOW HARD YOU PLAY, FROM CLEAN TO GRIND AND HONK TO SHINE THIS PEDAL WILL DELIVER. I HAVE BEEN ON A QUEST FOR A BASS OVERDRIVE/DISTORTION FOR MANY YEARS AND HAVE NOT BEEN HAPPY, TRIED BOSS, IBANEZ, BIG MUFF, TECH 21, DIGITECH, AND SWR, THEY ALL SUCK THE LIFE AND TONE FROM YOUR BASS, THIN AND CRISPY WITH CHEESE ON TOP. BUY THIS PEDAL AND SEND THE GUYS AT BUDDA A TIP BECAUSE THEY DESERVE ONE.

IF ITS BUILT ANYTHING LIKE THE SUPERDRIVE 30 I HAVE USED FOR YEARS IT WILL LAST FOREVER. I HAVE EMAILED BUDDA A FEW TIMES AND THEY ARE QUICK ON THE BALL.

VERY HELPFUL AND FRIENDLY OVER THE NET AND PHONE,THEY EVEN GAVE ME ADVICE ON A USED BUDDA I WAS GOING TO BUY. NEVER HAD ANYTHING SENT IN FOR REPAIR BEFORE.

STYLES OF MUSIC I WOULD RECOMEND THIS PEDAL FOR ARE
ROCK, METAL, CLASSIC ROCK, AND ALTERNATIVE OR ANY THING WITH A HARDER EDGE. I WOULD BUY THIS PEDAL AGAIN IN A HEART BEAT IF IT WAS STOLEN. I AM CONSIDERING BUYING ANOTHER SO I CAN HAVE TWO SETTINGS, LOW GAIN AND HIGH GAIN.

It is pretty straight forward, base trebbole and volume. The only knob you have to deal with is the gain knob...and that too is straight forward.

As others have said, the buddah pedals are tube overdrive pedals, not metal distortion boxes. Neither this pedal, any other pedal or preamp or pedal is going to do it all. If you want an ultra-fine-tight and hard distortion get a Digitech-bass driver. It does a great job for that. It will not make your AMP sound like an SVT. I know because I own one. The only amp that sounds like an SVT is an SVT, no stomp box or modeler will give you that. So if you want an SVT sound save your money and buy an SVT. With that being said, this pedal gives you a "classic tube sound and vibe". It is very tubey and gives you great tube coloring.

It ranges from a sumple tube color with no overdrive, to dirty, to a full overdrive. When you crank the gain up to 100% it gets slightly and only slightly buzzy. They did a very good job on controlling the buzz factor. If you put the drive knob at 85% the buzz goes away and you have pleanty overdrive. Probably the best feature of this OD is it's touch sensitivity. When you find your sweet spot you can go from warmth to grit to overdrive just by the way you pluck your strings. You can't do that with the Digitech or any other non-tube stomp box. As for other tube based stomp boxes, they aren't made for bass and they do get too buzzy when you crank up the gain.

I have a lot of basses and amps. My favorite setup is to run two amps, my SVP2Pro (Dirty) and my Aguilar 680 pre and 728 power amps. This way I can run a great dirty sound that has the right amount of overdrive (sacrificing some tonal punch) and the Aguilar clean (bringing the punch back in). If you have the opportunity to run two amps at the same time it opens so many doors to your tone. The downside is that you have to carry around 2 amps and for many places 2 amps can be just too loud.

What I wanted was just run my P-bass with one amp (Aguilar which doesn't do its own overdrive well) and be able to get a good dirty tone (not superoverdrive) on demand for the songs that needed it out of my P-bass. I put the Phat Bass between my bass and the amp. I would like to put it in the effects loop, but for some reason I haven't been able to get the settings right yet.

My only complaint (mild complaint) is that this pedal sucks a little of my mids out. And with my P-bass my tone is all about mids. A mid knob on this guy would be a big help.

I gave it a 9, because it isn't perfect, but for a tube overdrive pedal it is the best I have ever played.

So far so good.

I called them up more than once and they wer very responsive and knowledgable.

This is a good all around tube rock that does a lot.
I have been perfecting (trying to perfect) my dirty sound for
all of my 20+ years playing Bass and this box comes close to perfect.

Couldnt be any easier...if you cant use this you probably cant play bass very well anyway because you have a severe mental handicap.

I play a modulus genesis 5 bass through an Eden WT_400 and 410, I use the Budda all the time since I got it two months ago...I sometimes use a variety of effects, including a line6 delay modeler and a dunlop wah, but rarely do i use the wah because I hate it...
Bottom line on the sound of this pedal: it is awesome, if you want tube boost it is perfect, if you want overdrive it is beautiful and maintains the tone of the instrument very well because of the all analog circuitry...yadda yadda yadda.....
The pedal does not do hardcore evil distortion so you will be disapointed if thats what you want....
The pedal does produce very natural sounding distortion that can become as suddle or as heavy as you want..keeping in mind it is natural tube overdrive...and understanding what that means...IT IS NEAR PERDECT>....sooo many famous artists use sounds which can be emulated by this pedal- not that i care
and although its madd $$$$$$, it is worth it.. and quality musical products are always pricey..
For a broad range of sustain/overdrive/natural distortion sounds for bass...I have not heard a better pedal.

seems pretty solid
TUBES CAN ALWAYS BREAK THOUGH

I play mostly harder slap style music...influenced by fusion greats like john mclaughlin...so this pedal can add the growl and texture that is necessary for that hard edge, while maintaing clear charachteristic of my tone at high tempos and while playing lots of notes. It accents harmonics and subharmonics beautifully and really brings out the aggresiveness of my slap, chords retain their color perfectly...even when i slap them! Also the pedal can be a smooth overdrive for when I play jazz, good Jaco emulation tone if thats what you want.. VERY GOOD LIVE! AND FOR A MIKED CAB IN THE STUDIO...WOULDNT USE DIRECT.

OVERALL: 98/100 EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED....I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS PEDAL FOR ANYONE LOOKING FOR SMOOTH OD AND NICE PLEASANT SOUNDING DISTORTION...IT IS HARD SOMETIMES TO SHUT IT OFF I LOVE IT SO MUCH

4 knobs, easily replacable tubes. It's easy to get the sound you want.

It sound rather flimsy at high gain use, but it'll out do any solid state bass overdrive. It does'nt drown your tone like the Boss or sound fuzzy at high gain like the Ibanez. For the price ($175, Guitar Center, Modesto CA), it was certainly a better buy than the SWR Stella (that thing is'nt worth no $600!)

Well, it uses tubes so it can't be 10% reliable. Steel casing though.

Lousy. I waited over two months to get it after I special ordered it. On top of that, the tubes that came with it were either blown or sounded weak because they did'nt overdrive. I replaced them right away.

I have searched high and low for a bass overdrive with balls. It's got it. It sounds sweet thru a guitar amp, too. If possible, combine it with an EBS Octabass. You'll trip out.

In one sense, this pedal is extremely straightforward and easy to use: plug in, adjust gain, bass and treble, and output volume, and you're done. However, in using this pedal for about a month, at home and at three gigs, I have noticed a couple of things:

1. The Budda Phat Bass provides an interesting, complex distortion. Even with a lot of distortion, the character of the bass being effected still comes through. In other words, it responds differently to different basses. I have played a 1977 Rickenbacker, a Fender Jazz Bass reissue, an Alembic Spoiler, and a 1967 Gibson EB-2 through it. All of these basses have different output levels and tonal characteristics - the Alembic and the Gibson don't need any help, but the Fender and the Ric both need to have their gains boosted to get the unit to really distort. I like quite a bit of distortion - if you're only looking for a little dirt, this may not be a problem for you. I picked up a used Fodera Model 2000 preamp which works great.

2. The unit is BIG, and like the other review posted here notes, the input and output are reversed from what all of my other pedals have (input on right, output on left as the norm), which can be a pain if you are running several effects. Or you can just buy longer cables...

I love this pedal!!! It sounds so good. Of course, things are noisy when it's running with the gain full up, but you can't tell while playing, just have'ta be able to jump on it to turn it off between songs. :)

This pedal with my Rickenbacker is the sound I've always had in my head since I started listening to rock and metal 20 years ago. I also use it with an old Boss T-Wah envelope filter and it sounds incredible.

Have used the pedal for about 8-10 hours gig time as well as at home (at loud volume!), haven't had any problems, and don't foresee any - it is built solidly. Fortunately, it fits perfectly inside a road case style briefcase with my other effects, which helps protect it.

Haven't dealt with Budda directly.

I'm kind of glad they misspelled Buddha, or was that the point? I'm Buddhist and don't see any connection between the teachings of the Buddha and this company, which is fine.

I love this pedal!!! (did I already say that?) I love the way it sounds. I can just sit and play my bass by myself with this pedal for a long time. My band plays improvisational rock (so-called "jam-band music"), so sometimes during jams I'll kick it on for different colors. I mainly use it during my <self-indulgent> bass solo and our cover of Black Sabbath's "The Wizard".

I prefer this distortion over the EBS Multi-Drive (which I still like) and an old rackmount Blue Tube (which I was never really happy with). I've been playing bass for almost twenty years, but this past six months is the first time that I've really incorporated distortion live, and the Phat Bass has a lot to do with that.

As soon as I plugged this thing in it gave me awesome overdrive. The controls are straight forward, no guess work involved. There is no manual, other than an instruction on how to swap tubes, but obviously it doesn't need it. My only beef is that the Input and output connections are backwards. ie: input on left side instead of right.

I can't explain how happy I am with the sound from this pedal. It has a very organic sound. If your looking for that fuzzed out processed sounding pedal this isn't it. The Phat bass can do anything from from an idling tube amp to all out Godsmack Distortion. (minus the 700 dollar SWR Interstellar Preamp) The pedal never squashes your already established tone, and the bypass switch is truly a bypass. No signal loss whatsoever.
I can't say enough. my Setup is a Carvin LB75 going into a Carvin RC210 Combo cab (w/600 watt head) In the effects loop is a TU2 Boss tuner, the newly added Phat Bass, and a TC Electronic SCF.

I can't imagine breaking it, being that it's built like a tank. Budda makes these by hand, so you will get that long lasting quality.
unlike the labored and machine built run-of-the-mill types

Don't know, I've never dealt with customer support. But I don't imagine that It will happen anytime soon

You can't go wrong buying this pedal. Very flexible. this isn't something that you'll only use once or twice in a set. This is a pedal that you'll have to tell yourself to quit using it all the time.
In my band I play anything from soul to all out mosh-pit metal, so this pedal will definitely serve to be a great investment. Definitely something I would replace if it got stolen.