EBS MultiDrive

This pedal is simple to use, two knobs(volume, drive) and a mode selector. doesnt get much simpler then that. The manual is easy to read and helpful to use as a guide to get your own tone out of this box.

Here is where I have a mixed review about this thing.

The sound quality is great on this box. It maintains that low end growl that a lot of other pedals dont have. You can still rumble the room and feel the bass coming through while adding that evil grainy attitude that you need to get the aggression out. the sound never gets to synthetic or hollow. HOWEVER, once the rest of the band joins in, this pedal and your bass get lost in the mix. The clarity and definition is lost. The distortion doesnt cut through the mix leaving you searching for a way to be heard. All the knob tweaking in the world will not allow you to find a way to punch through the mix.

My set up. Spector Euro 4 string---Weeping Demon wah pedal---SVT4 Pro---then i have an MXR stereo chorus > sonic maximizer > compressor in the effects loop to a Ampeg 8x10 cab.

i put the EBS before and after the MXR, after the Demon and still no improvement. Actually, when i took the pedal out if the effects loop and used it directly in line i got an annoying hiss with the pedal from it running "hot" so i had to use a noise suppressor to.

only had it for a week.

havent dealt with them

the style of music I play is metal. www.myspace.com/Audkik
Overall this is a nice pedal to use, it maintains the lows and the body of the bass while still giving it an edge and grit to paint some texture on whatever your playing. Its great to use if everyone else in the band isnt as abbrasive as your tying to be, then it really stands out. Otherwise for metal distortion it doesnt cut through the mix and allow the bass to be heard. Im going to keep looking for a distortion pedal but i will remember this one though.

The EBS Multidrive has volume and drive controls, a 3 way switch with tube, normal and flat settings and an active/passage switch. With these controls it's pretty easy to dial up a large variety of light overdrive to heavier distortion sounds.

I am using this with Fender and Modulus basses and an Eden amp/Mesa Boogie rig. Works well with all my other equipment. I like the Multidrive best for it's lighter overdrive sounds. The Multidrive doesn't have a tone control which I feel is needed more if you are using it for higher gain distortion as the highs need to be tamed a little when using it with an Eden cab. with tweeters. I've owned a Fulltone Bassdrive which I didn't like and I own a Xotic Bass BB Preamp which has bass and treble controls and is fantastic for higher gain bass distortion. The Multdrive adds some additional noise at med. to high settings. Overall works very good with bass (retains bass even without tone control)can fatten up, give warmth to a bass sound.

I have 4 other EBS pedals...great product.

Excellent this company will really take care of you.

Overdrive, distortion is very subjective. The EBS Multidrive is a versatile pedal and works well with bass. Are there better overdrive/distortion pedals for your sound/bass/amp? The Multidrive is a good pedal to start with in your search. As I have said before the EBS pedals are a bit pricey.

Very easy to dial in a good sound

Here is an interesting little thing- this pedal is the best bass distortion pedal I have ever played. HOWEVER- I have a MEsa Bass 400+ (THE BEST HEAD IMO!) and this pedal and head did not work well together at all. The pedal does a great job of emulating a vintage tube amp (you can record direct with this thing- no prob), but if you are already playing through a squishy all tube head, this pedal will cause you to loose all your high frequency response. The natural compression of the tube amp combined with the compress of this pedal emulating a tube amp is over-kill. Thus, i sold mine on e-bay (they keep their value.)

That being said, used in conjunction with a solid state head and LOOK OUT! I used this with an SWR, Fender 400 Pro, and an ampeg for a couple of years and it was GREAT! Highly recommend this pedal if you are using a solid state amp- even if you have a tube pre-amp its great.

After about a year of moderate use the stomp button broke. $75 to get it fixed- had to send it to Florida- only one guy in the country that can really work on these. Other than that, it was a tank.

Brooklyn gear was ok- pain in the but to find their number online.

Overall, when used with compliant gear this is the best pedal that you can buy.
I have been looking for a new distortion/overdrive that matches well with my amp- just ordered a fulltone bassdrive.
Only gripe is that its expensive.

Couldn't be much easier, volume knob, drive knob, and a little switch to select different styles of overdrive. Also has an active/passive switch on the side which can add to the range of sounds.

I am a dedicated user of EBS products. In my opinion they are head and shoulders above the rest. I play a Musicman Sterling through an EBS HD350 and an EBS 4x10 cab, absolutely awesome, but this pedal went back to the shop.
Immediate impressions were very good, i turned it on, and the slight hiss that i usually get completely disappeared. It was only when i started playing that i realised this was because it totally drinks your top end. I had read about 'treble cut' in other reviews but this was just silly. The sound was muddy, wooly and completely unusable. I tried every single setting on the pedal but it just wouldn't let ANY top end through. The actual sound of the distortion was nice though, gritty and agressive. I'd like to be able to comment on the 3-way switch, but whatever setting i had it on, it sounded.... well.... crap.

VERY robust. Good metal casing, and the knobs werent going anywhere. Built like a tank.

Never dealt with them, but i hear their customer service is s**t hot.

I play in a five piece rock band, and wanted to make my bass growl and crunch a little more. I also wanted to use it as a boost for when we play rockers, so i can be a little quieter for ballads. But i went for the Boss ODB-3 in the end. What this pedal needs is an EQ. I love EBS, and it pains me to give them a bad review, but i found this utterly useless. If you want to get one, make sure you can return it if it doesn't suit you, but it is all a matter of personal preference, and personally, i like a little bit of treble in my sound.

I can't speak more highly of EBS and the awesome amps they make, and i cant see myself EVER using anything else. But what a terrible disappointment this turned out to be.

Simple. Stomp on it and there you go. Two knobs. I have found two settings that I like. One is mild overdrive, the other is balls-out distortion. Two simple twists is all it takes. Brilliant.

When i kick this thing on,I'm still impressed. Other folks are blown out of the room. Unbelievable how much more balls this little tiny pedal gives my sound. Oh, I'm playing a Warwick Thumb B.O. through an Eden 400-WT through a Mesa/Boogie 4x12. The sound is already growly as it is. With the MultiDrive, it is just silly.

Nothing but compliments. Can actually push the bass in front of the whole band. More importantly, it is dead silent even when the pedal is on. The band I'm currently in (www.tarawa.us) has lots of stoppy-starty parts, and the pedal stays on while part playing stops. Not a buzz, not a crack. Nothing.

This pedal also adds tons of harmonics. I use big strings and the Warwick has brass frets, so on its own, my setup rings and rings. But with this pedal, I got sub-frequencies popping out all over.

I cannot recommend this pedal highly enough. I plan on getting a second one and running them inline. I like it that much.

I weigh 225 lbs and I stompt the bejesus out of this thing. Not a problem ever. The only thing(s) to watch out for is teh following;

1) Watch teh little tiny active/passive swith on the side. You can accidently (easily) kick it on or off and it makes it sound 100% different, as if the pedal were dying. keep an eye out.

2) It EATS batteries! Just chews 'em up and spits 'em out. So, be careful. Also, and this is just a pet peeve, but it is a pain in the rump to get the cover back on because there is too much battery cable and it goes into the southwest screw-hole. Be careful so as you don't screw through the cable.

Not a big deal, just takes getting used to.

N/A

Bass pedals, on the whole, suck. They rot and rob your sound, they're gimmicky, they break and honestly are usually not worth your time or money. Not so with this little devil from EBS. It is the king. My friend uses it when he records guitar. It enhances your sound. You'll love it. Trust me. Worth every penny, especailly because you will never need another pedal. Well, maybe a second MultiDrive...

Plug & Play!
Three different dist-modes, one drive-pot and one volume-pot, a switch for active and passive pickups that are really helpful.

I use it with a Fender Jazzbass 1965 with original pickups.I just love the sound of this effect. If you want the sound of Jack Bruce (Cream), Tim Bogart Cactus) etc, this pedal will absolutely do the job regardless of what amp you use.
The sound in By-pass mode is absolute clean and noiseless.

Never had any problems with it.

Always the best support from the EBS-team.

I'd say this pedal is great for the 1970:ths rockstyle that I play.The best is that I get the right sound at all volumes from the Amp and even when I plugg it direct to a computer for a recording. I always carry it with me in the gigbag to be safe in all situations.

Extremely straight forward. 2 knobs (and one of them is a volume)and a three position toggle switch. That's it. In fact, this may be one of its shortcomings since I think bass distortion is very difficult to make sound good without a lot of eq.

I've read some pretty incredible reviews about this being the best distortion pedal for bass on the market. In the music store, I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed because of all the hype. Initially it sounded kinda typical and not at all "special", but after tweaking the demo amp, I realized the beauty of this box is in delivering subtle distortion, not buzz saw Billy Sheehan dirt. I was playing an american fender jazz through a sunn bass head going through a 2X15 boogie cab. It really can give you an overdriven tube amp vibe. I think it sounds more like an overdriven svt than the actual svt's of today! For Billy Sheehan type distortion, you'd need a lot more gain and eq. Nevertheless, it is outstanding quality for a stomp box. One other thing that was outstanding is that it preserves your low end faithfully. The other distortion pedals on the market claim to do this, but the ebs is the best I've heard in this regard.

Built very solid. All metal casing, the knobs feel secure, no cheap parts noticeable here. I expect it to hold up to a lot of abuse.

It can't give you every kind of bass distortion you'd want, but it excels at adding dirty tube-like distortion. You know, the kind that makes you feel like you're about to blow the amp and speakers cause it's been blasting for hours... This is why I bought the pedal since my SWR is sometimes too clean. By the way, I really don't like the SWR distortion. It has a certain frequency boost that I feel doesn't work for most music I play (rock, funk, blues) in that the bass gets lost in the mix, and the low end still drops out at certain important frequencies.

2 knobs, 3-way toggle and button for active/passive bass. design is compact and similar to mxr pedals.

the best bass overdrive i have ever tried. tubesim. mode is fantastic. it ads harmonics to overdriven sound so it really sounds like tube. i love that sound. normal mode is very good bass overdrive but it has nothing special. flat mode isn`t for me - all the low frequensies are cut and sound reminds more guitar than bass. maybe flat is better with guitar. has true bypass also. tubesim. is the thing and nine just because of that.

i`ve used ebs black label pedals a lot. gigged with them also. no backup needed. that`s for sure.

i play pop/rock with influences from 70`s proge. before multidrive i used sovtek big muff which wasn`t my thing. although i use multidrive i can still recognize my bass sound through it. it has range from sophisticated growl to a really wild overdrive. it ain`t wild as a fuzz, but i wasn`t searching for one. it`s always smooth and cool.

How much easier could it get? 2 knobs: Drive (the amount of overdrive you want) and Volume (the output volume). A 3-way switch (to toggle between the three overdrive modes: Tubesim, Standard and Flat). And on the side, a toggle switch to select between active and passive bass input.

Despite the simplicity though, the MultiDrive is remarkably versatile. The 3 modes give a variety of different overdrive tones, and that combined with the drive knob and active/passive switch, you can get a huge array of useful overdrive sounds. I was originally put off by the lack of any "tone" or EQ knobs, but I soon discovered that you don't need them at all. Thus not having them makes this pedal incredibly simple.

Absolutely fantastic sound.

The word that comes to mind is "natural". Not at all harsh or artificial, instead warm and organic.

The Tubesim and Standard modes don't actually tamper with the lower frequencies of your bass at all, which means that the bottom end stays solid and true, not messy and muddy. If you want that sound though, you can use the Flat mode, which applies the overdrive effect over the whole frequency spectrum of your bass's output. Standard mode and Tubesim mode are pretty similar, but Tubesim has a slightly warmer top end to simulate an overdriven tube amp. Very realistic, and very useable.

In addition to the modes, you can also use the active/passive switch to add gain to your sound. I use a Fender Precision (as passive as they come), and I've found I can get some really useful "fuzz" tones by switching the MultiDrive into active mode. This boosts the input from the bass, naturally adding some compression (like a real tube amp would), and this way you can get more artificial fuzz-like tones as well.

More than anything else though, the biggest factor in my decision to buy this was how the MultiDrive preserves all the character of your instrument. It doesn't sound artificial or forced, it sounds like my bass overdriven! You aren't playing "The EBS MultiDrive Sound", you are playing your bass overdriven! I really like that.

The build is incredibly solid. The whole thing is metal, except for the base plate (which is hard plastic). The rubber knobs ONLY TURN. They are so solidly fixed into the casing that they won't budge in any other direction. It'd take a pretty strong hammer hit I think to break these off. Certainly solid enough to cope with being kick all over the floor and dropped every now and then. There are no compartments or lids to break off either. As for the switches, they're both very small (less chance of being broken off) and seem tough enough.. time will tell I guess.

It's an incredibly natural sounding drive, so if you want to mask your bass sound with something more artificial, then this may not be for you. I can imagine that some metal players might want a sound that is more abstract and less "bass guitarish". If that is you, then perhaps this isn't the overdrive pedal you need.

But if you're like me, and you're looking for something to add some crunch onto your current bass guitar's sound, then I can highly recommend the MultiDrive. It is possible mind you to achieve wild fuzzes and distortions, but this pedal excels at natural warm overdrive.

A very refined, well designed and well constructed unit. Highly recommended for those after a natural overdriven tone.