The lightbulb moments in ones lifetime are pretty easy to pick out, and for bass players, the first time you try a SansAmp Bass Driver DI is one of these, it will be forever seared into your memory. Whether you’re playing through a 20 watt practice amp or a monstrous 8×10 valve-driven rig, this incredible feat of tone engineering transforms sludgey, woolly tone into a tight, precise, punchy and marvellously versatile sonic palette. It boasts a fully mic’d valve bass amp in a box, and is the Ginsu knife of stomp boxes – kick this thing in, crank the drive, and hear a serated shear of buzz-saw tone cut through your mix. Wind the blend, bass and treble knobs up and behold the tightest slap tone you could want.
Like all grand love affairs though, the feeling is sure to wane eventually. You can rely on this pedal way too much, and the temptation is always there to let it commandeer (providing you play a half-decent one) your amp’s distinctive tone entirely, replacing it with the token characteristics of this box. After going through a SansAmp BDDI, a SansAmp RBI rack unit and a SansAmp Programmable DI, I’ve eventually gone back to the trusty BDDI in the loop of a Boss LS-2, blending it with the natural tone of my signal.
One thing’s for sure, I can’t recommend this thing enough following a chain of distortion pedals. Take a Big Muff and whack one of these after it, and discover an incredibly tight ball of tone you’d expect to follow a rack of elite compressors and EQs. That’s your second lightbulb moment right there.