Darkglass Microtubes X7 Bass Overdrive & Fuzz
The Microtubes X series brings the studio method producers have been using the years to cover the whole bass distortion spectrum: from articulate high gain to punchy mild overdrive, raw and gnarly fuzz and everything in between. You now have absolute control in constructing your vision of what the perfect bass distortion texture, definition, and size should have.
Distorting bass has always been a very challenging engineering endeavor: in order to achieve a punchy, and aggressive distortion that is also full and fat-sounding you need to reconcile two contradicting conditions:
The tightness comes from attenuating bass frequencies before saturation, which will also result in a very thin signal. But boosting the lows will result in additional, unwanted fuzz. To
solve this paradox, audio engineers have been using multiband distortions in the studio for a few decades now.
The Microtubes X7 is our solution to that problem in a very compact, yet flexible form: The signal is split by two variable low pass and high pass filters at the very very beginning. The high pass signal (mostly mids and treble) is distorted with a CMOS chip, just like our older Microtubes pedals. The low-pass signal (all bass) is left clean and then compressed.
Letting the high side be all crunch, attack, and rich harmonics while mixing back the compressed lows to add gargantuan size to the overall mix. The result is some remarkable, almost unlimited fullness, size, aggression, and definition, regardless of
how old the strings, and boomy or thin instruments.
The Microtubes X7 offers all of this plus a 4-band graphic equalizer with perfectly tailored mid controls for maximum flexibility, with unbalanced parallel, affected and direct outputs.
- High Pass Frequency: Controls the cutoff frequency to be distorted, ranging from 100Hz (for thicker, fuzzier saturation) or 1kHz for ultra-sharp definition.
- High Drive: Sets the amount of distortion for the high pass side.
- High Level: Sets the output volume of the distorted high-pass signal.
- Low Pass Frequency: Controls the cutoff frequency to be mixed back to the high-pass side. Ranging from 50Hz (for only sub-bass) and 500Hz to preserve some clean mids.
- Low Comp: Sets the amount of compression for the low-pass signal.
- Low Level: Sets the output volume of the low-pass signal.
- Master: Sets the overall volume of the unit.
- Low shelf: +-12dB @ 80 Hz
- 500 Hz: +-12dB
- 1 kHz: +-12dB
- High shelf: +-12dB @ 5 kHz
- Parallel Output: A passthrough for your input signal, useful for parallel processing.
- Direct Output: A balanced version of the ¼” output, useful for running into PA’s or studio mixing consoles.
- DIMENSIONS: 12×10.7 cm (4.72×4.21 in)
The Microtubes X7 has a current draw of 70mA. Only use a regulated 9V DC adapter with a center-negative plug. Due to ecological reasons, it does not accept batteries. Unregulated power supplies and/or higher voltages may result in suboptimal noise performance and even damage your unit, voiding the warranty.