Trondheim Audio Devices SkarBassOne Bass Preamp

SkarBassOne does what its' manufacturer promises - provides you with easily adjusted Bass Preamp that gives you nice amount of drive with good bottom end, but it has its' flaws.

What I really like about the product, is how it is quite simple to adjust even to a pedal noob like me - at first drive off and all knobs on center I played with Mid and then Compression. After getting clean sound to my liking I switched Drive! on and selected Drive amount and Tone. And then at last adjusted the Mix after which I played around with everything one at a time to see if I could get the sound I was looking in my head locked even better.

I have the drive always on when I'm playing and very seldom do any readjustments. When not playing there's an audible hiss coming from my stack, even little with the drive off. I solved this by buying a used Decimator Noise Gate. In this price range I think it is ok that pedal doesn't have one built-in, but it is something you might want to know before buying one. Another thing worth noting is that there is no bypass on the pedal but it's always on - which doesn't bother me at all.

Build quality is otherwise solid, but the knobs feel flimsy and you can't really see what setting they are on, even from quite close-up. I made it a bit better my using a black marker on index dents but on a dark stage there's no chance to see the settings from a distance.

All in all, you'll get a decent drive tone without compromising bottom end with easy-to-adjust compression at a decent price.