Customer Reviews

Hartke VXL Bass Attack Preamp Pedal

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Bass effects are fun little diversions, until you find a good one. There are some that just can't be substituted. A good example of that is the QTron. If you have one (and use it) it is essential to get THAT sound. Personally, I don't use mine that often. Usually I play a down the middle mix of rock, blues, and soul ... all the classic tones. My main rig is an Ampeg SVT-2PRO with their 4 x 10 cab. It is about as tube gritty as they come. However, there is a certain flexibility that is missing. I want to be able to switch between that warm Jamerson tube fuzz on the soul and blues songs, to something a little more punchy for funk. The Attack pedal is PERFECT for this. It lets me dial in just what I want, and use the footswitches to turn the sounds on and off. With the two switches you get four sounds. It isn't going to give you wild distortion. It will, however, make it one click to go from a warm fat bluesy sound to a funky punch that are both worth the price of admission.

Enjoy !

I'm using this as a DI box for recording. It does some compression, overdrive, EQ'ing, notch EQ'ing, and excite-ing all in one pedal. So compared to the original bass signal, you get this clear, deep, punchy sound that fits right into a mix.

The Bass Attack sounds a lot like a SansAmp Bass Driver but at 1/3 the price. One difference is that it has an additional "Shape" knob, which is a lot like the ISF knob on Blackstar products, and is a notch filter. The other difference is that the SansAmp uses tougher chassis and components, so would last longer for the gigging musician. But don't take me wrong, the Bass Attack uses a solid metal chassis and doesn't feel cheap at all.

The Harmonics knob adds some overdrive, and gets kind of farty when turned up 100% but sounds pretty good at 75-90%. It doesn't do that high gain super gritty/fizzy distortion though, for that you could connect a distortion pedal to the parallel output, or duplicate the track in your DAW and add a distortion plugin.

This pedal is very versatile. I found that the Shape knob is indispensable; it takes the place of a mid control. For example, by notching (reducing) the boomy 60-130 Hz region and turning up the level, you get plenty more mids. The treble and bright control seem very similar to each other, one seems to amplify the 4k region, the other the 5k but that's just an estimate. By keeping both of those around 10 o'clock and the Shape control beneath 115 Hz, I can get a solid, deep, yet mid-full sound for a metal mix. Thus anyone who thinks this pedal is all bass and treble and no mids, ought to try settings along those lines.

Another good feature is that this pedal can run on 48V phantom power. As in, no adapter or battery needed when recording direct or running to a mixer. In conclusion, for recording, you can duplicate the SansAmp sound that you hear on a lot of albums using the Bass Attack, and tweak it further via the Shape control. And yes, the various button pushes get you four different sounds total, but I prefer having both buttons on. Then in my DAW I only throw on an extra compressor and it sounds great. This pedal is a steal for no frills bass DI recording.

Pretty good one, we bought this one and did later wrote a review. The pedal is a great value for it's price.
Check [...] for our independent review where we have some sound examples posted on youtube.

We are happy with Hartke Bass Attack, so it will stay with us for a while.

This thing really sounds good. I'm using it with a PA and the results are pretty nice.
What I really miss when it arrives was the power supply, I had to by an universal 9 volts power supply and there is almost no noise (apart from my bass).
Solid product totally recommended!