Old Horse Murphy Posted June 24, 2019 Share Posted June 24, 2019 As part of my ongoing search for a decent Overdrive pedal (ie a warm, slightly overdriven sound rather than a dentist’s drill), I decided to pick up one of the new Fender Downtown Express Bass pedals incorporating and Overdrive, Eq and Compressor. Build-wise this thing is high quality and a really substantial bit of kit both size and weight wise. It was apparently designed in conjunction with Mr Aguilar and I can well believe it. At just under £150 the quality of the Compressor (analog) and the really meaty Overdrive (all the way from thick warm valvey sounds through some serious dirt) as well as a decent eq and a DI, it really seems to be very good value indeed. Granted I’m not a massive user of effects, but it really is a good (in essence) multi-effect pedal as one that is very intuitive and easy to set up. The LEDs are something else too! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigwan Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 Hadn't heard of this before. Looks interesting but... 400mA! Jeez it's a thirsty beast... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Horse Murphy Posted June 25, 2019 Author Share Posted June 25, 2019 3 minutes ago, Bigwan said: Hadn't heard of this before. Looks interesting but... 400mA! Jeez it's a thirsty beast... It runs off my One Spot well enough but it really is a bit of a Battleship! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigwan Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 (edited) 45 minutes ago, Old Horse Murphy said: It runs off my One Spot well enough but it really is a bit of a Battleship! It would run off my daisy chain power supply too, but it wouldn't run off a lot of isolated output supplies that folks already own. Who's going to replace their power bank to try out a new Fender pedal? It does have a really good feature set though. Be interested to hear your thoughts, after you've battle tested it of course! Edited June 25, 2019 by Bigwan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc S Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 I've not seen or heard of it either. Have you used it in a live situation yet @Old Horse Murphy? Thanks for letting us know about it, and what your thoughts on it are... I use a Dunlop MXR, and I quite like the distortion on that (not that I use it much). It's also a really nice "natural" sound to the EQ controls. This is in the same sort of price bracket, and looks a quality, well made unit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuzzie Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 From all the sound clips and reviews i can thrash through online, this certainly is a really nice piece of kit, and it’s good to know that ‘real world’ tests and further tests will confirm it. Its a great feature set for a gigging or non gigging bassist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Horse Murphy Posted June 26, 2019 Author Share Posted June 26, 2019 I managed to rehearse last night through my gigging rig and the pedal certainly didn't disappoint. The Compressor is very decent indeed and seems to work equally well at both ends of the sound spectrum (low and high), so really evens out the notes. The EQ is good too and I use it to alternate between different sounds depending on the requirement for the song. It really adds something to a P Bass with flats and tone turned down about 1/3, without having to fiddle with the amp or tone pot each time. The Overdrive is lovely and creamy and gives some really rich harmonics. I only dial Overdrive in a little bit, but this one seems to hit the spot nicely I never would've thunk (thought) Fender would be "up there" in terms of Bass pedals but I've been pleasantly surprised. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uk_lefty Posted June 26, 2019 Share Posted June 26, 2019 If it had an onboard tuner many people could have that as their only pedal! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuzzie Posted June 26, 2019 Share Posted June 26, 2019 1 hour ago, uk_lefty said: If it had an onboard tuner many people could have that as their only pedal! Agreed - clip on as a make do. Things like this are genius and other similar offerings like the Tech21 Bass fly rig and DP3X, Trickfish Trilobite, but for sheer value for money, this may just pip them all and it’s great looking 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taha_never Posted March 23, 2021 Share Posted March 23, 2021 On 26/06/2019 at 14:11, Old Horse Murphy said: I managed to rehearse last night through my gigging rig and the pedal certainly didn't disappoint. The Compressor is very decent indeed and seems to work equally well at both ends of the sound spectrum (low and high), so really evens out the notes. The EQ is good too and I use it to alternate between different sounds depending on the requirement for the song. It really adds something to a P Bass with flats and tone turned down about 1/3, without having to fiddle with the amp or tone pot each time. The Overdrive is lovely and creamy and gives some really rich harmonics. I only dial Overdrive in a little bit, but this one seems to hit the spot nicely I never would've thunk (thought) Fender would be "up there" in terms of Bass pedals but I've been pleasantly surprised. great review. does it have fender bassman DNA in its tone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phaedrus Posted October 9 Share Posted October 9 Thread resurrection alert! I got one of these to replace my Hartke VXL Bass Attack. Very nice unit. I love the distortion on it! I've been looking at videos of the Trapper Bass Distortion, hoping that its distortion will be similar - I'm running a wet/dry set-up and I don't really want to distort my dry signal (this is from the Downtown Express). Can any of you guys comment on whether the Trapper Bass Distortion yields similar sounds to the Downtown Express' distortion? TIA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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