Finding the best bass guitar distortion pedals to give you that heavy, skull crushing bass tone isn’t that easy. There are a lot of different bass effects out there to choose from and they all have slightly different controls, tones, and features.
That’s why we made this article. We review all of the distortion pedals for bass, so you can figure out which one is right for your playing style and tone. Whether you are looking for an classic distortion, overdrive, or fuzz, we have a review for each.
Let’s check out some of the most popular top-rated bass distortion pedals on the market today!
Click Below to Compare the Best Distortion Pedals for Bass Guitar in 2020
Contents
- 1 Click Below to Compare the Best Distortion Pedals for Bass Guitar in 2020
- 1.1 Tech 21 RIP Red Ripper Bass Distortion Effect Pedal
- 1.2 Electro-Harmonix Bass Soul Food Bass Distortion Effects Pedal
- 1.3 Way Huge WHE207 Green Rhino Mini MKIV
- 1.4 Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff Distortion Pedal
- 1.5 Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive
- 1.6 MXR M85 Bass Distortion
- 1.7 Behringer Bass Overdrive BOD400
- 2 What We Recommend and Why
Here is a list of the top bass guitar distortion effect pedals that you need to add to your pedalboard.
- Tech 21 RIP Red Ripper Bass Distortion Effect Pedal
- Electro-Harmonix Bass Soul Food Bass Distortion Effects Pedal
- Way Huge WHE207 Green Rhino Mini MKIV
- Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff Distortion Pedal
- Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive
- MXR M85 Bass Distortion
- Behringer Bass Overdrive BOD400
Tech 21 RIP Red Ripper Bass Distortion Effect Pedal
Specs, features, and benefits
The Tech 21 Red Ripper is a sturdy, top-notch, versatile bass distortion pedal with a serious tone. This pedal is highly appreciated inside the bass players community.
The pedal offers a ton of control over your distorted tone. It has Level, Low, Mid, High, “R.I.P.”, and Drive control knob. It also has a Low Pass Filter push-button.
The R.I.P. control knob allows you to choose from several types of distortion, the others are pretty self-explanatory.
The 21 Red Ripper is an all-analog circuit pedal, providing you with some killer bass distortion tones!
Pros and Highlights
- Versatile – This unit allows you to tune in the perfect distortion tones for your Bass guitar.
- The 3-band EQ, the RIP control knob, and the Low Pass Filter make this pedal go crazy-good in seconds! Very Flexible!
- Sturdy – The pedal can take the abuse and the rage of the stomping bass player’s foot without whining. This pedal is built like a tank!
- All-analog circuit – Due to the all-analog circuit, the Red Ripper can make the crazy and most aggressive distortion sounds feel warm and beautiful!
Cons and Potential Flaws
- Pricey – This pedal is a bit pricier than the other pedals on this list.
Bottom line
The Tech 21 Red Ripper is a high-quality, versatile, and sturdy bass distortion pedal that allows the player to tune in the perfect distortion for his ear. The pedal’s circuitry is analog and it’s built with the best-quality components, making the pedal sound good as it can get.
It comes for a higher price than the other bass distortion pedals, but it surely stands higher in quality too! The Red Ripper is very versatile bass distortion pedal, and it’s impossible to find a bass player that would not fall in love with this thing!
Electro-Harmonix Bass Soul Food Bass Distortion Effects Pedal
Specs, features, and benefits
From clean boost to dirty distortion, the Electro Harmonix Bass Soul Food can color your tone in seconds of time. The circuit of this pedal is built inside a compact, metal box, capable of dealing with the notorious bassist’s foot.
The Bass Soul Food contains these control knobs: Volume, Drive, Blend, and Treble
The Blend control knobs allow you to mix the original signal coming in with the effect. The Treble knob lets you have EQ control over your distorted signal. In the center of the pedal, between the control knobs, there is a two-way toggle switch that can cut -10 dB if you are dealing with a high-output instrument.
The pedal has an internal true bypass/buffered switch, to make it compatible with whatever gear you are using. It runs on 9V DC Adaptor or one 9V Battery.
Pros and Highlights
- Tons of control – With this pedal and its controls, you can have the right amount of distortion, with just a few tweaks.
- Sturdy and compact – The pedal will last a long, long time. It also won’t take a lot of space on your pedalboard.
- Great sound quality – The pedal sounds fantastic!
Cons and Potential Flaws
- Tone suck – It’s not enormous, but it’s still there. The Bass Soul Food tends to suck a bit of your tone.
Bottom line
The Bass Soul Food by Electro-Harmonix is a great unit, providing bass players with a lot of distortion versatility. The Blend and Treble control knobs are what makes this pedal amazing.
You can get the perfect dirt with this thing. And the -10db switch is pure gold. If you have dealt with active pickups bass guitar, you’ll know what I mean! Great pedal!
Way Huge WHE207 Green Rhino Mini MKIV
Specs, features, and benefits
The Way Huge Green Rhino Mini MKIV is a little, beautifully looking and sounding distortion pedal, great for bass guitar and guitar players. The pedal is built in a hard aluminum box, and it’s painted green. The pedal looks awesome.
It has five control knobs for ultimate tone shaping: Volume, Drive, Tone, 100Hz, and 500Hz. The 100Hz and the 500Hz control knobs can boost up to 12db, and paired with the Tone control knob, these two allow you to have a great tone-shaping trip to the moon and back.
The Green Rhino MKIV also has a two-way switch, that lets the player have the sound of the predecessor of this pedal – Green Rhino MKII. Just set the switch in the “classic” mode, and there you go!
The pedal can be powered by an adaptor or 9V battery. Oh, did I mention that this pedal sounds great with both bass and guitar?
Pros and Highlights
- A huge amount of control – Way Huge!
- Small and compact, yet big – The pedal is very small. It is a lot smaller than the MKII, and can easily fit in every pedalboard. Still, don’t let the size fool you! – This unit sounds BIG!
- Two voices – With the two-way switch on the pedal, you can set your MKIV to sound just like the MKII! Isn’t that great? You basically have two pedals in one single box;
Cons and Potential Flaws
- Tube-screamer type of distortion – This is not a con or a flaw, but many players are looking for a different kind of tone. Do your research before buying a piece of gear, to prevent disappointment!
Bottom line
Great pedal. The Green Rhino is a sturdy-built pedal, made to last a long time and to shape a great deal of different distorted sounds. It has a lot of versatility to it. The five control knobs allow you to tune in a great deal of different sounding distortions, and the two-way switch will bring the sound of this pedal to its roots – it will sound like the old Green Rhino MKII. Great sounding distortion pedal!
Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff Distortion Pedal
Specs, features, and benefits
Big Muff for Bass? How cool is that? Well yes, you heard that right! Electro-Harmonix designed a Big Muff Distortion pedal for Bass guitar.
The pedal has three control knobs: Volume, Tone and Sustain; and a three-way switch with Dry, Normal, and Bass Boost mode. The pedal has two separate outputs, Dry Out and Effect Out if you want to engage two amps for the ultimate low-end experience.
It can run on an adaptor or on a single 9V battery. The pedal is also true bypass.
Pros and Highlights
- Great sound! – The Bass Big Muff sounds amazing! Dirty!
- Sturdy – This box is built to handle the stomping without any problem! And it looks nice too!
- Flexible – The three modes allow you to plug into two different amps, and the three control knobs let you have easy and precise control over your dirt.
Cons and Potential Flaws
- Distorted over the top – This pedal might not be for you if you are looking for something more subtle – to put it this way. It is hard to get a subtle, warm distortion out of this unit. It’s pretty over-bearing.
Bottom line
The Bass Big Muff is all a heavy rock bassist would ever want from a bass distortion pedal. It has a good amount of versatility, it sounds awesome, it’s sturdy and compact, and it’s affordable. One of the best out there for sure!
It’s hard to find a metal player that is disappointed with this unit. It also looks very nice! Great piece of gear. However, if you are looking for something more subtle and with the ability to have smoother distortion, not an over-the-top one, you should continue reading.
Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive
Specs, features, and benefits
The Boss ODB-3 comes in the classic Boss box, with the standard quality of their boxes, meaning this unit will last for decades of stomping and tweaking.
The pedal has four controls: Level, EQ, Balance, and Gain. The EQ control is actually a dual purpose knob – it is basically two knobs set together, the big one on the bottom is for the lows, and the top one is for the high frequencies.
The Boss ODB-3 is a pretty intuitive and easy-to-use pedal, and it delivers one of the greatest distortions for bass guitar ever. Of course, this pedal can run on a 9V adaptor or on a 9V battery.
Pros and Highlights
- High-quality build – This is pretty much standard when it comes to Boss products. Their pedals can last decades!
- Versatile – The controls of this pedal allow you to play with many different kinds of distortions, from fuzz sounds to heavy overdrives – ODB-3 has your back covered;
- Sounds amazing! – This pedal will make many bassists fall in love on the first hearing!
Cons and Potential Flaws
- It might not be for you – If you want to go completely crazy with distortion on your bass guitar, you should probably continue looking. This pedal has a lot to offer, but it seems to me that bassists who play heavier music tend to go for other pedals.
Bottom line
The Boss ODB-3 has the standard quality of Boss products – it’s sturdy, it will last a long time, have a good amount of versatility, and it’s pretty affordable.
If you are new to distorting your bass sound, this pedal is probably the thing you should look for, and many newbies tend to stick to this pedal for their whole life. Great pedal!
MXR M85 Bass Distortion
Specs, features, and benefits
The MXR M85 is one of the most aggressive distortion pedals for bass guitar. Packed in a compact and sturdy box, the MXR M85 has four control knobs:
Dry, Wet, Tone, and Distortion. These four controls paired with the push-button, that lets you choose between LED and Silicon diodes clipping, provide the dirtiest bass distortion sounds ever! The Silicon mode delivers more aggressive dirt paired with compression, while the LED mode delivers a more open sound with high gain.
The pedal can be powered by 9V battery or by 9V power adaptor. The MXR M85 is a true bypass pedal.
Pros and Highlights
- Aggressive and raunchy grit – This pedal will provide you with one of the most aggressive, raunchiest grit ever!
- Two distortions available – As I explained above, there are two distortion modes, LED and Silicon diode clipping;
- High quality – The pedal is full analog, made with top-notch components in California, USA;
Cons and Potential Flaws
- Not subtle – This pedal is a roaring monster, and if you are not looking for this kind of pedal, and you want something smoother, take a look at some of the other pedals in this list.
Bottom line
The MXR M85 is an aggressive distortion pedal. It is versatile; it has two different kinds of distortion and the right controls to control them. However, it is hard to tune in a subtle distortion sound, making this pedal not suitable for everyone. Many of the players are looking for the wildest distortion out there, and if you are one of them, you will be more than happy to have this under your foot. If you are looking for something subtler, read this list again. The pedal is a bit pricier than most of the pedals, but if you are looking for what this unit stands for – you will be one hundred percent satisfied.
Behringer Bass Overdrive BOD400
Specs, features, and benefits
Based on the circuitry of the Boss ODB-3, the Behringer BOD400 has pretty much the same controls with the only difference – the High and Low controls are controlled with separate knobs on this pedal (On the ODB-3 the High control knob is set on top of the Low control knob).
This pedal is very cheap, and having this in mind it still delivers some decent distortion sounds. It can be powered by a 9V battery or a power adaptor.
Pros and Highlights
- Cheap- The pedal is very cheap, if you are on a low budget, this might be the pedal for you;
- Versatile – The pedal is pretty versatile – you can get several decent sounding distortions out of it;
- Plug & Play – The controls are pretty intuitive. This is an easy-to-use pedal.
Cons and Potential Flaws
- Noisy, and built out of plastic – The pedal is built out of plastic – you should be gentle with it if you want this unit to last. And the pedal tends to produce some noise.
Bottom line
If you are on a budget, or you are new to distorting your bass guitar, this is probably a good fit.
Many players are satisfied with this unit and stick with it. However, if you are a professional musician, or you are on the way to becoming one, we don’t recommend this. You should save your money and invest in a more decent distortion unit.
What We Recommend and Why
The Tech 21 Red Ripper is what we recommend. Why? Because it’s versatile, yet very intuitive and easy to use. It has all the features that you will ever want in a bass distortion unit, it is sturdy-built and sounds incredible! Great, top-notch bass distortion pedal.
It might be pricier than the other pedals on this list, but it is of the highest quality too! And most of the time, it is better to invest in something that will save you headaches and will stop you from buying additional pedals with the same effect.
If you are on a budget, we recommend looking at some of the other pedals on this list, like the Boss ODB-3, or the MXR M85.
