Everything from adding definition and punch to your clean tone, to a grinding overdrive with brawny thump and muscular attack.
Finding a great overdrive pedal takes time. That might seem like an obvious statement to guitarists, but for bassists it’s even more difficult. The guitar has the luxury of being a midrange-centered instrument, and midrange frequencies are easier for an overdrive-pedal designer to work with because they naturally stand out in a mix. On the other hand, the low end that basses are intended to generate is exceedingly difficult to overdrive in a pleasing manner while retaining girth and subterranean presence. In other words, it’s tough to make a bass overdrive that doesn’t just sound good on its own, but that cuts through the mix and provides a rock-solid foundation.
Eldar Cohen—owner and operator of Israel-based EC Custom Shop—has been tackling the issues of tonal balance with guitar for several years, resulting in an array of effects that have been well received for their tone, response, and feel. More recently, he’s turned his attention to bassists with a modified version of his Overlord Drive, tuning the circuit to handle signals that generate more low-end friendly sounds.
Operation Overlord
EC builds every Bass Overlord Drive by hand using Neutrik jacks, Alpha pots, and surface-mount analog components fit into a nicely soldered, tight-fitting package. If you prefer to use batteries or often forget to grab your wall wart before a session—take note—the only way to power the pedal is with a 9V power adapter.
Dialing in overdrive with the Bass Overlord Drive couldn’t be any simpler. The pedal sports gain, level, and tone controls. A fairly broad assortment of drive tones can be called up with the tone knob, but the real versatility comes from the circuit’s specially designed gain control—which changes the shape and dynamics of the midrange from snarly, stalwart, low gain to heavy, mid-scooped crunch the further it’s pushed.
The Heat Is On
Despite having a moderately wide sweep in its tone control, the Bass Overlord is generally a pretty dark-sounding pedal. It’s also not for the faint of heart, which I realized after plugging in with a Verellen Meatsmoke amplifier and a Kramer Striker bass.
Ratings
Pros:
Excellent at beefing up clean tones while adding a wide gamut of tasty overdrive.
Cons:
Might be too dark for some. No battery-connection option. Somewhat pricey.
Even with the gain knob at around 10 o’clock, the pedal provided more grungy overdrive than most bass pedals dedicated to the same purpose. This didn’t affect the strength of the amp’s output, though—it actually seemed to enhance it by thickening up the midrange and attack. And as I turned up the gain, the body retained its lean, mean tonality without getting squashed under the wall of distortion—every note kicked me squarely in the chest.
The powerful and up-front bass tones of Phil Lynot quickly came to mind as I pushed the amp’s midrange up, and placing the pedal’s gain at around 2 o’clock dropped me firmly in Cliff Burton territory, with a raging maw of classic, thrash-metal overdrive. While I was absolutely digging this incredible sound, I found myself wondering whether it was all the pedal had to offer. To test the idea, I dropped the Kramer’s volume down to a little under halfway and breathed a sigh of relief as I was treated to lovely, ’70s-vibed velvet overdrive.
I did find that coaxing extra brightness out of the pedal could be a little difficult: The trebles generally stayed at the same relatively low levels until I moved the tone control to about 3 o’clock. However, keeping a watchful ear on the tone and adjusting the amp’s treble control, I was able to compensate for any lack of highs.
The Verdict
The Bass Overlord Drive is perfect for adding definition and punch to your clean tone, and especially wonderful if you’re after a grinding overdrive that eschews buzziness for brawny thump and muscular attack. Bassists using amps with darker voicings may have to play around with both the amp and pedal controls to find a good balance, but throwing those concerns aside, it’s one hell of a thunderous, beastly overdrive with personality and muscle to match.
Iriondo has been a member of the Italian alt-rock outfit Afterhours since 1992. Here he’s playing a custom Epiphone SG Custom at an Afterhours show in 2015.
Photo by Emanuela Bonetti
The Italian maestro talks about the spiritual inspiration he draws from his Basque roots, as well as channeling his endless guitar-tinkering passions into his latest musical project, Buñuel.
Italian guitarist and sonic adventurer Xabier Iriondo has an affinity for the Basque term, metak—which literally means, “pile”—and he often incorporates it into the names of his various projects. His custom-built experimental guitar is the Mahai Metak (or “table pile”). Some of his unconventional musical collaborations also include the term, as in PhonoMetak and PhonoMetak Labs. And Sound Metak was the name of the eclectic shop he ran for about a decade in the early 2000s, which sold everything from boutique guitar pedals to shoes. (Check out his Instagram profile, which, in addition to pictures of his amazing collection of guitars, pedals, and vintage amps, is also a showcase for his impeccable taste in footwear).
“I am half Basque,” Iriondo says. “And these words—like “mahai” and “metak”—come from the Basque language. A metak is when you take the grass that you’re cutting, and you make a mountain of this grass in the garden. In the past, you gave this metak to the cows.” Another traditional Basque practice and type of metak involves shredding and drying corn stalks to use as fodder over the long, cold winter months. So, a metak is a pile of collected things that are preserved for an extended period. In Iriondo’s view, this serves as an analogy for something deeper. “I love this idea, because you can put everything inside the metak,” he says. “It’s like a collection of your emotions. For example, with my shop, Sound Metak, I sold different kinds of things—from old gramophones and vinyl shellac records to fuzz pedals and jukeboxes and guitars and amplifiers—it was a lot of different things. Metak for me is an idea, and my instrument, the Mahai Metak, is the same thing. It’s an energy from my fantasy, which is everything I can put out from my mind.”
Buñuel is a noise-rock quartet named after the legendary Spanish filmmaker, Luis Buñuel. The band formed was formed in 2016 by (from left to right) bassist Andrea Lombardini, drummer Francesco Valente, American vocalist Eugene S. Robinson, and guitarist Xabier Iriondo.
Conceptually, metak also helps to explain Iriondo’s musical diversity. Born in Milan, he started playing the guitar at 17, and became something of an Italian celebrity as part of the alternative band Afterhours, with whom he’s been a member since 1992 (except for hiatus throughout most of the aughts). But Afterhours is about as mainstream as Xabier gets. He’s also made incredible noise with myriad projects, like his recordings and performances with Can’s Damo Suzuki (Damo Suzuki’s Network), collaborations with the cream of Europe’s avant-garde (?Alos, Pleiadees), numerous solo projects, and the list goes on and on.
Xabier Iriondo's pedalboard: “When you’re using some of these destruction pedals on the loud and heavy stuff, the guitar isn’t so important. You destroy everything with these kinds of pedals."
His most recent outing is the abrasive, apocalyptic, noise-rock quartet Buñuel. Named after the legendary Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, the band first came together in 2016 and mixes the talents of a trio of Italian musicians—Iriondo, bassist Andrea Lombardini, and drummer Francesco Valente—plus American vocalist Eugene S. Robinson. Their new release, Killers Like Us, is awash in fuzz and rages between brain-crushing, metal-tinged cuts like “A Prison of Measured Time” and “When God Used a Rope” to slow, doomy dirges like “Hornets” and “When We Talk,” as well as moments of unstructured, free improvisation interspersed throughout the record.
BUNUEL - When God Used A Rope (official video)
“We are three Italian musicians,” Iriondo says about Buñuel’s genesis. “We were a little bit famous here in Italy, and we decided to choose an international singer. We wrote to Eugene Robinson, and he accepted our idea. For our first record, the three of us recorded 10 songs in a studio in Italy. We sent them to Eugene in San Francisco, he sang on them, and then sent the tracks back to us. We did that again for this record.” Not only were the vocals recorded separate from the rest of the band, but Robinson didn’t even get a chance to rehearse with them. The first time the band played together as a quartet was onstage in front of an audience. “We didn’t rehearse with Eugene—we rehearsed ourselves—and we met with him the first day of the first gig. That’s how it started.”
Despite Iriondo’s years of experience with group improvisation, that was not the approach he took with Buñuel. You’d think improv would be helpful when stepping onstage raw with an unrehearsed new singer. Rather, the band’s vibe is through-composed songs that are played the same way—except for planned sections set aside for improvisation—night after night.
“When I want to take a solo, I adjust the Cornish directly with my foot. I open up the volume, and then I arrive in the cosmos.”
“We play the songs like they are on the album,” says Iriondo. “Although we do have some parts, or structures, that can change. For example, on our first tour, we wrote our 10 songs, and that’s all we had. At the end of the show, the audience asked for more. I said, ‘Okay, let’s start with an improv,’ and that improv we used on those gigs from the first tour became a song on the second album [“The Sanction” o 2018'sThe Easy Way Out]. We composed each day, each gig, and the song transformed and arrived at the end of the tour.”
When recording Buñuel, Iriondo harnesses that live feel by taking a minimalist approach to overdubs. Aside from an odd guitar solo or two, the instruments are recorded live, with the band members standing together and looking at each other. “I also play pop rock with other bands, and overdubbing is okay for that kind of music, but the wildness of this project gains a lot when we’re all playing together in the same room,” he says.
For both of Buñuel’s albums, including the new Killers Like Us, the three Italian core band members recorded the songs in Italy and sent them to vocalist Eugene Robinson in San Francisco. Robinson sang over the music and then sent the tracks back to Italy.
“In the past, in the ’90s, I used the VHT head system that people talked about,” he says about the now-rebranded Fryette Pittbull Ultra-Lead. “I bought the second one that arrived in Italy in 1994. But in the last 20-to-25 years, I started using theHiwatt DR103, and I think that’s my sound. When I plugged in for the first time, I said, ‘What the hell is this?’ I can go from high-frequency, crystal-like sounds to really deep grunge sounds with a lot of low frequencies. In general, with Buñuel and also Afterhours, I use the Hiwatt, and then also another amp, a 300-watt SWR California Blonde, which is a transistor amp. I have the headroom also in the clean sounds, but when I engage all my fuzzes and boosters, the gain is incredible, and it’s still in front of you all the time.”
“I love this idea, because you can put everything inside the metak. It’s like a collection of your emotions.”
Iriondo’s tone is wild, too. Considering how mangled, heavy, and distorted his sound gets, it’s interesting how he crafts his tone almost exclusively with pedals, which he uses to drive his amps. He owns more than 20 heads and cabs, and his preference is classic British amps like Hiwatt, Orange, Carlsbro, and Simms Watt—he has a few of each in assorted colors—that have a lot of headroom. He feels those work best with his high-gain pedals.
Xabier Iriondo’s Gear
Xabier Iriondo’s custom-built "Mahai Metak" is a 10-string short-scale table guitar. Six of the strings are tuned to D in different octaves and act as drones. The other four are G, G, F, and A. It has pickups on both ends, plus an onboard oscillator and distortion unit, and controls for volume and tone. "I play it with Chinese sticks, and I create rhythms and special sounds with steel wool—that stuff you use in America to wash your dishes. It sounds great."
Photo courtesy of Xabier Iriondo
Guitars
Two custom Billy Boy Guitars made by Fabio Ghiribelli (a white model and a purple model used with Buñuel, with a TV Jones pickup in the neck position and a ’52 Tele pickup in the bridge)
NukeTown Venusian IX Signature 9-string
Loic Le Page (Mahai Metak Guitar)
James Trussart Red Star Steelcaster
Amps
Hiwatt DR504 stack
Hiwatt DR103 head and 4x12 cab (1970)
Vox AC30TB (1992 reissue)
Orange OR120 head with 4x12 cab (1969)
Orange bass cabinet with 18" speaker (1970)
Simms Watts AP100 Mk2 (1972)
Marshall 1959 SLP Purple Limited Edition (1994)
300-watt SWR California Blonde
Effects
Hologram Microcosm Granular Looper
TC Electronic Ditto X2
Pete Cornish NB-2
AC Noises AMA (reverb w/ oscillator + bit crusher)
Supro Tremolo
DigiTech Whammy Ricochet
Death By Audio Waveformer Destroyer
EarthQuaker Devices Organizer
EarthQuaker Devices Acapulco Gold
AC Noises Arpiona Xabier Iriondo signature
Korg PB-03 Pitchblack
Strings & Picks
D’Addario .010–.052
Dunlop Tortex Purple 1 mm
Iriondo has a seemingly endless collection of pedals, too, although his go-to is his signature octave-synth-fuzz-boost Arpiona, made by Italian builders AC Noises. The pedal starts with a gated fuzz circuit inspired by Death By Audio’s Harmonic Transformer, followed by a sub-octave bass synth, more fuzz, and a boost. He uses that in conjunction with an EarthQuaker Devices Acapulco Gold, and a Pete Cornish NB-2 boost that’s always engaged. “When I want to take a solo,” he says, “I adjust the Cornish directly with my foot. I open up the volume, and then I arrive in the cosmos.”
Afterhours - Spreca una vita
They’re Italian, which is probably why this Afterhours video looks like a Federico Fellini film.
Iriondo is also no purist. If an analog circuit will get him the sound he wants, great, but he’s just as happy using a digital device. “I use everything that can give me satisfaction,” he says. “Why not?”
Why not, indeed. He also gets that satisfaction from his guitars. “About 80 percent of my choice in guitars is the feel, and 20 percent is the sound,” he says. “When you’re using some of these destruction pedals on the loud and heavy stuff, the guitar isn’tso important. You destroy everything with these kinds of pedals. They completely destroy your clean sound. Although when I play pop-rock music, I change my guitars a lot.”
Xabier Iriondo bought his James Trussart Red Star Steelcaster directly from the luthier at his L.A. home in 2012. It features a metal front and back perforation body, maple neck, rosewood fretboard, and two Arcane Inc. pickups.
Photo by Alberto Mori
But that feel is elusive, which may explain Iriondo’s vast collection of instruments. He has vintage guitars he doesn’t mod at all, but in general he’s an itinerant tinkerer. He usually swaps out pickups, even on his less expensive guitars, and has a significant number of custom-built guitars as well. “I’m not only a collector, I’m a professional, which means guitars are my life,” he says. “I want to have tools that work well with me. In the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to have my dream guitars that I ask luthiers to build for me with my specific specifications. The principal guitar that I used on the Buñuel project is made by Billy Boy Guitars. It has an incredible tremolo, and it’s a light guitar. All the sounds you hear on Buñuel are made with that guitar.”
Perhaps Iriondo’s most unique instrument is his custom-built Mahai Metak. It’s a 10-string, short-scale table guitar. Six of the strings are tuned to D in different octaves and act as drones. The other four are G, G, F, and A. The instrument has pickups on both ends—near the bridge as well as near the nut—plus an onboard oscillator and distortion unit, and controls for volume and tone. He plays it with an assortment of items, including marbles, roach clips, and steel wool. “I play it with Chinese sticks,” he says, “and I create rhythms and special sounds with steel wool—that stuff you use in America to wash your dishes. It sounds great. I use it with the loopers and reverbs and it creates these noisy and bizarre sounds, as well as melodic sounds that create a nice texture.”
Iriondo’s Gibson “Elettra” Explorer was handpainted by Valentina Chiappini
Photo by Matteo Pieroni
It’s that openness and wonder, as exemplified by Iriondo’s voracious appetite for gear, as well as his embrace of disparate genres and styles, that are the ingredients that make up his metak. Call it his esoteric pile of ideas, which gives him permission to explore the endless energies of his imagination. He’ll conjure up sounds that are heavy and dark—or playful and light—and almost always fun, and, maybe, even a little mischievous.
And isn’t that, ultimately, the ideal?
YouTube It
This live performance shows Buñuel from their last tour in 2016, with Xabier Iriondo playing his custom Billy Boy guitar. It takes a while for Iriondo to enter, but it’s worth the wait. Head to 2:45 to hear one of the guitarist’s deliciously mangled solos.
Megadeth founder teams up with Gibson for his first acoustic guitar in the Dave Mustaine Collection.
For the new acoustic guitar, Gibson acoustic luthiers in Bozeman, Montana collaborated with Dave Mustaine the legendary guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, and founder of the multi-platinum selling and Grammy Award-winning band, Megadeth. The Gibson Dave Mustaine Songwriter in Ebony is available in a both a standard version and a limited edition model, signed by the artist. Part of the Dave Mustaine Collection, the new Dave Mustaine Songwriter in Ebony is the first 24-fret neck ever installed on a Gibson acoustic guitar. With a slightly thinner walnut body, the Dave Mustaine Songwriter guitar features a cutaway for easy access to the upper frets.
Megadeth has gone on to sell more than 50 million albums worldwide, earning many accolades along the way, including a Grammy Award for the title track from their most recent album Dystopia, along with 12 additional Grammy nominations, as well as five consecutive platinum/multi-platinum albums. Megadeth has headlined many of the biggest stages in the world and recently played their most successful tour ever, closing every night on the North American amphitheater “Metal Tour of the Year”. Also, a New York Times bestselling author and sought after speaker, host, and commentator, Mustaine has remained a standard bearer for metal and heavy guitar rock, combining a musical and technical standard with the punk and rock n’ roll ethos and attitude.
Icons: Dave Mustaine of Megadeth
Explore the new Dave Mustaine Songwriter in Ebony, www.gibson.com.
The Atlas Compressor offers up an extensive library of compression options and allows for transformation into a bass specific compression machine.
Straight out of the box, Atlas delivers six different styles of compression, ranging from classic stompbox compressors like the now-discontinued Diamond Optical Compressor to high-end rack units such as the snappy 1176 compressor and the smooth and gentle LA2A optical compressor. Atlas also features advanced dual-band compression, which provides an independent set of controls for both the high and low frequencies. Each compression engine has onboard controls for Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release, Output, Tone, and Blend, allowing for fine-tuned control over the compact One Series hardware.
Features
6 Types of Compression: The Atlas offers many different styles of compression with sounds inspired by studio rack gear and classic effects pedals.
LA2A Optical Compression: A faithful recreation of an electro luminescent panel combined with a photo resistor and the resulting warm and smooth compression that has been the standard in studios since the 1950s.
1176 Feedback FET Compression: Based on the solid state FET compressor known for its full body and super-fast attack.
LED Optical Compressor: Inspired by pedals that work on a similar concept as the LA2A, but swap the electro luminescent panel for an LED and a quicker, dirtier response.
Dual Compressors: Use Atlas’ dual compressors in a variety of ways: in Series, Parallel, or Band Split mode, which provides a separate set of controls for both high and low frequencies.
Studio Level Compression Controls: Access all the essential compression parameters including Feedback, Ratio, Attack, Release, Makeup Gain, Mix, and Tone, either with the pedal’s knobs or the Neuro Editor.
Special Bass Mode: With the push of a button, quickly convert Atlas to a special Bass Mode with compressor engines specifically optimized for bass.
Auto Makeup Gain: Dial in sounds quickly. Atlas automatically increases or decreases the Makeup Gain depending on the amount of compression.
