The Darkglass Company, who are responsible for the microtube B3K and B7K bass pedals are finish based but the mastermind behind the company is Douglas Castro, who also plays bass. Both the B3K and B7K pedal feature a CMOS (Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor), which has some important characteristics.
The CMOS allows for high noise immunity and low static power consumption to reduce the random fluctuations and heat generated from the circuitry. Check out the Internet for further information on how this is used in gain, amplifiers and just how it affects the signal.
Let’s start with the B3K and build up to its big brother (in more than one way although size does count here) the B7K. Before starting this review, is that the manuals are only available through their website (http://www.darkglass.com) in PDF formats and also offer presets to try out.
The B3K sports three knobs and two switches and has massive saturation and a great deal of versatility in a small compact design.
To power the unit, it only accepts a center negative 9volt DC adapter, as this unit can’t run off batteries. Be careful when using a 9volt adapter as different variations (to the center negative plug) will incur noise into the signal and could also damage the unit.
So finally on to the controls.
The B3K unit has three knobs, two switches and only offers a unbalanced 1/4” output. For this reason, the B3K is known as CMOS bass overdrive (mircotube) pedal. The three knobs control Blend, Drive and Level. The Level affects the overall volume of the overdriven signal, while Blend controls the amount of clean (input) signal from your bass.
One thing to notice is the blend knob controls the amount of clean signal (not the gain) to mix with the overdriven signal, while the level knob controls the gain (overall level) of the overdrive.
The Drive knob controls the saturation (gain/grit) of the overdriven signal similar to the blend for the clean signal. From the online manual the two switches are known as the Attack and Grunt switches respectively.
The left switch is the attack switch. The attack switch has two different positions and works in a similar fashion to the Bright (ultra Hi on Ampeg and other brands) option found on many bass amps.
Having the attack switch up activates the boost option, which enhances the presence and treble definition. Having the switch down reduces the treble presence (turns off the bright option) and rounds the bass and mid range to warm your saturation or tone.
Darkglass Electronics B3K & B7K