Orange Bass Butler Bi-Amp Bass Preamp Pedal Overview
The Orange Bass Butler: back in the good ol’ days, it was a popular practice to send a bass guitar signal to a bass amp and a guitar amp at the same time – known as Bi-Amping. This allows the player to keep their low end deep, clean and defined whilst amplifying the mids and top end separately, adding distortion or crisp highs with total control.
This type of setup can produce some enormous tones but typically requires a huge and complicated rig, only possible if you’re Rock ‘n’ Roll royalty. But, if you have to get all this together by yourself? Forget it!
Enter the Bass Butler...
Your bass rig is ready, sir: Forget amp-in-a-box pedals, the Bass Butler is a whole van-load of gear in a box! Splitting your signal at the input, the Bass Butler features two completely separate, parallel, analogue signal chains, just like a real bi-amp rig. The difference is there’s not an amp in sight.
Bass channel: The always-on Bass Channel has a simple but effective control layout of Compression, Bass, Treble and Volume. An optical compressor circuit, cut/boost tone controls and dedicated, bass cabinet-simulated balanced D.I. output are always on hand with all manner of classic clean tones. From the depths of Dub to the heights of hi-fi, the Bass Butler has it all polished up and ready, like your best pair of shoes.
Guitar channel: Whether you need mayhem, musicality or a mere modicum of mischief, this classic high-gain guitar channel won’t disappoint. Five familiar controls and four gain stages that can clean right up are summoned with one kick of the footswitch, serving up everything from bright vintage tones to floor-splitting, wall-crumbling modern destruction. Coupled with a guitar cab-simulated balanced D.I. output and an expression pedal jack for extra control over the input gain, this really is a plentiful platter, pleasing to the even pickiest of players.
Direct and to-the-point: The Bass Butler’s two individual XLR outputs from the two separate channels mean that your finished Bi-Amp bass tone makes it to the mixing desk with nothing left to do except blend to taste, with a Ground Lift switch for solving any ground loop issues. It’s the same story in the studio, but that’s not all...
The Bass Butler also features an Amp output, which takes a blend of the two channels before the cabinet simulation circuits from a 1/4” jack – perfect for connecting to the front end of any bass amp. The blend is set by the channel volume controls, meaning you can control your on-stage sound completely independently of what the audience hear. In fact, you can even use this output on its own, just like a plain old preamp pedal.
Five-star quality: As the Bass Butler is the ultimate fly rig, the perfect studio tool and quite possibly the only pedal you’ll ever need, it has to be built to last. A sturdy steel enclosure, 18V DC power for high headroom, and all-round road-ready ruggedness mean that the Bass Butler is willing and waiting for a lifetime in your service.
- Bass Guitar (Clean) XLR balanced output with bass guitar cabinet simulator
- Guitar (Dirty) XLR balanced output with lead guitar cabinet simulator
- Blended 1/4" jack socket output with no cabinet simulator
- Expression 1/4" jack socket
- Input 1/4" jack socket
- Ground lift switch
- Power: 18V
- Unboxed Dimensions (WxHxD): 17 x 8.5 x 16.5 cm (6.6 x 3.3 x 6.50 in)
- Unboxed Weight: 1.29 kg (2.84 lb)