Back in the day, it was a common practice to send a bass guitar signal to a bass amp and a guitar amp simultaneously. This is known as bi-amping — and bassists still do it today. It keeps your low end clean, deep, and defined; while amplifying the mids and highs separately gives you the option of crisp or distorted highs, for complete control over your sound. This type of rig can generate ginormous tones but typically requires a large, complex setup. That’s fine if you’re rock royalty — but not if you have to put all this together yourself.
Bass Butler, at your service
Forget about amp-in-a-pedal stompboxes; Bass Butler backs a truckload of gear up to your virtual loading dock — all sitting pretty in an easy-to-use pedal format. Bass Butler splits your signal at the input and sends your signal into two separate, parallel, all-analog signal chains — just like a real bi-amp setup. The difference is: no amps needed. And no roadies.
The Bass Channel
The always-on Bass Channel has a simple but effective control layout of Volume, Compression, Bass, and Treble. An optical compression circuit, cut/boost tone controls, and a dedicated, bass cabinet-simulated balanced D.I. output are always at your service, serving up a bounteous banquet of legendary clean bass tones.
The Guitar Channel
From mellow to molten, Bass Butler’s classic high-gain guitar channel does it all. Five friendly controls and four gain stages are called up with one tap of the footswitch, delivering a huge arsenal of tone ranging from sparkling vintage cleans to searing shred with fur on top. Complemented with a guitar cab-simulated balanced DI output and an expression pedal jack for exacting foot control over the input gain, Bass Butler’s Guitar Channel serves up an all-you-can-eat buffet of tantalizing tones.
Onstage and in the studio…
Bass Butler’s two individual XLR outs from its two separate channels ensure that your perfected bi-amp bass sounds get to your mixing board in mint condition for you to mix to taste. Of course, there’s a Ground Lift switch for nipping any ground loop issues in the bud. In the studio, this is probably how you’ll you’ll want to work it. But for onstage use, Bass Butler has a 1/4" Amp output that captures a blend of the two channels before the cab sim circuit — ideal for plugging into a bass amp. The blend is determined by your channel volume control settings, so you can completely control your on-stage sound independently of what the audience hears. And naturally, there’s nothing keeping you from using this output on its own, just like an ordinary preamp pedal. But of course, Bass Butler is anything but that.
Fetch me my tone
The Bass Butler is the ultimate stage rig, a must-have studio tool — and quite possibly the only bass pedal you’ll ever need. So Orange, in their wisdom, built it for the long haul with a rugged steel enclosure, 18-volt power for insanely fat tone and high headroom, and beefy roadworthiness for a lifetime of faithful service.
Features:
- Bass Channel: (clean) XLR balanced output with bass guitar cabinet simulation
- Guitar Channel (dirty) XLR balanced output with lead guitar cabinet simulation
- Blended 1/4" jack socket output with no cabinet simulator
- Expression pedal input: 1/4" jack socket
- Instrument input: 1/4" jack socket
- Ground lift switch
- 18-volt power supply