Review – Wampler Low Blow Bass Pedal

Wampler’s Low Blow pedal for Bass is a much-needed entry in the bass pedal arena for overdrive and distortion. While that is the main focus of the Low Blow, it also sports a notch filter and active 3-band EQ with adjustments for bass, mids, and treble. Aside from the controls for the 3-band EQ, there are also controls for level, gain, and blend. There is a toggle switch for the notch filter with the choices being active and bypass. The bypass on the notch filter, especially when using distortion or overdrive, uses the natural tone of the bass, and this can create some unwanted woofy bottom end that you may not desire. When the notch filter is set to active, it cleans up that woofy bottom tremendously, giving a better wanted feature of distortion and overdrive. There is another toggle switch for gain structure, with the two choices being smooth or jagged. When set to smooth, the distortion or overdrive is not as gritty, albeit, the ‘smooth’ reference. When set to jagged, the distortion is more gnarly and in your face. The gain structure toggle switch works in conjunction with the gain control knob.

The gain control knob adjusts for the amount of distortion or overdrive that you desire. This can go from very subtle to all out heavy metal. The level control adjusts the amount of signal output and there is a blend control to adjust the amount of blend you desire from you bass and the pedal.

While the Wampler Low Blow Bass Pedal was designed with distortion and overdrive in mind, I found another feature that it can be used for. With the gain turned all the way down, the 3-band EQ is still active and can be used in conjunction with the notch filter. So while the Wampler Low Blow is great as a distortion or overdrive pedal, it is also great using it as just a 3-band EQ. This was achieved by just turning the gain off.

The pedal is engaged by one switch and can be powered by a 9-volt adapter or power-supply. When the pedal is not engaged, it is in true bypass mode and will not effect your signal.

I really enjoyed using the Wampler Low Blow Bass Pedal on a few gigs and it fit in really well. My biggest issue was trying to find a favorite setting, as I liked everything that this pedal produced from the many distortion and overdrive settings, to just using the 3-band EQ without having overdrive and distortion engaged. There are quite a few bass distortion and overdrive pedals out there, but it seems a lot of them lose that low end. The Wampler Low Blow Bass Pedal doesn’t lose that low end and it is designed to do what it does. Check it out at a music retailer near you!