Description
“Being a huge Justin Chancellor (and Tool) fan, I have always admired his bass tone and have always tried to come close to it. At some point, during my band years, I was running 3 pedals simultaneously, just to get that JC standard distorted sound that led us to this very moment…; Now, there is no longer the need to use that Turbo distortion plus that separate EQ….”
The Ground & Pound started as an idea to have a Rat style pedal and a Bass Equalizer combined into a
single unit. The great advantage of this design is that one can explore the gritty character of the distortion
while retaining its low end. Obviously, this was a starting point; the distortion has been carefully tailored
and eq’d to have a full frequency spectrum, sounding full-bodied and cutthroat, and is very flexible due to its EQZ control.
The controls, 4 in total, feature an “EQZ” tilt equalizer, borrowed from the “Alma Comp” design, which affects only the distorted signal. The clean signal also uses the main “Alma Comp” circuit with a very small (2:1) Ratio that can be added to the distortion via the “Mix” control which really helps the clean and distorted sounds meld together in a more organic way. Finally, “Dis” controls the amount of gain, from fairly clean overdrive to heavy distortion, and “Vol” acts as the master volume.
The Ground & Pound, despite its original concept, is very versatile, when combining all the provided tools for tone shaping. It shines when using a pick and digging into the strings, at lighter gain settings, or it can smash your face in when using it at higher gain settings with both fingerstyle and pick.
