Rupert Blog Detail

The Rupert Bass Overdrive is a fat sounding tubelike preamp and overdrive for Bass Guitar.

After seeing King Crimson in 1974 (one of the songs from that concert was used on their USA album), the massive overdriven bass tone of John Wetton made a lasting impression. There were discussions with a local bass player who was looking for a “knock your head off” bass drive that was fat as well as overdriven. I thought back to John Wetton’s massive tone, and I realized that the Nigel had most of what was required to achieve this.

Although it began life as the Nigel, the Rupert,  with its extended low frequency response became the weapon of choice for that colossal bass tone.

Rupert is a multi stage FET preamp with gain staging and Germanium diodes that sounds and plays a lot more like a bass guitar amp than a pedal. It is a very responsive bass overdrive that can go from warm semi-clean tubelike bass tone to  ’60’s and ‘70’s fuzz driven crunch. It’s a great bass overdrive for just about any genre.

The amazing thing about the Rupert, is that it provides the dynamic touch response of a vintage tube amplifier. It makes a small bass amp sound massive. It’s like a tiny Concert Arena for your bass guitar!

ABOUT GAIN STAGING

Discrete preamps provide gain in several stages, so that a lot of what happens to provide the right amounts of drive and compression in a preamp is determined by how many discrete stages are employed, and their levels, determining how the stages interact.

Top Features

• Very natural warm sounding circuit
• Not a Digital Modeling Preamp
• All Discrete components
• No Integrated Circuits or Surface Mount components
• True Bypass/9V Battery Included