EBS Unveils the Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive Pedal
EBS unveiled the latest in their line of signature pedals for bassist Billy Sheehan at the 2019 Winter NAMM Show. The Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive helps to create his sound when he can’t bring his entire rig.
“This pedal is a distillate of several important principles in the signal chain for bass. Compression, distortion, tone-shaping and blending all together,” Sheehan said of the first pedal released in 2013. The 2019 Ultimate version is described as the same concept with more features.
Housed in a slimmer chassis, the new pedal splits the signal into two parallel paths: one for clean and one for distortion. Each has a level control to allow for blending the amount of each you want in your output signal. A built-in compressor can be switched between mid and high settings, while a phase inverter can be switched on to bring back more low-end to the drive channel. One of the new features is a Frequency Filter with Hi or Lo settings to voice the pedal’s overall frequency spectrum.
“The individual Effect Loops for each channel can be used to color the channels individually with external effects,” EBS writes. “The Clean Loop jack can also be used as a clean input if you have a bass that features dual outputs. It sounds great if you run the lows through the Clean Loop jack while the mids/highs go through the main input, which leaves the lows untouched and only the higher frequencies treated by the drive.”
The EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive is available now with a street price of $249.99.
EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive Pedal Features:
| Hi or Lo Frequency range Switch. (new feature) |
| Boost Drive Footswitch |
| Phase Inverter Switch |
| Drive, Tone, Level and Clean controls |
| Three Compressor Modes – High, Mid, Off |
| Clean Loop and Drive Loop (use an insert cable, such as the EBS ICY-30 to separate send and return) |
| Magnet Type Footswitches. (new feature) |
| Replaceable Drive Circuit (8-pin Dual Inline Op-Amp Controlling Drive Circuit) |
| Internal fine tuning trimmers to adjust Threshold level of the compressor (THR.) and the level of Compression when the mode switch is set to MID (COMP) |
| Internal trim pot to set the BOOST switch level inside |
| Power options 9V DC battery or EBS AD9 Pro Power Supply (not included) |
