Orange's Bass Butler vs Walrus’ Badwater

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carmofon

Oct 13, 2023
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#1
Hello everyone, my first post!

I am relatively new to the bass world (I am retired guitar veteran) but I want to have a simple bass effect setup. Based on my readings and music likes, it seems that a compressor and overdrive are a good start. Hence I am drawn to Orange's Bass Butler due to its bi-amp configuration and the ability to blend clean and dirty signals. It is not cheap but its sound seems pretty awesome.

I also found a slightly cheaper pre amp: Walrus' Badwater. I think both pedals have similar specs and both seem to sound great. But as I said, I am pretty new to this so I wanted two know if they have important differences that I am missing, and if anyone has experiences with either or ideally both off them -- or if you know of a video/article comparing them...

Thanks in advance!
 
#3
Thanks Parzival! I am trying to narrow down my options so more alternatives mean more trouble! haha.
Basically I like the blend feature for compression + overdrive that the badwater and bass butler have. I also want an analog system. Any thoughts on these two pedals?
 
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#5
I'd avoid that Walrus one personally. Doesn't sound real great to me and if I remember correctly the frequencies they chose for the EQ are not necessarily ideal for bass. The best I've come across for all in one compression/EQ/overdrive is the Darkglass X Ultra. Crossover beats clean blend imo. Yea it's another suggestion but you might as well know about it before deciding. No experience with the Bass Butler.
 
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#7
IronLung1986 said:
I'd avoid that Walrus one personally. Doesn't sound real great to me and if I remember correctly the frequencies they chose for the EQ are not necessarily ideal for bass. The best I've come across for all in one compression/EQ/overdrive is the Darkglass X Ultra. Crossover beats clean blend imo. Yea it's another suggestion but you might as well know about it before deciding. No experience with the Bass Butler.
Click to expand...

why does crossover beat blend?
 
#8
wolffire99 said:
why does crossover beat blend?
Click to expand...
Generally speaking, you're trying to keep the solid bottom with effect on your higher frequency range and nothing on the lower frequency range. So, a crossover makes that happen.

A clean blend is just that ..clean full range signal mixing with full range effected signal.

I think the OP is better served with the analog solution with a distortion DI and a clean DI with no crazy digital stuff...the Bass Butler is nice!
 
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#9
Had a bass butler for a while. Found a used one at GC for a great price. As single pedal, it’s amazing. Its got a great vintage tone and the compressor sounded good to my ears. Don’t sleep on the clean channel, it’s good. Also the overdrive has great range and the ability to dial both in separately as an internal bi amp is a plus.

Couple things to note. It takes 18v and it’s a center positive plug. Almost every other pedal I have ever owned is center negative. If you search the classified section, you might find my old sellers post which links to a power supply on Amazon that will fit.

Second thing you should know is that there is no bypass for the clean channel. You can’t turn it off. So you are stuck with that sound. I was running a few different pedals and this became a deal breaker for me.

Third, a tip for dialing in your overdrive channel. Cut the treble from your clean tone. Then you will actually hear the differences of the OD channel when fiddling with the EQ. It took me weeks to figure this out. Otherwise, the clean treble fills in the high end and you won’t really hear any changes when messing with knobs on the OD channel.

writing all this out, made me kinda miss the pedal after all. It was pretty great overall but didn’t fit my vibe at the time. Would own it again. I added little stickers on the knobs because I found the little dots a bit hard to see.

had the badwater very briefly. Hated it all around. Not at all in the same league as the Bass Butler IMO. Bonus hate for the fancy shiny knobs. They reflect like hell and from above it’s impossible to see what they are set at from any angle, even close up.
 
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#10
wolffire99 said:
why does crossover beat blend?
Click to expand...

One thing is that when you use a clean blend normally what you're trying to do is preserve the amount and solidness of the low end. But, a clean blend is blending in the entire clean signal, including all the high frequencies. So in trying to get more low end you're also getting more high end. Crossover just keeps the lows clean and overdrives the highs. You can pick the frequency range of the low and high bands and adjust the volume of each. The low band on the X can go up to 500hz which means clean low mids too. The key with the X is the compression on the low band which prevents the low band from dolphining out over the high on transients.

Another is that clean blends sometimes sound kind of lame because you can hear exactly what they're doing: it's a clean sound running alongside the dirty. You can't unhear it once you hear it and when I go to shows I feel like I can almost tell where the bass player has his blend knob set. Crossover presents as a more unified sound. As a bonus, the compressor on the X can be used on the whole signal (not just the lows) on the clean channel.
 
#11
IronLung1986 said:
One thing is that when you use a clean blend normally what you're trying to do is preserve the amount and solidness of the low end. But, a clean blend is blending in the entire clean signal, including all the high frequencies. So in trying to get more low end you're also getting more high end. Crossover just keeps the lows clean and overdrives the highs. You can pick the frequency range of the low and high bands and adjust the volume of each. The low band on the X can go up to 500hz which means clean low mids too. The key with the X is the compression on the low band which prevents the low band from dolphining out over the high on transients.

Another is that clean blends sometimes sound kind of lame because you can hear exactly what they're doing: it's a clean sound running alongside the dirty. You can't unhear it once you hear it and when I go to shows I feel like I can almost tell where the bass player has his blend knob set. Crossover presents as a more unified sound. As a bonus, the compressor on the X can be used on the whole signal (not just the lows) on the clean channel.
Click to expand...
The X series are my favorite Darkglass units.
 
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#12
IronLung1986 said:
One thing is that when you use a clean blend normally what you're trying to do is preserve the amount and solidness of the low end. But, a clean blend is blending in the entire clean signal, including all the high frequencies. So in trying to get more low end you're also getting more high end. Crossover just keeps the lows clean and overdrives the highs. You can pick the frequency range of the low and high bands and adjust the volume of each. The low band on the X can go up to 500hz which means clean low mids too. The key with the X is the compression on the low band which prevents the low band from dolphining out over the high on transients.

Another is that clean blends sometimes sound kind of lame because you can hear exactly what they're doing: it's a clean sound running alongside the dirty. You can't unhear it once you hear it and when I go to shows I feel like I can almost tell where the bass player has his blend knob set. Crossover presents as a more unified sound. As a bonus, the compressor on the X can be used on the whole signal (not just the lows) on the clean channel.
Click to expand...

Interesting, that’s a good explanation. I prefer a midrange overdrive, so if there was one where you could isolate certain frequencies that would be ideal I guess.
 
#13
carmofon said:
Hello everyone, my first post!

I am relatively new to the bass world (I am retired guitar veteran) but I want to have a simple bass effect setup. Based on my readings and music likes, it seems that a compressor and overdrive are a good start. Hence I am drawn to Orange's Bass Butler due to its bi-amp configuration and the ability to blend clean and dirty signals. It is not cheap but its sound seems pretty awesome.

I also found a slightly cheaper pre amp: Walrus' Badwater. I think both pedals have similar specs and both seem to sound great. But as I said, I am pretty new to this so I wanted two know if they have important differences that I am missing, and if anyone has experiences with either or ideally both off them -- or if you know of a video/article comparing them...

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
I'm a bit of a preamp freak and own more than I care to admit.The Bass Butler is one of them and I can surely recommend it.It does the faux biamp thing well,the distortion sounds good as does the clean settings.If you need one preamp for all your needs you could do a lot worse.
 
#14
I'm going to throw a question out and by no means want to derail the thread. If OP feels I have I will come back and delete.

question- would one of these such as the Bass Butler or the Darkglass X Ultra be the one pedal to have for someone that doesn't want a big pedal board? I have a P bass with Rumble 100 amp. Lots of fine tones on tap but am curious about having a compression, EQ, OD thing in my signal.
 
#15
viking power said:
I'm going to throw a question out and by no means want to derail the thread. If OP feels I have I will come back and delete.

question- would one of these such as the Bass Butler or the Darkglass X Ultra be the one pedal to have for someone that doesn't want a big pedal board? I have a P bass with Rumble 100 amp. Lots of fine tones on tap but am curious about having a compression, EQ, OD thing in my signal.
Click to expand...
You could play a gig, without an amp, with either with FOH support.
 
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