Hooker´s Green Bass Machine

Features
The Hooker's Green Bassmachine has the wide dynamic range of bass tube amps and is able to pick up subtle expressions while adding some love to the bottom end of your tone.  This pedal can also be used as an overdrive pedal when paired with a guitar.


Specifications

• Input impedance: 330K
• Output impedance: 25K Max
• Drive voltage: 9V～18V
• Power consumption: 12mA
• S/N ratio: -90dB
• Size: 39Wx100Dx31H mm (excluding  protruding parts)
• 　      47Wx100Dx48H mm (including  protruding parts)
• Weight: Approx. 160 grams
• True-Bypass Switching
• High Quality Aluminum Enclosure
• Power: 9V Battery or Standard DC Power Supply

Bjorn's Description:

The Challenge
The biggest challenge to overcome was the fact that guitarists and bassists feel things differently. While they pursue the best sound on the same ground,they do it in different ways. Understanding what they visualize was the toughest challenge for us. This pedal can intuitively reproduce the sound that bassists feel and imagine in their heads.  This pedal is a milestone for One Control. 

The tone you imagine manifests itself in this pedal.

What does the “distortion effect” mean for bassists? They naturally have different ideas depending on their style of play and genre. Yet, bass distortion effect pedals, especially overdrive pedals, are thought to be an extension of an amp simulator/preamp or onboard active preamp.

In order to fulfill the functions of both an amp and a bass, bass overdrive pedals tend to be multi-functional and large in size due to an increased number of knobs and terminals.  Pedal boards are getting larger, even more so recently. Distortion and various other effects can be used effectively to add color to music. Now, more than ever, bass overdrive effects need casual usability like a guitar overdrive. 

One Control Hooker's Green Bass Machine embodies everything bassists need in its small body from the bass amp features to tone and deep feelings. 

The Sound
Bass tube amps are essential for an old school rock sound. Nothing can beat the controllable tones and feelings they create.  Hooker's Green Bass Machine gives you the tone and feeling of bass tube amps and old transistor amps when used with a modern bass transistor amp, which is common in many music venues and studios. When Hooker's Green Bass Machine is not in use, you can get a modern transistor amp sound.  By combining a modern transistor amp that is most commonly used by contemporary bassists and this small Hooker’s Green Bass Machine, you can cover all the bass amp sounds that many bassists seek.

Hooker's Green Bass Machine has a dynamic range as wide as a bass tube amp and picks up all the subtle expressions that bassists create with their fingers. Transitions between clean and distorted sounds are smooth and it creates a gorgeous but stable compression tone like an old transistor amp when you increase the distortion.

It won’t miss any finger touches and accurately produces any groove from blues, fusion, or hard rock to metal. Its moderately sharp attack and clear sounding keys do not decrease the speed realized by picking. With slapping, percussive chunks of sound by thumbing pop up, and sound created by pulling can be maintained and kept stable. The ability to freely control distortion enables you to play in a relaxed and comfortable way. 

For heavy tracks using a multi-string bass, the Low trim pot on the side does its job. Hooker's Green Bass Machine has enough low-end, but if it’s not enough, adjust the trim pot to unlock even more low-end.

Hooker's Green Bass Machine’s TREBLE knob has limited range to allow subtle adjustment. Many music venues and studios have modern bass amps equipped with powerful EQ and basic bass sound is created using that. What is required for an overdrive pedal is delicate sensory adjustment that is impossible with amp EQ. 

While a number of bass effects pedals have knobs for blending and mixing, Hooker's Green Bass Machine does not have them. The distortion circuit sometimes narrows the dynamic range and as a result creates a “coreless” sound. “Blend” is effective for giving “sound variation” in fuzz and space effects but blending in bass overdrive pedals is only supplementary to dynamic range. Hooker's Green Bass Machine introduced a dynamic amplifier circuit that handles bass signals fully. Thus, it does not create any coreless sound that is impossible to distort and therefore the blend knob is unnecessary. It also helped reduce the size of the product. 

If you absolutely need to blend for sound variation, use One Control Mosquite Blender for blending any effects. 

Hooker's Green Bass Machine does not have a balanced out connector. You can create a lively bass sound with a line connector if you connect it to a mixing board directly and use it as a DI pedal. 

Guitar Use - Guitar Overdrive Pedal
Hooker's Green Bass Machine was originally designed to be a bass overdrive pedal but can function as guitar overdrive pedal as well. 

Its wide dynamic range covers the full range of the guitar frequency and creates various sounds from a clean sound after applying the highest quality compression available to a thicker medium overdrive sound. It’s highly responsive and its ability to express various distortions with the guitar’s volume control is beyond many guitar overdrive pedals. Its response is comparable with One Control Strawberry Red Overdrive and Anodized Brown Distortion that have the highest response level. 

Hooker's Green Bass Machine creates BJF’s “trademark” unique solid dark European tones when it is used as a guitar overdrive pedal.  The frequency range that also supports multi-string bass is ideal for guitars tuned low as well as seven, eight, and nine-string modern guitars.

High Voltage Operation
Hooker's Green Bass Machine operates under high voltage when used with up to an 18V adapter. With higher voltage, head room is increased to allow even richer expression while reducing the gain slightly. 

Although it’s most effective for solo bass or guitar, 9V operation might give a stronger core when used in ensemble or guitar riffs. You can change the voltage according to your needs. 

Hooker's Green Bass Machine is an all-purpose bass machine for any genre of music after the 1950s.  If I had to compare the sound to an artist, I would compare it to Lemmy's iconic bass sound from Motorhead. 


- Bjorn Juhl