EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive

EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive is a great drive pedal with dual parallel paths for bass guitar with lots of options. Since the pedal splits the signal into two parallel paths – one clean and one with distortion – it becomes as if running the sound through two different bass rigs at the same time. The two Clean and Drive Level controls decides how you set the mix and melt the paths together.

For a tighter, more defined sound you can engage the built-in compressor. Threshold settings for the compressor can be adjusted inside. A Phase Inverter switch brings back more low-end to the drive channel in cases when phase cancellation appears. The Boost footswitch kicks up the drive gain a notch when needed.

The new and major feature of the Ultimate version is the Hi or Lo Frequency Filter. This switch moves the whole frequency spectrum of the Tone filter up or down, to extend the capabilities of the pedal. The Hi setting adds a whole new palette of distortion sounds that was not possible to create with previous versions of the pedal.

The individual Effect Loops for each channel can be used to color the channels individually with external effects. 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.

EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive demo video