Darkglass Microtubes X Ultra

I’m a mixing and recording engineer. I also play drums, guitar and bass both in the studio and live. I play mainly rock, hardrock and metal (death, black, hardcore, metalcore, grindcore, modern prog and oldschool prog). But I’ve mixed and recorded everything from jazz, funk and pop to rock, metal and beyond.

I’ve used it for a couple of months and done a lot of gigs and recordings. This thing is a BEAST! Last couple of gigs the venues did not even have an amp or cab, so I just gave the XLR-out to the front of house... And I was overwhelmed! I’ll never need to haul a bass rig again or worry about what bass gear the venue have (or do not have) on stage. I just bring my bass, a tuner, some cables and the X Ultra and I’ll know the sound will be great. So, how is this possible? Well, this is not ”just” a multiband distortion. It’s everything I need, the full signal chain: one clean and one distorted channel, REALLY good sounding cab sims (adjustable in the included software) and compression with the option to choose wich frequency range to compress and how much. What more do you need for a live application?

For recording it’s a dream! The possibility to separate the highs and mids from the lows is VITAL when it comes to mixing. In my opinion the only way to get a great bass tone in the mix is to divide the bass into two tracks, one for the lows wich I compress super hard and one for the mids and highs wich I EQ and optionally distort (and so on) in separation. I almost never record through an amp, I record DI. With this pedal it’s all done before mixing wich speeds up the recording and mixing process and frees up CPU on your computer due to not using plugins to achieve the same result.

And the tone. Or really, the tones. Wow! I can get a great clean tone for rock and soft sections in metal, I’ve even recorded some smooth indie and even jazz stuff with this thing! I can get oldschool driven tone for 70’s progrock. I can get modern driven and distorted tones, everything from really clear to heavy and punchy to complete mayhem. And even if I max out the mayhem the sound is always very well articulated, wich I prefer since I don’t see the bass as just a filler for the lows in a mix but as an actual instument that needs to be heard in the mix. Ofcourse you can shape the tone to be that ”just a filler-tone”, my point is: it’s up to you to shape the tone.

It’s built like a tank but still not heavy at all. Metal housing and all over quality hardware. Straight forward design, easy to understand and use EQ and mix knobs. Super nice lighting for the EQ and on/off buttons, wich eliminates the visibility problems during dark live scenarios.

So all in all this pedal is an all in one pedal in my opinion, at least for modern hardrock and metal, totally usable for many other genres too. And like I’ve said, I’ve used it for a couple of months now and this is my new workhorse, and lifesaver really. No more carrying heavy bass rigs, no need for a huge pedalboard, no more CPU-heavy amp sim plugins for recording. No more worrying about the tone before or during a gig, guaranteed great sound in a small box. No more endless second guessing the tone while recording and mixing. It’s ABSOLUTELY worth the price! Actually, it’s THE pedal for me.

Darkglass, you have done it again! The only question I have is, how do you top this? Haha!

This pedal was bought as the solution to multiple issues, i wanted a pedal that could function as a di or work with my amp, or both, for live settings. To be able to record high quality tones without micing a cab or using plugins, and to fulfil a specific purpose on my pedalbaord as i always run a compressor last in my chain, this pedal does all I require and more, it has multiband eq, headphone out and line in so i can connect my phone and headphones and practice with songs quietly.

Going to the darkglass suite gives the option to change cabsims or engage the fullband clean compression, allowing this pedal to function as an amp/cab replacement, distortion, compressor and practice tool.

Overall im quite inpressed with the pedal, the frequency selection knobs i leave wide open so theres crossover of bass/trable frequencies for a thicker/more traditional sound, dialling in these knobs seperates the bass and treble frequencies being compressed/distorted for a more modern distorted tone. The multiband eq allows total control of tone sculpting, however i leave these mostly flat or sometimes with a boost to treble and bass frequencies, dialling in the high treble frequencies too much seems to add a lot of hiss to the signal, however for bass i doubt anyone will be boosting the treble frequencies to the max so this is not an issue