Darkglass Alpha Omicron Bass Preamp/OD Pedal Reviews

I had a gig that required an overdriven "this one goes to 11" sound. While my bass amp can deliver the same overdriven tones as this pedal, doing so would create a substantial blast radius with no possibility of survival. Whether you are channeling your inner Lemmy, bringing heft to a punk trio, or delivering doom to the masses, this pedal is the way to go.

This has to be one of the best pedals I've had in a long time. Other brands I've used don't have the control that the Alpha Omicron does. Between the blend and other features, this has become my "go to" pedal for overdrive and gain. We just played a debut concert at a local music theater and not only was it easy to change settings as needed between songs, it added just the right amount of dirt and grind to punch through and drive the songs home!! In my opinion, this pedal wins !!!

Small package big sound, easy to set up sounds really nice definitely a good pedal for a pedal board. Thanks sweetwater

I was in search for a bass tone that had gain but kept its clarity and low end. This pedal does just that. My sales engineer Taylor recommended this pedal and it's a beast. My band plays in Drop B and I play thru a SWR Workingman 4004 amp head with matching cabs, 4x10 and 1x15. As soon as I activated this pedal, it shook the walls, literally (lol). I set mine to more of the "Alpha," settings, the low end boosts and the grit sound blends well. If your in search of a good distortion pedal for you bass rig, this is it. Definitely worth the money!!

I don't know what else to say but yep, it's awesome. It gave me exactly what I was hoping it would, thick meaty deep saturated brutal bass tones at any volume. The low end is clear and impactful, and reacts instantaneously to low-register staccato mayhem in a way no overdrive pedal I've ever tried to use for bass has ever come close to doing... the highs are crunchy and singing. The Alpha and Omega tones are very different, but both very usable. I had to read the manual a couple times and fiddle with the Blend and Level knobs to figure out exactly what they were doing, but once I figured it out I was able to dial in exactly what I was looking for, and knew how to make adjustments to get other sounds I wanted with ease. 2021 Jazz Bass sounds killer with it... but my 2004 StingRay along with this thing is an absolute beauty. I see why EBMM has a Darkglass Stingray bass... they pair marvelously. The pedal LOVES the EBMM Stingray 3-band EQ. Perfection. I need a forklift to get my jaw off the floor.

This is a great distortion pedal. I use a few Dsrkglass products. I bought this for heavily saturated tones and it delivers well. The things I notice the most are that it really makes my low end growl, and it's good at being quiet between notes. That's important to me and also what sets this apart from many other distortions I've tried. Another great pedal from Darkglass.

Purchase a pedal recently used it for the first time amazing better than the Billy Sheehan pedals just an overall Great Sound I recommend it

I've recently joined a prog metal band recently that immediately hit the studio up once they had me. I didn't have the right pedals for this job, so I ended up throwing my cash at the Omicron.

I did not regret it.

It's not as aggressive as the B3K, and has a very beautiful throaty growl to it that adds to agro-plucking. This pedal sounded fantastic when we were in the reamp stages. I dabbled with both the Alpha and Omega sides for different flavors for each track, and got exactly what I needed from this pedal. It's definitely staying on my board.

Been a huge fan of Darkglass products for a few years, now. I have the Vintage Ultra pedal, the B7K Ultra v2, and I've upgraded 2 basses in the stable with Tone Capsules. The products get a lot of hype for a reason: They are good.

Just got my Alpha Omicron in the mail today. Wanted to cut down on full featured preamp pedals, but I use 3 different styles of drive for live shows. The vintage ultra is my least used and cutting down on one stomp button seems like a good idea. SO, I went with the Alpha Omicron for that Omicron-side rattly distortion that sounded like it would cut... especially on the attack of each note.

I patched it into my pedalboard in place of the Vintage Ultra and fell in love. The distortion is just how I thought I heard it. The tone is all there, with a little less of the upper mid compression that I hear from my B7K Ultra. I was sorta worried that they would sound too similar, and I would wind up in the same boat: shuffling through a set with 2 drive tones, and always wanting one more. But this pedal ticks my preference boxes in all the right places.

The A-O knob selects between 2 different drive flavors. The Alpha side is more beefy and solid, while the Omicron side has that badass rattle and clank that gets each note it's own time to shine. And frankly, it sounds more menacing. The great part is that you can blend between the 2. I find that about 3 o'clock sounds right to me. Plenty of rattle and attack, with a touch of that solid Alpha side to fill it out. Needless to say, it is now my heavy drive sound, somewhere between my moderate drive B7K sound and my heavy fuzz op-amp Muff sound.

I'm taking away 1/2 star on general principle. Nothing is perfect. Besides... wth is the power jack doing on the side of the pedal?

This pedal is straight fire..... I didn't need another DI but wanted that Darkglass growl so this pedal fit my needs perfectly. This is my third Darkglass pedal and they have yet to disappoint.

From the shores of a dark glassy fjord comes a creature of darkness. Hard to see but alway present, darkness made manifest. This creature howls in raspy tones that sets speaker cones to shiver. Even when blending with the background. The tones are cold with the touch of madness associated with only the eldest of gods. The creatures drive for distortion knows no bound s, and just a little will drive your tones into a dark scary place. Somewhere in Finland, some guy scoops up these creatures up and shoves them unceremoniously into a metal gray effect petal that tortures it with 9v.

Good. Sounds both the alpha and the omega sound great for distortion with fuzz. Overall I preferred and thought it was worth spending more for the B7K Ultra, which I think sounds significantly tighter, sharper, hifi, modern, and crunchier.

The product I have received is exactly what I had expected.
I am more than satisfied with the prompt and convenient shipping by Sweetwater.

When I first got the pedal, I was blown away at all the tonal options you could get from this thing. It is crazy! But after I played 3-4 gigs with it, it started to malfunction and give unbearable noises through my speaker cabinet. I even bought a 1Spot Reverse Polarity Adapter because I thought it was the problem. Eventually, I decided to return it to Sweetwater and get the Tech 21 Geddy Lee YYZ Pedal. I have to say I was kind of sad to return it because the tone I got out of it was incredible, I just couldn't bear the power noise of it. Gave it 3.5 stars cause of the problems.

the clean blend is actually your actual clean bass tone, not many clean blends can do that! so thats a big plus. the gain sounds, however,, sound artificial and don't seem to get very deep into your signal. my bass has more sustain than this pedal. at the end of longer notes you can hear the distortion just kind of sizzle away and evaporate. I play a double p w/SVT and just need a lil'nudge to get gritty and I just couldn't get the sounds I wanted. I think it might work better with a more modern sound and gear to fit into the clean better. this pedal does sound clearer and grittier than other drive pedals I've tried, which is good, but just wasn't to my taste. once you hit the growl button you'll never turn it off! perfect eq slice for bass. also liked the hi end freqs too. so not a keeper for me, but you should try it, all the cool kids dig it!

I tried so hard to get a good sound with this pedal, to no avail. This pedal has been hyped up so much that I fell for the hyperbole. After I bought it I kept it on my pedalboard for about a year waiting for the opportunity to use it. Or never came. I tried many times to integrate the sound to my playing but I just could never get a good tone out of the thing. It was just too synthetic.I finally sold it for half of what I payed for it. Darkglass! Never again!