I've had the DG Microtubes BK7 (V1) for many years now and its an indispensable pedal for me. When I got back into playing metal after a few year hiatus due to a wrist injury I wanted to reshape my sound. I hadn't run distortion before getting this pedal and was leery about getting a muddy mess of a sound. After some research I found the Darkglass makes bass gear, for bass players. Not just some guitar pedal with the word "bass" printed on it. Being able to blend the clean signal with the distortion, and the level of refinement in the distortion circuit gives you so much range. Originally this was my only distortion source in my chain and I could get a crushing, punchy sound with just this pedal. A few years ago I bought the Darkglass Alpha-Omega 900W head to replace my aging Ampeg 400w. After dialing in the A-O's build in distortion I thought I would place the BK7 on a shelf to collect dust. I decided to play around with it in the effects loop and after a while I found a tone I love! It went from the meat and potatoes of my distortion sound to the icing on the cake. Whatever your needs are, from light tone shaping to all out crushing distortion, this pedal can deliver.

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This pedal is not only great for super aggressive sounds! You can get some nice lower-gain drive out of it as well. If you get it, really spend some time with it and play it in a mix with other instruments to give it a fair shake. If you want to hear some (non-dingwall lol) sounds with this guy, check out my video review below.

Does everything you need direct out is nice

So this is a little difficult to review because where it fails as a preamp (for my needs), it makes up for in another area.

Preamp: I bought this to replace my Darkglass Harmonic Booster clean preamp. You can use this as a clean preamp, but you lose a lot of tone control features such as the mids (the reason I purchased this), mid frequencies, and the high and low boosts. If you want access to these features, you need to blend in the level. Even with the drive at 0, there will be some dirt added to your signal (which I didn't want).

Distortion: I did place this in my signal chain as a dirt pedal and ended up replacing my MXR Bass Distortion. The dirt, grit, and tone control is amazing. But I would suggest the BK3 if all you're looking for is distortion.

Overall, if you want dirt (which sounds beautiful) in your signal this is an incredible preamp. If you're looking for a clean preamp, you'll be paying for a lot of EQ sculpting features you will not be able to use. As a distortion pedal, you have so much control of your tone plus options of throwing your signal out as both clean and dirty.

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I was first amazed by how quickly it had arrived. And with someone keeping in touch with me throughout the entire shipping process also amazed me. Hands down best customer service I have ever experienced with an online purchase! As for the pedal, it's what I expected it to be. All I could ever want and more. 100% satisfied with this!

This is the first pedal that puts out sound so good that I don"t feel like something is lacking. Right out of the box it was very easy to dial in a good result. A little more effort and I got great sound. I have had other types Pedals that only sounded good after dialing in just the right mix. And after all that I still felt it wasn"t where I wanted to go.
While this pedal is doing extremely cool things, it still preserves a connection with the original clean tone of the amp.

I really tried to like this pedal. After watching all the video's I kept thinking, perhaps this is the grind I need. But alas, no go. It just seemed to add a nasty high end buzz and no matter where I set it it just didn't sound good. Not amp like at all. All I can say is if you are particular about how your Bass sounds be cautious.

Shout out to Brent At Sweetwater! Always great Service and understanding!

I am not a distortion guy. I want a touch of overdrive. I thought the Catalinbread SFT would do but I didn't like it. I watch all the Darkglass YouTube videos and say to myself " why don't these guys just play guitar if they want all that distortion?"

I thought if I ever got a Darkglass pedal it would be one of the Vintage ones. I was very surprised at myself when I saw this pedal at Sweetwater and I bought it.

I plugged it in and was playing with the knobs and switches and was saying to myself " I'll be sending this back tomorrow" when I turned a knob and hit a string and the sound that I hear I in my head came out of the speakers.

I'm keeping it.