EBS MicroBass 3 2-channel Preamp Pedal Reviews

I tried other Preamps/DIs including the MXR and the Ampeg... but this is one for me. Great tones and features!

The Microbass 3 is an amazing preamp, it was exactly what I was looking for to enhance my tone! It is incredibly sturdy and well built, a home run in every aspect! The only negative is it is a little pricey but the tones that it provides are phenomenal!!

I was looking to change up my D.I., preamp, bass multi-tool lineup, and after considering a variety of preamp-D.I. boxes out there, I decided on the EBS Microbass 3. It's a well voiced and feature laden package that is giving me wonderful clean tones that sound tight and polished with some punch and growl, and the overdrive channel is quite good, be it for some subtle grit or vintage style grind. I like the one knob compressor and find it musical and usable, and the tuner does it's job quite well. Add in the effects loop, and two XLR outs and other features, as well as the solid build quality it seems to have, it seems to be money well spent for me so far. I've used it in a straight into the p.a. application, as well as driving an external amp rig by using the amp head's return jack of the effects loop, and it's delivered the tone goods that put a smile on my face very well.

Love the sound of the preamp pedal right out of the box and just dialing in a bit of tone! Tons of features...can't wait to really digest everything!

Great tone and sureness! Very high end sound, easy to use and like owning a real tune amp and real tone with the best DI sound I have heard in a preamp. I will take this to every gig

There are a lot of pros and some minor cons to this unit, but overall it is designed to save you from a inadequate back line and I believe it would do that very well.

What I liked: lots of DI options, headphone out, easy to use, fairly versatile, tuner

What I didn’t: the frequency of the low control (If you play a 5 and like a lot of low end it gets muddy quick even in passive mode), no 9 volt option,

Other thoughts: I need to read closer. I initially thought this unit had two notches one for high mid and one for low mid, but in reality it is one for the main channel and one for the drive. The voicing did not seem as flat as I expected, but would probably be great for a passive 4 string P bass or Jazz. In the end I decided to stick with my Fishman Platinum Pro which has the 9 volt option.

Not going to say much here since others have given great detail reviews already.

It is like having a 2 channel amp head. The Tuner is very accurate which i proved by using the built in tuner and then checked it with my BOSS Chromatic Tuner TU-3! I also ran it into my Blackstar bass amp through the effects loop return and wow, really made the amp come alive. This thing has just about every feature one needs.

I originally purchased the Doug Pinnick pedal from another mfr, which is a great pedal to achieve some aggressive sounds including Chris Squire and Geddy. But the clean and dirty channels produced drastically different audible sound levels due to the built in mid scoop on the dirty Doug channel. The was no way to mix or blend making the pedal a problem to use unless it was left always as clean or dirty. Drastically changing amp, bass or pedal outputs when changing channels isn't practical in any application really except studio.

So when I saw video reviews of the EBS Microbass 3. I saw a much better solution for my needs of having minimal equipment to carry to achieve maximum efficiency and flexibility. With built in tuner, compression and two completely separate blendable channels, I can get just above any sound I have needed thus far. The controls are all straightforward and not much mystery as to what each does. Easy to tweak as needed and no issues when switching from clean to dirty mid song as I can keep levels identical or add some boost when switching easily


Overall sound is sweet and full. I have not tried to get similar sounds from this as I had with the Pinnick pedal, there has been no need in the week I have had the 3, not sure it will get them since the Pinnick mid scoop and other EQ tweaks were pretty extreme and it did sound great for Doug, Chis and Geddylike tones, but the bands I play in don't go there. The 3 so far sounds great and works great for the groups I do play in and for my own playing when I do get more aggressive.

This was an expensive shot in the dark as I was really only familiar with the Multi Comp and Octa Bass from EBS (which are both great, btw). I love the Aguilar Tone Hammer and the SansAmp stuff, but I was really looking to simplify and get as close to an all-in-one solution so I could take my other pedals back for my guitar board, as well as keep the price reasonable. To my taste, EBS has done it. There's no bypass option, unfortunately, but (good or bad) given that most pedals tend to have their own tonal character, the clean channel alone is about as close to plugging straight into the amp as I've heard in a while. Under soloed critical listening, there is some comparative tonal difference when manually bypassing, but it's subtle enough that it's hardly worth mentioning and is effectively unnoticeable in a mix, especially after other processing. The drive channel surprised me. As much as I wanted it to, it doesn't replace or upstage any of my other drives that I've come to love, but what is does do is offer something that I didn't know I even wanted. It also appears to complement some other drives well, and creating new layered tones has been both fun and inspiring. The compressor is certainly useable for a single knob. The sweet spot will vary from instrument to instrument, player to player, style to style, and the input gain setting, but for a plug and play box I have zero initial complaints. The tuner is as simple as it gets and does the job just fine. I don't use stereo effects on bass, but having the option is nice. I haven't directly compared the DI to others, but it delivers a strong clean signal, and so far seems to be better than what some amps and a lot of venues have to offer (if they offer anything at all). I'm also impressed with the smalI footprint. I expected this thing to be huge with all the knobs and I/O available, but it really only takes up about the same space as two single pedals. Brushed metal housing, soft foot switches, red backlit toggle switches, smooth pots with just the right amount of tension, you know EBS is proud of this baby. Sometimes having a ton of options is what you want, sometimes simplicity is all you need. For my wants and needs, this offers a fair amount of both.

Where oh where to begin?
Oh yes.
A big thanks to Cody at Sweetwater for his good cheer and constant helpfulness.
Now on to the box. I love this thing.
Hard to believe that this brick of a stomp box has so much functionality.
I use it to drive a QSC power amp and an Eden 2x12 cabinet.
Basically, as a preamp, the clean channel is absolutely clear and clean,
and the dirty channel ranges from fuzzy to grunty.
Favorite features...
The dual filters and the tone controls per channel can give you any sound you wish for.
Dual configurable balanced outputs for DI and driving a power amp.
Lots of gain to drive a power amp.
Stereo option for effects loop to drive a stereo power amp via balanced outputs.
Series and parallel switch for the clean/dirty channel config.
Dual clean/dirty inputs for parallel mode to use different effects per channel.
Hyper configurable overdrive/distortion engine with Q filter control.
And finally, mute button and silent practice stereo headphone output.
Probably forgot some but there are other standard features.
I've had this a couple of weeks at the home studio and am not done exploring all the tonality.
All the features allow for a variety of configurations in the signal stream.
Really pleased with this thing. Not cheap but very worth every penny.
EBS has the operators manual on their site and it is worth downloading.
There is a block diagram in this manual.
I would recommend staring at the block diagram for a while to figure out what is useful for you.
Thanks EBS, and Sweetwater.

In search of an active DI, I came across the Micro Bass EBS line. I am not disappointed, it has very many EQ options including clean EQ bypass and a separate drive channel in which the drive frequencies can be switched and dialed way down to a practically clean second channel if desired. The ability to switch the drive channel on and off is also helpful if only one channel is needed. I"ve used it in performance already and multiple rehearsals using different amplifier setups—direct thru PA, integrated bass system, and my own power amplifier, and all have performed very well. I run a mix of lo-pass/hi-pass frequency preamplifier pedals with a set of 12-Step MIDI pedals, so the second channel is helpful when blending a mix of all those instruments and sounds together. I"ve tried it all by itself as well for the first few days, and it sounded pretty decent. This could get you through a gig all by itself. Great for travel because it is so small—two standard sized pedals.
I watched the demonstration videos available at EBS before making the decision to make this purchase, but they were very helpful in determining if it addressed my needs.

I’ve been on the search for the easiest pedal amp to go and this one was so close to perfect it’s scary. I’m a helix user I’ve own a helix for about a year now and it’s my go too. But I want a small rig something that just sounds good and has a few things to it. One being compression which this has. The other being a drive channel and it has it a major one is a tuner and it has it the only thing this is missing is a cab sim. I really don’t like di without a cab sim and I don’t want to have another pedal this is so close to perfect and it does sound good but the helix wins again.

Overall is a good unit. But with headphones is noisy and with the regular output also noisy. I fixed the output noise with the Boss Noise Suppressor (using x method) and now is ultra quiet. With the headphones I planned to use a noise filter. I found that the pedal was a little dark to my taste and I used a mxr eq 108s to stand out the high frequencies. The tunner is ok/good not great. Using this preamp i like the stock compressor better than my mxr m87. The Di's are quality. Also the Drive channel and blend option are great(for my taste, not for metal). I have an on/off botton in the side that sometimes fall off.