Darkglass Vintage Microtubes

The Darkglass Vintage Microtubes is a bass overdrive pedal that mixes your clean signal with an overdriven signal, so you keep your low end while adding grit on top. Darkglass describes it as providing "warm tube-like tones with a natural dynamic response that echoes the organic compression of old tube amps and reel-to-reel tape machines"¹. Premier Guitar characterized it as meant to deliver "a wide spectrum of classic, overdriven bass tones from the '70s up through the '90s," rather than emulating one particular amp model². It sits in Darkglass's Core Series¹, and the maker's product page shows it as sold out as of October 2026¹.

What it is and what it does

The pedal is the work of Finnish bassist and audio engineer Douglas Castro, founder and CEO of Darkglass Electronics, based in Helsinki⁴. Premier Guitar reported that the design work is Finnish but the units were handbuilt in Seattle, Washington, by Spencer Doren, owner of 3Leaf Audio². Bass Musician Magazine noted that each unit is individually hand signed to show it was inspected and tested before shipment⁴.

The core idea is the clean blend. The Blend knob mixes your untouched input signal with the overdriven signal, and the clean side stays at unity gain while the Level knob sets the volume of the driven side, which gives you fine control over the ratio⁵. That is what lets a bassist add saturation without losing the fundamental low frequencies the instrument depends on.

The circuit itself is essentially the same as the earlier Microtubes B3K, according to Aion FX's technical analysis, but it removes the B3K's two toggle switches and adds the Era control, a midrange tone control³. Premier Guitar noted the jack configuration is the same as the B3K's². The B3K carried Level, Drive and Blend knobs plus Attack and Grunt switches⁷, so the Vintage trades those voicing switches for the single Era knob.

Despite the name, there is nothing glowing inside. Premier Guitar's review put it plainly: "There are no 'microtubes' in this pedal (or any tubes at all for that matter), so don't let the name fool you"².

The controls

Four knobs run the pedal². Here is what each does, per Darkglass's manual:

Premier Guitar called the blend and drive controls standard for an overdrive, but singled out Era as "certainly" the pedal's most important control². The reviewer found that pushing the blend to 100 percent gave a nicely compressed, usable tone².

The pedal uses a soft bypass switch for silent on/off switching, and a blue LED lights up when the effect is active⁶².

The Era knob

Era is the control that gives the pedal its name and its range. Premier Guitar called it "a tonal-time machine of sorts that acts as a filter and adds dynamic control at the same time," and described it as the pedal's secret sauce².

• Era at minimum: boosts the mids and adds warmth to the overall tone². Bass Musician Magazine's reviewer found that in 60s mode it rounds out the tone with some low end boost⁴.
• Era rolled up: adds more definition, and the tone becomes more aggressive².

Bass Musician Magazine's Kilian Duarte found the extremes useful in unexpected ways, writing that "with the ERA option all the way '60's' and the Drive cranked to 10 it could pass for a pretty sweet, cleaner FUZZ pedal"⁴.

Power and connections

The manual's specification sheet lists current consumption at about 17mA⁵, while a warning section in the same manual gives the current draw as 20mA⁴; plan your power supply for the higher number. The power jack sits below the input jack on the right side of the pedal, which is worth knowing before you cable up a tight board². The 1/4" input and output jacks are on the sides, and the housing is durable brushed aluminum with a footprint smaller than a standard tuner². Bass Musician Magazine described the chassis as solid steel⁴, while Premier Guitar and RockBoard describe aluminum²⁸.

To activate the warranty, Darkglass asks you to register the product with its serial number at mypedal.darkglass.com, and to contact support@darkglass.com before shipping a product to them⁵.

Where it came from

The Vintage Microtubes followed the original Microtubes B3K, arriving in early 2013³. The B3K, launched earlier, was Darkglass's overdrive with Level, Drive and Blend knobs plus Attack and Grunt switches⁷. The Vintage simplified that layout into four knobs and added Era³.

The circuit family has kept growing. MusicRadar reported that Darkglass's Microtubes Infinity combines three of the company's distortions, the B3K, Vintage and X, in one pedal⁹. Related Darkglass pedals covered elsewhere on this site include the Microtubes B3K, the Vintage Microtubes Deluxe, the Vintage Ultra and the Vintage Deluxe V3.

What reviewers said

Published reviews were positive across the board.

• Premier Guitar (2021) listed as pros "Authentic and warm overdriven tone" and that it "Delivers vintage vibe without vintage cost," at a $255 street price². The reviewer tested it with a vintage Ampeg B-15, alternating between a Fender '75 Jazz reissue and a '78 Fender P².
• Bass Musician Magazine (2015): Kilian Duarte gave it 4.7 out of 5⁴. He found it "studio capable and tracked incredibly well," with the blend knob allowing a desirable balance with the natural bass tone⁴. On character, he wrote that "I think this pedals strong suit is in more classic heavy bass scenarios," punk rock and classic rock more than djent⁴.
• Pedal of the Day (2015): Mike B called it a fun overdrive whose Era and Blend controls produce usable sound in today's modern world, and praised the soft bypass switch and sleek metallic enclosure⁶.

For a player deciding where this fits: reviewers consistently pointed it at vintage and classic-rock territory rather than modern high-gain styles, with the clean blend and Era knob as the features that set it apart from a plain overdrive.

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