EarthQuaker Devices Blumes

The EarthQuaker Devices Blumes is an all-analog, tri-mode soft clipping bass overdrive pedal from EarthQuaker Devices. It carries the classic Tube Screamer-style circuit into bass territory: the maker describes it as a pedal that "carries the torch of the classic screamer circuit but has a voice all its own"¹. It was released in January 2024, ahead of NAMM that year, as a bass-focused sibling to the company's Plumes Small Signal Shredder²¹.

The core idea is simple. The Blumes keeps most of the Plumes' characteristics but modifies the circuit with double the gain and a deeper bass response, so the low end does not disappear when the drive comes up¹³. Gearnews summed up the intent: "this bass-centric, modified version doubles the gain and enhances the bass response, ensuring your low-end never gets lost"².

A bass version of the Plumes overdrive

The Plumes Small Signal Shredder launched in 2019 as a low to medium gain overdrive, and EarthQuaker positioned it from the start as designed for both guitar and bass⁶⁷. The Blumes takes that circuit and re-voices it for bass players who found the original too lean down low.

The family resemblance runs deeper than the name. The Plumes itself is an overdrive built around the Tube Screamer-style tube-like circuit, one of the most widely copied overdrive designs in existence⁸. EarthQuaker's twist on that foundation, carried into the Blumes, is the internal bipolar power supply: instead of running the op-amp on a single 9V rail, the pedal generates bipolar power internally, which the maker says gives "more dynamics and all the headroom you could ever desire"¹. Gearnews makes the same point, noting the bipolar supply "ensures better dynamics and more headroom"².

For a bass player, that headroom matters. Overdrives based on the screamer circuit typically roll off low end by design; the Blumes' doubled gain and bass-focused voicing are the countermeasure, letting the pedal push a tube amp without thinning the fundamental. EarthQuaker describes the end result as "a three-dimensional tone with added clarity that really pushes a nice tube amp over the edge"¹.

The pedal is not bass-only. Gearnews describes the Blumes Low Signal Shredder as "the newly developed overdrive for bass and guitar"², so guitar players looking for a heavier, fuller take on the Plumes can use it too.

The controls

The control layout is deliberately minimal: three knobs and a toggle, in a sturdy metal enclosure⁹.

Delicious Audio notes the same simple layout of Volume, Tone and Gain knobs, plus the tri-mode clipping switch⁹. The Tone control is a tilt-style arrangement rather than a treble roll-off alone, so bass players can dial in edge without losing the bottom.

The footswitch is where the Blumes differs from most pedals in its class. EarthQuaker's Flexi-Switch Technology is relay-based true bypass that supports both switching styles at once: "This relay-based, true bypass switching style allows you to simultaneously use momentary and latching style switching"¹. In practice, a normal press engages the effect latching-style, while holding the switch down runs the effect only as long as you keep it held, useful for quick stabs of drive.

Three clipping modes

The three-position toggle is the heart of the pedal, offering three distinct clipping flavors³⁹.

EarthQuaker's own bass settings article, written by Dan Epstein, walks through what each mode does on bass. Mode 1's LED clipping "will give you some serious high-output crunch when you crank the Gain"¹⁰. Mode 2 disengages the clipping diodes entirely, running the OpAmp wide open for the loudest, fullest output, which Epstein describes as "a nice, full-bodied boost that's just the ticket for bass solos, funky slapping, plucking with your fingers"¹⁰. Mode 3's asymmetrical silicon diodes deliver "a fuzzy, compressed tone with a really warm low end"¹⁰, and Epstein points to the Curtis Mayfield "(Don't Worry) If There's Hell Below" bass line as the kind of funky, fluid fuzz that mode can produce¹⁰.

That range is what separates the Blumes from a one-voiced overdrive: within one enclosure a player gets a compressed crunch, a clean boost, and a warm, loose fuzz-adjacent drive, all on a toggle⁹¹.

Plumes vs. Blumes

The short version: the Blumes is a modified version of the Plumes with double the gain and deeper bass response. The three clipping modes and the Flexi-Switch footswitch carry over. A player who already owns a Plumes and is happy with its low end at low gain may not need both; a bassist who found the Plumes too lean has a purpose-built alternative¹².

Price and availability

At launch in January 2024 the Blumes was priced at $99 in the US and £115 in the UK, available from Sweetwater³. By July 2026, Guitar.com listed it at $129 / £124.99⁵, so the US street price has risen since release. The pedal carries EarthQuaker's limited lifetime warranty: "All our devices come with a limited lifetime warranty. If it breaks, we will fix it."¹

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