EBS Billy Sheehan Signature Drive

The EBS Billy Sheehan Signature Drive is a bass overdrive and distortion pedal built by EBS in close collaboration with Billy Sheehan, the bassist known for his high-gain, high-energy playing. It was announced at NAMM in January 2013 and started shipping with the show, arriving in the UK in early February 2013¹.

The core idea is one many bass players arrive at eventually: mixing a clean signal with a distorted signal so you keep your low end while adding grind on top. As EBS put it at launch, the pedal "combines built-in compression, mix tone shaping and the ability to mix a clean and distorted signal"¹. Sheehan described the result in his own words: "you get a totally clean guitar tone, mixed in with however much distortion you want"².

What it does: blended clean and overdriven bass with compression

The pedal splits the incoming signal into two parallel paths, one clean and one distorted, then blends them to a single output. EBS describes it as "like running two bass rigs side by side: one clean and" one driven³. Sheehan explained the topology in a MusicRadar interview: "basically it's a 2 channels of a pedal, one channel does one thing, the other channel does another then they sum and combine"². He also said the drive circuit is an approximation of the Pearce preamp, the rack unit long associated with his sound².

Compression is built in rather than a separate pedal. The original offers three compression modes: High, Mid and Off¹. The current Ultimate version keeps the same three modes³.

Development took time. Sheehan worked a little over two years on the pedal, going through three prototypes plus final tweaks before release². Premier Guitar's reviewer noted the same: "Sheehan worked for almost two years on this pedal, and it most certainly paid off"⁵.

The controls

The original pedal sits in an extended-size stomp box with four rubber knobs and a mini switch⁵¹:

Two things are worth knowing as a player. First, with the drive fully off, the level control has no effect, since it governs the distorted path only; the tone control still works as a midrange shaper⁵. Second, the level of the medium compression setting can be fine-tuned with a trim control inside the pedal⁵. The current Ultimate version adds internal trimmers for the compressor threshold and the MID-mode compression level, plus a Hi/Lo frequency filter that shifts the tone control's entire spectrum³.

The Clean Loop on the current version can also serve as a second input using a standard mono instrument cable, useful for basses with dual outputs³.

The versions: Signature Drive, Deluxe and Ultimate

The pedal has been revised twice since 2013:

The Deluxe was announced at NAMM 2016 and was immediately available from that March⁹. Premier Guitar called it "an upgrade to the original Billy Sheehan Signature Drive's design" with "the addition of a boost switch for more gain on tap"⁶. Guitar Interactive highlighted "the ability to customise your own signature drive via user replaceable op-amps"⁹. The 3rd edition, the EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive, was introduced at NAMM 2019 and EBS reported it available in stores by June 2019¹⁰¹¹.

What reviewers said

Premier Guitar's review of the original was positive on the concept and the sound. On the compression and sustain: "I was able to sustain harmonics until lunch the next day. Even more importantly, I was able to play with great accuracy" even under high compression and drive settings⁵. On the drive character: "Easing up the drive control, I was greeted by a great distortion that begged me to start playing high and fast"⁵. The verdict: "With the Signature Drive, his trademark bass sounds are now achievable and controllable with a single pedal," and the reviewer found it flexible even for non-virtuosos⁵. The cons listed were the hard-to-reach battery compartment and the price⁵.

In a demo for Bass Musician Magazine, Alberto Rigoni tried the Ultimate version and found that "you never lose the bottom end of your bass and you can get so many tones"¹².

The Deluxe review from Premier Guitar summed up its strengths as "Authoritative, Sheehan-esque tone. Practical features and convenient customization"⁶.

Where it sits among EBS drives

EBS makes a range of drive pedals for bass, including the EBS The Drive, the EBS ValveDrive and its ValveDrive DI, the EBS Black Haze fuzz and its Black Haze 2 successor, and the EBS Drive Me Crazy. The Billy Sheehan line stands apart from these through its parallel clean-and-dirty architecture and built-in compression, where most single-path overdrives force you to trade low end for grit. The current version of the line is the EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive, also known as the EBS The Ultimate v3 Billy Sheehan Signature Drive. More generally, it belongs to the wider world of overdrive pedals and bass pedals³¹¹⁰.

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