KHDK Fallout Bass Overdrive

The Fallout Bass Overdrive is a bass overdrive pedal from KHDK, developed with Dave Ellefson of Megadeth. KHDK describes it as giving "a full-bodied punch without modifying your original tone": a fat bottom end with an overdriven midrange tone on top, rather than a wholesale change to your bass sound.¹

How it works

The pedal uses what KHDK calls bi-amp technology: two discrete circuits that divide your signal down two paths. The first path stores your original dynamics and color, keeping it unmodified. The other path adds a distorted sound with fullness and punch, and as the two signals meet again the result is your original tone with the overdriven layer summed on top of it.¹

That split is the core of the design. Because the clean path is left untouched, the fundamental of your bass stays intact, and the dirty path supplies the overdriven midrange that helps a bass cut through a mix.¹

Controls and channels

The Fallout has Dirty and Clean channels. KHDK says these "allow you to craft your sound with just the right amount of richness," letting you set how much of the overdriven signal is blended against the untouched original.¹

Where it sits among bass overdrives

The Fallout belongs to the wider family of bass pedals and sits in the overdrive category, alongside distortion and fuzz designs that take a heavier approach to the same job. KHDK's earlier bass overdrive, the KHDK Abyss, was the company's first pedal aimed specifically at bass players and used the same bi-amp approach of two discrete circuits; the Fallout carries that design forward.¹