Zorg Effects Glorious Basstar

The Glorious Basstar is an analog three-band overdrive pedal for bass from Zorg Effects, listed as combining overdrive, booster and equalizer functions in one unit¹. Instead of distorting the whole signal at once, it cuts the signal into three frequency bands, bass, mids and trebles, saturates each band independently, and mixes them back together¹. Zorg Effects positions it as an answer to the usual complaints about bass overdrive: "no more bass, too compressed, loss of precision, not violent enough, too muddy... The glorious basstar can fix all these"¹.

How the three-band design works

The core idea is that each band can be pushed into distortion on its own, and each band can also be left clean to prop the sound back up. According to the circuit's creator, Gabriel, who shared the schematic on the FSB forum, the results differ by band²:

• Saturating the bass gives acid fuzz distortion²
• Saturating the mids gives vintage overdrive tones²
• Saturating the trebles gives more modern overdrive²

Leaving bands clean does the opposite job: "By adding clean bass, you'll get back subs in your tone. By adding clean mids, you'll get back bite. By adding clean trebles, you'll get back attack"². That is the mechanism behind the pedal's pitch: the low end and definition that a single-band overdrive tends to lose can be carried by the clean portion of the same band. It sits among bass pedals generally, and its drive character overlaps with overdrive pedals, distortion pedals and fuzz pedals depending on which bands you saturate.

Clipping options and circuit details

Each band's clipping is switchable. Green diffused LEDs with a 1.6V forward threshold do the default clipping, and DIP switches inside the pedal add or remove 1N4148 diodes with a 1V threshold for each channel. Because the 1N4148's lower threshold is reached first, switching it in changes when and how each band clips².

The circuit uses TL074 opamps and an ICL7660SCPAZ charge pump. Gabriel's advice on parts is specific: "Be sure to use a ICL7660SCPAZ, as others devices use frequencies lower than 20KHz and will result in a high pitch tone"². In other words, a non-S 7660 or some CPAZ-labeled parts can leave an audible high frequency tone in the signal.

Origins and the DIY layout

Gabriel, the pedal's creator, shared the schematic on FSB for everyone to use, and Alex of the Guitar FX Layouts blog published a vero (stripboard) layout of the circuit in November 2015². The layout went through corrections: on 2 December 2015 the volume pot pinout was fixed so pin 3 goes to ground, and the input 1M resistor to ground was moved to after the 10n capacitor². On 4 December 2015, after a builder successfully built and tested it, Alex wrote "You can now tag this as vero! :)"².

For builders, the layout notes also record that the gain pots are 1M, though less works: "plenty of it already on 200K, i used A500K"². The 78k resistors in the filter are hard to find, with suggested substitutes of 75k + 3k in series, 82k, or 68k + 10k in series².

What players said

The documented reaction from the DIY community is positive. One builder using Gabriel's PCB wrote in October 2016: "Wow! This thing is absolute amazing! Never played anything like this before"². That comment comes from a hobbyist on the layout blog rather than a published review, so it reflects one player's enthusiasm rather than a critic's verdict.

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