With the Darkglass ADAM bass preamp, the Finnish company presents the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine, developed together with Periphery bassist Adam "Nolly" Getgood, combining all the ingredients for a modern metal bass sound in a convenient pedal. Besides the intelligent one-knob compressor behind the input and the excellent clean section, the Darkglass ADAM accordingly offers a distortion effect with four characterful presets and flexible adjustment via drive and character controls. The Darkglass ADAM's 6-band graphic equalizer also allows you to precisely adjust the timbre, while the integrated IR speaker simulation promises natural sound experiences when using balanced outputs, the headphone jack or the integrated audio interface. Last but not least, three preset memories, an aux-in and MIDI compatibility complete the bass preamp.
Despite the extensive options for sound design, the Darkglass ADAM features an intuitive operating concept. The most striking features are undoubtedly the six illuminated touch sliders of the graphic EQ, which allow precise adjustment of the sound with the swipe of a finger. The three footswitches also house rotary encoders for selecting compressor ratio, distortion mode and impulse response. Furthermore, the ADAM offers five classic controls for adjusting compression, drive, character, blend and level.
Directly at the input, a convenient one-knob compressor provides smooth dynamics and responsive sustain. Intelligent circuitry automatically adjusts the make-up gain for optimum level, while four ratio settings determine the strength of the compressor. Behind the compressor, the Darkglass ADAM splits the bass signal into separate signal paths for clean and distortion, with the clean section offering an extremely transparent sound and additional multi-band compression.
With the flexible distortion section, the Darkglass ADAM also turns out to be a guarantor for excellent distortion sounds with enormous sound potential. Four characterful presets, inspired by Nolly Getgood's favorite bass effect, cover a wide gain range from mild overdrive to synth-like bass fuzz. Controls for Drive and Character help to precisely dial in the distortion effect. The distortion signal path of the bass preamp also houses the speaker simulation based on impulse responses, which guarantees a particularly natural sound experience even with direct pickup.
The Darkglass ADAM combines the clean and distortion signals via the blend control, whereby the ratio of both circuits can be freely determined. The 6-band graphic equalizer with its optimally selected frequency bands and up to 12 dB boost or cut each helps to precisely tune the overall sound.
Last but not least, the Darkglass ADAM comes up with extensive connectivity options, with which the handy pedal can be integrated into almost every stage and studio setup. In addition to two outputs with balanced jack sockets, there is an XLR output with ground lift, while the headphone jack allows for silent practicing. The Darkglass ADAM can also be used as an audio interface or connected to the Darkglass Suite software via the modern USB-C port. Furthermore, there are mini-jack aux-in and MIDI connections available.