Aguilar Tone Hammer Preamp / Direct Box Bass Pedal

Great sounding preamp. The DI will always ensure no matter what the back line gear is, I can always dial in my sound.

I bought a second unit after we noticed in the studio that the sound output and tone changed apparently randomly. The second unit is doing the same thing. A previous reviewer noted that after being left on for extended times it "tires out". That may the reason. Sounds great when it is working. Bring a backup.

Like the title says, the tone shaping options work very well, in a variety of settings. Cuts through, warm sound, articulate, adds good punch and body. However, people should know that as long as it is plugged into the chain and powered, it will bleed into your clean sound even when the pedal is off. So, I've been holding off on using it regularly until I get a master-bypass unit to solve this issue. Additionally, while the pedal sounds great for the first hour or so, it starts to "tire out" after that, and becomes too saturated for my taste. I still have found it useful though, and will even more so as soon I can get the bypass (so that I can utilize it as an alternate tonal channel). Oh, and it might just be me, but I have yet to find any good uses for the AGS, which basically comes out as sounding like a super-saturated distortion except at extremely low levels of gain (I'm talking like 7- to 8-o'clock maximum). I play through a Markbass Big Bang with Markbass cabs, and use primarily a Ken Smith EG, so I purchased the pedal as an additional tonal/timbre option that I could switch to and from as needed, rather than to improve the timbre overall (it's not an "always on" for me). This is what makes the lack of true bypass such a problem for me, but not enough of a problem that I would return or sell the pedal rather than find a fix.