It turned out so great it has been a significant part of his main setup ever since and served thousands of other bass players as well. NAMM 2019, marks the introduction of the 3rd edition - the EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive.

This pedal is a distillate of several important principles in the signal chain for bass. Compression, distortion, tone-shaping and blending all together.î, Billy said when EBS released his first signature pedal in 2013. The original concept is still the same, but with more features added along the way.

Since the pedal splits the signal into two parallel paths ñ one clean and one with distortion ñ it becomes as if running the sound through two different bass rigs at the same time. The two Clean and Drive Level controls decides how you set the mix and melt the paths together. For a tighter, more defined sound you can engage the built-in compressor.

The Phase Inverter switch brings back more low-end to the drive channel. The Boost footswitch kicks up the drive gain a notch when needed, and the new Hi or Lo Frequency Filter will move the whole frequency spectrum of the Tone filter up or down, to extend the capabilities of the pedal.

The individual Effect Loops for each channel can be used to color the channels individually with external effects. The Clean Loop jack can also be used as a clean input if you have a bass that features dual outputs. It sounds great if you run the lows through the Clean Loop jack while the mids/highs go through the main input, which leaves the lows untouched and only the higher frequencies treated by the drive.

The Ultimate edition has a new slimmer design and will start shipping shortly after NAMM 2019.