Furnace Bass Drive

I can’t say exactly when — it’s more a sense of the era. Those overdriven bass sounds of the late 60’s…I was a kid and Orange County still had large pockets of citrus, strawberries, and rural. 

 

Broadcasting from Orange County Plaza, there was a small underground radio station in Garden Grove. Its call letters were KTBT.

I rode my bike to go pick up Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” from a record store in the same plaza. It was 1968. A 45 RPM on Atco, I actually preferred the ‘B’ side, SWLABR. Plenty of other examples: The Who’s “My Generation”, anything Vanilla Fudge, West, Bruce and Laing, etc.

Fast forward 10 years…

I’m not exactly sure when the first time it was that I became aware of Rudy Sarzo. My memory somehow remembers it being, 1978-ish, at The Starwood. Quiet Riot was billed with Eulogy, an Orange County band. About an hour from where I lived, I didn’t drive into West Hollywood unless it was a bill that caught my attention. Quiet Riot was flashy and they had Randy Rhodes. Quiet Riot also had this new bass player, Rudy Sarzo. I don’t recall seeing him (Rudy) before that. Flashy, licking his fingers, while playing a ‘68-ish sunburst Jazz Bass. We exchanged a few words, band stuff…I told myself, I’d go see them again.

Fast forward to 1992/3…

I was an R&D builder in the Fender Custom Shop. Rudy had made his way through Quiet Riot, Angel, and Ozzy’s band. At that time, in 1992, he was a member of Whitesnake. At Fender, in the throes of revamping the entire bass line, Rudy brought something different to the mix. We had lots of players providing input but up until that point, we didn’t have a player providing input from that angle. Along with Stu Hamm, Roscoe Beck, Mark Browne, and others, Rudy provided much to the project.

What’s with the fragmented history? It brings me to today, when Rudy called expressing a need for a tool he could use for flyaway dates. These days, while one might still see an occasional bank of SVT’s, one seldom sees Marshall Majors or Hiwatt amplifiers being used for bass. Tubes are still available but not to the extent they were 40-50 years ago. Yah, it’s been that long. Rudy explained that, on flyaway dates, while he might request a particular amplifier, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what he’ll end up with it. He explained further in wanting to achieve a “harmonic distortion” no matter what rig he was provided.

I had just finished the initial release of my Advancing Drive Pedal for guitar. In much the same way, what Rudy was requesting was one of the objectives I was looking to achieve when I developed the Advancing Drive. In theory, I took what I had learned and applied it to Rudy’s request and situation. Knowing him well enough, there was a bit of anxiety, in that, if I wasn’t anywhere -near- the ballpark, he’d let me know.

I started on a prototype. While it’s never expected, there have been a few occasions in my career, when presenting a player with a first article, I’ve been told; “That’s it, don’t change a thing!” That’s what I got when Rudy called back.

After introducing a few early units to other players who’ve been kind enough to test drive them for me, this is my Furnace Bass Drive. Using the same enhancement device as my previous drive, along with suggestions and feedback from a cross section of working bass pros, it does provide that familiar “harmonic distortion” as described above. Check out the initial comments.

“The Furnace is killing it right now!”
-Rudy Sarzo

“Most bass overdrive, distortion, fuzz pedals seem to drop the bottom end eq out when used and only seem to accentuate the high end frequencies. You have quite the opposite, in fact the more saturated the signal is with drive the deeper the low end frequencies seem to become. I also like that even at high gain saturation levels you never lose the clarity of the note.”
-Jason Smith bassist EchoVox

“This bass pedal is insane!”
-Nikki Sixx

 

Mark Kendrick Design products are proudly offered through our friends at…