Full transparency: Frank Bello of Anthrax is a good friend of mine and we worked on his autobiography, Fathers, Brothers, And Sons, together. I’m doubly pleased, then, that the signature SansAmp pedal that he’s been developing with the Tech 21 team has turned out to be such a triumph. At only $249, it should be accessible for anybody who can afford a bass guitar.
The goal with the Street Driver 48 – named after the music stores on New York’s 48th Street where Bello hung out as a teenager – was to make a simple-to-use amp emulation pedal that gets you the full range of clean and driven tones. This goal has been achieved thanks to a four-knob interface that couldn’t be easier to manage, with Drive and Level controlling the gain/overdrive and output. An active two-band EQ cuts and boosts Low and High frequencies, and two push buttons – labelled Dirt and Filth – add different kinds of distortion.
