Electro Harmonix Battalion

Great pedal. Allows for quite a lot of tone-shaping. It's a 5/5 pedal in terms of price-performance ratio. Here's what stands out:

+ Good DI with a separate volume knob, ground lift and bypass option for the DI signal (all on the side).
+ Good 4-band EQ.
+ A nice distortion unit, goes from subtle growl to an almost opaque fuzz. Can replicate the sound of most distorted bass songs one can cover.
- Noise gate sucks. It's only good enough to gate noise between songs, not during.
- Compressor is alright for amateurs or those not fussy about the exact sonic palette. Not for perfectionists.

Longevity?* Works great after half a year of use. I'd recommend it to a good friend.

*EDIT: After a year of infrequent (once a week) use, the DI-out port stopped working and the footswitches were not reliable. Sent it back for repair, got a replacement, that died a week into use. I hate this product now.

After I put the order, I read some reviews about the products and started to be really disappointed by my purchase. But I wait until I got it into my hands. And, wow, I became so happy about it!

I am a bass player and I have gigs where the whole band uses in-ear amplification so no reason to carry a heavy amp. I thought this preamp would help me on shaping my passive basses and to have a easy way of amplifications.

The EQ section is exactly what I wanted. It has 4 knobs, and the mids section is really important to shape the sound! They are not extremely powerful so you can use them at max in case you need a certain tone without being afraid you will broke the mix.

Not a fan of bass distortion and no many ideas of a great distortion tone but I am sure the 4 knobs will help you get the shape you need.

The compression amazed me! It is just a single knob compression, which in general I don't like. I have the MXR 87 which is one of the best compression pedal so I have good taste about compression. That single button gets out such a natural and warm compression that I use inly that one even on live gigs. I use the compression around 10 o'clock only and it dos my job for me.

Extremely useful all the ins and outs of the pedal. I use the headphone output to play at home and I am such a happy bass player. I totally recommend it!

This thing really rocks. The number one thing to know about it beyond the clear features is that it has a certain master sound to it. It primarily makes big beefy, tight bass tones with a bit of grit.

It is very flexible and powerful in shaping a tone, for sure in a supremely useful way when hopping amps or hitting a new location. In my opinion it has all the tools for the job ready-to-go.

It's true what everyone says, the noise gate is not good. It's a little bonus add-on to the Battalion, nothing more.

This is often true across the board with free power supplies - but nobody forget now:
The included power supply SUCKS. You can toss it straight in the trash. Doesn't matter that it has EHX branding. Save yourself the trouble and throw that junk in the garbage first thing when you open the box.

I really love my Battalion as a true all-in-one answer for rock bass that fits easily in my gig bag. Oh, and sounds wayyyy better clean than the digital fx units in this price range as of 2020. Tried and few of those, have to pay good money before the converters sound any good (more than double the price of the Battalion).

If EHX does another model like this (Comp, EQ, Dirt w Dry Blend) with fixed noise gate, perhaps an OD instead of straight distortion, I'll upgrade instantly. For now enjoying this!

This is not a expensive bass guitar preamp if you take into consideration that it comes loaded with a distortion channel, witch you can place pre or post preamp eq, compressor on the way in and also a gate, DI output etc. That being said, the sound that comes of of this thing is decent, you can really crank up the distortion. But the build quality is very poor. After owning this pedal for 4 years I have to send in to repair, it has gone completely crazy. All the switches are acting up, the led indicator lights are on the entire time, the sound is just horrible and useless, just noise and buzzing. And I have to state, that I have used this pedal for rehearsal right after I bought it all together for maybe 20-30 hours and it was stored in its original box ever since for almost three years, dry room, not some moldy damp cellar room or anything like that. After taking it out and plugging in the bass couple of days ago it is ready to visit the repair shop and I am not sure that they will be able to fix it. Right from the start when I bought it, the two switches were acting up, not turning the distortion channel on or off, but it didn't bother me much back then. Now I know that it was just a signal of things turning south for this pedal and sadly I did not send it back to thomann to get a replacement or have it fixed while it was still under warranty. I own other EHX pedals like reverbs, delays and mod pedal, all working just fine..

very decent DI especially for price. Includes a very basic compressor and distortion, I very much prefer to use separate pedals for those though. Noisegate is a pretty useful inclusion, especially when you play with distortion. Box is pretty sturdy, stomps easy to access, and knobs easy to navigate. I especially appreciate that it has a 4-band EQ with bass, lo-mid, hi-mid, and treble, as this is pretty important to me. Giving 4 stars only because I'm not a fan of the distortion and compressor, and while it has nice EQ functions it doesn't really add much personality. Still, for that price, it's very serviceable and would definitely recommend if you either don't use distortion / comp or are using separate pedals. I use it with a Deluxe Bass Big Muff for distortion and a Tone Corset for compression, both also from Electro Harmonix.