Darkglass Electronics has just dropped some serious pedalboard firepower for bass guitar players. It’s called the Anagram Bass Workstation, and it is a multi-effects pedal with hexacore DSP tech under the hood and the capability to support NAM and AIDA-X neural models and IRs.
It is also pretty damn stylish, with its road-ready anodized aluminium metal enclosure, its seven-inch hi-def touchscreen, and six high-resolution endless rotary knobs for making exacting adjustments to the many parameters.
The Finnish bass amp and effects specialists has designed the unit to be endlessly customisable, promising ultra-low latency performance with the DSP engine and its operating system processing audio at 32-bit/48kHz, working hand in hand to present players with a bewildering array of effects and how to configure them in real-time.
Perhaps that’s where it gets the name Anagram; it is set up for swapping around sounds in blocks, making it easy to put together some seriously byzantine signal chains.
Players can run 12 blocks in series, 24 in parallel, and as per the current style of tricked-out digital multi-effects – be they for electric guitar or an octave lower – you can run the Anagram in Preset, Scene and Stomp mode.
“Anagram represents the culmination of years of research and development,” says Marcos Barilatti, managing director, Darkglass Electronics. “We set out to create a product that not only pushes the boundaries of bass tone but also inspires musicians to explore new sonic territories.”
The Anagram ships with a whole bunch of preamps and more than 50 onboard effects, including overdrive and distortion, EQ, filters, compression and noise gates, modulation and pitch-shifting, reverb and delay.
The Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) integration extends your amp and effects options considerably, allowing you to choose from "thousands of high-quality amp and effect models, expanding tonal possibilities from analog warmth to futuristic textures".
Apportioning so much of the enclosure’s real estate to the touchscreen is a real statement of intent; this should be a hands-on experience, allowing you to switch between views and control every aspect of your signal chain. But you can also hook it up to the accompanying app to make deeper edits via the Darkglass Suite, where you can manage your speaker cab IRs and neural models.
On the rear of the unit you’ll find a 1/4” instrument input, an effects loop that also facilitates an expression pedal input, MIDI connections, headphones out, USB-C, a pair of 1/4” outputs, and a pair of XLR outputs – the latter featuring an “integrated, software-controlled” ground lift. A 9V DC power adapter and case is included in the price.
Other features include a tuner and global tempo feature for time-based effects, a looper that runs independently of the presets and an onboard mixer that allows you to adjust line levels for headphones, 1/4” outputs and XLRs, and to adjust global EQ.
The Anagram Bass Workstation is priced £899/$1199. See Darkglass Electronics for more details.
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