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Has anyone played/got a Boss FBM-1 Fender Bassman?

I read about it online, and considering i wont be buying a Fender Bassman anytime soon (pricey!)  I was wondering how this cheap little pedal sounds. Anyone got one? 

you might be able to find an old bassman for cheap enough. I had one and I loved it

I read somewhere - and I honestly can't remember where that they're a bit disappointing  if you're going to use thim in front of a mixer or small solid state. The trick (apparently) is to use them in combination with simble tube amps that have no controls other than volume. i.e. use it in front of a fender champion or epihone tube junior. Have no personal experience, just passing on gossip!!

The bass player in one of the band I play in has just bought one, second hand. He's using it as a boost pedal through his bass amp so I have no idea how it sounds with a guitar. I'm going to try to nab it off him for a few days to see what it's like, if I succeed and if I remember to do so I'll try to put up a review here, but it might be a little while since he's out of town the next two weeks.

Ok I finally nabbed this thing off the bass player after the gig on Saturday, sorry for the delay: he's not happy with it as a bass pedal (unsurprising to be honest, I was pretty certain this pedal was designed for guitars) and he wants to trade it in, but he's given me an option on taking it off his hands if I like it... after trying it out for ten minutes I think I may well do that.

So far I've only tried the pedal out with my Telecaster through my MGX15 mini-stack (my home practice amp). When I get a chance I'll also try it out with my other electrics (a Strat and a P90-loaded Les Paul Special) and my REAL amps (Mesa Lonestar Special and VOX AC30), but, like Dave the Pub muso, my experience with these kind of "modelling" units is they tend not to perform so well when used in conjunction with "toneful" amps since the effects unit is voiced to replicate the sound of a particular amp/cab setup, which really doesn't work with amps like an AC30 that has its own, very specific, voice. I'll try it out, but I don't expect great results.

Through the flat, bland-sounding clean channel of the solid state Marshall I was really impressed. The clean channel on the amp ONLY has a volume knob, so it's a good platform for testing out units like this. This is effectively an overdrive pedal with some pretty decent EQ on it, and I've got to say that, despite never having owned a '59 Bassman amp before, it does (to my ear) do what it says on the box.

The range with the treble, middle and bass controls is good, and the presence control works well to tame the top end if you like to boost the treble frequencies for more bite. Shaping EQ is pretty much going to depend on what instrument, pick-ups and amp you're running this pedal with, so I'll concentrate on the gain side of things here.

With the gain set low this pedal adds some lovely sparkle given how flat the clean channel of this amp is. Unlike most transistor overdrive pedals (this one may be digital actually, I’m not sure) it responds pretty well to picking dynamics and the guitar’s volume control: even with gain set relatively low there’s a nice bit of edgy break-up there when you hit it hard, which cleans up really nicely when you soften your touch. I’m a Stevie Ray Vaughan (SRV) nut, and with a Fender guitar loaded with single-coils and this pedal I had no problem getting some pretty authentic “Riviera Paradise” and “Lenny” tones.

Pushing the gain control up around half-way , this pedal stays in firmly in SRV territory, adding some nice chiming moderate dirt to the mix, with some pretty nice sounding, dare I say “organic” valve-style compression there. Don’t be alarmed by the fact that it compresses (all amp/pedal gain stages will compress to some extent), it remains pretty responsive and true to your picking and playing dynamics, as well as the guitar’s volume control, the compression just adds some nice sustain. Driving the gain all the way adds more chime, overdrive “edge”, rather than pure distortion, so the guitar sounds clean-ish, but bolder, more strident, with more bite. It’s lots of fun to let rip with some bluesy/rocky lead breaks, lots of bite and a kind of jangly chiming dirt that’s very nice on the ear, if you’re into that kind of thing (I certainly am).

I’ve been curious about this, and the Deluxe Reverb Boss pedal, for a while: I’ve been looking for a simple pedal/setup to make my Marshall MGX amp at home more interesting to play with, and with this pedal I actually think I’ve found what I’m looking for. Also, this pedal is easily good enough (for me) to take along to jams or smaller bar gigs, when lugging my 2x12 combos to the venue isn’t ideal. In a nutshell this pedal is great if you’ve got an indifferent sounding amp that you want to breathe a little life into, and if you’re into blues, classic rock, and even jazz, and you want to recreate some pretty authentic classic Bassman tones, definitely give this pedal a look.

With valve amps and these kind of modelling units I've had pretty poor results on the whole. I used to have the Digitech Crossroads and Hendrix modelling pedals and it was impossible to get them to sound nice with my AC30, while they sounded great through the solid state clean channel of the cheapo Marshall MGX.

The issue, in my view, is this, and if you take this Bassman pedal as an example: this thing is modelled on a Tweed series Bassman amp, the Tweed's tone stack, the Tweed's gain stage(s) in the preamp, 6L6s in the power amp (whatever rectifier these things use), no doubt trying to emulate a 4x10 cab loaded with Jensens into the bargain. The only way a modelling unit like this is going to sound the way it should is if you put it through a pure "vanilla" sounding amp or DI'd into a PA... it doesn't matter if it’s a solid state or valve amp, but any native tone your amp has is going to detract from the whole Bassman vibe that this pedal was designed for.

Put it this way, if I want my guitar to sound like its running through a Bassman amp, using this pedal, it pretty much defeats the object if you're running it into something like my AC30 2x12, which is a very specific-sounding amp: strong in the mids, EL86s in the power amp, rectifier sag, the works. In the same way, a lot of POD users turn the amp models off when they're running their POD through a decent amp, because the amp modelling itself digitally tries to duplicate a lot of what a decent amp is already doing for you.

So I'm not disputing that this pedal can, or should, sound good through a valve amp, as long as your amp doesn't colour the resulting tone from the Bassman pedal too much that it defeats the whole point of the pedal in the first place... it may well work great with something like the Peavey Classic range or the Fender Blues amp range because amps like that (and other, cheaper valve amps) tend to be pretty generic-sounding. Using this pedal with my Mesa seems pointless to me since the Mesa already does everything this pedal was designed to do in the first place, while running it through the AC30 it's going to sound more like an AC30 than a Bassman.

In your case you've already got a great sounding Bassman, so if you want more gain look at a Tube-screamer or similar. If you've got an amp that's got a rather flat, maybe a bit lifeless clean channel, then something like this Bassman pedal can work wonders.