Hamstead Soundworks: Odyssey Subspace Driver with Simon Francis

We are so happy to welcome back to Pedals and Effects our homie, Simon Francis. Last we saw Simon, he was playing bass with Ellie Goulding and now he's playing with Kylie Minogue too! Even when working with these pop stars he has been allowed the experimental freedom to get gnarly with his bass tones. On the LA date of his tour, Simon was kind enough to drop by and even bring me a gift. He brought a Odyssey Subspace bass driver by Hamstead Soundworks all the way from Cambridge, UK. Check it out as we catch up with our good friend Simon, and give this boutique distortion/overdrive a test run!

Guitar version pictured. Photo credit: Audio Fanzine

Hamstead Soundworks put out two versions of the Odyssey, one for bass and one for guitar. The Odyssey is based around three clipping circuits, how you dial in the knobs can vary on whether you want it before or after that particular circuit. The X2, X1, X5 are multiple of gain stages! Thats times two, times one and times five! You can rock clean, amp pushing distortion or even shreddy- gainy sustain. It's got clean and bass boosts too! Simon describes it as a mix of a Tube Screamer and BOSS HM-2 under the hood. The Odyssey is everything I love about drives and distortions, plenty of control and nuance to the unique characteristics of the dirt. 

In today's musical climate, if it's one thing I've preached to fellow bass players it's that we can do what synths and synth players can do. Through pedals and effects, we have the capability of sounding just as huge as a any key player through a PA. With a little research and experimentation those are gigs that us bass players can get! Big thanks to Simon, and check out Hamstead Soundworks!

-Juan