PerseidBass Drive

From the vendor

A vintage-inspired bass overdrive with germanium clipping and a 2-band Baxandall tone stack.

The Perseid Bass Drive is an adaptation of the Pete Cornish BD-1, a vintage-inspired bass overdrive with similarities to the Cornish SS-3 and MXR Distortion+. It was originally traced by Aion FX in 2026.

Cornish pedals are best known for being extremely expensive. There are two reasons for this. First, the build quality and reliability is unmatched. Second, the mysterious nature of them, partially due to the fact that the circuit is obscured and partially because of the A-list of clients such as David Gilmour, Brian May and Pete Townshend.

The BD-1 was originally released in 2014, hot on the heels of the OC-1 and CC-1 the year before. To date, it’s the only pedal from Cornish that is specifically designed for bass.

The first half of the circuit is adapted from the Distortion+ with a few value changes, which means it’s also substantially similar to the SS-2 and SS-3. The main difference is larger coupling capacitors to retain the low-end frequencies.

This is followed by a 2-band Baxandall EQ, which is noteworthy for being driven by a transistor instead of an op-amp. The bass EQ has a center frequency of 30 Hz, which is significantly lower than bass controls on effects intended for guitar, and the treble EQ center frequency is 3 kHz.

The Perseid is a faithful reproduction of the BD-1 circuit, but with one major addition: an internal slide switch allowing the pedal to be used in true-bypass mode instead of buffered bypass. As with the Klon KTR, the buffered mode is “almost always better”, but you can determine for yourself.