Players notes - Original bass overdrive that aims to recreate the sound of John Lennon’s bass on “The White Album”, and expand on it for modern players. Belter Skelter presents players with a gig-ready, no nonsense, plug and play bass drive solution for plugging into the front of an amplifier or preamp. Because it was designed to re-create the tones of The White Album, Belter Skelter may be the only pedal on the market that was designed specifically, though not exclusively, with the Bass VI in mind. Great fun, simple controls (Gain, Tone, Volume), lots of classic and original sounds on tap, and you don’t have to be a sound engineer to know how to use it. Feels just as great in your chest as it does under your fingers. Absolute Belter.

Hailed as the first “Heavy Metal” song by some of the original metallers, Helter Skelter by The Beatles has it all; pounding drums, heavy guitars, loud vocals, a fat riff, simply put - blood sweat and tears on record. “I GOT BLISTERS ON ME FINGERS!”. And tying the whole thing together, John Lennon on bass.​

During the recording sessions for the white album, John would pick up an unusual instrument from the Fender instrument company, the Bass VI, to lay down some support bass tracks. Without wanting to give a full history on the Bass VI, there’s plenty of videos on YouTube that will do just that, the Bass VI was Fender’s answer to the Danelectro UB-2, a 6 string electric bass. It quickly found use as a studio instrument to offer a complimentary top end tone to a double bass (Crazy by Patsy Cline) but also found a niche as an instrument in its own respects (The Man With The Golden Arm - Jet Harris).

It had 6 strings tuned E-e for a guitarist to easily pick up if needed, 3 individually selectable pickups, and a “strangle switch” that when on would remove the lows and create space for a double bass in the mix. John’s tone on the white album recordings can best be described as a very aggressive form of “Tic-Tac” bass, a phrase coined to describe the plinky, low bass, high attack twang of the bass guitar on country records of the late 50’s early 60’s, typified on “A Swingin’ Safari” by Bert Kaempfert. Pushing this low bass, strong attack sound hard with an old Fender Bassman during the recording sessions for the white album produced what many consider to be the first “Metal” bass sound. You heard it here first, John Lennon is the OG metal bass player. End of.

Belter Skelter takes those famous tones from Yer Blues, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and Glass Onion, and uses them as a launch pad for a whole new style of bass overdrive that’s as simple to use as it is effective. Professional fit and finish, finely engineered original circuits, solid build quality, and distinctive designs are standard across the SoundLad Liverpool range, but for Belter Skelter we’ve pulled out all the stops and teamed up with Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks animator Dalton Grant (The SpongeBob Movie, Cars, Shrek 2) to bring some of our favourite characters from that album to life.

• Internal charge pump for increased headroom
• Reactive discreet overdrive path
• Internal phase matching mixer
• Bass VI mode
• High Quality SMD and through hole components
• Genuine Hammond enclosure
• Painted, drilled, and printed by HammondMFG UK
• Off board Input and Output Jacks & DC Jack
• Off board True Bypass Switching
• Fully ISO9001 and RoHS compliant
• Runs on 9v Center Negative (Boss style) power supply - Current Draw: 40mA

Product specs