Darkglass just unveiled their new multi-effect bass pedal, and as someone who’s never understood the Darkglass allure this piece of gear is very interesting to me.
Darkglass is known for their amps and pedals that are used primarily by metalheads all over the world. They’re pricey pieces of gear made by bassists for metal bassists (or so I’ve always thought).
But the Anagram looks to be very different, not just because it appears to cater to the everyday working bassist (one that doesn’t necessarily play any metal), but it’s also got some really intriguing software under the hood that I find very interesting and exciting.
Simple looks, powerful features
On the surface it looks similar to other multi-effects pedals. It’s got 3 footswitches, some knobs, bunches of ins and outs on the back. But after that, things start getting pretty cool.
First off, it’s a small pedal (for a multi-effects pedal that packs the kind of functionality it does). It’s got a long, strip-like touchscreen in the middle, which is cool. It’s got a 6-core processor. It can run 24 effects/sims in a single patch. You can split signals, and do effects loops. It’s got a tuner and looper built in. It’s even got a global graphic eq that looks pretty slick, just like having my trusty Logic Pro graphic EQ in my pedalboard, super useful!
But that’s not all, folks!
Neural Amp Modeler
While many reviewers that got an early model from Darkglass have focused on the ease of use and the great pedals and amps that come with it out of the factory, and those are important, but I think they’ve missed the most exciting part!
The software that this beast runs on is an open source amp/IR modeling software called Neural Amp Modeler (NAM - not to be confused with the company called Neural which makes the Neural DSP effects pedal) which runs on a Linux operating system. NAM is free and open source, and there is a vibrant community of people modeling different amps, pedals and outboard gear, and you can download those models for free!
Obviously you can’t just download those sounds and plug them into the Anagram (yet!). Those models from the open source community can run as plugins in your DAW. But it means that Darkglass has the potential to create an interface where anyone can sample any piece of gear they want (amp, pedal, fancy studio compressor, the reverb in the stairwell, whatever!) and with some well-thought-out software could put that directly onto the Anagram.
Whether or not they go that direction, I don’t know. But it does mean that Darkglass can much more easily create models of some of the greatest gear for bassists around and have it all available in pedal format, and have their own marketplace of community-built effects to download directly to your Anagram.
Most multi-effects have quite a good variety of effects, amps and mic models built in, but by leaning into open source software and being open to third-party developers, Darkglass has the potential to turn the Anagram into more than just a pedal, but an ecosystem, which is so much more powerful than a pedal.
Obviously, there’s a lot that would need to happen before that ecosystem could become a possibility, but it’s an exciting potentiality that I think makes this pedal one of the more exciting things I’ve seen come out in recent years. It has so much potential beyond what ships out of the factory!
This could be very exciting, and I’m going to be looking closely at how the Anagram is received!