Ashdown James LoMenzo Mega Drive vs Ashdown James LoMenzo HyperDrive

The Ashdown James LoMenzo Mega Drive and the Ashdown James LoMenzo HyperDrive are both pedals sharing bright, aggressive, transparent. The Ashdown James LoMenzo Mega Drive leans full and harmonically rich.

Similarity
citedBlended from circuit-archetype lineage, dynamic feel, tone-signal overlap and tone-vector distance — the tone vector itself is derived from editorial description text, not a measured acoustic signal, so this reflects how similarly the catalog copy describes the two, not a lab measurement. Shown only within a gear class, and only where there's enough evidence to be meaningful.

50% — moderately similar

Shared genres
citedGenres both listings are associated with.
  • Rock
  • Metal
Shared tone character
citedDerived from overlapping tonal signals across both listings.
  • bright
  • aggressive
  • transparent
  • mid-forward
Citation fame
citedCitation/mention fame — how often this gear is cited across artist rigs and gear discussion.
0%
0%
Price
—

$117.21via Reverb

Description

The Ashdown James LoMenzo Mega Drive is a bass drive pedal designed with Megadeth bassist James LoMenzo, debuted at NAMM 2023 as an evolution of the Ashdown HyperDrive. It features sweepable highpass and lowpass filters for targeting specific frequency bands, a drive blend knob to mix clean and driven signals, adjustable input gain, and a VU meter for visual input monitoring. The circuit delivers a wide gain range from warm deep harmonic overdrive to bright cutting distortion, with full-spectrum frequency shaping rather than the HyperDrive mid-only approach. Suited for heavy rock and metal bass playing, it preserves low-end fundamental clarity while adding harmonic aggression on top. Used by James LoMenzo live with Megadeth as his primary bass drive.

The Ashdown James LoMenzo HyperDrive is the original signature bass distortion pedal developed with James LoMenzo, whose 30-year career spans Megadeth, Black Label Society, Ozzy Osbourne, and David Lee Roth. Its distinctive approach applies distortion only to a selected mid-frequency band, leaving bass and treble fundamentally clean. A tunable frequency selector adjusts which midrange frequencies are driven, while a mix control blends the dry and distorted signals. This architecture preserves bottom-end punch and high-end clarity while adding aggressive mid distortion that cuts in a band mix.

Genres
citedGenres this gear is documented as being used in.
  • Hard Rock
—
Tonal lean
  • full
  • harmonically rich
  • saturated
—
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