Tone Hammer vs VT Bass vs something else?

[MarshallLaw]

i love my Sunn 190B. The tube warmth and power are awesome. But the controls (volume/treble/bass) don't allow for much tone shaping.

i want some kind of simple preamp for it. something that will allow a little more control over my tones. i love the sound, so i dont want something that's going to color my sound too much.

ive been looking into the Aguilar Tone Hammer and the Tech 21 VT Bass.

The VT Bass come highly recommended and relatively inexpensive. but ive been told it will give any amp "vintage tube tone". well, i'm already playing a vintage tube amp. will it make it MORE vintagey and MORE tubey?! (). I've also been told that it will make my amp sound "just like an Ampeg". well, it sounds like a Sunn and i'd like to keep it that way. but it has simple controls, and drive. i want something that can add a little grit.

The Tone Hammer looks cool, but i know nothing about it. I've looked up a couple of threads on it here and still haven't gotten much. But it looks good - simple controls, a gain setting, built like a tank. but is the gain setting going to allow me to add some overdrive? and it looks like you can turn the gain on and off? that's sweet. is that how it works?

and i'm open to any other similar suggestions.

[jokerjkny]

sansamp paradriver di is pretty fun. the drive knob dials in a nice grit, the lows knob adds a sweet background of warmth and "bigness", and the semi mids knob gives you terrific midrange control.

but frankly, just LOVE my vtbass. my amps all have terrific semi parametric controls, so most of my EQ needs are met. the vt adds and completes the rest of the tubey fat overdriving needs.

[lunarpollen]

With the VT Bass pedal you can probably find a setting that is "flat", where switching it off and on will produce very little tone change. You can use that as a starting point and go from there. It's worth a try, at least!

[MarshallLaw]

hm, setting it flat would defeat the purpose of using it as a preamp. if that were the case, i would just be looking for an overdrive.

[uaudio]

He's saying START it out flat and then make small changes until you like the sound.

[rogypop]

if you already like coloring of your sunn you would probably be happier with the tonehammer, its basically OBP-3 in a box, a simple 3 band preamp that works very nice but vt bass is is also worth trying cause its very powerful device that offers heaven of vintage ampeg tube tones and lot in between

[MarshallLaw]

someone please clarify for me: can the gain on the Tone Hammer be turned on and off with the AGS switch? and will it allow me to add some grit?

[lunarpollen]

Setting the VT Bass "flat" would just be the starting point. You said that you wanted something that wouldn't color your tone too much, so setting it "flat" would be a good start. You could then use the Level, Low, Mid, and High knobs to shape your sound. The level knob can give you a LOT of boost, and the EQ knobs are set at very satisfying (in my opinion) frequency points. You can keep the drive knob to below where it would start to overdrive, the pedal does clean sounds very nicely! The Character knob is what "colors" the tone most of all to simulate an overall change in the nature of the bass amp, you can go from the tonal character of a huge stack to a small combo tonewise, but if you want as little coloring as possible you can find the setting that most closely matches your rig. The Character knob also affects the mids, so if you mess around with the Character knob you'll probably have to adjust the Mid knob to compensate. My rig is just a Markbass LMII and a Markbass 1x15, and I can find a setting on the pedal where switching it off and on produces extremely little tone difference. If I wanted to, I could use it as a pre-amp and shape the tone of my bass without making my amp sound different. If an Ampeg tube amp simulator pedal can be tweaked to sound "transparent" with my amp, I'm sure it can do the same with yours which is more similar to what the pedal tries to emulate. And if you want to add grit, the drive knob is your friend! It's a really fun pedal and has great resale value so it's worth a try at least! I bought mine as a tube OD simulator, but I ended up liking it for much more than that one task.

[MarshallLaw]

i wish some place around here had either of these to try out.

[Son of Bovril]

Originally Posted by lunarpollen

With the VT Bass pedal you can probably find a setting that is "flat", where switching it off and on will produce very little tone change. You can use that as a starting point and go from there. It's worth a try, at least!

I haven't found that to be true, the character knob seems to affect the tone no matter where you turn it. interested to know if the speaker sim is only applied when the pedal is on or not?

[Peg_legs]

Originally Posted by MarshallLaw

someone please clarify for me: can the gain on the Tone Hammer be turned on and off with the AGS switch? and will it allow me to add some grit?

The gritty overdrive can be turned off by the AGS switch. I dont really like the grit from the AGS switch and keep it off.

[Son of Bovril]

I believe there is quite a gain boost when switching the AGS (i think?) similarly to the shape switch on the Hartke VXL which is quite annoying...

[ethompson2]

Yes... I have a tone hammer the EQ is actually really transparent its not gonna completely change the sound of your bass or amp, but does allow you to EQ it in a very musical way. When hitting the AGS button you are gonna get a gain boost and higher output. The drive will go anywhere from just a little more warmth to full on distortion. Also makes for a great direct out into a system or recording console. Personally Ive used both the Sansamp and the Tone Hammer both sound great I like the Tone Hammers EQ more though. The sweepable mids are VERY nice.

[FromTheBassMent]

Originally Posted by Son of Bovril

...interested to know if the speaker sim is only applied when the pedal is on or not?

The speaker emulation is applied only when the pedal is switched on. This may be why it's difficult IME to set the VT to "unity" in terms of tone. It adds its own sound, because that's what it's designed to do, to replicate the tonal qualities of a wide variety of Ampeg's amps from vintage combos to SVT stacks.

Having said that, I find the VT Bass capable of great subtlety. My concern when I bought it was that it was going to be exclusively an overdrive pedal, but my experience with the Tech 21 CS Blonde has been so positive that I decided to give the VT a whirl.

I like clean tones, as I play mostly with acoustic musicians (guitar, dobro, mandolin) and big heavy "rawk" sounds just don't work. But the pristine clean sound of my Markbass combo needed a bit of "humanizing," and the VT does this brilliantly. I keep the character set between 9-10:00, and the drive around 8:00, then do a bit of tweaking of the eq's and set the level for unity. With my SR5 fretless this is just the amount of added warmth and personality I was after.

Now, you can crank that drive knob and get some truly gorgeous tubey overdrive... and this is coming from a guy who doesn't really care much for overdriven bass sounds. I did a gig a couple of weeks ago where there were some odd things going on with the room dynamics and I had to cut my lows and crank my mids at the bass to compensate. The boosted mids ended up pushing the VT into a bit of furry compressed overdrive, and I was actually really enjoying it.

And of course, you can keep the drive low and crank the level to give you a significant clean signal boost, which would then push your Sunn preamp into soft clipping, which might also give you what you're looking for.

BTW, I'm a huge fan of Aguilar's gear. As another poster noted, the Tone Hammer is really their OBP-3 onboard preamp housed in a stomp box. Now, that is a lovely, transparent preamp that is highly regarded for taking the sound of your pickups and shaping the frequencies in a very musical way. But the TH, by design, will not impart as much "character" to your overall tone as the VT.

My advice would be to buy the VT Bass from MF... that gives you 30 days to try it out during which you can return it for a full refund... if you ended up sending it back, you'd only be out the shipping, which ain't much for a little pedal. I'd be pretty darn shocked if you couldn't find a setting on the VT that you'd be delighted with. Just keep in mind that the further you crank the character knob clockwise, the less your Sunn will sound like a Sunn and the more it will sound like something else!

[MarshallLaw]

cool, thanks guys. i'll probably just have to order one and send it back if i don't like it...