Audere Pre Amps - anyone tried one yet?

[poptart]

To be honest I am not convinced that the sound bites really do this much justice . I thought it would be interesting to see how they turned out, and although it gives an indication I am still playing with the set up.

To be fair the bass sounded great with the Bart, the reason for changing was to open up some of the tonal possibilities of the bass as I have a very similar second bass and to move away from that signature Bart sound.

In practise, it definately has a more neutral sound (to my ears anyway) than the Bart and when you put the EQ to use is really opens up the possibilities. I have been playing with the setting on high Z to affect the amount of bite and with the low Z to find the right bassier sound.

It's ealy days yet, but I am looking forward to trying it out on a gig to see how it fairs - one of the reasons I like this system is that for me I have three sounds that I use on stage which are basically the same idea as the z mode.

[budman]

Originally Posted by Gard

My take on it:

The treble and bass are subtle.

Real subtle.

...almost not-there-subtle.

Did you try adjusting the trim pots on the preamp module? I installed one recently that came with way too much bass dialed in. I adjusted it an everything is fine.

[poptart]

Originally Posted by budman

Did you try adjusting the trim pots on the preamp module? I installed one recently that came with way too much bass dialed in. I adjusted it an everything is fine.

Mine had a similar imbalance when I got it and adjusted the volumes for low Z mode with the pots. However I think Gard is refering to the amount of gain for the bass and treble eq, I think it is 10db and I think some pre have 15db.

[Gard]

Originally Posted by budman

Did you try adjusting the trim pots on the preamp module? I installed one recently that came with way too much bass dialed in. I adjusted it an everything is fine.

Poptart is right, I was indeed not referring to the Z-mode switching, but the actual bass and treble controls. I actually dig them, they're voiced very well, I just want a bit "more" from them.

[poptart]

Well at last a chance for me to try the Audere in a live setting - which is what I do! I do not use a bass amp but run straight in to the desk and in to a four way monitor mix on stage which includes an active 800w bass bin. We run about 3kw out front sound.

This is where the Audere really shows its metal to me - after speaking to David from Audere, who has been really supportive, I spent a bit more time setting up the z modes and the results were impressive.

The low mid boost, that is a feature of the classic Bart tone, is easily dialed in with some low and low mid boosted, but what was obvious in a live situation was that the sound no longer became boomy/overpowering on the B string and instead was more defined and clear but with serious stage shaking low end Also worth noting is that in low Z the bass end was very useable, but I set it up with no extra gain, it just sounded louder through the PA/Monitors.

I do not use slap in my peformance, it is all finger playing, so the high z mode was not used a great deal as the mid z setting is just so versatlie, however when I tried it it gave a controlled extra cut which worked well.

It took a while to adjust to listening to myself on stage as I had become very familiar to the Bart tone - all I can say is that I still think that the all Bart set up is hard to beat and I am very fond of it, however if you want a more versatile sound then it is definately worth trying the Audere - the proof for me is in a live situation.

[J.Wolf]

This is very informative stuff. I got to try out Gards bass this weekend with the Audere and was very impressed. It seems like it has a pretty steep learning curve compared to other preamps, but from the few minutes I spent tweaking knobs I liked it a lot. The two mid bands are pure magic, and the z mode is excellent.

I agree the Bart setup is tough to beat, and for a fretless has that certain something, but I think the audere can just about match it with the right eq'ing, and it seems like it can do a whole lot more as well.