iam trying to choose help me please

[gary mitchell]

because losing my job it went over to japan, and lost my medical ins. then had shoulder sugery,then a emergency gallbladder removed. as you can see iam on a very tight budget. but my wife went back to work. anyway. iam making a little money playing bass, but iam an old lead guitar player just starting to play bass because i love it and they seem to work more, i need a preamp and di and to spend very little, iam looking on ebay at a seymour duncan paranormal,mxr m80. sansamp which is a little high and a hartke vxl bass attack which iam leaning toward because of the price. i play blues jazz and country and what they pay me for but i prefer blues and i dont use distortion. iam going tru our PA when i can and then go tru the power side of my carvin br615 which i hope it helps. they say i play bass very well but i still dont know bass equipment that well. all i know when the doctor will release me and i go back to work iam going all ampeg are swr pro which i play at church on a 410 cab ialso use my usa fender p thanks

[DosiYanarchy]

well behringer do a sansamp copy called the BDI21, apparently it sounds prettymuch like the sansamp Bass Driver, but obviously the construction is cheap, and probably wont take too much abuse, but as far as budget goes - well over here, its less than a quarter of what the Bass Driver costs.

The sansamp/behringer pedals emulate mic'd tube amps, the Paranormal and the M80 are just preamps (the M80 also has a distortion switch, that you probably wouldnt use)

The Harke can emulate Tube amps, and i quite enjoyed it, but it was a bit much for me (too big, and i never used the 'shape' switch and I hate leaving things unused) but the build quality is good (but the controls are really hard to see, coz they're not marked particularly well)

Id say if money is a supreme issue: got for the Behringer first: if you like the tone, then you know that when you get some money together the real Sansamp BDDI is for you.

If you went for the Hartke, that wouldnt be a bad thing though

[bigchiefbc]

^ + a billion on the Behringer. A lot of people turn up their noses at Behringer, but the BDI21 is one of the best darned products they've ever put out. Yes, the switch is plastic, so you probably don't want to stomp on it with steel-toed boots or anything like that. But I've had mine for going on 3 years now and its still chugging away. If you're on a budget, this is the best place to start. For $30 bucks, its hard to go wrong.

BTW - go easy on the presence knob; it can go all the way to an icepick through your temple.

[moose23]

Yep what they said.

[gnasher1993]

Agreed...