RMI Basswitch IQ DI has landed

[pbass6811]

I have a question for you guys...I just got my Basswitch and I think it's pretty awesome! I played with it for a couple of hours tonight(Didn't arrive in time for my gigs this past weekend)and loved it, except for one thing...the LF AND HF knobs are both really "scratchy" when turned. No issues with any of the other knobs. I'm not sure how to get the knobs off to try to clean them. As long as I leave them in one spot, they work beautifully. Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: Also, the power adapter is pretty loose fitting. Is that normal? Overall impression; this is probably one of the best decisions I've made, gear-wise!

[Jacques]

Originally Posted by pbass6811

I have a question for you guys...I just got my Basswitch and I think it's pretty awesome! I played with it for a couple of hours tonight(Didn't arrive in time for my gigs this past weekend)and loved it, except for one thing...the LF AND HF knobs are both really "scratchy" when turned. No issues with any of the other knobs. I'm not sure how to get the knobs off to try to clean them. As long as I leave them in one spot, they work beautifully. Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: Also, the power adapter is pretty loose fitting. Is that normal? Overall impression; this is probably one of the best decisions I've made, gear-wise!

Hello.

Thank you for the nice words on the Basswitch.

The LF and HF pots (mainly the HF) are "scratchy by design". That means we did not filter this noise out in the design of the EQ. We could have done this of course but that would have meant adding components and an adverse effect on the overall "musical" performance of the Basswitch EQ. Our thinking is that you do not move the LF an HF settings during playing, so we decided to keep the signal path as short as possible accepting this "flaw" for a better sound. Hope this helps to explain our mindset and approach to technical design.

As for the power adapter it is a real pain as the plugs are not standardized. We therefore include with each Basswitch a power plug that can be soldered to your power supply and that fits very well.

Hope this helps

Jacques

[lizardwizard28]

Haha, toys. Asides from its very handy functions and features, just trying to wrap my head around using this as a preamp in front of the "holy grail", semi-rare sadowsky sa200.

[gillento]

The Basswitch is the core of my pedal board wether I am using my SA200 or any other amp (or even DI/IEM situations).

For my needs, I use the Channel A for slight eq'ing/levelling of my passive basses. The EQ on any amp I use (SA200, db750, TH500, ABM500) takes care of room/stage acoustics.

BUT: the LF control on the Basswitch has a feature that has become somewhat rare in todays bass (floor) preamps: It has a bell /peaking curve (not the usual shelving curve). This makes boosting low frequencies a lot more controlled and doesn't boost the unusable extreme lows. I think this has been crucial in Paul Turner's (Jamiroquai) decision to use the Basswitch.

In the end, the Basswitch is a much more precise tool with its 2 semi parametric mid bands than the SA200's EQ (which already is extremly flexible being an all tube design)

[LeonD]

Originally Posted by lizardwizard28

Haha, toys. Asides from its very handy functions and features, just trying to wrap my head around using this as a preamp in front of the "holy grail", semi-rare sadowsky sa200.

Think of it as a way to connect two basses to your SA200.

Set the eq on the SA200 so channel B sounds good. Then tweak the eq on the Basswitch so channel A sounds good. Now you'll have good tone out of both basses without having to change anything.

Everything else on the Basswitch is just gravy.

[Jacques]

Originally Posted by LeonD

Everything else on the Basswitch is just gravy.

Hello Leon,

What does gravy mean?



Jacques

[gillento]

I think gravy is some kind of sweet dessing (sauce for us Europeans) served with turkey at Thanksgiving.

[bigdbass]

Gravy is a sauce, in the literal sense.

"Everything else is just gravy" is an expression meaning more or less that the requirements have been met, the "entrée", but the gravy makes it even better to exceed expectations.
A similar expression with the same logic is "the icing on the cake".

Of course, some might argue that gravy and icing are necessary to make our meal or dessert complete!

[LeonD]

Originally Posted by bigdbass

"Everything else is just gravy" is an expression meaning more or less that the requirements have been met, the "entrée", but the gravy makes it even better to exceed expectations.
A similar expression with the same logic is "the icing on the cake".

That's it exactly.

And if you ever saw me, you'd could say I've been eating a lot of gravy.

[Vunz]

Interesting device! However, does it also work with a power amp that does not have its own volume control, in other words: can I control the master volume via the volume control of the Basswitch? And how does this affect the DI level? (I can imagine that the sound engineer would not appreciate me changing the volume of the DI during a gig...)

Thanks!
Vincent

[Jacques]

Hello Vincent,

The Basswitch does not have a master volume limited to the line out, so yes you can control the volume of a power amp without a master volume but you will affect the DI out level

Regards

Jacques

Originally Posted by Vunz

Interesting device! However, does it also work with a power amp that does not have its own volume control, in other words: can I control the master volume via the volume control of the Basswitch? And how does this affect the DI level? (I can imagine that the sound engineer would not appreciate me changing the volume of the DI during a gig...)

Thanks!
Vincent

[Vunz]

Originally Posted by Jacques

Hello Vincent,

The Basswitch does not have a master volume limited to the line out, so yes you can control the volume of a power amp without a master volume but you will affect the DI out level

Regards

Jacques

Thanks for the quick reply!

Cheers,
Vincent