Well, what do you do when you ain't got 200 bucks for a Sansamp BDDI, and you want a decent tones shaping tool. I will admit at first I was reluctant to get the Behringer DI box. Anyone who has played anything in the last decade has heard of Behringer horror stories.
Yet, I have heard some bad stories about other companies over the years. A couple years ago my first real experience with Behringer came at a local gig. We miked everything through a Behringer P.A unit. It did fine.
My other account was my guitar player having a couple issues with their, noise suppressor and tuner pedals.
So I thought, what the heck, the BDI21 is a 30 dollar box. Not a small fortune when your talking about DI box's, or pedals in general.
I got the call from the shop today to go pick it up, after a quick lunch at CiCi's pizza to maintain efficient grease levels in my body, I finally tracked home and tried my new DI out. Its plastic housing with a heavy steel bottom plate felt solid enough. The controls knobs don't fill flimsy, and it looks like a sharp pedal. It has input, output, and balanced XLR out. The controls are drive, treble, bass, level, blend, and presence. It also has a ground lift switch to defeat humming in some situations.
I used a Ibanez GSR-200 (passive 2001 model with PJ config), and a Ibanez SR485 five string (active 2000 model) bass guitar. As should be noted my GSR-200 has DR stainless hi-beams on it, and the SR 485 has D'Addario nickles on it.
So the first thing I plug in is the 4 string bass and my first amp of choice is a Ampeg SVT-350 into a old Mexican made Fender 4x10 cab. I set the levels flat (with graphic EQ off) and use the Behringer manual to set up the SVT effect. All I can say is WOW! I didn't know 30 bucks could get you that kind of tone. Nice smooth lows, with some tube like drive in it. Really made the solid state Ampeg sound more like its tube predecessor. Then I tried the fat tube setting in the manual, and it did a lot to warm up my tone and round out my sound.
Next, I used the same settings on the Acoustic B100 combo amp. This combo sounds so-so, but this pedal did wonders for cleaning it up. With some tweaking I got it closer to the tone of the BA115. Yet, I could get the smooth lows like I got with my old Ampeg B100R.
Next was plugging it into a mixer, that was chained into the computer, and then an old JVC home stereo system. I wanted to see how it would do going straight to the board. Once again great tones!
This thing is a lot better at modeling than my old Digitech BP-50. It doesn't sound as processed. Being analog it has a more true tone, than all the chip stuff I have heard or messed with, with maybe the exception of some Line 6 products.
One thing to mention is the drive dial can make or break the tone. It shouldn't be used as distortion, as much as it should be used for getting a little dirt in the signal. Decent overdrive effect, that is better than my old DOD Bass Grunge.
Another thing I did find a bit tricky is adjusting the presence to suit the brightness you want.
Overall a very great bang for the buck pedal!
Yet, I have heard some bad stories about other companies over the years. A couple years ago my first real experience with Behringer came at a local gig. We miked everything through a Behringer P.A unit. It did fine.
My other account was my guitar player having a couple issues with their, noise suppressor and tuner pedals.
So I thought, what the heck, the BDI21 is a 30 dollar box. Not a small fortune when your talking about DI box's, or pedals in general.
I got the call from the shop today to go pick it up, after a quick lunch at CiCi's pizza to maintain efficient grease levels in my body, I finally tracked home and tried my new DI out. Its plastic housing with a heavy steel bottom plate felt solid enough. The controls knobs don't fill flimsy, and it looks like a sharp pedal. It has input, output, and balanced XLR out. The controls are drive, treble, bass, level, blend, and presence. It also has a ground lift switch to defeat humming in some situations.
I used a Ibanez GSR-200 (passive 2001 model with PJ config), and a Ibanez SR485 five string (active 2000 model) bass guitar. As should be noted my GSR-200 has DR stainless hi-beams on it, and the SR 485 has D'Addario nickles on it.
So the first thing I plug in is the 4 string bass and my first amp of choice is a Ampeg SVT-350 into a old Mexican made Fender 4x10 cab. I set the levels flat (with graphic EQ off) and use the Behringer manual to set up the SVT effect. All I can say is WOW! I didn't know 30 bucks could get you that kind of tone. Nice smooth lows, with some tube like drive in it. Really made the solid state Ampeg sound more like its tube predecessor. Then I tried the fat tube setting in the manual, and it did a lot to warm up my tone and round out my sound.
Next, I used the same settings on the Acoustic B100 combo amp. This combo sounds so-so, but this pedal did wonders for cleaning it up. With some tweaking I got it closer to the tone of the BA115. Yet, I could get the smooth lows like I got with my old Ampeg B100R.
Next was plugging it into a mixer, that was chained into the computer, and then an old JVC home stereo system. I wanted to see how it would do going straight to the board. Once again great tones!
This thing is a lot better at modeling than my old Digitech BP-50. It doesn't sound as processed. Being analog it has a more true tone, than all the chip stuff I have heard or messed with, with maybe the exception of some Line 6 products.
One thing to mention is the drive dial can make or break the tone. It shouldn't be used as distortion, as much as it should be used for getting a little dirt in the signal. Decent overdrive effect, that is better than my old DOD Bass Grunge.
Another thing I did find a bit tricky is adjusting the presence to suit the brightness you want.
Overall a very great bang for the buck pedal!
), but it's similar with some cheaper components than the SansAmp -- particularly the OpAmps. But what do you expect for $22? Ton of circuit, incredible buy.
