FWIW, I got a bunch of new toys in the mail a couple of days ago to try out: Sadowsky preamp pedal, Aguilar Tone Hammer DI, Palmer PDI-09, Radial Pro48 (to try with my Tech 21 Blonde), and the ADA GCS-2. After fiddling with all of those pedals/preamps/direct boxes, running the Blonde into them, the Darkglass VMT and the Blonde into them, or just the VMT, here are my thoughts:
If you're running direct with no amp and don't have something that already has a speaker sim built in like the Tech 21 line, and you're using any kind of drive in your chain, you should most definitely pick up an ADA GCS-2 (or GCS-3 if you need the extra features). I ran the Blonde into it, bypassing the Blonde's speaker sim, and with grit it made a huge difference. It took out most of the harshness and definitely made it sound "speaker-ish." It's also a great DI and substantially boosts your signal to line level (switchable to a mic level signal too). It is a pretty flexible box with its different tone-shaping options, but there was really only one setting that sounded reasonably good on bass. It was Modern-12"-Sealed, with the mic placement tailored to taste. It didn't really color the tone much more than the Blonde already did, with the exception of a little mid-range bump. The "vintage" setting added a significant amount of hiss, so much so to make it unusable. The other options just didn't sound good. It did work well on the 5-string as well. I didn't notice any substantial low-end loss through my headphones and monitoring preamp. Ultimately, though, I decided it was really unnecessary. I can't say that it sounded any better than the Blonde's speaker sim. Just different. When I ran it without the Blonde, though, and just ran the VMT into it, it made a huuuuge difference. But that's not how I'd use it. If I had nothing but money sitting around I might buy one just to have it as an option, but it's not necessary since the Blonde has a speaker sim that is more than adequate for playing live with no amp.
On a side note, the Palmer PDI-09 seemed to do nothing much at all. I really didn't see the point. It cut the signal level pretty substantially due to its being a passive direct box. And I didn't feel that it sounded much like a speaker box. The difference between "mellow" and "normal" was fairly indistinguishable as well. Granted, it's designed as a guitar box, and it's supposed to run between an amp and cabinet not at the end of a pedal board. But the Palmer guys did tell me that I could use it at the end of a passive pedalboard. It just didn’t do anything for me. I was surprisingly disappointed. Maybe it would sound good if I was running it between my amp head and cabinet, but I don’t need it for that purpose, and I didn’t try it.
I ultimately decided to go with the Aguilar Tone Hammer in AGS mode. I tried it today at church for the first time and it absolutely killed! The Aguilar is so solid. It just gives every note I play real authority and makes it stand out. And it sounds great with the VMT as well. Very old school tubey. And if I bypass the AGS I can get a great pristine studio sound as well. I’m very happy with it. The Sadowsky sounded great too, and I love its mute option with tuner out, but mids are pretty important to me, and I opted for the Aguilar’s sweepable mid control.
