The bass I first tried it with was the problem…just too hot. With other basses I tried, I had no problems with the compressor or SGT. All figured out.
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Ampeg SGT-DI
- Thread starter Heady
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- ampeg sgt-di
You don’t have to agree for me to know I’m 100%, not 50
Excellent question.
Effect loops have never improved any effect that wasn’t specifically made for the loop (none of mine are), but they have made many sound way worse.
Blended signals were needed back when all you could get were guitar distortion pedals with no low end, but now they have actual pedals designed for it. And I don’t like how blends often make them sound like two separate signals. I’ve seen it referred to as bees in the background. Pretty accurate, I’d say.
You don’t have to agree for me to know I’m 100%, not 50
Excellent question.
Effect loops have never improved any effect that wasn’t specifically made for the loop (none of mine are), but they have made many sound way worse.
Blended signals were needed back when all you could get were guitar distortion pedals with no low end, but now they have actual pedals designed for it. And I don’t like how blends often make them sound like two separate signals. I’ve seen it referred to as bees in the background. Pretty accurate, I’d say.
I would like to learn what in your eyes are fx designed especially for the fx loop? The desire for an fx loop is to place the drive section (SGT/ Scrambler in my SCR-DI) to be placed before the mod fx and delays? W/o fx loop, like now, this drive is at the end. Just curious.
Is this maybe about serial loop vs. parallel loop?
I use a delay to make 'swells' , much nicer with the delay after the drive (in a serial loop)..
Edit: I have a volume pedal in front of the delay, this volume pedal would be in the loop also.
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Effect loops and blend knobs suck.
Just thought I’d put that out there
I agree on blends. I've never liked the habit of having clean lows and distorted highs and upper mids for bass. It sounds thinner than intended in most cases. Less overall gain but a wholly distorted signal sounds a lot more musical.
Effects loops make sense for this pedal though. You want your cab sim last in the chain and your drive first. You want any modulation or delays between these two points, unless you are going for a certain sound.
It sounds very different to my ears. But I was not a fan of the SCR at all.
I like my SCR-DI and it's been a valuable tool for both silent practice no-rig gigs. Pretty easy to dial in tone. But the SGT-DI does that as well as the multiple cab sims, sweepable mids, and SGT to emulate an overdriven B15 or SVT. So far, I'm enjoying the new tone shaping abilities.
Going to use the SGT-DI today on a small no-rig gig and will report back later to see if the additional tone options translate from headphones to live.
You don’t have to agree for me to know I’m 100%, not 50
Excellent question.
Effect loops have never improved any effect that wasn’t specifically made for the loop (none of mine are), but they have made many sound way worse.
Blended signals were needed back when all you could get were guitar distortion pedals with no low end, but now they have actual pedals designed for it. And I don’t like how blends often make them sound like two separate signals. I’ve seen it referred to as bees in the background. Pretty accurate, I’d say.
Correct me if I am wrong. but, generally,having an effects loop allows you to bypass am amp’s preamp so you can then use a different preamp as the tonestack. I find that quite valuable.
Same I still use my old v1 VT bass with just about everything.
VTDI as a backup.
Zero issues, always sounds good the gigs. Zero regrets over here.
Seems like a useful purpose to me...
Has anyone measured the latency that comes with the cab sim? And with the cab sim disengaged there should be no latency / ad-da at all right?
Trip report: Put the SGT-DI on my board in place of my v1 VT Bass for a show last night. Really happy with the results! Let me preface everything with saying that I was VERY happy with my tone through the VT Bass. It's been the sole preamp on my board since 2008.
Setup was a Lakland 55-02 with the onboard EQ flat, save for a slight mid boost at 900hz. Strung with DR Nickel Lo-Riders that have about 3 shows under their belt. SGT's preamp out going into the power section of an Ampeg B2r through an Ampeg BSE410H cabinet. DI went straight to the board with the cab-sim off.
That being said, what I really like about the SGT is that it's in the same sonic ballpark as the VT Bass; it wasn't a departure from my normal tone, it was super familiar. The SGT felt like a better or more "authentic" version of the VT. It's hard to quantify, and could totally be confirmation bias on my own part. It definitely seemed punchier than the VT.
I will say that when I first hooked up the SGT set completely flat, I was a bit underwhelmed. It wasn't bad by any means, but it didn't excite me. I gave a slight boost across the EQ (mids at 1k) to about the 1'oclock position and that helped a good bit. The pedal really came alive once I engaged the SGT circuit though! I preferred the SVT voice and kept the gain relatively low, just shy of about 9'oclock. I left the Ultra Lo and High both disengaged and the compression knob turned all the way down (I use a Darkglass Hyper Luminal that I absolutely love).
I was really impressed with the touch sensitivity of the SGT circuit. My normal playing resulted in a great, warm, near-breakup tone. When I started to dig in, I'd start to hear that great SVT-like drive.
Really the only thing that hasn't won me over yet is the cab-sim, and granted I haven't tried it in a studio setting yet. But the factory voicings really didn't suit my needs. They sound authentic, but a little too wooly for this band.
Am I happy I got the SGT? Absolutely! Am I going to say you need to ditch your VT (or any other preamp you love) in favor of it? Nah, I'm even keeping my VT because it's a slightly different "flavor," and in part for sentimental reasons... But I will say if you have the opportunity to spend some time with the SGT, definitely do so, because it might work out better for you like it did for me.
Happy to answer any questions.
Setup was a Lakland 55-02 with the onboard EQ flat, save for a slight mid boost at 900hz. Strung with DR Nickel Lo-Riders that have about 3 shows under their belt. SGT's preamp out going into the power section of an Ampeg B2r through an Ampeg BSE410H cabinet. DI went straight to the board with the cab-sim off.
That being said, what I really like about the SGT is that it's in the same sonic ballpark as the VT Bass; it wasn't a departure from my normal tone, it was super familiar. The SGT felt like a better or more "authentic" version of the VT. It's hard to quantify, and could totally be confirmation bias on my own part. It definitely seemed punchier than the VT.
I will say that when I first hooked up the SGT set completely flat, I was a bit underwhelmed. It wasn't bad by any means, but it didn't excite me. I gave a slight boost across the EQ (mids at 1k) to about the 1'oclock position and that helped a good bit. The pedal really came alive once I engaged the SGT circuit though! I preferred the SVT voice and kept the gain relatively low, just shy of about 9'oclock. I left the Ultra Lo and High both disengaged and the compression knob turned all the way down (I use a Darkglass Hyper Luminal that I absolutely love).
I was really impressed with the touch sensitivity of the SGT circuit. My normal playing resulted in a great, warm, near-breakup tone. When I started to dig in, I'd start to hear that great SVT-like drive.
Really the only thing that hasn't won me over yet is the cab-sim, and granted I haven't tried it in a studio setting yet. But the factory voicings really didn't suit my needs. They sound authentic, but a little too wooly for this band.
Am I happy I got the SGT? Absolutely! Am I going to say you need to ditch your VT (or any other preamp you love) in favor of it? Nah, I'm even keeping my VT because it's a slightly different "flavor," and in part for sentimental reasons... But I will say if you have the opportunity to spend some time with the SGT, definitely do so, because it might work out better for you like it did for me.
Happy to answer any questions.
It is. They aren't meant for inserting effects between the preamp and power amp but you can do other things with them as they are essentially just break in the circuit between these two in their list basic form.
Conversely you can use the send as a tap for the preamp if you want to drive a more powerful preamp or don't like the colouration of the power amp.
Yep. Will never part with the VT V1 but just about all the other boxes have hit the classifieds.
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