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Anybody tried a BBE BMax pre-amp
- Thread starter Mr. Chuffey
- Start date
- Aug 21, 2003
- 11,589
- 18,607
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im the guy who specified the BMAX, and the BMAX-T, and produced it with BBE's chief engineer, who, by the way, is a well-known, well-respected tube and analog maven.
when we had the idea to resurrect the bass preamp idea, BBE had the ill-fated 383 some years earlier, i went on a quest to see what bass players loved sonically. two things were generally apparent, metal grungers aside (sorry guys), everyone wanted deep warm tones...tight, but warm and down in the 30Hz to 60 Hz range to match the fundamental of a kick drum, but, also, fast transient response and hard top end.
with respect to the deep and warm, almost universally bass players pointed me to Don Wickersham's Dual Showman-preamp-on-steroids inspired Alembic F2-B. i sought out players and friends that owned them and listened...what a mind-**** the low end of these things is. like nothing i'd ever heard before.
with respect to the fast, tight and hard, i had two friends using Glockenklang Soul-Os and even before this project i was amazed at the crystal clarity of these things. transient response so fast it could give you whiplash and a hard top that you could bounce a quarter off of.
with these two tonalities in my head i went back to Paul and said it has to have the depth of the Alembic and the attack of the Glock...and off we went.
the BMAX being the solid state version and the BMAX-T having an identical front-end as the Alembic/Dual-Showman, they are both fantastic but, as you can imagine, the solid-state version was more versatile and not as round-sounding as the T.
the T uses a top-grade Groove Tubes 12AX7 in a Groove Tubes supplied socket and is wired to the circuit board using solid silver, teflon-coated leads. it has a custom made toroidal transformer in it's power supply and Jensen's top DI transformer in it's direct out on the back (the same transformer used in Record Plant's, Radial's and BBE's Jensen transformer DI's).
the compressor in both is an optical compressor, known for their fast but relatively soft-knee response. actually, as you crank it up the threshold goes down and the ratio goes up. it gets pretty radical after about 2 o'clock.
the passive eq is flat at 2-10-2, at least that's what the Audio Precision told us...always use your ears though!
the solid-state version, for the price, IMHO is the best sounding preamp you can own for under $1500.00.
the front-ends of both were pretty sensitive in the beginning...we didn't consider the very hot output of some of the 18v active electronics basses, the 9v active G&L L-2000s were what we were using primarily to demo and voice these things (after all, BBE owns G&L and these were readily available).
funny though, our graphic artist friend is a bass player and he brought his '65 P-Bass around a couple of times and that thing just massacred the front-end, we sort of wrote it off as an anomaly at the the time cuz it sounded so good with the L-2000s and the SB-2s.
we mod'd the ones people had a problem with free of charge with 24 hour turn around and freight paid and made a running change after the first production to pad down the input.
the crackle was a production problem in part of one run...the supplier had not connected a ground lead...about 100 units went out this way. we, of course, fixed for free everyone we knew about. sorry if you got one, BBE will always fix this for you for free if you just call them and let them know.
that's it, everything you ever wanted to know about the BMAX and a few things you didn't give a **** about.
btw, the original working name for the BMAX was FREEBASS...they just wouldn't let me do it no matter how hard i pushed!!!
peace
Hello Judd
A big thanks to You !!!
I feel you designed the best bass preamp on the market that I have ever tried and I have tried them all.
Its funny because the Pre that I used before using BBE is and on occasion the Alembic. Your BBE BMAX-T is my staple and sound a unbelievable to me especially when using any of my Modulus.
Please let me know about your future product development I would be interested to checking them out.
The BBE BMAX-T is the key to my tonal center in my rack and I love it.
LOL! a technical question! that's why i'm no tech!
the DI1000 is a passive direct box. a dumb animal really, the transformer, a passive device, does the work of matching impedances, which is the primary job of a direct box. the bbe section is after the the output of the transformer.
i dont remember clearly, it was 5 or 6 years ago, if there were limitations of the size of the circuit board or the way the XLR backed into the chassis, but i seem to remember Paul telling me that there just wasn't enough room inside to add a circuit section for unbalancing an additional signal then finding room to back a 1/4" connector into the chassis.
the Jensen and the battery compartment eat up a lot of room in there.
the DI-100X is an active direct box. unlike a passive transformer design, the impendances are matched using an electronic circuit, as opposed to a passive device like the transformer. no transformer, so he was able to lay out the board in such a way that there was plenty of room for an unbalancing circuit and a connector.
from a marketing standpoint, we really felt that the DI-100X would be the live application choice given the price differnetial and the fact that the nuances of the Jensen design could be best realized in studio applications.
like i said, you do what you can and hope to win some customers.
thanks
the DI1000 is a passive direct box. a dumb animal really, the transformer, a passive device, does the work of matching impedances, which is the primary job of a direct box. the bbe section is after the the output of the transformer.
i dont remember clearly, it was 5 or 6 years ago, if there were limitations of the size of the circuit board or the way the XLR backed into the chassis, but i seem to remember Paul telling me that there just wasn't enough room inside to add a circuit section for unbalancing an additional signal then finding room to back a 1/4" connector into the chassis.
the Jensen and the battery compartment eat up a lot of room in there.
the DI-100X is an active direct box. unlike a passive transformer design, the impendances are matched using an electronic circuit, as opposed to a passive device like the transformer. no transformer, so he was able to lay out the board in such a way that there was plenty of room for an unbalancing circuit and a connector.
from a marketing standpoint, we really felt that the DI-100X would be the live application choice given the price differnetial and the fact that the nuances of the Jensen design could be best realized in studio applications.
like i said, you do what you can and hope to win some customers.
thanks
the 1/4" out on the DI-100X is an unbalanced line level signal and will nicely drive the input to any power amp, QSC, Crown...anything. it's not a preamp though, so mind the input sensitivity of the amp, you might not be able to open up the input attenuator very much since you can't adjust the very hot output of the DI.
the best thing about my time at BBE...which i miss a lot now...was the freedom they gave me, once we chose to go in some direction, in specifiing the products.
im an old studio rat, a Record Plant alumnus among others, and an affirmed gear queer, so it was great to go nuts on something like the DIs or the BMAX.
FWIW, we repeatedly drove the warehouse forklift at BBE back and forth over the DI chassis after we got some proto-types back.
you just can't buy that kind of fun!
the best thing about my time at BBE...which i miss a lot now...was the freedom they gave me, once we chose to go in some direction, in specifiing the products.
im an old studio rat, a Record Plant alumnus among others, and an affirmed gear queer, so it was great to go nuts on something like the DIs or the BMAX.
FWIW, we repeatedly drove the warehouse forklift at BBE back and forth over the DI chassis after we got some proto-types back.
you just can't buy that kind of fun!
good question!
if you switch out the sonic maximizer, it will work as a purely passive Jensen transformered direct box. no power supply or battery required in that mode.
a classic really, the circuit we put the Jensen into is a cookbook circuit from Jensens application guide. Radial uses the exact same circuit configuration.
it's dead simple. but really it's the flat response of those transformers that makes the magic. because there's almost no phase shift at the low end of the frequency spectrum, the bass guitar sounds fat and hard even at the bottom...no flabbiness or phase distortion.
fyi, other classic transformers we tested that exhibited almost identical specs (hard to tell who copped who!) were from Reichenbach (Ed Reinchenbach) and CineMag (essentially Reinchenbach as they are made by Ed's son, Tom). Sowter's, used in Neve consoles, were also very good with regards to low phase degradation.
lastly, the first time i ever heard (and fell in love) with Jensen transformer DIs was during my time at the Record Plant, virutally all the DIs in the house were made by the technical staff there and all employed this Jensen cookbook circuit.
if you switch out the sonic maximizer, it will work as a purely passive Jensen transformered direct box. no power supply or battery required in that mode.
a classic really, the circuit we put the Jensen into is a cookbook circuit from Jensens application guide. Radial uses the exact same circuit configuration.
it's dead simple. but really it's the flat response of those transformers that makes the magic. because there's almost no phase shift at the low end of the frequency spectrum, the bass guitar sounds fat and hard even at the bottom...no flabbiness or phase distortion.
fyi, other classic transformers we tested that exhibited almost identical specs (hard to tell who copped who!) were from Reichenbach (Ed Reinchenbach) and CineMag (essentially Reinchenbach as they are made by Ed's son, Tom). Sowter's, used in Neve consoles, were also very good with regards to low phase degradation.
lastly, the first time i ever heard (and fell in love) with Jensen transformer DIs was during my time at the Record Plant, virutally all the DIs in the house were made by the technical staff there and all employed this Jensen cookbook circuit.
More great info. Thanks. The manual didn't make it clear if batteries are needed for DI use alone. Nice to know that.
What if I used an XLR splitter (if one exists), so I can take the XLR out of the DI-1000 and go one for the amp and one for the house? Does that degrade the signal quality/level at all, or significantly?
Thanks.
What if I used an XLR splitter (if one exists), so I can take the XLR out of the DI-1000 and go one for the amp and one for the house? Does that degrade the signal quality/level at all, or significantly?
Thanks.
there's no harm in doing as you suggest, but you will raise the output impedance and thus lower the output level to some degree on it's way to the mixer and your amp.
XLR splitters are readily available. get a good one though, not a 49.00 Rolls. Whirlwind makes a reasonable one and Radial probably makes one.
thanks.
XLR splitters are readily available. get a good one though, not a 49.00 Rolls. Whirlwind makes a reasonable one and Radial probably makes one.
thanks.
Bob Lee (QSC) seemed to be pretty happy with his, aside from the compressor. I'm looking at picking one up off eBay to use with my SansAmp RBI (which could really use some better low-mid voicing). Anything I should watch out for?
c-
I love my Bmax. I run it ahead of a Crown xti 1000 into a Basson 4X10.
You can't beat the features for the $$. Did I mention it sounds great, it surely does.
You can't beat the features for the $$. Did I mention it sounds great, it surely does.
and no reason bob shouldnt be happy. the 383 was ill-fated in the literal sense...fated to fail in the market as a result of lackluster marketing. whcih is why it went away.
it's a reasonable preamp plagued by poor marketing...as i said.
i think i gave bob a BMAX, at least i meant to before i left BBE.
he's a good man.
I really strongly prefer the RBI that I have now to the Bmax that I had before. It seemed like the Bmax had one tone that it could cop really well, but it wasn't hugely versatile. With my RBI, I can nail a multitude of tones.
That being said, I own a Maxcom now, which is essentially the compressor and sonic maximizer minus a preamp plus a gate. I'm digging it for sure.
That being said, I own a Maxcom now, which is essentially the compressor and sonic maximizer minus a preamp plus a gate. I'm digging it for sure.
im glad you like the MAXCOM.
actually, though, the compressor is quite different than what's in the BMAX.
the MAXCOM uses a VCA to control the compression rather than an optical element. it detects the signal and controls the signals dynamics, by means of a voltage controlled amplifier, based on your threshold and ratio settings.
the VCA in there is made by a DBX offshoot company called THAT Corp. until recently, DBX used the very same VCA as the one in the MAXCOM in their 166 compressor. they've since switched to an unnamed VCA which i suspect is simply a propriatery version of the THAT 2180 VCA they used to use and we used in the MAXCOM.
the MAXCOM is a very nice compressor, with or without the sonic maximizer switched in.
actually, though, the compressor is quite different than what's in the BMAX.
the MAXCOM uses a VCA to control the compression rather than an optical element. it detects the signal and controls the signals dynamics, by means of a voltage controlled amplifier, based on your threshold and ratio settings.
the VCA in there is made by a DBX offshoot company called THAT Corp. until recently, DBX used the very same VCA as the one in the MAXCOM in their 166 compressor. they've since switched to an unnamed VCA which i suspect is simply a propriatery version of the THAT 2180 VCA they used to use and we used in the MAXCOM.
the MAXCOM is a very nice compressor, with or without the sonic maximizer switched in.
Another quick question: Is the compressor in the BMax doing any compressing at all if the light doesn't light? I'd almost swear I detect some slight compression just below the point where the light blinks.
it's designed to light the led when compression is occuring.
i dont deny what you're hearing, i just cannot confirm for you that it's the optical compressor.
i dont deny what you're hearing, i just cannot confirm for you that it's the optical compressor.
Wow. That's actually really interesting. To be honest, I'm still getting used to the compressor on the Maxcom. I haven't been able to hear much of a difference between the auto and some of the tweaked settings on manual. The gate's a little more useful for me so far.
What was working for BBE like? It seems like it'd be a pretty nice place to work at. Pretty successful, at least.
What was working for BBE like? It seems like it'd be a pretty nice place to work at. Pretty successful, at least.
I was actually really impressed with BBE customer service as they took in my BMAX and modded the front end to not be so sensitive. Only problem was, I explained the crackling sound as best I could to them before sending it, and in writing, but the pre came back still crackling. Maybe this was before they had figured out the issue.
So when I got her back I was totally bummed that this crackling sound was still there which forced me to try something else. I can's deny that the overal tone of the BMAX was really pure sounding but i was looking for a totally different sound.
So when I got her back I was totally bummed that this crackling sound was still there which forced me to try something else. I can's deny that the overal tone of the BMAX was really pure sounding but i was looking for a totally different sound.
