A lot has been written on this site about the relatively new Berganitno B|Amp, specifically as to its power, light weight, and incredible clarity. You've heard about its flatness, the way it takes to EQ, and the way it gives you the sound of your bass, only louder!
I am proud to say that Jim Bergantino himself has allowed me to talk about features of the amp that have been known by very few up to this point. Jim is currently working on a capability that builds right into the amp an overdriven tone and a distortion tone.
My contact with this came about when I wrote to Jim a few weeks ago telling him that my originals band had a few songs where some distortion was going to be required, and I mentioned I was going to buy a well-known pedal and so I was soliciting his advice about whether I should put that before the input or in the effects loop. His response to me was pretty surprising.
Jim said that he was working at that very time on putting those kind of capabilities right into the amp. He told me that he had worked up an alternate firmware that if I installed it into my amp would give me the capability to have a distorted sound with no pedals.
With a little further discussion, Jim sent me the firmware version with the distortion capability built in. You are not stuck with the distortion sound, rather a) it can be turned on and off with a change in one of the programming settings, and b) when on, you can dial in the amount of the distortion, in this beta version, by turning the aux input gain, which gets repurposed.
I found the distortion delightful. It is not over the top crazy, rather it allows you to dial anywhere from a very mild set of overtones up to a fat, crankin' sound. It was perfect in my band for carrying the song when both guitar players were out on their own excursions.
I reported back to Jim how much I liked the sound, and the easy way the change was accomplished. Jim had just emailed me the new firmware (I presume the final version will be available as a download on the website). I put it on a USB drive, which I then hooked up to the USB slot on the front of the amp. I powered the amp on, holding down the Program button, and boom it was done. I literally was expecting it to take more time. If it took five seconds, I'm shocked. You then power cycle one more time and it's ready to rock (literally).
I reported back to Jim how great this was, when he decided to throw more complication in my life. He had an additional sound, one which he described as an overdriven sound. I tried it too, and the worst part is that now I can't decide whether I want to use clean, distortion, or overdriven. They're all fantastic each in their own way.
The other amp I use is my Sadowsky SA200. I keep the gain at or slightly above the volume on it so I get that delicious warm tubey sound. Now I can't tell you that I've done a blind A/B testing between the two, but I can swear to you the tube/overdrive version is absolutely in the same ballpark. Don't forget that you have the option of dialing up more of the harmonic overtones or less, to taste, at your discretion. I can only tell you that both the distortion and the overdrive are very natural, traditional sounds that an old guy like me is very comfortable with. These are not harsh, digital sounding crap, rather everything feels and sounds very analog.
Right now, the only difficulty is the way you turn the settings on and off, but Jim is working on a simple user interface where you will very easily be able to make these adjustments. Even better, he tells me the memory settings will also be able to lock in what you're looking for, so for example you'll hit memory one, and it will have the EQ, the overdrive selection, and the amount all ready to go.
To me, this is a breakthrough of the first magnitude. Not only did it save me, and it will save many others $300 for a good pedal (really, there will be no reason to look any further unless you need the most metal of tones), it also indicates the way for the future where Jim can give us many other options and capabilities that you have needed outboard solutions for in the past. There is at least one more obvious possibility that I'd rather not discuss at this time, but I'm sure you can come up with at least one or two things that could be done from here. Actually I would imagine the future is only limited by Jim's time and our money.
I thought that given its capabilities, the B|Amp was reasonably priced when it came out. It's even more so when you knock 500 bucks or so of its effective cost to me, because of what it's able to save me from purchasing.
I guess I can't resist fanboying a little. The B|Amp has ample power, fantastic tone, and now a sea of versatility coming in the future. I suspect this amp is a fantastic solution for a whole bunch of bass players out there with a multiplicity of demands, especially those like me who run the gamut from worship music to a modern country fill-in to musicals to my modern rock with some psychedielic jam elements originals band. This amp is versatile enough to meet all those calls.
I am proud to say that Jim Bergantino himself has allowed me to talk about features of the amp that have been known by very few up to this point. Jim is currently working on a capability that builds right into the amp an overdriven tone and a distortion tone.
My contact with this came about when I wrote to Jim a few weeks ago telling him that my originals band had a few songs where some distortion was going to be required, and I mentioned I was going to buy a well-known pedal and so I was soliciting his advice about whether I should put that before the input or in the effects loop. His response to me was pretty surprising.
Jim said that he was working at that very time on putting those kind of capabilities right into the amp. He told me that he had worked up an alternate firmware that if I installed it into my amp would give me the capability to have a distorted sound with no pedals.
With a little further discussion, Jim sent me the firmware version with the distortion capability built in. You are not stuck with the distortion sound, rather a) it can be turned on and off with a change in one of the programming settings, and b) when on, you can dial in the amount of the distortion, in this beta version, by turning the aux input gain, which gets repurposed.
I found the distortion delightful. It is not over the top crazy, rather it allows you to dial anywhere from a very mild set of overtones up to a fat, crankin' sound. It was perfect in my band for carrying the song when both guitar players were out on their own excursions.
I reported back to Jim how much I liked the sound, and the easy way the change was accomplished. Jim had just emailed me the new firmware (I presume the final version will be available as a download on the website). I put it on a USB drive, which I then hooked up to the USB slot on the front of the amp. I powered the amp on, holding down the Program button, and boom it was done. I literally was expecting it to take more time. If it took five seconds, I'm shocked. You then power cycle one more time and it's ready to rock (literally).
I reported back to Jim how great this was, when he decided to throw more complication in my life. He had an additional sound, one which he described as an overdriven sound. I tried it too, and the worst part is that now I can't decide whether I want to use clean, distortion, or overdriven. They're all fantastic each in their own way.
The other amp I use is my Sadowsky SA200. I keep the gain at or slightly above the volume on it so I get that delicious warm tubey sound. Now I can't tell you that I've done a blind A/B testing between the two, but I can swear to you the tube/overdrive version is absolutely in the same ballpark. Don't forget that you have the option of dialing up more of the harmonic overtones or less, to taste, at your discretion. I can only tell you that both the distortion and the overdrive are very natural, traditional sounds that an old guy like me is very comfortable with. These are not harsh, digital sounding crap, rather everything feels and sounds very analog.
Right now, the only difficulty is the way you turn the settings on and off, but Jim is working on a simple user interface where you will very easily be able to make these adjustments. Even better, he tells me the memory settings will also be able to lock in what you're looking for, so for example you'll hit memory one, and it will have the EQ, the overdrive selection, and the amount all ready to go.
To me, this is a breakthrough of the first magnitude. Not only did it save me, and it will save many others $300 for a good pedal (really, there will be no reason to look any further unless you need the most metal of tones), it also indicates the way for the future where Jim can give us many other options and capabilities that you have needed outboard solutions for in the past. There is at least one more obvious possibility that I'd rather not discuss at this time, but I'm sure you can come up with at least one or two things that could be done from here. Actually I would imagine the future is only limited by Jim's time and our money.
I thought that given its capabilities, the B|Amp was reasonably priced when it came out. It's even more so when you knock 500 bucks or so of its effective cost to me, because of what it's able to save me from purchasing.
I guess I can't resist fanboying a little. The B|Amp has ample power, fantastic tone, and now a sea of versatility coming in the future. I suspect this amp is a fantastic solution for a whole bunch of bass players out there with a multiplicity of demands, especially those like me who run the gamut from worship music to a modern country fill-in to musicals to my modern rock with some psychedielic jam elements originals band. This amp is versatile enough to meet all those calls.
