Ric, It’s great that we can all maintain a sense of humor. It’s like I always tell my buddies...”we’re not laughing at you, we’re laughing WITH you!”
Absolutivly
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Double Bass Brad Sarno’s V8 Octal preamp
- Thread starter flatback
- Start date
Absolutivly
Just Like The One I Used To Know!
Where the Octals Glisten, and Bassist Listen to Hear Low Notes at the Show.
Where the Octals Glisten, and Bassist Listen to Hear Low Notes at the Show.
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She’s a beauty Ric. Do you think there will be a B15 in my Christmas stocking? I’ve been a good boy... most of the time...well, some of the time...ok...ok, I’ve been bad and will have to settle for something less...but, NEXT year I promise to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent!
Has anyone tried the Olympic mk3s for doublebass?
Shift Line OLYMPIC MkIIIS Tube bass preamplifier with IR-based cabinet simulation
Maybe a good, cheap, alternative for us in Europe?
Shift Line OLYMPIC MkIIIS Tube bass preamplifier with IR-based cabinet simulation
Maybe a good, cheap, alternative for us in Europe?
Kristian,
It suprises me that you're interested in this, since you own the Paradox Pre. Seems kind of "redundant", The Olympic is a 12AX7 based preamp while the Octal V8 is uses 6SL7's.
Having played through Octal tubes in my B-15N(C) see above, I can tell you there's a sonic difference between the two. Just my take however.
Kristian,
It suprises me that you're interested in this, since you own the Paradox Pre. Seems kind of "redundant", The Olympic is a 12AX7 based preamp while the Octal V8 is uses 6SL7's.
Having played through Octal tubes in my B-15N(C) see above, I can tell you there's a sonic difference between the two. Just my take however.
You're right Ric, the Paradox might be the best preamp out there but I still need to eq my sound a lot to make it more "even". If tubes really has the effect on piezos that everyone is reporting, then I would really want to give it a shot.
This one has also taken my attention:
GP-Lightstone
Anyone tried it?
The Jule Monique has an octal tube also, correct? Granted, they’re a LOT of money.Kristian,
It suprises me that you're interested in this, since you own the Paradox Pre. Seems kind of "redundant", The Olympic is a 12AX7 based preamp while the Octal V8 is uses 6SL7's.
Having played through Octal tubes in my B-15N(C) see above, I can tell you there's a sonic difference between the two. Just my take however.
Oh sorry. When I googled, I found this Paradox first.. The Paradox you have is not so minimalist...The Paradox is not so minimalist, it's like a boutique version of the Felix.
I'm using a Rode nk5 with great results (most of the time).
Preamplifier
“If tubes really has the effect on piezos that everyone is reporting, then I would really want to give it a shot.”
I don’t think it’s a simple matter of tubes having an effect on piezos. Brad’s BB is specifically designed to be a tube-based impedance buffer.
While some tube gear may sound good to some people, tubes are not automatically some magic bullet solution to upright tone.
I don’t think it’s a simple matter of tubes having an effect on piezos. Brad’s BB is specifically designed to be a tube-based impedance buffer.
While some tube gear may sound good to some people, tubes are not automatically some magic bullet solution to upright tone.
Absolutely, I think of the Sarno BB as I would any other impedance buffer/preamp. It's job is dramatically improve the sound of piezo pickups
which it does very well.
I certianly have not, hopefully others will chime in. Understand that the Sarno BB isn't really a tube preamp like the Sarno Octal V8.
it's a impedance buffer, with a preamp that boosts the signal to what would be lost through it's placement in the signal chain.
I think you're right Jim but Brad Sarno wrote like this :
"And the big secret I’ve discovered with piezo’s and tubes is that by the sheer nature of a tube’s inherently very-high impedance, a tube can very smoothly and naturally track the wildly fluctuating output impedances from a piezo. When a piezo sees a solid state device, they seem hard, harsh, barky, and crispy-distorted. Then so many people try to EQ those problems away. Midrange parametric surgery, high end darkening, etc. But when a piezo sees a tube grid, there’s an amazing dance there, they just get along so well. The response from the pickujp becomes MUCH more smooth and normal, natural sounding, more like a good microphone than a pickup"
And this is why I'm now trying to find a good tube preamp here in Europe.
Shipment and taxes for one of Sarnos products here in Europe will be quite costly so I'm trying to find a "local" alternative.
"...they seem hard, harsh, barky, and crispy-distorted. Then so many people try to EQ those problems away. Midrange parametric surgery, high-end darkening, etc."
What Brad writes aligns perfectly with my experiences.
Here are the preamps I have tried with my Full Circle. None of them handles the piezo bark/quack/skank and/or warms up the tone the way I had hoped. None sound better (enough) over the TH700 (alone or w/FDEK) to be worth the extra carry/cable etc.
The one unit I am keeping is the FDEK because the HPF works really well.
What Brad writes aligns perfectly with my experiences.
Here are the preamps I have tried with my Full Circle. None of them handles the piezo bark/quack/skank and/or warms up the tone the way I had hoped. None sound better (enough) over the TH700 (alone or w/FDEK) to be worth the extra carry/cable etc.
The one unit I am keeping is the FDEK because the HPF works really well.
Here's a riddle related to this statement: When playing with the Noble pre, it seems to work its magic whether or not it is the first thing in the chain; while I was fooling around with my travel bass, I put a Keeley Bassist in front of it just to see what would happen. It sounded great. Then I put the Keeley after. Still sounded great. I wonder what's going on there?
I've been thinking a lot about this but it's not so easy for him to sell the Paradox (being located in Turkey) and I feel a bit guilty that I got him started on that project.
To ask him to start working on something new before he begins selling enough of Paradox's doesn't feel right...
I might do like that but the BB will probably be quite pricy after I pay shipping and taxes + bringing bass and electronics on the metro is hard. I was hoping to cut down on equipment...
