Alright, I'm starting a new thread on this to keep things a bit more clear. I got a bit more money to spend and I'm looking to get a good preamp/DI box.
My sound is mainly clean. A touch of OD but that's as far as I'll go with distortion. Never use fuzz or straight up distortion at all, don't need it, don't like, don't want it. I mainly play rock, in all its various incarnations. Bit of metal in there too but nothing that would need distortion.
A dealbreaker would be a noisy signal. I need a good DI and noise is a no-no.
The main purpose of this is to have a consistent tone as well as add some character, warmth and "oomph" to whatever I'm playing. Over here, backline is always provided and I don't wanna rely on whatever's available, save for monitoring, basically. So I need something both for recording direct, as well as being able to just send it straight to the FOH and go from there. In the future, I'll get IEM to go completely ampless.
I'm gonna start with the ones that are above my price range. Mesa Subway, Microbass III, Bass Butler, Markbass vintage pre, anything Noble. And being in Europe, I can't really find any of those used. Even if I did, the used prices aren't low enough for me to afford them.
The contenders are:
Aguilar Tone Hammer: From the many videos I've seen, it seems a bit... bland. I find it uninspiring and very "mild". The AGS thing also seems to be something that I'd use set waaaaay down, just to add a bit of hair. For anything else, it seems to be just obnoxious and also jacks up the volume so it doesn't seem like something you could use as a discreet OD setting, just a set and forget kinda thing.
All in all, it's on the very bottom of my list but it gets so many accolades here it's got me curious if there's something I'm not hearing.
GK Plex: This thing has everything AND the kitchen sink. Big plusses are the cab sim, compressor and tuner, which you can't find on most other stuff. Also various voicings and nice EQ options. I quite like it although my only concern is that it does kinda tend to get a bit more... digital or hi-fi than I'd like. Less warm, more "clinical", so to speak.
Le Bass: This one's pretty confusing. I love the tube aspect. Don't know if it's a starved plate kinda thing but it does seem to sound much warmer than the rest. However, I have no use for the distortion settings and from what I gather, those tend to be a big part of this pedal. Otherwise, honestly, this one sounded the best to me.
EBS Valve Drive: I'd used the older version in the past. Really liked it back then but I again, I'm not quite sure about it. Seems quite limited in its options and just a bit "gimmicky" with the tube. It gets a nice tone but lacks further tone shaping features and that places it lower on my list.
The outliers/unknowns:
DG Alpha-Omega: I briefly thought about this one but it seems its main thing is pretty nasty distortion and that would just be useless to me. Using it for cleans might not be the best tactic, considering there are other ones that do that kinda thing better.
DSM & Humboldt Simplifier: Total unknown. I literally know nothing of this thing and it seems to be more of a cab sim than a preamp. I find cab sims extremely useful but... yeah. Enlighten me.
QStrip: This one also seems to be popular around here as a clean pedal but I must say, I'm not impressed. If anything, I think it was underwhelming and, apart from the VERY useful HPF & LPF options, to me, it doesn't sound like it adds any character or does anything more than a good dedicated EQ pedal couldn't do. But again, maybe I'm just plain wrong.
The Sansamp offerings have me a bit confused. I kinda sorta like most of them but I feel they're lacking something and I just can't get over the lack of mids and mid control (say on the BDDI).
Another option I thought about was going for something like the
Presonus Studio Channel. It's a tube driven studio preamp with a nice parametric EQ and a compressor with extensive settings. It might not get me any grit but I suppose any soft OD pedal can do that job on the cheap. Other than that, this thing seems to have everything one might need. Only thing that holds me back is the rack format which isn't as easy to lug around as a single pedal you can just throw in the gigbag and be done with it.
So... help?
Many thanks
