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Clean(ish) bass preamp and DI

#21
Source Audio ZIO.
It may be more transparent than you like, but this is a fantastic, useful, lovely sounding tool, provided you like (or mostly like) the tone you feed it. The “scoop” switch interacts with the boost/cut treble, and is not at all a simple slap-mid-cutter. I actually leave mine on with the treble cut a bit to expose the mids I push forward on my bass’s preamp (a Delano 3 band). The “grit” switch engages a transformer style circuit with an exterior level control. I run mine always on with the level control nearly off; I don’t need any overdrive, but the circuit introduces a gentle, musical, warmth to my tone. The “bass” control is boost only, and I like its freq. center. It works with the High Pass filter control to really tighten up the low end. The DI is high quality, ground liftable, and quiet. For a single-wide (my technical term…) pedal, it provides simple but incredibly useful preamp functionality, plenty of signal boosting headroom control, a high pass filter to boot, and a great DI. All in a sturdy, quality build.
There’s my pitch. I absolutely love mine.
 
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#23
irish_admiral said:
Actually that Nux pedal looks pretty decent. Good shout.
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It gets great reviews, and for the price I don't think there is anything in the same category that beats it, not unless you pay double and get a Two Notes Opus.

I use the NUX myself and am really satisfied, however I do combine it with other stuff, for my basic clean tone in my amp-less setup.

How I use it I have the Aguilar Tone Hammer amp emulation loaded, as well as one of the stock IR cab simulations, the Ampeg SVT-212AV IR cab sim (I have found no 3rd party IR cab sim that I liked better), with the drive always on, mixed in at 50% on a rather low drive setting, the EQ adjusted to taste.

For SVT tone though I've only heard great things about the all analog One Control Silver Peg, which would be around the same price of the NUX, if less flexible.
 
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#25
Ritter667 said:
No that doesn't work, the frequencies that the Bass and Treble control works on this unit at will not counter this, if you do what you describe you will get a functional relative boost at around 500Hz, the massive baked in scoop at 800Hz will still be there to some degree, while you will now have a mids boost around 500Hz.
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This is true. 800hz cut is narrow and so deep that it cannot be compensated fully. Overal mids can be added that way but not 800hz.
 
#26
irish_admiral said:
Cool.

Just challenging myself as to whether I should just get a parametric EQ (have got a good active DI anyway) or whether the bass pedal is the way forward
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5 band fully parametric, all analog, equalizer, for 130$ from new:
1731348015937.png
 
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#28
Broughton Messenger Jr. DI
Fishman Platinum Pro Eq
MXR bass preamp (M82? I forget the model)
Source Audio Zio
Aguilar Argo
JHS Juice box V3

If you’re serious about just buying a parametric eq, Master Effects(US) and Sine Effects (UK) have nice offerings. The Ibanez looks intriguing, especially for the price! I’d love to try the JHS Colour Box, but can’t justify the cost. 😎
 
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#29
irish_admiral said:
Hi folks

Newbie (UK) here. I’m hunting around for a backup to my Helix floor unit. I have a couple of Warwick Corvette basses (Proline 4 and FNA Jazzman 5), and the missus plays a little Ibanez P-J Mikro bass fitted with Tonerider alnicos.

I’m looking for something to use as a backup to the SVT model in the Helix or which I can chuck in the bag when I can’t be bothered to lug the Helix around. Don’t want to spend much.

Any suggestions for a decent cheap prep / DI which has some tone shaping capability? Not too fussed about lots of other effects. It gets used to pop, rock, blues etc.

Any suggestions welcomed! Bit bewildered by the range of stuff.
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If you like clean, clear, warm, and articulate sound AND can find one, an Eden WTDI will do the trick. It's a stompbox DI with built-in Eden WT preamp. I keep mine in my gig bag and have used it for all kinds of backline amps by plugging it into that amps effects in/return thereby bypassing the amps native preamp and replacing it with my Eden Preamp. I've also used it going direct to the sound board when asked to do so instead of bringing in amps. I used it back in 2019 for a 3-hour recording session where they wanted me to come direct to the board because of bleed-over between bass and drums being in the same room. At the end of the session both the sound engineer and the owner of the club came out to see what I was doing. They had not adjusted any EQ or put any compression on it but just adjusted the level using the signal I sent them.

I use an '82 Jazz with an all-maple neck and 70's era pickup spacing, which is a little brighter sounding than my '65 Jazz was (stolen in 1976). It was the best my bass ever sounded. It only has a 3 band EQ with the mid control being toggled between 550Hz and 2.2KHz. I am a firm believer it a slight boost in the low mids to get good presence and definition with my Jazz, so I set the toggle to 550Hz and boosted it to 1:30 and ran everything else flat. If you boost the low-mids too much it will honk at you, so just turn it back down bit by bit until the honk disappears. That's basically the settings I use with my big 800 watt Eden WT500/800 too.

Surprisingly that WTDI is just as warm sounding as my big Eden amp that uses a 12ax7 tube in the preamp to generate their characteristic warmth of sound. It uses a "magic ear" chip (THAT-4301) that among other things emulates tube warmth very nicely. It also has a "Bass Boost" button if you need a bigger bass sound. That boost button only boosts the bass without scooping out mids or boosting the treble. It comes with its own 15v power supply but anything that delivers up to 18v with the correct polarity works - has to be able to deliver at least 15v. I lost mine and got another one and the second one was 18v and came along with a confirmation that this worked fine on the WTDI and it has.

I paid $149 for mine new in about 2016. There seem to be a number of them online and used prices run from $119 to $179, with most at $149. It also has an onboard one-control adjustable compressor that works quite well for a one-knob solution. I would recommend staying away from the Enhance control or at least don't turn it up above about 9 o'clock or you will start dialing yourself right out of the mix because it boosts the bass and treble and scoops out the mids. That's good for bedroom and perhaps acoustic sets at small venues but not for playing in group.

Here's a shot of one:

WTDI.JPG
 
#30
Do you need the grit. Palmer Pocket Bass DI is pretty decent. Actually that Behringer unit is not bad.

I got one because my NUX MLD stopped working but then I got the ZIO and now the Palmer in addition because I need aux in. I gave the Behringer to a buddy who uses it with his old Ric. He loves the tone,

Zio is more like a Sadowsky preamp - only Bass boost and treble boost/cut, HPF , pultec contour and a decent console transformer grit. HPF is not strictly an HPF because it does bring up some mids. Pultec contour is not a smiley EQ per se. If's the Pultec boost and attenuate trick . The gain is also below unity till ten so you can use it as underdrive so to speak

Palmer has a surprising grit saturate control and you have an overdrive or fuzz type. Also has FX loop. However sound wise, I still like the ZIO. Something about the clean sound
 
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#33
This is just the perfect toss in the bag single pedal solution that has a HPF (Focus), a grit switch that I would run turned ON but have the grit dial turned almost to OFF all the time. It has a quality you should hear. Bass boost only, Treble +/- and the scoop is what you would basically expect. DI & 1/4" outputs... Headphone out, too - 9v @ 200mA IIRC...
e98df189955874fcaf6ef41737da312b1c7819.jpg

You could even benefit from running it into the HX!
 
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#34
If you're looking for a good sounding eq and di there's a lot of options. Hartke bass attack, MCR preamp, nux mld, TC spectra drive, Aguilar tone hammer, electro harmonix bass battalion all would work. Ampeg scr di too. Some of those you can find pretty cheap used. I have a nux, TC spectra drive among other pedals and what's nice is how much customizing you can do through the software. If you don't want to mess with software then Mxr, the bass battalion, hartke bass attack or tone hammer would all be easy plug and play pedals with dirt and grind as well as lots of useful EQ to play with.
 
#39
irish_admiral said:
The NUX, Laney and Palmer units all cost roughly the same. Any communal consensus as to which is best?

Don’t do much in the way of slap etc, so warmer or punchier tones are better…
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These are new prices? Either the Laney is really cheap where you are or the Nux and Palmer are more than I would expect.

The Nux will have the most features, but has a long history of people wanting to toss it out the window because they can’t get their computer to recognize it. As such, it’s usually available used for much cheaper. That’s where its real value comes in.

I would think that MXR M80s and M81s should be available in this range, as well?

Basically the differences between them are: the Palmer and Laney have effects loops; the Nux has IR cab sims, the Palmer has an analog cab sim; they all have completely different jack placement, if that matters to you; the Palmer can be battery powered; the Laney arguably has the best drive, but the Palmer offers overdrive and fuzz; the Nux supports three different preamp voices; the Nux and Palmer have a sweepable midrange, while the Laney has fixed low and high mids.

It sort of boils down to which of these has the most features that matter to you: they’ll all be competent as an EQ+DI.
 

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