Dr. DIMENTOS ONBOARD PREAMP & BOSS GEB-7 GRAPHIC EQ EXPERIMENT

[luknfur]

VICTOR BAILEY PREAMP

Vol/treble-bass stack/Mid/Pan

In a nutshell: Slap to Reggae.

Here's the Fender Shpiele:

Bass EQ is centered at 40Hz ± 12dB with a 4dB per-octave slope; treble is centered at 8 kHz ± 10dB with a 2dB per-octave slope (treble cut serves more as a passive control for warm organic tones); mid-control is centered at 500Hz and +10dB and -15dB with a wide-band slope creating a distinctive voice. For maximum headroom, the circuit has an 18-volt power supply.

I did need the 18v to keep it from distorting, that's with rechargeables. The pre is suprisingly versatile in spite of having some serious curves. Even more suprising is that pretty much the full range of the controls is useful for some application. I did use some some major cuts in mids and trebles to tunes as well as bass to a lessor degree. Even though there are some serious curve variatons with moderate to severe adjustment of a single band, it often takes very little tweaking of a control to make a marked difference or nail a tone.

So far I've found the bass frequencies least useful and 50Hz may have been a better center than 40Hz for a 4 string. Hard to say cause all 3 bands work together to make the pre what it is. Most difficulty in adjustment was getting bass where I wanted it, getting a defined attack or punch instead of a bulge yet keeping a solid bottom line like I wanted. The mid and treble are pretty user friendly. Still all 3 bands compliment one another quite well.

Although this is a more typical sounding preamp compared to the Alembic, like the Alembic it's on another plain in terms of tone shaping with other preamps I've had. In spite of the Fender propaganda, it doesn't have the genuine passive quaility to tone like the Alembic, but it is like the Alembic in that it's not just a boost/cut volume variation of the same sound per band range. The treble can pull off a presence type top or dip to a stunted Bart-like top end - and well beyond that if desired. The mids can drop out of sight or cut like a knife. Bass can go from that peculiar vintage Fender attack only tone to a bulging distorted swell.


FLUFF:

I'm always looking for something different. I recently picked up what amounts to an old Alembic activator set. It was more of what I initially expected onboard preamps to be like. After laying off onboard pre's for a year, it must have rekindled an interest in Pre's cause a fellow TB'r had these VB pre/pups in the classifieds and was still available when the pre aroused interest.

I didn't have a bass vacant or one that would accept those larger Fender pot shafts so I ran the VB as an outboard. I'd speculated from online info that the pre would be different than the typical pre and it is.

I ran the VB through a Poly SS combo, THD tube, and QSC SS power amp. Primarily Bass> VB> Art Mic Pre> QSC paralell mode> pair of GS112's using just the bridge pup. Basses included acoustically midrange w/Fender Cutsom Shop J's, Fender Noiseless J's, Fender '59 Custom Shop P mounted bridge position, and an acoustically bright bass with a dual coil Lane Poor MM. All quite toastie except the P pup was uneventful. The LP was more buttery than usual.

FWIW:

The Alembic I'm sort of working on an outbaord version to run separate from the Alembic pups, I've got a Sans DI/MXR M80 DI comparison and a Art tube Mic Pre/Studio Projects VTB1 Tube Mic Pre comparison I intend to get around to at some point. Maybe this will get me started.


Addendum (added from 80's Seymour Duncan 1/4 Pd P pup experience):

Really a sweet little pre in terms of getting tone and extremely impressive in the sense of being able to hear an individual band curve run through the existing other two bands. Never experienced that with an other preamp. The Alembic tone filter curve is blantantly audible but it's a single control. I'm guessing it would be similar experience using a filter on each pup. The VB is not sweet in terms of adjustment cause it's hair trigger, not intuitive, and typically requires a mix of two controls to get it right. Definitely a no pain no gain pre. Misery to jack with but the tone is worth it.

Works like a charm off center detent eq (in terms of getting the tone anyway), whether that's flat on the VB unit I have no idea. For all exept Reggae, I doubt any of the controls move more than an 1/8 of a turn of the knob off the detent when I get the adjustment right. Since the bands interact, if I cut more than that, I just have to cut the others to match. Even so it works but it's not the same cause the curves are different. Amazing array of subtle variations that make a signficant difference in tone. Sometimes using the same tone to the following tune will be so far off it sounds out of tune. Other times it works well with no problem. Other times it works but is different just not the tone in the recorded tune. That can be anything from an appealing variation to marginal to on the weird side. Seems like 90% of the time some adjustment was required.

 

[luknfur]

SANS/MXR DI COMPARISON

This is basically from memory as the unit are gone and the review I’d made up of them inadvertently got dropped. No info you couldn’t pick up elsewhere anyway but just another players experience.

Used as a preamp for me cause typically I play a bass with no onboard controls so some external form of tone control is of consequence, especially since I often play into a power amp.

Both of these units drove the power amp to a practice volume but no more so I ran them into an Art Mp to boost the signal. The Sans Di is the later model with more boost; 24dB I think. I use rechargeable batteries and I don’t recall these sucking batteries but I didn’t use them that much either. I used the MXR as a guinea pig to try a Boss PST adapter before putting it to a Sadowsky DI, worked fine on both of them. The Sans was already gone but I assume it would have worked on it as well.


Both units heavily color tone (in fact the MXR has a color button, ie. scooped tone) but bypassed are comparatively transparent. For sure, both units threw a blatant filter-like dullness into tone engaged compared to the natural tone of the bass. On the positive side of Color is that it’s relative and not inherently a bad thing - ie. the Sans is well known for pulling acceptable tone from less than acceptable gear, plenty of advanced players use them as well though. I played lots of basses through both of these units and they all sounded different. So at any rate, the coloring is not to the degree that everything will sound the same through them.

The most appealing aspect tone wise of the Sans to me was the tube emulation which isn’t bad, especially given it’s variable - mixing blend and gain will thin or fatten the effect as desired. At about the halfway point of the control adjustment tube emulation turns into digitized distortion. Neither unit to me had useable distortion and the MXR was one of the most disgusting sounds I’ve heard for bass - trebly guitar crunch/chunk/fuzz (okay for guitar, not for bass).

Probably the most appealing aspect to me of the MXR tone wise (aside from less coloration) was the color button (scooped) which couldn’t be had from scooped settings from the tone controls (the controls are less effective but can be used in conjunction with the color button). The color button added a transparent Sadowsky-like presence to tone. The MXR has two channels, clean and distortion. They can be combined or used separately but the color switch is automatically disengaged when the distortion channel is kicked in. The MXR did seem to add less color to tone than the Sans and, aside from the color button, it also has a mid control which the Sans doesn’t.

In practice, the MXR I tended to favor simply becuase it alotted tone control with less coloration.

The basic appeal of these units to me is you get so much for so little. Their small, light, cheap (about $100 used), multi-functional, and versatile. You don’t have to change anything in your bass and you can use them with any bass, Always a good idea to have a piece you can run direct if all the money you’ve lugged along to get the job done develops a glitch.

 

[luknfur]

OUTBAORD SADOWSKY DI/PREAMP

Synopsis

You’ll unlikely pull a rabbit out of hat with this unit but you will likely make a good tone better. Totally different animal than the Sans/MXR

Whole Enchilada

Not your typical di/preamp. First thought was is this thing broke cause it doesn’t seem to do anything. For the most part what it does is that subtle. In your face is the last thing it is and it won’t turn junk into gold. Junk in with the Sad will give you junk out. Not a piece of gear for the novice. So what‘s the point?

The point is that it’s a lot like the difference between a killer pup and a quality pup. Nothing major but there’s a definite noticeable difference for the better that gives an edge that makes a big difference. Moving up the ladder of tone tends to be one of progressively diminishing returns and a little can mean a lot.

So what does the Sad do? Basically it added a definition, presence, clarity, and cut to tone that can be so subtle that you don’t notice till it’s removed from the chain. I also noticed added punch, bite, and growl. No massive bass or through the roof treble. It enhanced noise wherever it existed (60 cycle whatever) and accentuated sloppy play. Worked well to finger, flat pick, and slap.

A good a way to convey what the Sad does is to describe what effect the controls had. Roger recommends to crank the volume and set treble and bass on zip and go from there. Good advice cause it really doesn't take much and cranking tone controls serves no useful purpose I could tell.

Engaged sound with treble/bass at zip was very much like bypassed, very transparent. In general relative to bypassed, engaged tone seemed to spread frequencies out with bass and treble more present. Increasing bass from zip, a little bass kicks treble too so often treble wasn’t needed. Bass control had an interesting brightening/thinning affect to the top end when bass was increased but treble kept minimal. Real good clarity using just bass control alone. Bass thickens up considerably by 3.

Set both bass and treble on about 3 and it muds up but that's useful in tunes where you don't want clarity like a bulge on the baseline or bite in the top end. Move the treble up from there and it starts pulling the top out again and you can get top bite without the bass bulge. Tweaking them both up or down around the 3 marker and you get fatness back on the bottom with top half bite but it's an airier mix than bypassed using similar eq‘ing. Using treble alone you can pretty much drop the bottom end out. Never moved bass pass 3 or treble past 5 except out of curiosity. Sounded scooped in general but mids are apparent and can even seem pronounced depending on tune and setting.

Sounds much more like the bass ran passive when bass is backed off and much more passive sounding than most pre’s played to music. Sometimes I preferred the bypassed tone but I have no controls on the bass so the Sad added tonal flexibility and, when the bass or treble end tended to sound lacking, the Sad really helped there. Did have an active quality to tone but it's not major like a MXR/SANS (which comparatively dulled tone). Each pup sounded as different with the Sad as it did without it, so the Sad’s very transparent. Only ran one active pup through the Sad, an EMG LJ-5, and couldn't tell the Sad did anything at all. However I can say the same thing for some passive pups I ran through it.

I think the Sad site said 90 hours for battery life. They must have used a Diehard. I got more like 9 hours, not more than 15 at the outside but that was with a rechargeable. A Boss PSA-120T adapter worked fine from that point on. A real plus with the Sad is the mute button for swapping basses when plugged.

 

[luknfur]

ALEMBIC ACTIVATOR PREAMP (mounted onboard and outboard)

2 Volume/1 Tone Filter

Synopsis

Basically a rehash of what’s in the J pup experiment but people aren’t going to be looking in a pup thread for preamp info. So if you've read that you can skip this.

Very different pre with a tone filter and I can‘t hear any boost/cut - just sounds like a passive volume control to me. Very passive sounding yet refined, clear, and dead quiet. Clearly audible curve variations with a full spectrum of extreme dark to bright tones. Myriad of tonal variations that don’t fit into a synopsis. Generally user friendly though tweaking can be a task at times. Pronounced coloration regardless of the pups I’ve ran it with but it’s strangely unique and appealing and personally I want preamps to color tone. To me different preamps are about coloring tone as I've found a preamp that doesn't color tone to be pretty useless. If I just want the tone of the pups then that’s what I’ll run.


Whole Enchilda

The Alembic filter is central to the tone and to me there's no way to seperate the tone of the pups from this filter, especially given that you'd have to cut (or jeri-rig) the Alembic clips to make the pups without it. The tone filter is the only thing that was adjusted with a given setup for this run.

This preamp is different from any of the onboard Bart, Aguilar, EMG or the outboard Sans DI, MXR M80 stuff I've had. These all effectively boost/cut and typically filter some rawness out of passive pup tone, but I don't here them doing much else with the exception of mid switching. The color switch on the MXR and the presence control on the Sans add a nice spin to that. From recall, the NE-1 parametric EQ was closer to this Alembic (esp. on the high frequency band). The Alembic is very passive sounding and the filter control blatantly audibly changes the curve and quality of tone in the process. It doesn't just sound like the same thing boost/cut. This is more what I expected preamps to do when I first got them and how I'd prefer them designed (especially if tone could be more easily dialed in). Makes me wonder about the Sad pre's, another untried arena. This Alembic preamp is hi-fi sounding in the sense that tone is quite clear and dead quiet, sound is passive otherwise.

Definitely different, interesting, and unique sound and control arrangement. The filter control results in a fairly sudden phase-like transition from a very dark tone to a treble tone. There is a small window of "midrange" transition but it's probably no more than about 10% of the control travel. So tone was for the most part divided into a dark or top half tone. Typically, both a bass heavy and treble heavy tone can be obtained that will work to each tune. Sometimes a tone will dial in and sync up to each tune not unlike harmonic tuning - drawing in, locking in, and fading in and out as the filter control is adjusted. Unlike harmonic tuning, the sync'ing up is sometimes very definitive, other times shades of gray, and still other times it's more a case of ruling out what doesn't work than what does.

A couple interesting things about the tone which I assume is more associated to the filter than pups. First, minimal changes in the filter setting can also make a significant difference depending. I was also struck at how big sounds at low volume could be. Aside from the obvious change in the frequency curve and in addition to controlling fade on strings, the filter could also seem to alter the shape of the note itelf. Four of those variations I found quite useful. In synch, it would be a clear defined note across the board. Rotating the filter from there would vary clarity: 2) the bottom half could retain some definition and seem to spread out while the top half retained most of it's definition 3) the bottom half could seem to practically disappear yet return a presence while the top half carried the note with warm midrange focus (ala Fender) 4) the bottom half could becoming a wall of sound while the top still had noticeable definition.

Still, it's no cakewalk to find a predictable tone with this filter. However, since the J tone was more adaptable to tunes without adjustment, it wasn't the nightmare with a song change that the P was. But it is a less severe form of the same experience when I went fishing for tone.

The pre also has a gain trim pot which I've read statements to the effect that the pup height doesn't matter with Alembics (Barts typically have a similar gain pot) cause you can simply increase the gain to compensate. Don't agree with that becuase the pickup senses the strings differently at different height's and these Alembics are no different in that respect. Even if gain were to affect tone, it's not going to be the same effect as altering pup height. I personally didn't find altering the gain control to be of much use. It did indicate it would be of use for boosting output or removing distortion if that were needed.

I've since put the preamp in an outboard box and ran the Alembic pups without the preamp. Suprisingly, they both sound very much like the same Alembic tone when they're split up. The preamp heavily colors tone with any pups I've ran through it. The last being a Dimarzio X2N-B in neck position. Sounded like an Alembic for the most part yet the same pup ran through the Victor Bailey sounded like an X2N-B in neck position.

Coloration I have no problem with personally. I want preamps to be colored so I can alter tone on the front end accordingly. Amps I prefer to be transparent. A dozen amps I don't want, a dozen pre's I can handle.

 

[luknfur]

Presonus EQB3

3 band parametric EQ: B/M/T each with boost/cut, frequency, and curve so 9 knobs total; bypass and 80Hz cutoff switch; unbalanced ¼” in/out and balanced xlr in/out; power adapter.

Guess I’ll toss out a little spiel on this unit since I’ve had it for a month or so. I’ve been thinking about a micro rack for a while and even if you could get smaller than this it would be pretty pointless.

The EQ3B seems to be most popular with DB players but strikes me as pretty useful in general for rack type tweaking. I don’t typically have onboard controls so I tried it as a sub for an outboard pre but too many knobs, not extreme enough in tone variation, and no coloration to suit my need for that. Been playing almost exclusively through the V Bass lately and it works pretty well for fine tuning that.

Some pluses are it’s cheap (about $100 new), small (roughly 2“ x 6“ x 6“ couple pounds maybe), seems built pretty solid (all metal including knobs), and looks like it‘d cost a lot more than it does. Small size does make the knobs a bit close together in terms of adjustment and the specific levels hard to see for someone blind as me but I‘m a sound not numbers guy anyway. Control setup is about as much as I’d want or it gets to be too much stuff and I get lost in the mix - and I like knobs not sliders. Really I’d prefer less and was thinking of something like the Bass Buddy but I figured this would do till I ran across one. Something like the bass buddy would be better as an outboard pre, maybe not for the V bass.

The unit alters EQ as it’s supposed to and that’s all. If there’s any coloration I can’t hear it. Tweaking controls in general doesn’t produce severe variation but there are some to be had. A little tweak of one control can make a big difference to tunes. Played around with it a lot at first but since I just use it ran from the V bass, once I found a general setting, it’s pretty much stayed there. There’s more definition in tone with it than without it and it’s just nice having it there if alteration is needed.