dUg Ultra Bass 1000 - Tech 21

[wolverinebass]

This is a very cool amp. I can tell you from experience, you can't get these kind of tones without true biamping. I can get them with a rolls xover, a sansamp pedal and a boss loop/mixer pedal but, that takes alot of cables and space for one sound. If the amp was $1000 I would already have one. I may just have a pedal made to encompass that sound but, it would be cooler if tech21 would just put it out. With a clean sound underneath the OD, there is too much interferance in the upper range and it just doesn't sound amp-like. So, the DUG has it nailed.

Quite right. It's very difficult to achieve such tones. My own signal chain is Sansamp PSA 1.1 => Behringher DEQ 2426 => Korg DTR 2000 => Rolls sx21 => Treble to Digitech 2120 and then mixed back in with the bass and back into the return of the Sansamp then off my trusty Yamaha 5000s. There is a Boss LS2 after the tuner to switch to full grind or full clean, but I'm only listing my 12 string tone option here.

In thinking about it, that didn't cost that much less than the dUg if you consider I've had it for 5 years and adjust for inflation....

I thought I'd chance my arm in a month or so as long as the numerical figure in pounds is less than that in dollars (which it appears to be from Mad Hatters post above - Result!!), otherwise I kind of feel it's a bit much regardless how good it is. From the soundclips Andrew did, I'm very, very excited about this as the tone is just genius. Crushing yet not excessive, rattling whilst maintaining clarity. Fail to see how anyone would want more really. Yes, I've talked myself round!!

 

[tech21nyc]

I find that to have a balanced clean tone, I have to either:
1) Turn the bass eq down below 12:00, which severely limits the max volume of the amp to below stage levels, or
2) Crank the mid boost to ~3:00, which brings up the noise floor significantly. Regardless, the noise is still quite noticeable with the mid boost at noon.


I have Acme 4x10 and 2x10 cabinets, and fEarful 12/6/1's. The noise is apparent on all of them.


My Mesa M6 seems to be as loud as the dUg, but with no noise at low volume. The noise on the clean channel is certainly audible even with drums. Here are sound clips recorded by a Zoom H2N with an active jazz bass, roundwound strings, into a looper so the signal going into the amps is always the same. The clean tone of the dUg is clearly the noisiest, and while the noise isn't obnoxious while the drums are playing, it is still audible. (Excuse the sloppy drumming!)
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Don't get me wrong, the Mix mode on this amp is absolutely amazing. I just feel like a couple of small tweaks could have turned this into a 3 channel, versatile monster instead of a great sounding, but single channel, amp.

It's hard to diagnose without being in the same room. I guess there are a number of different factors to be considered. The type of bass you're using (active vs passive) and playing style etc.

In terms of volume, the difference in dB between 600 and 1000 watts is only 2.2dB which won't be very noticeable at all in the lower frequency region. Plus from what I read about the Acme cabs is that they are not very efficient so you are losing some volume there.

The dUg amp is a signature amp and went through quite a number of "tweaks" to make him happy. That was kind of the point behind the project

 

[Mongo Slade]

I was thinking that the amp was expensive as well, but when I put together my "Budget dUg" rig to compare it was almost as expensive(and that was with Buying some of the components used) and
really didn't get close to the sound and versatility of the real deal(I did an A/B). My rig was:
FEA DB-CL to split the signal and apply compression to the lows only
SGFX Beta to provide boost and low end girth to the lows
SGFX Zeta to provide dynamic distortion for the highs
AI Focus 2R vIII to mix the individual signal paths, provide a combined DI, and throw enough output power to make it close.
I futzed around with this for weeks before I came to two conclusions:
1.) I hate pedals, patch cables, batteries and power supplies
2.) I love the dUg Ultra Bass 1000
Sure there are a couple of things I wish were more like the "budget " rig, but for the most part I am stone happy. I realize that any number of different boxes for distortion might have gotten closer or farther away from the Tech 21 sound
but I opted for the SGFX because of simplicity, and it didn't invert phase and screw with the midrange. The FEA is a more complete compression circuit. but I have come to find that the compression in the dUg is just enough for me.
I am always a little uneasy with posts questioning the cost of something. There is a guy here in Brooklyn making basses that I think cost more than any human in their right mind would need to pay, yet he has a years long waiting list so I have learned to accept that price is what the market will bear, and not to be disappointed if something is out of my price range. Overseas commerce is always a little cause for head scratching, IMO. I have always thought that EBS stuf(which I love) is a little too pricey here on this side of the pond, but we have US made stuff that is expensive as well; I bought my dUg for less than I paid for a Mesa Prodigy and am keeping the dUg because it does more to satisfy my tone goals. And my band loves the sound - yes, even on weddings...

Peace

 

[andrew]

I love the dUg Ultra Bass 1000

Me too.

I was thinking that the amp was expensive as well, but when I put together my "Budget dUg" rig to compare it was almost as expensive(and that was with Buying some of the components used)

A few of us crunched similar numbers early on too and came to the same conclusion.

And my band loves the sound - yes, even on weddings...

Glad you put us doubters to rest on the dUg rocking in the wedding band.

 

[andrew]

Couple things. I agree, Andrew has been great for this thread and an excellent ambassador for Tech 21. I've been corresponding with him on the side and everything he has said about the amp has been spot on. I trust his ear.

Agreed, the RR work around that Andrew has shared has really taken the dUg to another level for me

Thank you guys. I'm just excited about this amp for the reasons I've already said in this thread plenty of times. And while I'm confident it's a great amp (and particularly a great amp for me), I'm glad we can build this thread to help anyone interested in the dUg to make an informed decision on whether it's the right amp for them.

 

[Mad Hatter]

If you go to dUg's facebook page he has posted a review of the Ultrabass by a guy called Jon Willis with links to four videos on You Tube that look in detail at the bass, distorted and blended channels with lots of playing. It's excellent quality (to my ears anyway...) and definitely worth a watch.

 

[andrew]

@kringle77 , here's a bass you know going into the dUg.

Thanks for pointing this out Mad Hatter.

 

[andrew]

I havn't watched these yet but figured I'd save everyone the hunt.

 

[kringle77]

Thanks andrew. Thats a low end model but, good videos overall.

 

[BrBss]

I know I've given the dUg 1000 some criticism in this thread, but I really do love the tone of this thing. I'm getting rid of the Mesa, my XD-1, and my Hyperdrive, because this amp is all I ever play anymore

 

[andrew]

I know I've given the dUg 1000 some criticism in this thread, but I really do love the tone of this thing. I'm getting rid of the Mesa, my XD-1, and my Hyperdrive, because this amp is all I ever play anymore

You gave me the impression you were happy with the amp. Having suggestions and mentioning ways the amp might be changed to work better for your needs aren't bad. Glad you're liking it so much it's replacing your other gear, that's a good nod to the amp's tone when it can supplant the quality of gear you're selling in favour of the dUg.

 

[wolverinebass]

Whilst I've been reasonably curious about the pricing of the amp (it appears to have come down in the UK a bit - Result!!), I have come round to the fact that it's going to be on the cards soon.

Whilst there are reasons to be healthily inquisitive (or possibly critical depending on your viewpoint) of all gear (regardless if you've played it), I would say that from what I've seen and heard it batters the biamp sound very, very easily. How I'd love to run my Hamer 12ver through that!! However, to me the down side seems that the clean sound is maybe not that great? Obviously, that's not why you'd buy this. If that's what you wanted I'd imagine you'd get a Glockenlang or something. Something very clean.

For total flexibility, it would have been just beyond a level of brilliant if they'd had savable presets like on the PSA 1.1 (which I use and really love). Whilst I don't think that anyone who gets one of these will probably ever need to use more than 2-3 EQ sounds in a night, it would afford the clean channel to be better implemented once you turn the high one off as you could switch to proper EQ'd bass sounds by having MIDI implementation and control. Possibly. On the other hand that may very well have made the amp prohibitively expensive in the extreme. I don't know. It was just a thought.

I guess this will be down to user experience and as I don't have one yet, I'd invite views on it. Can you flick back and forth between clean and biamp without a substantive volume drop and still have a good sound? Or would one need to use EQ pedals or something for that so as to get the most out of the bass channel?

 

[tech21nyc]

Yes you can set up the amp to toggle between clean and biamp without a volume drop. When in biamp mode the bottom channel has the LPF engaged. When the bottom channel is used on its own the LPF is bypassed and the channel becomes full range. You will have to tweak the settings to work best with your particular speaker system and instrument.

Bassist Brian Bromberg was playing through the amp at Bass Player Live last week. He was quite impressed with how the amp responded to his playing.

 

[andrew]

I guess this will be down to user experience and as I don't have one yet, I'd invite views on it. Can you flick back and forth between clean and biamp without a substantive volume drop and still have a good sound? Or would one need to use EQ pedals or something for that so as to get the most out of the bass channel?

It comes down to what kind of clean tone you want too. You can dial back the drive while running full range and get a decent clean sound, but if you want to be able to toggle between a clean and dirty tone it'll depend on how bright a clean you want and if you like the dirty tone with the low channel set to where you're happiest with the clean tone.

For me, I prefer to set the low channel's eq to get the best dirty tone I can. This leaves the clean tone, aka the solo'ed low channel, very dark and boomy sounding. Rather than compromise my dirty tone, I use an external pedal (the Red Ripper) to eq the solo'ed low channel into sounding more bright and present and typically Tech 21 style clean. I posted sound clips of the Red Ripper's effect on my solo'ed low channel's clean tone a couple pages back in this thread.

I know the low channel does have a treble control internally that's set to be flat. If it was on a trim pot inside that you could tweak that'd be fantastic.

 

[wolverinebass]

It comes down to what kind of clean tone you want too. You can dial back the drive while running full range and get a decent clean sound, but if you want to be able to toggle between a clean and dirty tone it'll depend on how bright a clean you want and if you like the dirty tone with the low channel set to where you're happiest with the clean tone.

For me, I prefer to set the low channel's eq to get the best dirty tone I can. This leaves the clean tone, aka the solo'ed low channel, very dark and boomy sounding. Rather than compromise my dirty tone, I use an external pedal (the Red Ripper) to eq the solo'ed low channel into sounding more bright and present and typically Tech 21 style clean. I posted sound clips of the Red Ripper's effect on my solo'ed low channel's clean tone a couple pages back in this thread.

I know the low channel does have a treble control internally that's set to be flat. If it was on a trim pot inside that you could tweak that'd be fantastic.

Yeah, that's what I thought Andrew, that to toggle between a brutal biamp tone and the respective part of the clean channel it'd be quite boomy otherwise you'd have a load of clean high end seeping into the siganal which I'd imagine wouldn't sound that great.

As someone that likes quite a snappy clean tone I'd imagine I'd be using your Red Ripper solution or at least something similar. It's just such a pity really that a "one footswitch" solution isn't quite possible or that the dUg doesn't have midi implementation or patch saving. At the moment, my rig is all midi controlled so I'm used to the "press one button and everything changes" type scenario. I'm not really one for pedal tap dancing so I'd imagine that this would need some serious thought as to how to implement it.

 

[andrew]

To clarify my earlier post, you can set your dirty tone a few different kinds of brutal and depending how you do you may still end up with a decent clean tone.

For example, dUg's personal setting has a clearer clean tone than my personal favorite setting because I boost the mids in my dirty signal a lot where dUg scoops mids. If you like boosted mids in your dirty signal you'll not get the same clarity on your low channel solo'ed.

It's possible to dial in both a clean and dirty sound you might be happy with, it's just not possible for me because of how I like to set the amp for my dirty tone.

 

[iceboxbass]

Thanks! For reference here's a longer clip of me wanking on a Spector bass with the amp eq'ed to dUg's personal setting, which you can see in the recommended settings of the amp's manual. Sorry for the schizophrenic riffing but I wanted to show the sound on both high and low notes and played fast and slowly.

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While dUg's setting sounds great too, it has a lot less mids dialled in and less drive and overall lower eq settings. Not really a wrong choice here but if you compare this to the clip I posted previously you can hear the difference the added mids, gain and eq add, which personally I like. I know others will prefer the scooped mid sound of dUg's personal setting.

Man that's some mean snarl out of that dUg and Spector bass!

 

[smcgov]

if someone could post the entwistle setting sound I'd love to hear it, and the squire sound.....are your clips using picks?

 

[thumbs&fingers]

Y aren't more people talking bout this amp........didn't think t21 could pull it off.......but it's a great SS head with or without distirtion. And no more pedals-BOUT TIME.

 

[toddsterbassist]

Y aren't more people talking bout this amp........didn't think t21 could pull it off.......but it's a great SS head with or without distirtion. And no more pedals-BOUT TIME.

Because few people can afford it.