Ok... After I fiddled with 2 preamps today in a nutshell for all of you who are trying to decide:
The Baggs has a punchy, tight, almost hi-fi very clear sound. The low end is tight, like I said, but very strong. It took me some drastic knob turning but I got a fantastic sound. it is the sound of the instrument you plug into it with problem areas fixed.
The Fishman seems to have a baked in curve that gives us a head start on the typical problem frequencies in the high mids. Minimal tone control moving got me the tone I like. The lows were not as strong inherently, but easy to add. I still did not find a setting on the depth control that tightened the lows up as well as the Baggs while still keeping them strong. I also noticed that tweaking things would affect others. The EQ, depth, and compression all affected the Gain and output. I would describe the tone as woody in comparison to the hi-fi-ness of the Baggs. The lower mids really were very warm, and I would say this box really altered the natural instrument's tone to be more smooth and wooly. That can be a good thing if that is what you like.
After all this fun I decided to bring in the third wheel, the VT pedal. Remember, I am going into the effects return of my amp and using this old school 2x15 can with jensens, which are warm, but bumped in the upper mids.
Set how I always have it at gigs, it had more drive and more buzz than I'm used to from it. It was hard to EQ out the finger noise while having any drive dialed in. I like the drive on here because it seems to make the lows more wide and add subtle compression and warm almost subharmonic qualities to lower notes. It gives just enough PFFT on the attacks to give great thump. Boosting the lows seemed to make it too woofy and I preferred to keep that knob flat all the time. Cutting highs even all the way still did not EQ out finger noise enough. It seemed like a frequency curve and not a shelving-type knob. As if it is dealing with 5k, but there is still stuff above that you can't control. The mid and character controls seemed to make a lot of difference but are so sensitive that you gotta find the right place and adjust around it since they are interactive.
I have used this pedal live very extensively. I was a little perplexed at how much I was fiddling with it to get great ubass tone. It dawned on me: when you EQ you tone AFTER this pedal so that your bypassed sound is already good, this will improve it and give another sound option. It has made the ubass and the upright bearable and sound good through crappy backlines and PA's. And it REALLY shines with my Stingrays and P-bass. Again, it is best when the bypassed tone is already good. Probably adding upper harmonics with the drive need to be smoothed out with the clean highs too. I hope this all makes sense. More testing will be needed.
I have been trying to hate the Fishman because that name makes me think of that God awful upright pickup and I think the unit is ugly and plastic. I wish it were built like, and looked like, a MXR pedal. But it seems to be emerging as my favorite preamp once I have time to set it. With my EQ-after-the-VT theory, maybe it should be after the VT in my chain... Preamps before the VT seem to mess with the VT's sensitive gain. I have a gig this weekend with a lot of upright. I'll put it to the test on that and get back.
The Baggs has a punchy, tight, almost hi-fi very clear sound. The low end is tight, like I said, but very strong. It took me some drastic knob turning but I got a fantastic sound. it is the sound of the instrument you plug into it with problem areas fixed.
The Fishman seems to have a baked in curve that gives us a head start on the typical problem frequencies in the high mids. Minimal tone control moving got me the tone I like. The lows were not as strong inherently, but easy to add. I still did not find a setting on the depth control that tightened the lows up as well as the Baggs while still keeping them strong. I also noticed that tweaking things would affect others. The EQ, depth, and compression all affected the Gain and output. I would describe the tone as woody in comparison to the hi-fi-ness of the Baggs. The lower mids really were very warm, and I would say this box really altered the natural instrument's tone to be more smooth and wooly. That can be a good thing if that is what you like.
After all this fun I decided to bring in the third wheel, the VT pedal. Remember, I am going into the effects return of my amp and using this old school 2x15 can with jensens, which are warm, but bumped in the upper mids.
Set how I always have it at gigs, it had more drive and more buzz than I'm used to from it. It was hard to EQ out the finger noise while having any drive dialed in. I like the drive on here because it seems to make the lows more wide and add subtle compression and warm almost subharmonic qualities to lower notes. It gives just enough PFFT on the attacks to give great thump. Boosting the lows seemed to make it too woofy and I preferred to keep that knob flat all the time. Cutting highs even all the way still did not EQ out finger noise enough. It seemed like a frequency curve and not a shelving-type knob. As if it is dealing with 5k, but there is still stuff above that you can't control. The mid and character controls seemed to make a lot of difference but are so sensitive that you gotta find the right place and adjust around it since they are interactive.
I have used this pedal live very extensively. I was a little perplexed at how much I was fiddling with it to get great ubass tone. It dawned on me: when you EQ you tone AFTER this pedal so that your bypassed sound is already good, this will improve it and give another sound option. It has made the ubass and the upright bearable and sound good through crappy backlines and PA's. And it REALLY shines with my Stingrays and P-bass. Again, it is best when the bypassed tone is already good. Probably adding upper harmonics with the drive need to be smoothed out with the clean highs too. I hope this all makes sense. More testing will be needed.
I have been trying to hate the Fishman because that name makes me think of that God awful upright pickup and I think the unit is ugly and plastic. I wish it were built like, and looked like, a MXR pedal. But it seems to be emerging as my favorite preamp once I have time to set it. With my EQ-after-the-VT theory, maybe it should be after the VT in my chain... Preamps before the VT seem to mess with the VT's sensitive gain. I have a gig this weekend with a lot of upright. I'll put it to the test on that and get back.
