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Multiple Preamps - Why all of the tweaking?

#21
Passinwind said:
Probably so, but I just don't dig stuff on the floor, and one might argue that as soon as your signal hits an EFX box you are no longer playing a passive bass. In my mind the difference between your approach and mine is 10-15' of guitar cable, more or less...:cool:
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Yep, I'm figuring that out especially when hearing some tube pres vs BDDI, or used in conjunction… my right hand attack must change drastically more subtle (probably a good thing technique wise). I still like turning the Blend on the BDDI down for getting my "natural" bass tone with the passive EMGs.
Are there any controls like that with an active bass? Probably carrots since the active is the "natural sound" of said bass, as well. Just newbing.

fnord!
 
#22
fnordlyone said:
Yep, I'm figuring that out especially when hearing some tube pres vs BDDI, or used in conjunction… my right hand attack must change drastically more subtle (probably a good thing technique wise). I still like turning the Blend on the BDDI down for getting my "natural" bass tone with the passive EMGs.
Are there any controls like that with an active bass? Probably carrots since the active is the "natural sound" of said bass, as well. Just newbing.
Click to expand...

I hear you, there's just a lot to like about a passive bass plugged straight into a good tube stage. I've often been a bit less thrilled by running my active fretless basses into tubes, but eventually I figured out how to build my own tube preamps that work well with my active basses and my quirky technique and tonal tastes. As far as the blend thing, I had a pretty fun drive circuit built into one of my basses for a while, no reason you couldn't do a BDDI variant onboard if you wanted to badly enough.

Anyhow, newbing is a great thing, might as well enjoy the ride. ;)
 
#23
Passinwind said:
I hear you, there's just a lot to like about a passive bass plugged straight into a good tube stage. I've often been a bit less thrilled by running my active fretless basses into tubes, but eventually I figured out how to build my own tube preamps that work well with my active basses and my quirky technique and tonal tastes. As far as the blend thing, I had a pretty fun drive circuit built into one of my basses for a while, no reason you couldn't do a BDDI variant onboard if you wanted to badly enough.

Anyhow, newbing is a great thing, might as well enjoy the ride. ;)
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Thanks man. I'm Very Afraid of opening up yet another can of gas, but looking at the guts of a simple tube pre amp has got me thinking :ninja:
I might try to build a simple tube pre.
Built my own cabs, why not a pre
I will Not get gassed into building my own power amp or bass head though, I swear!

fnord!
 
#24
I was going to make a new thread, but a general search lead me to believe a threadsurrection was probably a better idea.

I probably have entirely too many preamps in my live signal chain, but I'm okay with it. I run pretty much every preamp stage at unity gain except for one pedal I occasionally use as a solo boost. I play mostly funk, soul, pop, etc. Signal chain as follows.

- Various basses with active EMG pickups. The pickups themselves have built-in buffered preamps. All of these basses also have EMG active 3 band EQ circuits.
- Source Audio Atlas Compressor
- Source Audio C4 Synth
- Darkglass Harmonic Booster. I usually leave the character knob off. This is my always on preamp. Great balance of standing out in the mix with relative transparency.
- NUX MLD NBP-5. This is usually off. I use it is an always on HPF and my XLR feed to FOH. Slight volume boost when stepped on for solo passages.
- Bugera Veyron M. Used it as my main gigging amp for about 4-5 years. I actually use it as a preamp/EQ only for room correction. FOH never sees this part of my signal chain. I use the FX send to feed my main amp.
- Hartke LH500. I love the way this head slams. Just a touch of tube preamp warmth, very quick attack, and plenty of power for my needs. But limited 3 band EQ with a Fender style tone stack. Flat(ish) settings are Bass 2, Mid 8, Treble 2.

I had found that with running my pedal board into the Hartke, I missed having room correction EQ beyond the normal bass, mid, treble controls. I often run sound for my bands and also multitrack record many shows. I didn't like making changes that could impact FOH and recording mid set or mid song. I was searching for rackmount EQ options, but just decided to use the Veyron for that. The selectable mid frequencies solve the majority of my room issues. When analyzing recordings, I do not detect any hiss, hum, or additional noise. I choose EMG because of how noise free they are.

To summarize, my live rig now has SIX preamp stages. I've spent over 25 years gigging, but only the last 5 or 6 also involving live sound and recording duties. I've definitely developed more awareness and appreciation for a well balanced mix, lower stage volumes, appropriate FX, compression, EQ correction, etc. In a studio recording setting, I will limit myself to only one outboard preamp and one compressor or none at all.

Is this overkill? Probably. Am I happy with the results? Yes. Pic for attention.
Tipsy Seagull Stage.jpg
 
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#25
wisconsindead said:
Im a lil bicurious about getting an on board preamp (3 Band or similar). Though I plan to upgrade my rig down the line so it might be silly to get an on board preamp only to add a power and pre later. That will have me at 3 sources of EQ. Not to mention the tone knobs.

So its got me thinking, why all the EQ? It seems common for bassists to have 2+ locations/sources for EQ. Are preamps selected primarily on the frequencies they adjust? Thus you have this preamp for hitting X Hz and the other for adjusting Y and Z Hz? At what point or you just making everything way too confusing? How do all of these altered signals work together? Ultimately all that we're looking for is a specific frequency response curve, correct? I've got more questions than I could post, maybe a link to some really solid thread on preamps would be good as well.

Lets get some discussion rolling. TIA.
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on the one hand... pickups are eq, strings are eq, vol is eq, cable is eq, amp has eq, speaker is eq, microphone is eq, mixer or micr pre is eq, and all sorts of eq available post... on the other hand...
if you look at how the typical pedal works... it might have an eq prior to a feedback loop, it might have an eq after, there might be an eq inside the feedback loop... each one of those choices makes things sound/react different.
on my 6 string guitars... I don't even like to have a tone knob because in practice I just don't use it (do use the vol tho)... but on a bass... i love having an active eq and I love being able to truly bypass it. at the end of the day it's flexibility/variety. in summary sometimes more is better... sometimes less is betterER.
 
#27
For one gig, I plugged into a friend's board. I had never played my active bass through that board, and my friend wasn't familiar with my bass, so I asked him to set the EQ flat and I'd tweak my on-board EQ as I saw fit. Much easier for everyone involved.
 
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