My preamp bender: A Journal.

[el murdoque]

@el murdoque I too love my Fuzzrocious BDPG V2 mine glows in the dark! I have a BDPG V1 as well in an Art Deco acid etched case.

I was lucky to jump on the last batch they made, even after the window had closed. So you could say that mine was the last order from the last batch, the last BDPG ever made. I thought gold a befitting color for that occasion.

My current problem, however, is this: If I tear the Sansamp Bass Driver Deluxe from my board, I free up 10,2" of real estate. Populated with the BDPG, PA and Vong, I'd use up 9,6" of that space. The remainder would be needed to house an OD pedal, one with top mounted jacks which is .6" wide - but I have not found one that sounds good ;-)

There are multiple possibilities now:
1. The obvious choice: Go bigger. My current board is a Rockboard 2.2 which is powered by a Cioks Adam. Using any of the preamps that made it on my shortlist would render the Adam too weak, since it is already running at capacity and I only have a single output (100mA) to spare. I already have a Cioks DC7 sitting on my shelf that can go in place of the Adam, but also be mounted to a new board. In this case I'd opt for a board with two levels.
With preamp, filter and compression I have three always on pedals that can easily go into the upper level.

2. Find something that can make the preamp fat, warm and oldschool sounding AND do overdrive with the footprint of the BDPG.

3. Find something else altogether


And another fork down the road: It seems like my Q\Strip is sold. If so, I can safely order another pedal without risking my head.

My current options include:
-EBS Valve Drive DI: Since at this moment, pretty much everything is back in the game and I'm willing to try tubes, and I liked the voicings of the EBS MicroBass II & III it feels like giving the Valve Drive a chance might be a good Idea.

-Trilogic Bass Preamp: I know nothing about this unit, but it popped up from time to time in my searches I can get a well made copy on the cheap.

-AMT Bricks A-Bass. Another pedal that is based on the same original as my current favorite. It is rather cheap, given that it runs a tube.


Ah, and somebody volunteered to send me an Eden WTDI to try out. I've had multiple recommendations to try that one out, but I never felt like buying one, so this is a good solution

 

[el murdoque]

While waiting on the Eden, I also ordered an AMT Bricks A-Bass to test and I ran across a Fuzzrocious Egg Sack I had to pick up for the price. I'm curious about the A-Bass because most reviews I read started off with 'I had low expectations for a pedal that boasts a tube at that price' and went on with 'It's hard to believe how little noise there is'.

Concerning the pedal board I made the obvious decision: Settle on the pedals first, then find a board that will house them. I will not compromise on sound because of real estate. If one of the tube driven pedals makes it, I'll have to replace the PSU anyway and that basically means taking it all apart completely - might as well migrate to a new one in the process.

That forced pause in the process, with my shelf full of unsold preamp pedals that would not move quickly, has had me swapping between the EBS Microbass 3 and the Particle Accelerator for a few times, then the Particle Accelerator stayed in place. It has won that round. Why?

Basically because of the simplicity and the form factor.

The EBS has a ton of knobs and a ton of functions while the Sushi Box has only the classic Gain/Master/Bass/Mid/Treble setup. Furthermore, the Sushi Box's EQ is not that drastic, so the sweet spot of a dial is quite large. The EBS can have dramatic differences in sound when you touch a knob by accident.
While in standard operation, they both offer me a sound I VERY much agree with (albeit being different), so that's not easily compared since I'd gladly do both, and it's hard to pick one over the other.
The functions the EBS offers that exceed the normal operation are giving the Particle Accelerator the edge.

1. I don't really like to work with that tuner. It works okay, but I prefer the larger display of my Korg and I prefer to have the tuner at the beginning of my signal chain.
2. I don't really like to work with that comp. It's quite nice to smooth things out a bit, but I like my comp set has a hard limiter.
3. The drive channel does a few sounds that can be used for my taste and needs, but it's more like an 'okay' feature - if the EBS was swapped with a smaller pedal like the Particle Accelerator I can use the remaining space to choose from a bazillion of drive pedals that are more to my liking.
4. The FX loop and DI out are nice to have features in general, but in this particular case the last pedal in line will be the Vong Filter, so I don't need either.

I have not yet decided to sell the EBS because I like the sound I can get from it and it is a one pedal powerhouse that can deliver a wide range of tones whenever I should need to go ultra compact and bring only one single pedal with me. I'm undecided whether or not that seems like prepping for a case that'll never happen, but It does not hurt me keeping it around for a while.

 

[el murdoque]

The AMT Brick finally made it to my place and this morning I had a bit of downtime, so I was able to rig the power supply and set everything up and while I was at it, I grabbed my bass and played a few notes.

First impressions: Man this thing IS tiny. And it is silent (as in: No unwanted noise). The sound is leaning strongly towards the Particle Accelerator, but it was missing something I can't quite put my finger on. I only gave it a few minutes, toying around on the EQ - to get a real impression I need to play it a while longer, until my ears get used to the pedal, but my guess is that I'll like the PA better.

 

[el murdoque]

Yesterday, I had the evening off and spent it at the testbench, pitting AMT vs. Sushi Box.

Here are my impressions:
These two really are comparable. The AMT has four switches along the sides that allow for further fine tuning.
Two are easy - one lets you set whether you want to use it as preamp or drive pedal and the other is a mid shift. The other two concern the brightness and I could not figure out what they do exactly, but I spent some time toying around with the controls until I found the settings that were most pleasing to my ears.

The controls are pretty similar to the Sushi Box. Passive Tonestack based on Alembic (based on Fender).
The knobs are tiny and hard to dial in, but very forgiving since you need to really change the knob position to change the sound in a meaningful way.
And I have to concur with everyone who found out that the pedal is not only tiny, but also silent.
I want to go as far as not only claiming that the A-Bass is silent for a tube pedal in that price range, but it is silent for a tube pedal in any price range. It's dead silent. The aforementioned 'lack of something I can't put my finger on' has been purely due to the fact that my ears were used to the Particle Accelerator and the A-Bass did, of course, not sound exactly similar. Once I played a bit and my ears got used to the sound, I must admit that these two can be considered equals in that regard.
It is mind boggling that a tube driven pedal that's readily available through most major shops and costs less than 200 bucks is that good.

I would have liked AMT to put that pedal into a slightly larger housing. IMO the footswitch is not really usable (The manual suggests there are caps for the knobs that raise them high enough for access) as is because you will have to carefully klick it with the tip of your toe. The knobs are so crammed around the dome that protects the tube that they are hard to dial in on the fly.
For my current use case that does not really matter. It'll serve as a set-and-forget-always-on pedal.

I even managed to get a setting that works in combo with the BDPG.

If I was to decide now, I'd still go with the Sushi Box.
Why? Since they are two different flavors of awesome (if you ask my ears), it's hard to pick a favorite based on sound alone. So what else is there?
Looks?
Well, the Sushibox looks like a pedal, and a cool one while the AMT looks like something that sends radio waves, but only a few meters because it's so tiny.
SushiBox:1 AMT:0

Origin?
Well, that's a tie. Siberia is cool, a US made piece is cool, too.
SushiBox:2 AMT:1

Name?
Sushi Box FX Particle Accelerator vs. AMT Bricks A-Bass?
SushiBox:3 AMT:1

Coolness factor?
The Particle Accelerator was made with unbridled sass. Also, it's a discontinued pedal from a US boutique builder you can only order via their website while the AMT was made in Siberia, but is readily available at major music shops (at least over here).
SushiBox:4 AMT:1

Seems like there is some bias ...


The Eden arrived, too.

 

[el murdoque]

Okay, I've reached that point:
A parcel arrived. About the size you'd use to ship a pedal. About the weight of a pedal. I was totally clueless. I did not know the sender.
When I cut it open, I saw a bright green shimmer through the bubble wrap. Of course.

Haha, stupid me - I ordered a drive pedal and totally forgot about it.
Did I say stupid? Hear what came next: I brought it home, wired it up, and got started.

The boost setting sounded like my bass, only louder (you don't say).
The drive setting was sizzly, kind of thin and not really likeable. I thought of insects, but not in a good way.
The distortion setting was even worse.
My face grew long. I sat there, pondering, when my passing glance got stuck on the Particle Accelerator.
The Tube was glowing but the LED was not. I told you: "Stupid".
So back to square one, this time with a proper preamp engaged.
Yay. This is just what I wanted. In the drive setting, It is extremely touch sensitive. When I play softly, there's next to no drive, when I dig in it's roaring.
My chain is Egg Sack -> BDPG -> Particle Accelerator. When I kick in the BDPG, the drive looses a bit of its edge, but the sound gets a bit fatter.

What I was trying to replace were the three settings on my Sansamp:
1. 'Normal sound' with a big booty but clear articulation all over the spectrum
2. Warn, touch sensitive OD sound that is not too harsh, but sounds like a signal driven hard.
3. Old school sound, big round, not nearly as hifi as sound 1.

I got all that now, plus more - instead of one OD sound, I got two.

My willingness to try out preamps has dried out a bit, though.

Tonight, the Eden will be put through its paces, which should be interesting.

After that, I'm really yearning to put an end to this project.
I learned that I love pedals based on the Alembic F2-B preamp - and I think that I could live with most pedals based on that circuit. I am undecided about the EBS Valve drive. There are currently two of them in the classifieds, both sitting tight and not selling, at what seems to be bargain prices.
I have no wish to find out that the EBS is yet another F2-B that I like, then reject it because it needs 12V 700mA and is a huge brick, then add it to the collection of pedals that I've listed for a fair price but no one is interested.

The one thing that keeps tickling my fancy beyond all others is the Noble preamp. That seems like a massive investment, but those units I've seen sold locally were listed above MSRP and sold within the day. (I've always found them too late).
However, 21 Weeks waiting game ...

 

[bassbrad]

@el murdoque I will be doing my own assessment this week of my handful of pre amps pedals that may interest you, I too have a preference for the Fender Showman / Bassman / Alembic F2b sound. I have collected a @johnk_10 FET-F2B, @Sushi Box FX particle Accelerator (submini), Particle Accelerator X (12ax7) and the new Underground Accelerator that also uses a 12ax7. I also have several Amp Sims that mat be included as well as my own 1967 Bassman for reference.

 

[el murdoque]

The Eden just got a few minutes of my time. Why only a few minutes? Because it's noisy.
Having it running from a tap of my Cioks DC-7 that is set to 15V introduces a certain level of floor noise into my chain, having it activated shifts the noise to a different frequency, but it's there. I guess that this is within tolerances, but I currently have gotten very used to the silence of F2-B pedals.

 

[SemiDriven]

@el murdoque I will be doing my own assessment this week of my handful of pre amps pedals that may interest you, I too have a preference for the Fender Showman / Bassman / Alembic F2b sound. I have collected a @johnk_10 FET-F2B, @Sushi Box FX particle Accelerator (submini), Particle Accelerator X (12ax7) and the new Underground Accelerator that also uses a 12ax7. I also have several Amp Sims that mat be included as well as my own 1967 Bassman for reference.

I've got the Particle Accelerator. Interested in hearing your take on the Underground Accelerator.

 

[moon-bass]

The first bout: Getting to know each other.
With the Torpedo CAB M in the house and
some of the preamps in my bag, I strolled back from the office with no plans for the evening, so I had a first run with the EBS MBII, the Subway and the Aguilar.

All I can offer so far is how the first impressions felt.
I set up with the Torpedo doing an IR of the Ampeg 8x10 into my mixing board set flat from where I used headphones.

I had the Aggie first in chain because it has a switch, the Mesa behind that, occasionally swapping it with the EBS. First impressions were rather underwhelming until I found out that the Mesa has a 1/4" output that does nothing
Second first impressions were better, once the cables went where they are supposed to go.

The method was the same on all approaches:
Set the thing as flat as it goes, play a tune and then adjust what can be adjusted until you find your sound, while toying around with all the knobs and switches to make sure nothing escapes.

The Mesa felt unspectacular. It was working all right and all the knobs did what they were labeled to do.
It is a silent unit with next to no noise and the knobs feel nice. Judging by its weight, most of the inside of the thing seems to be air - and I would not have minded at all, had they crammed it into a smaller enclosure.
I can't really complain about anything this unit does, It all works just fine - but it did not blow my socks off.
So I did not find my perfect preamp in the Mesa within the first five minutes of trying it, but that's not a pass, either.

The EBS felt like a powerful tool right from the start. Their manuals are well documented and actually tell you what the knobs and switches do in a very detailed way, which is nice. The options are a little overwhelming at first, though. I toyed a round with it for quite some time and found more than one sound that is useful - but the emotional impact was about as strong as it was with the Mesa - I can make this work, but my socks are still on.

The one impressive thing was the Aggie. I always had it in chain and tried to find something useful to do with it, but it did not really work out. It has boost only - and my signal is rather strong on the bass and rather weak on the treble, which makes further boosting bass not an option and boosting treble rather useless.
Both the Mesa and the EBS are meant to be used as always on pedals, though - the Mesa does not even have a switch and on the EBS you can mute and switch A/B, but not disengage the preamp. So I took the Aggie towards the end - to be honest I was already in the process of carefully putting it back in the carton to return it - and I connected it and gave it a go without any other pedals before or after (apart from the Torpedo).
What can I say - If I was to pick one setup right there on the spot and play that live, The Aggie would have been it. Just a bit of bass boost and that's it.
The baked in sound does match with my preferences and the limited options mean you're there right with the twist of a single knob.



The EBS MicroBass III just arrived. I will test that one later today.

Great write ups! Love the descriptions!

 

[el murdoque]

New week update:
I ordered the platform for my upcoming setup: a new pedalboard. Since I was very happy with my Rockboard Duo 2.2 but it will not be able to support the amount of pedals I will use, I expanded to the Rockboard Quad 4.1
This comes with that handy hole for the patch bay, and I ordered the simple patch bay with XLR out, 1/4" and Mains power pass through. I very much like the Idea of connecting Input, 1/4" output and XLR output as well as power to one panel.
The Quad is a bit bigger than I would have liked, but that leaves some room for potential upgrades in the Future.
I play the season's last gig on Thursday, which I'll do with my old setup. Afterwards, experimentation gets easier.

 

[bassbrad]

I've got the Particle Accelerator. Interested in hearing your take on the Underground Accelerator.

& @el murdoque The Underground Accelerator is all it is advertised to be and more IMHO. The drive section is very versatile just as clean, open and rich as the PA but has a wider sensitivity and depth of saturation, especially when pushed by a boost or other drive pedal. The tone section also benefits from this depth giving a bit more richness and refinement in all settings. The UA has also played well so far with all my test basses and instruments from old school passive to actives and my electric keyboards. Even my vintage Harmony H22B strung as a piccolo seemed to pick up a bit of unknown oomph and sparkle from the UA. I may be tempted to get a second one day but for now my funds are going to a Finally.

 

[el murdoque]

& @el murdoque The Underground Accelerator is all it is advertised to be and more IMHO. The drive section is very versatile just as clean, open and rich as the PA but has a wider sensitivity and depth of saturation, especially when pushed by a boost or other drive pedal. The tone section also benefits from this depth giving a bit more richness and refinement in all settings. The UA has also played well so far with all my test basses and instruments from old school passive to actives and my electric keyboards. Even my vintage Harmony H22B strung as a piccolo seemed to pick up a bit of unknown oomph and sparkle from the UA. I may be tempted to get a second one day but for now my funds are going to a Finally.

That is very good to hear!
When reading what SushiBoxFX write on the website, I fear that the breakup point is too early so it is more of a dirty preamp/drive pedal. Can you confirm this or is there ample headroom to use it clean?

 

[bassbrad]

That is very good to hear!
When reading what SushiBoxFX write on the website, I fear that the breakup point is too early so it is more of a dirty preamp/drive pedal. Can you confirm this or is there ample headroom to use it clean?

There is plenty of clean headroom to handle any input up to 10:30ish then the warmth and saturation begins to ramp in all the way to a very nice full blown & bodied roar. I tried a wide range of inputs from passive classics, Taz my high output Carvin to a couple of active modern beasts I happen to have on hand as well as cranking in with several hot output drives. It tends to warm up and compress but not break up until you cross the threshold then it is still very sweet as it ramps up. There is ample output to drive a power amp, line input or any other need I can imagine.

 

[el murdoque]

It tends to warm up and compress but not break up until you cross the threshold then it is still very sweet as it ramps up. There is ample output to drive a power amp, line input or any other need I can imagine.

Great. Now I want one.

 

[moon-bass]

The newer Valvedrive pedals use standard 9 volt adapters (disclaimer, one of the ones in the classifieds is mine, but I have a deal pending for it). I honestly have no idea why there isn't more love for these, it's the only Fender TMB pedal preamp I know with switchable dirt.

Also, in checking out preamps with the Fender Tone Stack, you owe it to yourself to check out the Master Effects Thespian. It has a mid boost switch, which makes up for the inherent mid scoop in these types of preamps. It's one of my favorites, and I've tried a lot!

 

[el murdoque]

@moon-bass
bassbrad taught me that once a TB member insists on something, it most likely is worth checking out. Since I liked the voicing of both the MicroBass II and III, the chances are that their interpretation of a tonestack I like in its original form might suit me just fine. The included drive switch is a nice bonus. I will get one of the locally available pedals as soon as one of the others sells.

 

[el murdoque]

I redid my pedalboard yesterday after I finished the last gig of the season on thursday and have time on my hands.
I upgraded from a Rockboard Duo 2.2 to a Rockboard Quad 4.1 to accommodate the increased pedal count.
Nice Bonus: The Quad series has a slot for a patch bay. I got the simplest affair with main power pass through and 3 1/4" plus 3 XLR, which covers my needs.

I also got the Rockboard XLR patch cable, which I'll return. The XLR plug sticking out of the side of the pedal takes up more space than a 1590a pedal - so I soldered my own cable with a Neutrik angled plug.

For power, I have a Cioks DC-7, which I wanted to screw into the front face of the board, but the unit is too long for a comfortable fit, so I rotated it 90° and screwed through the top.

With that in place, the XLR had to be done.

Special points to me for realizing that I forgot the strain relief after I had soldered 2 ends and not after I was done

Once the tedious part with the tools was done, I could bring out scissors and velcro and do the pedals.

I somehow enjoy playing Tetris with those, finding an arrangement that works for me.
This time it was rather easy because I only had to accommodate 8 Pedals with real estate that easily houses 10.

Et voilá:

Pedals mounted, wires run, power delivered.
The current signal path is
Tuner->C4->Egg Sack->BDPG->Particle Accelerator->Comp->Reverb-> Vong HPF/LPF.

The front panel has two 1/4" plugs (input, output), one XLR Plug (sym.Output) and the power plug wired.

I'm not yet decided about the position of preamp and comp, but these can be easily swapped.

It was quite late when I finished yesterday, so I did not tweak the sound yet.

 

[el murdoque]

Exciting news: In about 21 weeks (plus however long international shipping will cost), I'll tell you how I like the Noble

 

[el murdoque]

I found an EBS Valve Drive DI for an agreeable price and snagged it up, it should arrive within the week.

On top of that I tried to order the Underground Accelerator, but the website would not let me. It seems to be related to international shipping. I wrote them a mail and hope this will be sorted out.

 

[el murdoque]

This is tonight's trial. Once again, EBS.

To be honest, my gross inability to judge the size of things through the internet has gotten better of me yet again and I would have thought that behemoth of a pedal would be a fair bit smaller.
Apart from the size, it has nearly the same controls as the PA does, but it features a DI out, an input pad and a ground lift - and an additional foot switch.

I set it on my board, hoping that either Cioks overdeliver on their promise of 660mA per outlet on my DC-7
or that EBS play it safe with their 700mA requirement on the pedal - and at least one of those hopes was not in vain since the pedal fired up just fine.

When I first kicked it on, I realized that it does have a general character that I like. It's a little less dark sounding than the Particle Accelerator, but has the same effect of tidying up the mids. When you play raw, with just the bass into the mixer, you get that raw, unprocessed sound (d'uh).
With the Valve Drive kicked in in with its flattest response (which is, according to the manual with the mids all the way up and treble and bass all the way down), there is indeed only a subtle change to be detected. With everything at noon, the effect of activating it becomes much more drastic and with the highs and lows boosted even beyond that, it's fun for my ears. I kept the gain rather low to give it some headroom and with the HPF+LPF pedal in the chain, the unit is really silent. With those settings, the vintage switch did not do too much. It felt like it shifted the sound a bit more towards the mids and distorted a tiny bit more. Further experimentation is needed to see if I can coax something useful out of that foot switch.
The higher frequencies are a bit more sparkly and the lows feel like the center frequency of the bass knob is set a bit higher than on the PA. AFAIK the Alembic/Fender tone stack has shelving bass and treble EQs while the manual of the EBS suggests that the bass knob is a bell shaped EQ.
However, I can easily describe it as nice, fat and warm.

Were I to choose a favorite right now, I'd go with the Particle Accelerator yet again. I feel like those two pedals are in the same ballpark. It's not as drastic as the AMT A-Bass, but you can clearly sense that while EBS seem to have poured in more EBS DNA, they got the general Idea from the same source.
At the moment, all the benefits the Valve Drive DI has to offer over the Particle Accelerator (DI out, second FS, input pad, ground lift) are either redundant or useless for my case. The sheer size of the unit comes as a disadvantage, though - so the choice would be easy.
I will conduct further testing with the gain set higher to see if I can set the unit to be clean in one setting and getting a little dirty in another. This might actually free up some space if this would enable me to ditch an OD pedal.

The magic that happened with the Particle Accelerator and the BDPG did not happen with the Valve Drive yet. The tone I got from playing the BDPG into the Valve Drive was okay, but not as gooey as the PA. Maybe further fine tuning can remedy that.