NEW Ashdown OriginAL Valve Pre-DI Pedal

It looks interesting. It was announced at NAAM last year right? It will be interesting to see what peoplee think about it.

 

Hello there, I am looking for an update!

Is there somebody already playing with the new OriginAL?

Here in the Netherlands it is still not available.

Thanks in advance!

 

The 300 watt amp head version is out. I am really looking forward to hearing how this sounds! The features are all there - but lets be real...

Ashdown does not have a great track record with pedals.

Hopefully the construction is rock solid and the tone is classic beefy ashdown all the way.

 

Interestingly, the 300 watt head does not have a tube - but the pedal does. I guess the tube drives the distortion/overdrive circuit.

 

Maybe I'm being picky but if I were to buy a preamp to go direct into a PA I would need an effects loop to run my octave pedal. To my way of thinking it's the only way to go. I may be wrong about this but that's what I'm looking for in a preamp at this point in time. Otherwise, this one looks pretty nice.

 

How many current preamps have effects send and return? I always thought that was a feature that an amplifier with a built in preamp might have.

 

Some news....

 

I have this coming my way, the introduction of the OriginAL is again delay, this time 24 weeks! :-(

 

Update: it seems to be available / delivered end of December...

 

Thanks! I am still thinking about buying it. I was also thinking about the Aguilar Tonehammer... but I've always been an ashdown fan. I need to try this one

 

I played the Original head at summer NAMM, and really, really liked it. The EQ was really well executed, and the thing made great bass sounds. How's that for a generic review?

I want one, and will probably end up with one, but there are a few things I don't love about it.

1) 300W. That is probably enough for what I need, but TB has trained me to think otherwise.
2) The direct out is hard-wired to be a pre-EQ direct out. I know "sound guys prefer that," but I think that is a generic, BS response. Any direct signal I send it Post-bass, and basses can sound wildly different, so post-EQ doesn't have to be a bad thing.

I'm thinking this yet-to-be-released DI unit may be just as good a fit for me. I held one in my hands, but I didn't demo it - I had way too much fun with the amp to think about what else they had to offer.

 

I am currently gigging the original head.

It's pretty good.

 

Somebody with a PB noodling tonelessly for half a minute with a pick?

Why do they bother releasing things like that? It tells you nothing about how it might sound in an actual live music situation.

 

To be fair, it's a jazz bass.

 

Yeah.

And y'now what? I think I'm gonna leave it uncorrected. Just because.

 

I've had this pedal for a while now, done several gigs with it, straight into the PA - best bass sound I've ever had! It's difficult to describe why it's so good, I find it's just a great balanced sound for bass guitar. I'm not keen on the overdrive sound but then I haven't spent much time experimenting with the overdrive settings, besides, I use a Sansamp pedal and an alpha/omega pedal for distorted sounds, which work very very well fed into the OriginAL pedal.

 

I don't have any experience with Ashdown, but it looks like it's well built with good features. I wonder how the drive channel sounds?

 

Where did you get your Ashdown OriginAL Valve Pre DI pedal? As far as I knew, the pedal was not available for sale yet.