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New Basss Preamp by TC Electronics - Spectra Drive

#81
Luke the Fluke said:
Would still like someone's tuppance on how the TC BH amp preamp sounds tonewise :)
Click to expand...

I am far from a tone expert, but I do have a TC BH head. I consider them to be good products overall and a excellent value. I consider the tone in the good enough department. It sounds good but doesn't give me that "wow" factor. I would say they are slightly on the dark side tonally. Same with many of the tone print effects, good enough but no wow IMO, but they get the job done.
 
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#82
aussietc said:
Exactly! Its no different from the other bass preamp/overdrive/DI boxes out there. Even the GK Plex has a tuner!They could have pushed the boundaries more. They have it already (as shown in your original mockup).
What if I wanted a chorus instead of the drive? I wonder if it will accept other TonePrints?
And why a bypass? I have a pedal because I want the sound of the pedal - not to bypass it! A mute to tune up - that's far more practical!
If the new pedal was your design, I would put my money down immediately for at least two! But this Spectradrive ... I'm not sold. Why would I get this over the any of the others??
Click to expand...

I think your missing the whole tone print concept here. Both the compressor, the EQ and the drive are tone print digital models. So a single tone print and change all three. So the drive can be a light overdrive, a gated fuzz, a muff etc...while the compressor could be a Boss, a Ross, or any of the Hypergravity compressors. The EQ can be saved in the tone print too. So there's a lot more going on under the hood that a simple three in one box pre-amp.

I'll be interested once the UK pricing is announced and some dirt samples are available.
 
#84
actually I remember the second culprit with BH heads. there is a post/pre switch on those, the `pre` position does not apply spectradrive to XLR out at all.

if the same will be with this preamp, this would not be very useful.
 
#85
Squint said:
I am far from a tone expert, but I do have a TC BH head. I consider them to be good products overall and a excellent value. I consider the tone in the good enough department. It sounds good but doesn't give me that "wow" factor. I would say they are slightly on the dark side tonally. Same with many of the tone print effects, good enough but no wow IMO, but they get the job done.
Click to expand...
so realistically if we're going for good enough and no wow a Zoom B3n and decent Di box will do more or less the same for less money...
 
#87
Luke the Fluke said:
so realistically if we're going for good enough and no wow a Zoom B3n and decent Di box will do more or less the same for less money...
Click to expand...

I suppose its either the type of thing you like or don't. A lot of people around here are in love with the GK preamp section but those aren't necessarily for everyone. I've owned the BH500 and RH450, as well as amps and preamps from other companies. The Aguilar Tone Hammer was the doll of the forums for some time, but I bought one and couldn't fall in love. I liked the BH500 because I found that it sounded very similar to the Sansamp Bass Driver (I also like), to me at least. But it had high and low mid EQ sculpting, so it was more flexible.

I still have the bassdriver on my pedal board for OD, but also have Spectra Comp and an EQ pedal. The Spectradrive having the footswitch drive engage will allow me to replace the Bassdriver, Specracomp, and EQ pedal on my board, as well as reduce the gigs I will need to bring my head for if I know I have PA support, because I'll have the preamp section on my board.
 
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#88
I`ll wait for v2 as well.
I`m missing:
- tuner (like on BH amps)
- those 2 toneprints should be able to be loaded with any TP effect, not only drive and comp
- the 2 pedals should simply switch on/off the TP effects
- I would prefer one separate XLR symetric LINE level output (why only Mesa understood that preamp can be used to load active speaker with XLR input?)
 
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#90
I'll wait and hope to have a listen until I give my verdict but I have a feeling that it's a decent pedal. That said the other Toneprint amps I've owned from TC was ok but not that impressive. Nothing that I've kept for too long. I just don't believe in the digital print of tube sound so far. Maybe sometime they will succeed in creating something that reacts close to a real tube amp. And I rather have one good sound than the possibility to get lost in lots of parameters. But that's just me. I've learnt through the years that after a lot of tweaking and buying all kinds of stuff I usually turn them of and realize -ah, that sounds better :)
 
#91
I loved the concept initially but reading into the manual and it seems like a half-baked idea. You can't make custom TonePrints or update the EQ as a TonePrint.

I was looking at it with a view to replacing my 3Leaf Enabler which does the DI, Preamp & Headphone Amp thing. My only gripe is that the EQ is very subtle.
 
#95
I have a RH450 head and love it for what it is and what I do. The tube tone IMHO does sound like a simulation and I use it very sparingly. The compressor is great for a transparent compression. The four band semi parametric EQ is fantastic. It oils be nice if the full parameters of everything were available with tone print but I probably wouldn't take advantage, and only if you were able to have different presets have different tone prints.

This is where they have $h@@ the bed for this preamp pedal in my opinion. It obviously uses a digital converter because it has the tube tone and spectra comp. so the EQ are also digital. And yet they only give knobs because people are used to that and it gives the semblance of being analog instead of some cheap zoom .

They could have had a programmable preset bank with up/down switch, or say six switches to select bank. Then you could have many different presets and switch between them instantly on the fly without need to fiddle knobs which also throws off your balance in the mix. Big missing for me. They could have also included a HPF and LPF. Fully parametric EQ. Hard limiter to squash spikes like a disconnected cable. Reverb? Echo? Your imagination is the limit. After all, it's digital.
 
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#97
alack said:
Is the USB just for use as an computer interface? My understanding was this new preamp pedal could not be used with the TC TonePrint editor software. For me that's a dealbreaker.
Click to expand...
From the documentation:
USB port
- Use the standard Mini-B USB port on your TC ELECTRONIC
effect pedal to connect your pedal to a computer. If there should be
firmware updates for this pedal, they can be installed using the USB port –
see "6.1 Updating the firmware".
 
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