So, this output jack is stereo? If you have a proper ABY cable, could it drive two amps?
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New Electro-Harmonix Battalion Bass Preamp and DI
- Thread starter PepperK
- Start date
Sounds pretty good but man is that casing ugly. Looks like a bowl of Fruity Pebbles.
Different strokes. I'm digging the early 80's video game cabinet vibe.
Honestly, judging from the demo, even if I am one of those people who usually love most of EHX's stuff, this is quite a disappointment.
What a bland and dull tone it puts out.
What a bland and dull tone it puts out.
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I just got mine from Sweetwater today! I like it!
- Has enough compression for me (I usually have my compressor at lower settings). The only bad part is that the compressor is only active when the EQ is active.
- EQ works well for me to get the sound that I like.
- The overdrive/distortion options are pretty versatile. The one video shows only a few of the options for sound you can get out of it. Again, the people's preferences will be different, but I got a setting I like a lot.
- The gate is a nice thing to have. (I have a bass muff nano, nuff said).
Having all these in one pedal was a great part (for me)! It opened up some room on the pedalboard, which allowed me to get some more pedals onto it!
- Has enough compression for me (I usually have my compressor at lower settings). The only bad part is that the compressor is only active when the EQ is active.
- EQ works well for me to get the sound that I like.
- The overdrive/distortion options are pretty versatile. The one video shows only a few of the options for sound you can get out of it. Again, the people's preferences will be different, but I got a setting I like a lot.
- The gate is a nice thing to have. (I have a bass muff nano, nuff said).
Having all these in one pedal was a great part (for me)! It opened up some room on the pedalboard, which allowed me to get some more pedals onto it!
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ordered signed sealed delivered. and very pleased with it. so much you can do with it. my big muff has much more full on grind and than this, but that's not what its for. I have the distortion level set at 1am blend at 11 and the drive at around 10am. this gives a great subtle distortion but keeps the bass dry mix at the forefront. effect set at pre eq. eq set at 2am bass treble at 1 the mids at centre 12. overall volume at around 2am. compressor on but on at low level as i just like a bit of compression. plenty to play around with but for this price cant go wrong.
not at moment, i am at a gig tonight (Richie Blackmores Rainbow at Birmingham Uk) then away for the weekend. will do some demos early next week.
I just got one a few days ago. My typical setup used to be a Sadowsky outboard preamp, Smoothie compressor, EBS Billy Sheehan overdrive, and octave pedal. Then I got too lazy to even bring athat small pedal board and would just bring the compressor by itself. The EHX pedal does the job of my previous pedalboard just as well.
The EQ if very warm. Lows are not super deep, but I like the higher frequency (200). The treble is kinda tame, so you won't get super glassy highs, but I like the frequency as well. The distortion is very versatile. Play with the tone, drive and blend controls and you can dial in anything from a warm tube breakup sound to full distortion. The distortion EQ routing is extra versatile, although I will use only the pre EQ setting. The compressor does it's job, although it cuts the highs a bit (well, it's compressing them). I wish there was a threshold LED to let you know when the compressor is active. I like the whole warm and clear character of the pedal. I never like Tech21 products because I think they change your sound too much and feel artificial. This pedal lets your bass sound come through.
My only complaint is the gate, which is completely useless. There is no subtle transition and you hear a click or artifact when it kicks in. I was hoping to use on noisy single coils, but this is more designed for a heavy picker that uses a lot of distortion.
There's no speaker simulation, but the output section is very thorough. I also agree that that EHX demo doesn't really show everything the pedal can do. The distortion can be tamed to sound very warm, not buzzy like on the demo. EHX makes terrible demos in general, I think.
The EQ if very warm. Lows are not super deep, but I like the higher frequency (200). The treble is kinda tame, so you won't get super glassy highs, but I like the frequency as well. The distortion is very versatile. Play with the tone, drive and blend controls and you can dial in anything from a warm tube breakup sound to full distortion. The distortion EQ routing is extra versatile, although I will use only the pre EQ setting. The compressor does it's job, although it cuts the highs a bit (well, it's compressing them). I wish there was a threshold LED to let you know when the compressor is active. I like the whole warm and clear character of the pedal. I never like Tech21 products because I think they change your sound too much and feel artificial. This pedal lets your bass sound come through.
My only complaint is the gate, which is completely useless. There is no subtle transition and you hear a click or artifact when it kicks in. I was hoping to use on noisy single coils, but this is more designed for a heavy picker that uses a lot of distortion.
There's no speaker simulation, but the output section is very thorough. I also agree that that EHX demo doesn't really show everything the pedal can do. The distortion can be tamed to sound very warm, not buzzy like on the demo. EHX makes terrible demos in general, I think.
I will admit that I was suuuuper excited about this, but it looks like the upcoming EHX Platform and a noise gate/loop like the Silencer might fit me better, and hold out for a Darkglass preamp.
That said, the preamp with bypass distortion was a nice addition.
That said, the preamp with bypass distortion was a nice addition.
I just got one yesterday, wanted to add my thoughts:
--I don't have experience with a lot of distortion pedals, but the distortion on the Battalion reminds me a lot of the distortion on the Bass Tube Screamer, which I like a lot. Lots of subtle overdrive sounds, approaching fuzz with everything cranked. The distortion amps up a lot when you lean into the strings; again, just like the Tube Screamer. Also, like with the Tube Screamer, even without having to tweak the pre-amp, there is a a lot of bottom still in the distorted signal without blending the dry. This is unlike the experience I had with the EHX Bass Soul Food, where the distortion was fine, but the low freqs totally dropped out when the pedal was on (Sorry, Manny).
--There wasn't a lot of usable compression, IMO, before the sound got really squashed. Having the dial at about 9 o'clock smoothed out the sound a bit without sounding artificial. It would be nice to know what the range of compression ratios you get from that knob, but it's not in the manual.
--I agree with Lefty007 about the noise gate; I've been hearing some clicking when it kicks in also. This was kind of a "bonus" feature for me, so I'm not super concerned about it.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with it as a "Tube Screamer Plus" type of pedal--the pre-amp, compressor and DI output are features that are worth the additional cost of the Battalion vs. a Tube Screamer.
--I don't have experience with a lot of distortion pedals, but the distortion on the Battalion reminds me a lot of the distortion on the Bass Tube Screamer, which I like a lot. Lots of subtle overdrive sounds, approaching fuzz with everything cranked. The distortion amps up a lot when you lean into the strings; again, just like the Tube Screamer. Also, like with the Tube Screamer, even without having to tweak the pre-amp, there is a a lot of bottom still in the distorted signal without blending the dry. This is unlike the experience I had with the EHX Bass Soul Food, where the distortion was fine, but the low freqs totally dropped out when the pedal was on (Sorry, Manny).
--There wasn't a lot of usable compression, IMO, before the sound got really squashed. Having the dial at about 9 o'clock smoothed out the sound a bit without sounding artificial. It would be nice to know what the range of compression ratios you get from that knob, but it's not in the manual.
--I agree with Lefty007 about the noise gate; I've been hearing some clicking when it kicks in also. This was kind of a "bonus" feature for me, so I'm not super concerned about it.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with it as a "Tube Screamer Plus" type of pedal--the pre-amp, compressor and DI output are features that are worth the additional cost of the Battalion vs. a Tube Screamer.
I'd like to add my first impressions as I picked one of these up last week and gigged it immediately on Saturday. For reference I was using it as a stomp box, into the front of house backline which was a Markbass LM500 and Mark 410, and the DI was taken from the amplifier head, not the Battalion. My only other pedal in the chain was an EHX MicroSynth, placed prior to preamp in chain. I am yet to test the unit as a standalone preamp going direct to the desk. The show I was playing was a main support and I didn't want to monkey around with the backline.
The EQ and general tones of the preamp do exactly what I wanted them to. They didn't add much if any colour while flat, and seemed to boost and cut appropriately. Generally this section of the pedal does exactly what I wanted it to. I found the overdrive exceptionally usable, and while I've barely scratched the surface of this function or its interactions with EQ and other pedals, it took me all of 2 minutes on stage to get a desirable drive sound that sounded great in the mix, and I was super happy with my overall tone for the show. The gate funtion was of no use whatsoever, and I just set it pretty low and forgot it was there.
However, I'm actually wondering if the compressor is entirely useless, or whether my unit might be broken, because the behaviour of this function is entirely unexpected. Turning the function on, even with the knob on the compressor set very low, removed an incredible amount of output from the unit, and squished the hell out of my sound. Anything above 7pm instantly bricked my signal but at an surprisingly low output level. With the preamp turned on full volume it was at least 1/3 lower output than with the function off, whereas most comps I've used make the signal louder overall. Any setting above 9pm almost felt like someone was making a 'compressors kill your dynamics' joke because every semblance of human feeling was just deleted. I turned the compressor off, and instantly I had a nice dynamic tone back. I don't know if the comp works better through the DI, or whether this experience reflects the experience of others but I cannot see myself using this compressor at all because it's almost hilariously bad.
Might be helpful if Mannysilvers or anyone else who has the pedal already would care to chime in and let me know if this is 'expected' behaviour for the comp function, because I am sort of wondering if I might need to take it back to the shop to have the thing looked over.
The EQ and general tones of the preamp do exactly what I wanted them to. They didn't add much if any colour while flat, and seemed to boost and cut appropriately. Generally this section of the pedal does exactly what I wanted it to. I found the overdrive exceptionally usable, and while I've barely scratched the surface of this function or its interactions with EQ and other pedals, it took me all of 2 minutes on stage to get a desirable drive sound that sounded great in the mix, and I was super happy with my overall tone for the show. The gate funtion was of no use whatsoever, and I just set it pretty low and forgot it was there.
However, I'm actually wondering if the compressor is entirely useless, or whether my unit might be broken, because the behaviour of this function is entirely unexpected. Turning the function on, even with the knob on the compressor set very low, removed an incredible amount of output from the unit, and squished the hell out of my sound. Anything above 7pm instantly bricked my signal but at an surprisingly low output level. With the preamp turned on full volume it was at least 1/3 lower output than with the function off, whereas most comps I've used make the signal louder overall. Any setting above 9pm almost felt like someone was making a 'compressors kill your dynamics' joke because every semblance of human feeling was just deleted. I turned the compressor off, and instantly I had a nice dynamic tone back. I don't know if the comp works better through the DI, or whether this experience reflects the experience of others but I cannot see myself using this compressor at all because it's almost hilariously bad.
Might be helpful if Mannysilvers or anyone else who has the pedal already would care to chime in and let me know if this is 'expected' behaviour for the comp function, because I am sort of wondering if I might need to take it back to the shop to have the thing looked over.
Hmm what kind of bass are you using? While it's not unusual for the unit to have slightly lower output with the compressor active (which can easily be made up for with the master output volume knob), this usually is only at settings towards the middle of the compression knob. At extremes it should be at least close to the signal level with the comp off, and with the knob in the lower section it's usually slightly louder with the compressor on. If you turn the comp knob all the way down and engage the compressor, do you still lose a ton of your signal? If so, that's definitely not normal.
If that's the case there's a good chance it's not calibrated correctly, which is very easy to fix if you're comfortable adjusting small trim pots. You can open the unit and try to adjust the small trim pot in the upper left (when looking at the back of the unit). I'm guessing you'd want to turn it slightly clockwise. If you understandably don't want to mess around with this sort of thing yourself, I'd maybe bring it to wherever you got it and mention that, somebody should be able to do it pretty easily for you.
If that doesn't fix it, then there may be something defective in the unit that we didn't catch here. Sorry you're experiencing this, I'm glad you like the rest of the pedal.
I use the compressor only on a low setting, think it's ok, not much difference than the one built into my amp, and about the same as my EHX bass preacher. But I think compressors full stop are kind of meh, just a little will do you don't like the sound l
Too compressed a like a bit of dynamics and a bit of looseness/rawness in the sound. Very impressed with this unit over all, have in on at all times.
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