Double Bass NEW Euphonic Audio iAMP Doubler

[Jazzdogg]

I've never had an amp change its characteristics though a gig. That includes my EA doubler. On the other hand, it's really common for our ears to become fatigued when exposed to loud sounds/music for extended periods of time. "Compressed and ugly" pretty much sums up my experience when I've been exposed to high sound levels for an extended period of time.

The example that comes to mind are the folks mixing sound that do not use earplugs. After an hour or two, you'll notice the highs getting turned up as their ears numb out.

If this sounds like what's happening to you, I strongly suggest that you try using some ear protection when you play those louder gigs. These days you can get good ear protection that's both relatively inexpensive (hey, what are your ears worth?!) and "unobtrusive".

Prove that you're smarter than us geezers and avoid getting tinnitus

+ 1 and it gets worse if the listener is drinking alcohol; as his ability to hear HF diminishes and he compensates by cranking the highs, the rest of us experience bleeding eardrums

 

[peterpalmieri]

Hey guys, please remind me about using the Doubler without a cabinet. The opportunity came up to be able to run a signal directly into a very nice PA and I really do not need to bring my cabinet along.

I know this was answered in the past but scrolling through the thread I couldn't find the answer.

Is it safe to run the doubler without a cabinet hooked up?

If nobody knows the answer I will email the guys at EA.

 

[William Hoffman]

i remember someone asked that question a while back. I think Mike's answer was: it does NOT harm the Doubler.

 

[peterpalmieri]

I was pretty sure that's what I remembered hearing but I couldn't find the post.

 

[Jeremy Allen]

RE: volume, I used the Doubler this weekend at an outdoor gig with a loud band to drive a Bergantino HT322 (huge cab, not noted for its efficiency although it is not a power hog like some of the EA or Acme cabs). I didn't turn the master up much more than halfway, and I was seriously loud.
But! I've been going directly into the fx return, from an Aguilar Tonehammer, and I think this has a lot to do with it: the Tonehammer has an input gain and a master volume, so between the two of them I am able to send a very hot signal indeed to the power amp. Those 550 watts all seem to be there when I do it this way.

 

[Wild Rice Chris]

Hey guys, please remind me about using the Doubler without a cabinet. The opportunity came up to be able to run a signal directly into a very nice PA and I really do not need to bring my cabinet along.

I know this was answered in the past but scrolling through the thread I couldn't find the answer.

Is it safe to run the doubler without a cabinet hooked up?

If nobody knows the answer I will email the guys at EA.

Yes, it is safe. I asked earlier in the thread and have used it without a cab on a few gigs with no problems.

 

[peterpalmieri]

Yes, it is safe. I asked earlier in the thread and have used it without a cab on a few gigs with no problems.

Great! I will go for it next week. Man will it be nice to just show up with my bass and the doubler.

BTW the Moridian case I had made is well worth the investment. It fell off the back of my truck last night while unloading and thankfully worked perfectly with no damage.

 

[MOSCOWBASS]

RE: volume, I used the Doubler this weekend at an outdoor gig with a loud band to drive a Bergantino HT322 (huge cab, not noted for its efficiency although it is not a power hog like some of the EA or Acme cabs). I didn't turn the master up much more than halfway, and I was seriously loud.
But! I've been going directly into the fx return, from an Aguilar Tonehammer, and I think this has a lot to do with it: the Tonehammer has an input gain and a master volume, so between the two of them I am able to send a very hot signal indeed to the power amp. Those 550 watts all seem to be there when I do it this way.

I was thinking about getting a Tone Hammer, this might be the way to go rather than getting the preamp resistors changed. Does the Tone Hammer have significant gain in hand? Last gig I did I had the Micro input gain full up and no hint of distortion, so there is plenty of headroom left.
Are you feeding your bass direct to the Tone Hammer and then into the FX return, or are you looping from "send" to "return"?

 

[Jeremy Allen]

Does the Tone Hammer have significant gain in hand? Last gig I did I had the Micro input gain full up and no hint of distortion, so there is plenty of headroom left.
Are you feeding your bass direct to the Tone Hammer and then into the FX return, or are you looping from "send" to "return"?

The Tone Hammer has quite a bit of gain; it's an 18v preamp with two stages. I don't loop it through the Doubler preamp but rather plug straight into the FX return (and turn the knob all the way to "wet"). I really enjoy the tone of the Tonehammer, and that's all I want going into the power section of the Doubler. I do the same thing with the Tonehammer and a Carvin B1500 when I REALLY need some juice--the preamp on the B1500 sounds fine, but everything sounds way better when I just amplify the Aguilar box.

With double bass, I leave the gain on the Doubler at noon and I get a pretty consistent flashing of the yellow light (this from a Realist), but I've never tried to crank it to see if it would distort. I have no need for insane volume with double bass, though; once it gets to a certain point, I just stop turning up and instead glare pointedly at my bandmates.

 

[peterpalmieri]

How significant is the volume increase using the tone hammer?

 

[Jeremy Allen]

How significant is the volume increase using the tone hammer?

You can push it quite hard with the Tonehammer. I'll try to do some empirical testing tomorrow and record some soundclips, like with max preamp gain on the Doubler vs. max gain from the Tonehammer directly into the FX return. What I've noticed is that, live, I just leave the master volume on the Doubler at a fixed point and control my volume with the master volume on the Tonehammer, and I've yet to introduce any distortion.

NB: this obviously isn't just about the Tonehammer--any preamp or stompbox with an input gain and a master output will do the same thing.

 

[MOSCOWBASS]

You can push it quite hard with the Tonehammer. I'll try to do some empirical testing tomorrow and record some soundclips, like with max preamp gain on the Doubler vs. max gain from the Tonehammer directly into the FX return. What I've noticed is that, live, I just leave the master volume on the Doubler at a fixed point and control my volume with the master volume on the Tonehammer, and I've yet to introduce any distortion.

NB: this obviously isn't just about the Tonehammer--any preamp or stompbox with an input gain and a master output will do the same thing.

Thanks for the info, that is useful to me. I also don't play at insane levels, my regular band is a big band so I have to hear the rest of the band on stage. If you get a chance to compare Doubler preamp with Tonehammer that would be good. I would think that your Doubler would be louder than my Micro because it would be new enough to have the preamp resitor mod done. My dilema is do I pay to get the resistor mod done or pay slightly more and get the benefits of the Tonehammer? I also don't know where the fx return sits in the chain wrt to resitor mod, I could buy a Tonehammer and find the gain is still low to the power amp!

 

[geoffbassist]

Hi guys.
I'm really enjoying the thread. At the moment I use AI clarus with a wizzy mline for upright which sounds great. For my sadowsky M24 bass guitar I add a regular wizzy but the sounds is poor, but VERY loud.
I'm really struggling to decide how to improve my BG tone. Do I:
buy an aguilar tone hammer to 'beef up' the sound
buy a 2 ohm stable head for BG eg, iamp800
or sell clarus and buy the doubler?

I know I'm on the DB side of the forum but lots of us are looking for the right rig for 'doublers' and the EA Doubler's volume issuses only really come into play on loud BG gigs.

Any advice would be welcome cheers Geoff

 

[William Hoffman]

Hey guys, please remind me ...
I know this was answered in the past but scrolling through the thread I couldn't find the answer....

If nobody knows the answer I will email the guys at EA.

this thread is getting long, and it is difficult to find things.

at the risk of re-asking something, has anyone gotten a hum when you use the Doubler's phantom power for certain mics requiring a preamp? i never had any issue with the AI Focus or Clarus on this, but with the Doubler i cannot run, for example, the AMT SB25 on phantom power.

 

[peterpalmieri]

this thread is getting long, and it is difficult to find things.

at the risk of re-asking something, has anyone gotten a hum when you use the Doubler's phantom power for certain mics requiring a preamp? i never had any issue with the AI Focus or Clarus on this, but with the Doubler i cannot run, for example, the AMT SB25 on phantom power.

I have run the AMt with Phantom power, I don't do it regularly but I never had any hum issues.

 

[peterpalmieri]

Hi guys.
I'm really enjoying the thread. At the moment I use AI clarus with a wizzy mline for upright which sounds great. For my sadowsky M24 bass guitar I add a regular wizzy but the sounds is poor, but VERY loud.
I'm really struggling to decide how to improve my BG tone. Do I:
buy an aguilar tone hammer to 'beef up' the sound
buy a 2 ohm stable head for BG eg, iamp800
or sell clarus and buy the doubler?

I know I'm on the DB side of the forum but lots of us are looking for the right rig for 'doublers' and the EA Doubler's volume issuses only really come into play on loud BG gigs.

Any advice would be welcome cheers Geoff

In your situation I would prefer to run two Mlines and a doubler. I don't like the AI stuff or the regular Wizzy for Bass guitar. If it were me I'd probably move to a second mline before replacing the head and see how that goes...

 

[MOSCOWBASS]

Thanks for the info, that is useful to me. I also don't play at insane levels, my regular band is a big band so I have to hear the rest of the band on stage. If you get a chance to compare Doubler preamp with Tonehammer that would be good. I would think that your Doubler would be louder than my Micro because it would be new enough to have the preamp resitor mod done. My dilema is do I pay to get the resistor mod done or pay slightly more and get the benefits of the Tonehammer? I also don't know where the fx return sits in the chain wrt to resitor mod, I could buy a Tonehammer and find the gain is still low to the power amp!

Thanks to Gary at EA for a very prompt reply, the resistor mod is at the front end before the FX return.

 

[bolo]

At the moment I use AI clarus with a wizzy mline for upright which sounds great. For my sadowsky M24 bass guitar I add a regular wizzy but the sounds is poor, but VERY loud.
I'm really struggling to decide how to improve my BG tone. Do I:
buy an aguilar tone hammer to 'beef up' the sound

FWIW, I have a similar setup. I'd suggest maybe you audition a SansAmp Bass Driver DI. $200 (U.S.). I really like its tone shaping capabilities for BG. Disclaimer - My tastes are admittedly "old school."

The Tone Hammer is probably somewhat similar in the way it could "beef up" the sound like you said.

 

[Bass Junkie]

Hi guys.
I'm really enjoying the thread. At the moment I use AI clarus with a wizzy mline for upright which sounds great. For my sadowsky M24 bass guitar I add a regular wizzy but the sounds is poor, but VERY loud.
I'm really struggling to decide how to improve my BG tone. Do I:
buy an aguilar tone hammer to 'beef up' the sound
buy a 2 ohm stable head for BG eg, iamp800
or sell clarus and buy the doubler?

I know I'm on the DB side of the forum but lots of us are looking for the right rig for 'doublers' and the EA Doubler's volume issuses only really come into play on loud BG gigs.

Any advice would be welcome cheers Geoff

I just sold my M Line. I hated it for BG no matter what head I tried with it. I'd go with the Doubler and a Berg HT112ER.

 

[Jeremy Allen]

FWIW, I have a similar setup. I'd suggest maybe you check out a SansAmp Bass Driver DI. $200 (U.S.). I really like its tone shaping capabilities for BG. The tone hammer is probably similar.

I've used the SansAmp as well, and it is nice. You can run the XLR output at mic or line level, which is nice (although not for this application we're talking about). There's no master volume for the output, although you can kind of use the "drive" knob for that (if you dig distortion), and there's no sweepable midrange control (essential for me!) like the Tonehammer has. (I think the SansAmp Paradriver DI has the sweepable mids, so that would solve that.) The SansAmp sounds more like an Ampeg tube amp, whereas the Tonehammer sounds more like a modern solid state amplifier (although I do prefer the Tonehammer distortion to that of the BDDI).

For you UK guys, why not go with the Dave Hall thing? I hear those are nice, although I forget which one would be applicable--maybe the VT1 EQ BassDrive.