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Noble Amps Preamp

#2,721
N. Kentucky Bass said:
And that's the most likely way you'll use this with double bass. At least this is what I've discovered with my double bass. I used the EQ more with electric bass. No EQ on double bass lets the natural sound and resonance of the acoustic instrument pass straight into FOH whatever you're using to amplify the signal.
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Nice. Didn't even notice that @Sam Dingle had a double bass in his pic.
 
#2,722
Sam Dingle said:
I appreciate it! It seems that a DI is a good thing to have on your board regardless and the Noble doesn't seem like an over the top sound difference, but adds good "seasoning" to the sound. I imagine having my rig ill be able to mess with it and dial everything in, but if i'm running around to different amps learning how to just make the house rig a speaker is a good idea.

I also would need to figure out the order on my board. i have a pog octaver, aguilar distortion, mxr envelope and a boss chours and boss tuner so i'd mess with the order of that.
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That's similar to what I have on my board. I run my octaver -> envelope filter -> distortion -> chorus (or tremolo, or phaser).

I'm actually really considering getting a BagEnd powered speaker and just using a preamp/DI pedal rather than an "amp." I have a TH pedal that I like, and I've been gassing for a Noble for more than a few years.
 
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#2,723
hennessybass said:
Nice. Didn't even notice that @Sam Dingle had a double bass in his pic.
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yes i'd be interested in using it for upright but mostly looking at electric. since the shut down i've moved my focus a little more towards electric since its always been a "yeah i have it and can double" and getting a good rig setup for it is on my list of things to do. i like the idea of the noble on my live board but also using it on recordings.
 
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#2,724
Sam Dingle said:
yes i'd be interested in using it for upright but mostly looking at electric. since the shut down i've moved my focus a little more towards electric since its always been a "yeah i have it and can double" and getting a good rig setup for it is on my list of things to do. i like the idea of the noble on my live board but also using it on recordings.
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You most definitely won’t be disappointed with the Noble. I used to have the Tone Hammer pedal and used it for years before it got stolen, then a Noble came up for a great price on my local CL. I play direct gigs probably 95% the past few years so my pedalboard is my rig, and I just use the FX loop method on backline gigs. It works fantastically. At this point my three always on pieces have become Cali -> Broughton S1 -> Noble. Even with the eq flat the Noble has a way of leveling out all the notes on the fretboard and filling them out. Clean, precise and punchy. Although I agree with some people in that it doesn’t have that much of an effect of the tube-like feel/sound on our tone as some other pres these days.
 
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#2,730
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#2,731
#2,732
shwashwa said:
with regards to Chris's comment that the noble is not designed to produce tube saturation because the volume control is after the tube stage, What if you hit the noble with a hot signal first from a boost pedal or a compressor pedal with the gain high like I see on his board?
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yes, that will work, but I feel like what your getting when you do that is pretty much the source signal saturating and not the Noble .. which just passes that hotter signal through as is. I have done that with a Cali76CB (pushing the output hard) and you can clearly hear the Cali distorting ... but IMO that's not a very nice or particularly usable sound.

I have also experimented with sending the Noble signal into the front of my Walkabout (another tube pre) and pushing the Walkabout gain up. You get various amounts of grit (of course) and you are definitely stacking tube preamps and EQ sections but personally I don't find it very appealing.

YMMV of course.
 
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#2,736
sam91 said:
where do you chain your noble when on the board? last in the chain or first?
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Last. That way I can take the DI out of the Noble with all the pedals in front of it :)

Alternatively, you could put it first and send a dry signal to FOH and then take another signal after the Noble for a mic'd up cab or another DI with effects and blend those
 
#2,737
I also run my Noble last in the chain.
Usually comp (these days it's a Cali76CB) => signal processing (filter, octave, chorus etc) if desired => Noble => amp (currently either a Mesa Walkabout or WD800) and I run it into the front end of the amps not just into the FX in/out loop.
 
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#2,738
Today whilst rehearsing I tried putting my Noble first, followed by Barefaced’s machinist and lastly effectrode la1a. And then I was in tube saturation heaven for a few hours. Worth mentioning is that the signal was then going into a TC Bam and the cab was a barefaced Big baby2. The problem is that I am of course doubting whether I need all my other pedals now, I feel like maybe I should sell them and get a multi Fd unit like the HX stomp!? But I’ll probably just put them to the side for a few months and rediscover them later!
It might also have helped that I had a few beers whilst all this was taking place, all in all I would say that it was a good thursday! :D
Ps. I’ll probably buy that stomp anyways haha. :thumbsup:​
 
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#2,739
sam91 said:
where do you chain your noble when on the board? last in the chain or first?
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Bass -> Comp (mine is an MXR currently) -> Noble -> Input 2 (which is padded -6db) on the front of the amp.

From there, the signal is switchable between the amp's two internal channels, which Fender calls "Vintage" (i.e., clean) and "Overdrive." The "Overdrive" channel has its own gain control at that stage -- namely, the last stage of the chain. At the start of the chain, the MXR compressor can add gain there (via its "Output" control). Also, some basses have active preamps onboard, which I like too.
 
#2,740
shwashwa said:
with regards to Chris's comment that the noble is not designed to produce tube saturation because the volume control is after the tube stage, What if you hit the noble with a hot signal first from a boost pedal or a compressor pedal with the gain high like I see on his board?
Click to expand...

So I just did a tube saturation experiment to hear the effect of this chain:
  • Fender American Jazz V, onboard Sadowsky preamp off, no EQ, volume on full -->
  • Headway EDB-2 H.E preamp (the dependent variable) with no EQ and with master out @ 3:00 -->
  • Noble with no EQ and HPF off --> DI out -->
  • Zoom F8 field recorder, normalizing the tracking level in.
I played the same two-octave scale slow and fast four times while varying the Headway preamp boost level. The available range of boost is from 0 at the lowest setting (7:00) to +32dB at the highest setting (5:00). According to the manual, "Each dot marker equals 2.5dB (approx.) or +/- 40%." The four tests were at:
  1. Dot marker 3 @ 10:00
  2. Dot marker 5 @ 12:00
  3. Dot marker 7 @ 2:00
  4. Dot marker 10 @ 5:00 (max level @ +32dB)
Bottom line: I definitely heard a gradual increase of tube saturation at levels 5, 7 and 10. At the highest setting, there was audible hair on the note envelopes. Based on this simple test, if you need audible tube saturation, putting a signal boost in front of the Noble definitely works!

Here's an old shot of my pedal board with the gear described above:

Board-above-with-EDB2HE.JPG
 
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