Preamp DI Pedal: I Want One, Not Two

[Jantelagen]

The Tech21 PSA 2.0 can handle both bass and guitar. Just missing the fx loop

PSA 2 – Tech 21 NYC

 

[amper]

Must have, at least, a clean channel, a crunch channel, and an extremely high-gain channel, all of which work equally beautifully with guitar and bass.
3. It must have an on-board effects loop.
5. It must be analog.

Good luck with that. I would submit that you aren't going to find any single unit that meets all your requirements. I would suggest lowering your expectations.

The easiest solution here is to simply build two different signal paths on your pedalboard if you absolutely must double on bass and guitar in the same gig through the same cabinet, one for guitar, one for bass. Without using digital solutions, I think you are going to find that you will end up compromising the tone of one or the other or both.

 

[andvari7]

Good luck with that. I would submit that you aren't going to find any single unit that meets all your requirements. I would suggest lowering your expectations.

The easiest solution here is to simply build two different signal paths on your pedalboard if you absolutely must double on bass and guitar in the same gig through the same cabinet, one for guitar, one for bass. Without using digital solutions, I think you are going to find that you will end up compromising the tone of one or the other or both.

If I wanted to commit to the Fender, Vox or Ampeg sounds, I could buy one of the old Tech 21 Sansamp Character Series Deluxe units. I had the VT Bass Deluxe, and I liked it, but, it being V1, it didn’t have speaker sim defeat, so it went as part of a trade towards my synth. There is a YouTube video demoing the Liverpool Deluxe on bass, and it sounds pretty good. It starts with a cover of Rage Against The Machine’s Bombtrack, which sounds better than Tim Commerford’s glassy AF track from the album. It has an effects loop, six programmable channels, an analog signal, and XLR out. I believe it can also be powered by the Voodoo Lab. There’s another video, of not-so-great sound quality, of Kiko Loureiro playing one at Musikmesse 2008.

It’s pretty obvious that, during the course of my typing this, I bought a Liverpool Deluxe. I was going to put something in about not wanting to be married to one particular sound, but, considering I use an Orange, I would be a massive hypocrite if I had done so.

I would, respectfully, disagree with everyone who doubted me. I would also like to thank them, for making me do the research, and deciding that the Liverpool Deluxe, of which there were two on Reverb, is worth my time. I just hope it doesn’t break.

 

[Mayo Fan]

Congrats on the purchase. And good for you to prove all the nay sayers here (myself included) wrong!

 

[smatanovic]

I feel like this is what is both super frustrating and super wonderful about my journey with the bass. TB and others can give advice, but in the end only you can decide what works best for you and your sound.

 

[smatanovic]

It's really good. I went through about 10 different preamp pedals when i remade my board and the ReVolt was the winner by a large margin.

I’m interested mostly in the tube clean and legacy dirt channels. Would love to get a noble but I’m strictly an amateur, no gigging. Just play for myself and an occasional session accompanying my daughter on guitar. I feel like a Noble would be wasted on me.

 

[NorthTexasBass]

I’m interested mostly in the tube clean and legacy dirt channels. Would love to get a noble but I’m strictly an amateur, no gigging. Just play for myself and an occasional session accompanying my daughter on guitar. I feel like a Noble would be wasted on me.

The clean channel is a little too boomy on my P-Bass with flats, but sounds great with rounds. I don't like the modern drive channel unless used in conjunction with other effects. If I was more of a metal player it might work well.

The Vintage Dirt channel is absolutely perfect. I usually run it at slight breakup, but sounds good at every setting from clean to filthy. It's amazing. The low end is really tight and you get that finished studio track sound with it.

The tube almost eliminates the need for a compressor. I still run one just for piece of mind, but honestly I can't tell much of a difference with it off. Not the case with other preamps I've used.

Of course this is my opinion, alot of fans of the drive and clean channels out there.

 

[andvari7]

The pedal arrived today, and there’s a big problem: The bank selection footswitch, which also enables/disables the effects loop for channel programming, isn’t working properly. I have called and emailed Tech 21, and, it being the holiday season, I don’t expect any response until after New Year’s.

The way these pedals work, I can program three channels, in two banks, giving me six different options. There are two inputs, which can be used for two instruments, so you can have both a guitar and a bass plugged in. Programming the three individual channels requires I turn it on, turn the control knobs, and double-tap the channel on/off. This works fine, on all three channels, and I have programmed my bass settings, except for the effects loop bit. Pedal sounds great, for both bass and guitar. Double-tapping the bank selection footswitch enables or disables the effects loop. This button does not work properly, at the moment.

 

[cleantone802]

I'm just now jumping into the bass world, having played guitar for a long time, and am thinking along the same lines as far as simplification. I just ordered a MicroBass3 because it has the built in compressor, distortion and FX loop, in addition to all the expected outputs. As mentioned by others, I think you need to have the right tool for the right job, so I'm skeptical that this will work for me as a replacement guitar preamp, though could be fine for basic practices. It has occurred to me that I could get a guitar preamp pedal and put it in front or in the FX loop so that I could have a single line out of the MicroBass to a power amp/cab/monitor or for recording. It remains to be seen how the MB will affect the guitar tone even with the bypass on, but this seems like a reasonable way to handle both uses still complying with the OP's aversion to digital modelers.

Personally, I have nothing against modeling but am happy to avoid the trap of such tools that provide too many options and require a separate interface and time that I should spend playing!

The next question I have is what is the best single solution for a bass and guitar power amp and speaker? A bass combo, powered FRFR, keyboard amp, or something else? But I think that is a separate thread!

 

[el murdoque]

It's a bit of a stretch finding one single pedal that can fit the requirements of a pedal board, and then for two instruments at once.

Here's what I'd suggest:
Wampler Pantheon Deluxe + Empress Para EQ Deluxe + SushiBoxFX Finally

The Pantheon Deluxe is a BB style double dirt box. It can do really nice low gain sounds and creamy high gain ones, combine the two to kill. It works really well with both guitar and bass. The Para EQ Deluxe is one of the most versatile EQ pedals out there. You can shape your tone whichever way you like and the LPF and HPF can do a great job of emulating a cabinet when you go direct. The Finally is for the tube and for the DI out.
Replace it with any other DI box you like (or already own), if you don't want that one.




And just out of curiosity:

You insist on an all analog signal path, excepting IR. Why is that?

 

[sloppy_phil]

The pedal arrived today, and there’s a big problem: The bank selection footswitch, which also enables/disables the effects loop for channel programming, isn’t working properly. I have called and emailed Tech 21, and, it being the holiday season, I don’t expect any response until after New Year’s.

The way these pedals work, I can program three channels, in two banks, giving me six different options. There are two inputs, which can be used for two instruments, so you can have both a guitar and a bass plugged in. Programming the three individual channels requires I turn it on, turn the control knobs, and double-tap the channel on/off. This works fine, on all three channels, and I have programmed my bass settings, except for the effects loop bit. Pedal sounds great, for both bass and guitar. Double-tapping the bank selection footswitch enables or disables the effects loop. This button does not work properly, at the moment.

Out of curiosity, now that the holidays are well over, have you had any success getting Tech21 to take a gander at the dodgy footswitch?

Glad you were able to find something that fit a pretty specific bill, and quieted down the naysayers! I do definitely rate Two Notes and their products, so before you chimed in with your purchase, I was gonna suggest them as well.

 

[Inconnu]

The clean channel is a little too boomy on my P-Bass with flats, but sounds great with rounds. I don't like the modern drive channel unless used in conjunction with other effects. If I was more of a metal player it might work well.

The Vintage Dirt channel is absolutely perfect. I usually run it at slight breakup, but sounds good at every setting from clean to filthy. It's amazing. The low end is really tight and you get that finished studio track sound with it.

The tube almost eliminates the need for a compressor. I still run one just for piece of mind, but honestly I can't tell much of a difference with it off. Not the case with other preamps I've used.

Of course this is my opinion, alot of fans of the drive and clean channels out there.

Are you able to get a slight breakup on the vintage dirt with an high output bass? I use basses with lots of of output are dirt pedals usually go from nothing to too much. And have you used it with a low B? Does it sound good or fart out?

 

[NorthTexasBass]

Are you able to get a slight breakup on the vintage dirt with an high output bass? I use basses with lots of of output are dirt pedals usually go from nothing to too much. And have you used it with a low B? Does it sound good or fart out?

I only play passive 4 strings, but I have a hot pickup and use a decent amount of boost coming out of my compressor into the ReVolt. I run a very low break up with the Vintage Dirt channel (gain set around 10-11:00) most of the time. Definitely very easy to tame.
I actually just swapped out the stock tube with a 12AT7 I brought from another TB'er. It is definitely a little fatter and smoother. I have to crank the gain to 12-1:00 to get the same break up.
The 3rd channel is much higher gain and it is very hard to get light drive on that channel. I really don't use that channel.

 

[ImTheOnlyOne]

It's really good. I went through about 10 different preamp pedals when i remade my board and the ReVolt was the winner by a large margin.

I keep coming back around to my ReVolt.

Discovered that a multi-band compressor in front helps with boominess on the clean channel.

Running the ReVolt out to a Messenger Jr gets me a boost/eq, mute switch, HPF/LPF which the ReVolt otherwise lacks. The two have complimentarily clear tone.

 

[NorthTexasBass]

I keep coming back around to my ReVolt.

Discovered that a multi-band compressor in front helps with boominess on the clean channel.

Running the ReVolt out to a Messenger Jr gets me a boost/eq, mute switch, HPF/LPF which the ReVolt otherwise lacks. The two have complimentarily clear tone.

My bass with rounds isn't as boomy as my flats bass, but I got an Opus to place after it which adds a lot of the stuff you're doing with your Messenger. I have midi send a signal for different settings for each channel as well as when the ReVolt is bypassed. I am not actually using the Opus for any preamp or cab sims, which is its main purpose. The power amp section, HPF/LPF, and fully custom 5 band parametric EQ as well as compression really let's me dial in what I need to make each channel shine. It's a killer combo.

Also, as I mentioned in a post above, I purchased a 12AT7 tube from another TB'er. This lessens the boominess in the clean channel, but also somehow adds a little more boominess (in a good way) to the dirt channel. Not sure I like it more than the stock tube on the dirt channel, but it definitely makes the clean channel sound better.

 

[andvari7]

Out of curiosity, now that the holidays are well over, have you had any success getting Tech21 to take a gander at the dodgy footswitch?

Glad you were able to find something that fit a pretty specific bill, and quieted down the naysayers! I do definitely rate Two Notes and their products, so before you chimed in with your purchase, I was gonna suggest them as well.

They walked me through it. It was a misaligned spring. The pedal now works as it should, and it sounds pretty nice.

 

[andvari7]

It's a bit of a stretch finding one single pedal that can fit the requirements of a pedal board, and then for two instruments at once.

Here's what I'd suggest:
Wampler Pantheon Deluxe + Empress Para EQ Deluxe + SushiBoxFX Finally

The Pantheon Deluxe is a BB style double dirt box. It can do really nice low gain sounds and creamy high gain ones, combine the two to kill. It works really well with both guitar and bass. The Para EQ Deluxe is one of the most versatile EQ pedals out there. You can shape your tone whichever way you like and the LPF and HPF can do a great job of emulating a cabinet when you go direct. The Finally is for the tube and for the DI out.
Replace it with any other DI box you like (or already own), if you don't want that one.




And just out of curiosity:

You insist on an all analog signal path, excepting IR. Why is that?

I never said everything had to be analog. I use a PS-6, an RV-6, and that new Space Echo. They’re all digital. As it turns out, I also don’t need an IR loader; Tech 21’s baked-in speaker sim works just fine. If I were to get another pedal for my board, it’d have to be a graphic equalizer. I’m not about to do so, because it’s A. Money I don’t need to spend right now, B. A pedal for which I have no room on my board, unless I removed two, and C. Not something I really need right now. I can get one for my recording studio, which is what I really need to set up.

 

[Jonahlane]

Sansamp PSA 1.1 rack unit would do this perfectly.

the pedal version is equally as great, but doesn’t have an xlr out.