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PreAmp / DI

8

88bass

Sep 14, 2008
15
0
#1
I am looking for a Bass PreAmp / DI box for recording. I use Calkwalk's SONAR X1 and was looking at the following PreAmp / DI boxes;

Eden WTDI Direct Box/Preamp

Radial Bassbone Bass Preamp/DI

Avalon U5 Single-channel High-voltage Instrument DI

Does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations?
 
#4
Best advice is to try out some Eden gear and hear it with your own ears. If I had to describe it, I would say warm and round. Adding highs will tend to get a bit "clangy", if you know what I mean. You can check my bands Reverb Nation page. All the tunes there were recorded with a P bass through the WTDI. Just search for Lost Creek Shakers on Reverb Nation.
 
#5
The Eden WTDI is pretty good, but "that Eden sound" has never been my thing. The Avalon U5 is also a nice unit, used one several times, but never owned one.

I've tried several other preamps as well, and my Darkglass B7K is my favorite by far. None, a little or a lot of overdrive/grit, 4-band EQ with great voicings and the two switches to instantly change up the sound. My urban gospel band just finished up recording tracks for a new CD and I brought it in for a session... the recording engineer was pretty impressed and even asked if it had a tube in it. And this wasn't a "basement" studio, we were at www.side3.com. They have a room full of nice gear, so it's pretty hard to impress those guys.

I've also tried a couple of the Sansamps (BDDI, PBDDI, VT Bass - all very "sansamp"), a Rusty Box when it was all the Talkbass hype (and found it overly aggressive and cold, IMO... flipped it in less than a week), a Tubeworks BlueTube/DI combination (switched the 12AX7 to a 12AU7 and it's pretty killer) and an Aguilar Tone Hammer (probably my favorite after the B7K). If the Tubeworks had a DI, it'd probably be a "desert island" pedal for me.

Never tried that Bassbone, unfortunately. You might also check out the Phil Jones Bass Buddy, a fellow pit musician bassist has one and he's had some very positive comments about it. Also, the 3Leaf Enabler seems to be a very good unit... I VERY much want to try one out. I have four other 3Leaf pedals and they're excellent.

5sg.
 
#6
I have used the Bassbone for quite a while, and it's a nice DI. Nothing fancy on it; the EQ settings are pretty limited, so if you're looking for something a bit more robust in that department, you'll be let down.

I have used an Aguilar Tone Hammer in the past, and that works very well also. The EQ settings on that are pretty great. I especially like the mid frequency knob that really lets you fine tune where you're boosting/cutting.

Currently, I am using the Phil Jones Bass Buddy, which is my go-to of choice. I use it regularly at church every week in lieu of an amp as well as for musical theatre pits when having an amp isn't an option. The 5 band EQ is my favorite out of all I've tried, it's got a nice and subtle limiter, and a number of other features if you need/want them (headphone in, aux in, battery power option, can act as a 15w practice amp with a cabinet of choice).
 

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