Double Bass Red Eye Preamp

[Ric Vice]

Interesting, I originally thought that the Red Eye was only effective as a DB preamp, but I used it with my EB's and it improved their sound too. So putting it inside a preamp
or bass amp makes more sense since it works for both. I'd imagine that it would work the same way for guitars.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Interesting, I originally thought that the Red Eye was only effective as a DB preamp, but I used it with my EB's and it improved their sound too. So putting it inside a preamp
or bass amp makes more sense since it works for both. I'd imagine that it would work the same way for guitars.

+1 on this. I have a talented young student at the U who is a BG player, and he used the RedEye on a concert and we both really liked what it did to the tone. Something about the way it sat in the mix. Hard to describe, but definitely a thing.

 

[crd]

Yeah the routing thing is kind of challenging. I made a little pedal board using a Nano, but I am really into the RE>Felix right now, it is less "acoustic" sounding then running it thru a tube pre but it is a clearer cleaner more direct sound. Also the eq and HPF and DI and all that are built in (rather then having them spread out across some different pedals. SO I am trying to organize a pedal board with the Felix (I like the mute and Boost buttons right there on the floor) a tuner (dont really need it now that I am back to a metal string on top Perp Stark and the tuning is stable...the Oliv goes out of tune every song...) I love having the little Ditto looper in there too and the Redeye. I remember when I first saw the Noble with all those 9v power plugs in the side and I thought "I'll never need that" but now it seems like a great way to only have one power cord.
Anyway, I HAVE been talking to Brad Sarno, I told him about the RedEYE and kind of wishfully (but with total respect for Daren and the Redeye business) said "Boy do I wish I could have the FET Imp thing INSIDE my V8 or Black Box so that I could just have the one preamp....He immediately said "Oh send it back I'll put a FET and a switch in so you can choose which you want to buffer" Then he told me about some famous amp maker in Cali here from the 70's Dumbledoor or sumthin who used to build his amps that way....
Anyway I am going to send my V8 and BB to Brad to have that done. I can imagine having the BB with a FET front end going into the Felix and that being a very compact but powerful front end for a piezo.
Im totally amazed that the Redeye works so well with SO MANY different piezos...I would have thought it would sound good with some but not others...For example I have been using the TWIN with an EAP in one ch and the bridged Yama in the other and it is DOPE. The Redeye does them both good even though they are opposite types of pickups. ANd together they sound great...actually I favor the EAP (which is much more controlled with the Redeye) and dial in a little Yama as needed.
So while I am excited to see if Brads version works, (I think this FET thing ...which I dont really understand has totally changed the way piezos respond) I am really into the Twin for its compact usefulness.

To clarify, you asked Brad for a non-tube version of his buffer? or option to bypass the tube?

 

[flatback]

Nope I asked Brad to put the FET Impedance magic (which is apparently not magic and has been done before) IN the Sarno V8 so that I can switch between his Vari Z impedance matching system and the kind of auto matic self adjusting impedance matching that is in the Redeye. He suggested it. The RedEye is a super cool little preamp WITH this kind of FET impedance buffer. But there is no reason this kind of impedance buffer couldn't be BUILT IN to your favorite preamp or amp so that you could avoid gain staging (too many volume knobs) and having more then one preamp, which is not ideal.

 

[crd]

Nope I asked Brad to put the FET Impedance magic (which is apparently not magic and has been done before) IN the Sarno V8 so that I can switch between his Vari Z impedance matching system and the kind of auto matic self adjusting impedance matching that is in the Redeye. He suggested it. The RedEye is a super cool little preamp WITH this kind of FET impedance buffer. But there is no reason this kind of impedance buffer couldn't be BUILT IN to your favorite preamp or amp so that you could avoid gain staging (too many volume knobs) and having more then one preamp, which is not ideal.

Neat. I am very interested in how this turns out. I definitely like a separate box for a separate function and love the fact that the black box just does one thing which is be a buffer.

 

[flatback]

Yeah Ya know I have both the Black Box (with a very nice NOS RCA valve) and the Octal V8 and While the V8 has this whole feature set and sound and openness, The Black Box really does it's own thing. I've used BB>V8 and that sounds stellar but too much to carry around to gigs. Truth is I have this regular trio gig right now that I play acoustic and I am loving that the most.

 

[basss]

I've been playing around more with a mic into the effects in and piezo to the instrument input. There's no blending going on either to the DI or effects out. It seems the DI out only gets the signal from the effects input and not the instrument input when connected this way, so only the mic comes out of the DI. The effects out only gets the instrument input, piezo only.

I really thought that there was some mic signal coming from the effects out. I do hear a slight difference with the cable plugged into the effects in. Maybe it's affecting the impedance load in the RE? no idea. Maybe it's psycoacoustics.

On a positive note, I don't have to carry a mic and extra cable to gigs.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I got a FireEye under the tree this year. I’ll plan on using it after the noble as I did on the gigs with the trial unit. Set it up in the music room through my studio monitors today in preparation for a session at the house tomorrow, and it sounded pretty glorious.

 

[BlueRock]

Blue rock, try affixing it on top of your Fdeck HPF pre if’n you’ve got one. It cleans up the pedal board issues you describe and lifts it to give you a little more room.
View attachment 4904928

Every couple days I try routing this thing a little different (often at ya’lls suggestion on this thread), but I have come to the conclusion that, for me, full circle -> redeye-> hpf-pre -> whatever else is the ideal. Being able to knock the gain down 30% on the HPF pre on the front end makes it get along better with everything

Unfortunately my HPF is a Broughton with top mounted controls. Honestly while I haven't had the huevos to take it off my pedalboard I haven't used HPF for a few nights now. Like some others have commented it doesn't seem nearly as essential with the Red Eye. I'll have to see about a couple of notoriously muddy sounding rooms I play before completely ditching the HPF though.

I did just email Darren at Fire Eye with the criticisms in my last post asking if he'd do a V2 with these changes. I offered to pay an R&D/custom up-charge so hopefully he'll consider it.

 

[flatback]

The tight proximity of the FX loop I/O and power in jacks. All my cables are typical right angle pedalboard fare that don't configure cleanly jammed together like that. Moving the power input to the top would work better. Since it's always on maybe better to just velcro the RE onto my amp by itself rather than trying to cable it up on a pedalboard. Not sure. Don't always use my own amp.

Some people like batteries in pedals but I'll never use them. Gaia stewardship issues mostly but they also go inconveniently dead. Were the battery option deleted that space could be used to move the jacks further apart.

The boost switch might be useful going between pizz and arco (yes?no?) but I very rarely even bring a bow to gigs anymore. Again for me that switch and pot use internal space which could relax the jack spacing instead. Same with the treble pot. Typical bass amps have all EQ I need.

Given how good the Red Eye sounds these are all issues I can live with. In terms of broader appeal keeping them might make sense. I don't know. It just feels cluttered. This is only my $0.02 after starting to get a bit of mileage with it.[/QUOTE]


Yeah I have talked to Daren about this. He built the Redeye to spec based on crowd sourced information about what players in his area wanted 15 years ago (including guitar etc) I would love a Redeye with nothing but the Impedance matching, I have other preamps to do the eq etc.
I also don't like batteries and for my Twin (I have both the Redeye and the Twin) Daren said he could easily add the power option and take out the battery if I wanted, which I do. The Redeye single fits better on the little pedal board nano, but I really like having the EAP mixed with the Yamahiko. IF the room is squirley I can dial down the EAP and up the Y and the sound cleans up quick. Having the litttle Nano board with a HPF, Ditto looper, and tuner (Im back to the Oliv G/D after flirting with steel again) and Twin, just fits and I can have it all powered and plugged together so that it fits into the Nano bag and is super easy to pull out and hook up at a gig. Having it on the floor is cool too for the constant tuning and for muting and occasionally boost. No batteries (having them all wired pedalboard style) means I can use the tuner mute and not worry about that draining the battery.
I have done a lot of gigs with the Redeye and no HPF (Fdeck3) but I think it does a lot in terms of making the speaker effiecient so I keep it in there all the time now.

 

[BlueRock]

I'll probably ask Darren to remove the boost and treble controls from my RE. I can live with the cable plumbing. Pairing it with a HPF with all I/O on also one side seems to work.

 

[Bruce Calin]

I have an off-topic old guy question after seeing and reading about the various pedal board setups. What do you use the tuner for after the initial tuning up? I'm not being facetious. Do you look at it while playing or is there some other built in purpose that you use it for? Checking open strings between tunes? I've never used one other than for pre-gig tuning and have often used a tuning fork for that if I could keep from losing it. Back on topic, I've been using the Red-Eye on all my recent gigs and am very happy with it. It has made it possible to eliminate a couple of boxes and simplified my set up, which is what I got it for.

 

[flatback]

THAT particular tuner by sonic research has a true bypass, which means that it can go IN FRONT of the Redeye and pass thru the Impedance. It can operate as a mute (if you keep it plugged in, or use up its battery) once engaged it mutes the signal (if it is in the direct signal path) The SR is also a VERY fast tuner so that if you plug it into your tuner out (rather then in the signal chain) it can be really helpful in getting a sense of just how in tune (or out of tune)you really play in different areas of the fingerboard in real time. If like me you use gut or silk core strings that need constant tuning it can be great for quick between tune tune ups.. I have used it all these ways. It is not essential.

 

[Maple]

Additional to what flatback said, tuning by ear on a small stage in a bar is not always practical. The environment can be really noisy and the other players don't want to stop and give you a pitch between songs and have the whole process amplified for everyone. I like to tune by ear with a bow at home in my practice space but while performing, I always stick to the sonic research tuner.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I used the FireEye on my NYE gig - a drummer less trio - and it performed as before, which is to say really well. I actually like the Boost feature for solos a lot, as it allows me to get over the top volume wise without having to dig so hard to find that extra gear in noisy rooms; I likely wouldn't use that in a concert situation, but I do play in a lot of noisy rooms.

ON NYE, I had both the Noble and the FE sitting on top of my amp, which meant having to reach down with my left hand to engage and disengage the boost. Obviously, the best thing will be to use the foot switch as intended. So I think it's time to look for a really small pedalboard that will protect both units but that fits inside my upturned stool for transport. Anybody have any idea where to start?

 

[bherman]

I used the FireEye on my NYE gig - a drummer less trio - and it performed as before, which is to say really well. I actually like the Boost feature for solos a lot, as it allows me to get over the top volume wise without having to dig so hard to find that extra gear in noisy rooms; I likely wouldn't use that in a concert situation, but I do play in a lot of noisy rooms.

ON NYE, I had both the Noble and the FE sitting on top of my amp, which meant having to reach down with my left hand to engage and disengage the boost. Obviously, the best thing will be to use the foot switch as intended. So I think it's time to look for a really small pedalboard that will protect both units but that fits inside my upturned stool for transport. Anybody have any idea where to start?

Chris - take a look at the Pedaltrain Nano and Nano Plus. I use the Plus for my small board, in its padded case its 7" x 20" x 6". The regular Nano is the same width and height but is 4 inches shorter, so probably around 16" in the bag.

 

[bassically_eli]

Here are a couple examples of Red-Eye directly into my AudioBox interface. Pickup is a Realist Lifeline. I had to convert from WAV to mp3 to upload to TB, and to my ears the audio lost a tad bit of definition from the conversion. I'll see if I can do something about that later. I believe I had the treble at 2:00 for these samples, but I'm not 100% sure. (The Lifeline usually benefits from a little treble boost.)

As for the Red-Eye, it's very good for a piezo sound IMO, but still sounds like a piezo, particularly in the bottom octave and with the bow. Some bass cut and maybe some low mid cut helps with that--at least, that's what I think so far.

 

[bassically_eli]

For comparison, here are some more samples from my Headway EDB-2 H.E. and Fdeck HPF-Pre. I probably used too much EQ on the Headway, and the HPF-Pre would probably benefit greatly from some EQ and more low cut (I had it set around 55 hz).

 

[crd]

@bassically_eli Thanks for these! Audio examples are definitely helpful.

Out of the bunch I think I like the Headway w/ eq the best. The 10meg Fdeck impedance is why I started to get curious about buffer's in the first place. It seems to be too high for most piezo. I bet the fdeck would sound good in the Red-Eye effects loop though...

 

[bassically_eli]

@bassically_eli Thanks for these! Audio examples are definitely helpful.

Out of the bunch I think I like the Headway w/ eq the best. The 10meg Fdeck impedance is why I started to get curious about buffer's in the first place. It seems to be too high for most piezo. I bet the fdeck would sound good in the Red-Eye effects loop though...

Agreed. I think the Headway does an excellent job once you dial it in, and I find the harmonic enhance really does help to smooth out and extend HF content. I had been entertaining the idea of getting a single channel Red-Eye to put in front of the Headway for a couple of reasons, but I am going to stick with just the Headway, at least for now. That said, a few years ago before I started using a mic, the Headway would've been very appealing. I'll have to play around with the fdeck in the Red-Eye FX loop. I think it might be interesting to do a side by side comparison with that vs my old Fishman Platinum Bass.

I also played around with the Red-Eye into the Headway, and it sounded really good through the amp. Oddly, though, the two seemed to play better together depending on how they were connected. I tried:
1) Red-Eye DI out -> Headway mic input (RE running on phantom power from the HW).
2) Red-Eye FX out -> Headway ch.1 instrument input (RE on battery).

#1 sounded better when playing through the amp. However, when going directly into the recording interface, I didn't hear any difference between the Red-Eye DI (running on PP) and FX/amp out (running on battery).

One other thing I will note: The trial RE Twin doesn't have a power input jack. Definitely good that Darren added that. I, personally, like the option for battery power (not my go to, but sometimes on short gigs, amp-less stages, limited power options...sometimes it's best to have one simple box and as few wires as possible). However, having the battery locked away behind four little screws is a big pet peeve of mine. Hence, why I think the addition of the power jack is crucial.

I will have to send the trial unit onto the next person soon, but if anyone has any particular requests for recording samples with the Red-Eye, let me know. I have a couple of Vic's pickups around (a single wing element and a dual wing pickup) that I need to play with. My cabs are MAS-16s and a Thunderchild TC112.

Here's a pic of the Twin with the Headway. Surprisingly close in size.