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Resort Gig requires a bass preamp.

#22
It depends on how much you need in terms of effects or not. If you use a bunch of effects, a full modeller like a Line 6 POD or a Behringer V-AMP. I don't know if they still make the bass pod though. You'll want something that has a direct out and ground lift.

If you just really need tone shaping, the Sansamp Bass driver and Bass driver programmable are NICE. The programmable basically saves three settings that you can recall at will, while the BDDI just has one that is tweakable on the fly.
 
#23
Gougedeye said:
I have the new Fender Super Bassman 300. It will run with out a cab, but I need something light and easy to move that doesn't take up too much space.
Click to expand...

Are you sure it runs without the cab? I did a quick search as I thought having a built-in dummy load would be an awesome feature for a tube amp.

The features list on Musiciansfriend states "Speaker Output switch that can be set to “Mute” to turn speaker off and record silently using preamp" I would take that as it can mute the cab but if you hook up a 300w tube head without a cab you are going to fry it within minutes just like any other tube head.

Can you verify you can run the head without a cab connected?

Oh, and sorry for the derail.
 
#25
I've tried a few and here's what I would recommend... in no particular order

1- Radial bassbone good tone and you can use 2 basses and can fit on your pedalboard
2- Paradriver DI- Good clean tone very versatile.To me the mid control makes all of the difference for quick and easy adjustments
3- Tonehammer DI- My favorite so far. Just a nice solid sound.
4-MXR M80- This is a great box for the money.
5- Basspod XT/Live/pro- If you want everything in the box.

My top 2 would be the Tonehammer and the M80. Both are solid preamps more than effects unit to color your sound.
 
#26
Pickebass said:
I've tried a few and here's what I would recommend... in no particular order

1- Radial bassbone good tone and you can use 2 basses and can fit on your pedalboard
2- Paradriver DI- Good clean tone very versatile.To me the mid control makes all of the difference for quick and easy adjustments
3- Tonehammer DI- My favorite so far. Just a nice solid sound.
4-MXR M80- This is a great box for the money.
5- Basspod XT/Live/pro- If you want everything in the box.

My top 2 would be the Tonehammer and the M80. Both are solid preamps more than effects unit to color your sound.
Click to expand...

All good, but IMHO the Sansamp Paradriver wins for flexibility, low noise, parametric mids, drive/blend for warmth & phat, and connectivity.

Cheap, too. :ninja:

paraDI.jpg
 
#27
Just my 2 cents...

I've played most of the preamp/DI pedals on the market and currently own a few

EBS Micro Bass II is a very nice unit

Aguilar Tone Hammer pedal is great

But, in my opinion, 3 Leaf Audio recently came out with "The Enabler" that sounds incredible and offers a really nice aux in/headphone amp as well...well worth looking into

Congrats on the gig!!!
 
#28
Gougedeye said:
So here's the deal. My band is about to begin an 8 week run at this resort. We are going to use a couple Bose L1 Model 2s for PA and monitors. Space is very limited, so we will be running direct. No amps. I need to find myself a decent Bass Preamp w/ modeling capabilities. Anybody have any experience and/or ideas I should try? Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Here's what works for me: Have a head/cab amplifier with a grounded DI around. I also have the Sansamp Bass Driver DI.

The Sansamp is good because it's super small. The downside is that there's a loss of control of your tone. May sound great, but it may be bad. Either way, your stuck with it unless you can swap out your head. However, the chances are that if you're playing such a small stage, it's likely that the room's acoustics will destroy any tone that you could dial in on stage anyway. Additionally, the room's acoustics are usually such that whatever tone you might want has to be altered as to sound the best for the band or song and not clash with other instruments, i.e. a resonant tone at 200hz messes with the guitar tone. As such, for those types of gigs, I just use the Sansamp.

Take this with a grain of salt, though, as I'm one of those players that is not really into tone during live situations. The studio is a totally different story, but on crappier stages, if I get my tone to 75% of where it should be, then I'm usually happy and don't worry about it because to really get the tone is probably impossible.

While I think 95% of my gigs get covered with a combo that I have, the other 5% have some situation where a big amp is needed, or are like situations like yours.
 
#34
jaywa said:
I've heard its hard on your amp to run it without a cabinet plugged in... But that may be an old wives tale.
Click to expand...

TRUE without a load on the output you'll do damage to most amps but this can be avoided by creating a "pigtail" with a jack, a short piece of shielded cable and a resistor (4 or 8 ohms whichever best suits your amp) then just keep the master volume potted down to 0.

Some newer amps can run as a preamp without the "pigtail", check the manufacturers specs and recommendations for your amp.

With the exception of my Mark Bass CMD 102P, all of my amps are older than my adult children and would require the resistance.
 
#35
DiabolusInMusic said:
Are you sure it runs without the cab? I did a quick search as I thought having a built-in dummy load would be an awesome feature for a tube amp.

The features list on Musiciansfriend states "Speaker Output switch that can be set to “Mute” to turn speaker off and record silently using preamp" I would take that as it can mute the cab but if you hook up a 300w tube head without a cab you are going to fry it within minutes just like any other tube head.

Can you verify you can run the head without a cab connected?

Oh, and sorry for the derail.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you questioned me. It made me take a look at this amps specs. One of the features of the SB300 is silent operation mode for the studio. The manual says this allows you to disable the cabs, keep the preamp active for recording and protecting the power amp if the speaker is disconnected. But right below that there is a warning to always have a speaker connected to the amp! Using this wasn't ever part of my plan, but I'm glad I checked up on it.
 

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