Sansamp?

I've read several posts here on TB recently where folks use the SansAmp Bass Driver DI as their preamp for upright, so I assume EUB would be okay too.

Not everybody likes what it does to their sound, but strictly speaking, yeah, you can use it as a preamp.

Depending on what type of EUB you get and what kind of pickups are on it, I guess it's possible you may not even need a preamp.

Anyway, since you already have a SansAmp in hand, I'd give it a try first and see how it goes.

 

I've been using a Sansamp Acoustic DI for a good while now, with both my URBs and my EUB. It works great for me across the board. Before I got that, I did the same as you suggest, and used a Bass Driver DI that I had for my electric rig. It works fine as well, just keep the "drive" function off. One thing I like a little more about the Acoustic DI is that it has a mid control.

 

I think the SansAmp is an amazing little brown box all right. I have only used it w/ my upright a few times, but I do really like the tone shaping ability and routing options. I use it plenty w/ my electric.

In another thread, Bob G. confirmed the input is 940K too, which would be suitable for most piezo pickups, I reckon.

Rugged little critter.

 

I have toured the states and europe with mine for three years now - it's still working well and sounds great and has gotton me out of countless sound-jams.. when the maps breaks or whatever - a whole multitude of things can go wrong on the road and the sans amp has been highly reliable and sounds great comapred to going straight into the board..not too mention it give YOU, the player, the control over your tone AND volume..which is a big deal with upright - I use it for acoustic bass as I need it.
I highly recomend the bass driver by sansamp

 

I checked this a while back. The Sansamp Bass Driver is 940k but the Acoustic version is even higher, 4M Ohms.
It should be even better suited.

Oystein

 

for me, the ultimate combination is the sans amp para driver. it has the high impedance input for acoustic instruments and the sweepable mid that the acoustic driver has, but it also has the drive control that the bass driver has. i use mine with the upright and the eub, and it warms up the tone incredibly well. thakes the harshness right out of the piezo... my sound has been getting alot of compliments from other musicians too. they're not used to hearing that kind of warmth out of the upright. if you use a tiny bit of drive, so little you cant even tell its on, it will create the illusion that the bass is standing out more in the mix. when you distort low frequencies it makes them more "present" . the way i use it you'd never know it was there, but the bass does stand out more. i can hear my intonation..

 

I often use the cheap behringer adi-21. I think it works great, both with with various bass amplifiers and pa. I can't comment on the similarity with sansamp, but I would be surprised if the sansamp is not a better product.

 

shwashwa,
there is a week i'm trying the para driver, and when i turn the Blend button from 0 to 100 the output sign lowers graduately.
Does this happens to you also, is it normal?

 

yes, this is normal. as you turn the blend up you're adding compression. it kind of squashes all your dynamics into one volume. to compensate for this, when you turn up the blend, you need to also increase the level. i get best results the the blend almost all the way left, maybe at around 9:00, that way my dynamics arent affected, and i use very little drive, 9-10:00. you cant hear it, but i do believe it adds something. the unit also sounds great with the blend all the way at zero. the preamp itself without the drive is great and warm. i use it that way too, but i also play electric, and it's nice to have that drive control when you need it.

 

I used a sansamp for years and found it really reliable and really versatile--lately though, I've abandoned it in favor of an Avalon u-5. I still have the paradriver, but haven't used it in a while

The "blend" knob controls the amount of "tube emulation" you're adding. It's tied in to the "drive" knob. If "blend" is at zero "drive" does nothing, you just get the tone controls. I find that blend introduces some tube-like compression and a big mid scoop, and I usually keep it pretty low

 

I just bought a new Para DI off of Ebay that I plan to use with my Acoustic Image Focus amp running Euphonic Audio cabs. I'm hoping that this box will warm up my sound when I play bass guitar through my rig. Sometimes you need a little grit when things get funky on the gig, ya know?

I also wonder what it will do for the upright, although I'm pretty satisfied with the sound of my Rev Solo pickup direct into the AI preamp.

I'll give my upright/para report soon.

 

I've had a BDDI for 4 years, and I just picked up a SansAmp Acoustic DI today. Between sweepable mids and a bit of the blend control, midrange Underwood piezo honk is easily tamed. Looks like the line-level switches on the Para would be very handy for bypassing combo/head preamps and running right into power amps.

 

I've never used the floor units-i'd like to pick them up eventually. In my Rack-i have an RBI & RPM, the RPM i had setup as a dedicated preamp [slightly different kind of preamp than what you're talking about i realize], and that was the best upright amped tone i have ever been able to find. To the extent of-i'm thinking, i need to try out these little floor units to see if they can do the same thing for me.

 

I recently bought a Sansamp RBI rackmount unit and am using it with a power amp as a stand alone preamp. It sounds great for both upright and electric. I find that the EQ is centered in good places for bass and the outputs offer all the necessary options for feeding both a power amp/speaker and a PA live.

Another inexpensive unit that I've used recently in various situations, particularly recording, that I've found very useful is Yamaha's Nathan East NE-1 preamp. It's basically a parametric EQ for midrange. Actually, it only cuts midrange, but it's very easy to use and the frequencies are exactly in the important bass areas. I'm sure all of you are familiar with the nasal or honking midrange that is often produced by upright pickups and electrics when you go direct. This unit is perfect for "scooping" those frequencies and I've found I don't always even need another preamp. It's quiet and you can get them for like $69 from Sam Ash Music. etc.

 

the mids are very important on upright bass.... most upright bass players want a flat response spearker/ amp setup because the mid scoop that is very popular with electric does not sound good with upright. we generally want to hear the full range of our bass, including the mids, scooping the mids is unnatural. i guess it depends on the pickup, but generally, if the input impedeance is matched and you're not losing all your low end becuause you plugged into an input designed for a magnetic pickup, you'll want to keep the mids flat or even boost them slightly. i think most piezo's sound honky because they're not plugged into an input with matching inpedeance.

 

Of course the mid-range covers a large frequency spectrum and you don't want to scoop it all out. In my case, I play a lot on gut strings and that old-school sound is not mid-heavy. You want that lower-end "puff" to the sound. But taking out too much mid will make anything muddy. Steel-string players who like a more modern tone prefer a more accentuated mid-range, as do fretless electric players. Personally, I like to dip a little around 650 - 800 hz when amplifying my gut-string upright.

 

I cut mids just enough to tame that piezo "thonk", although that hasn't been much of a problem for me since I've started using the Revolution Solo.

 

ahhh.... i see... i think of mids around 200hz, which i like to boost alittle... i boost the lows (around 40-80) and the mids.. .anything above that i usually cut too... i dont like too much finger noise on the string, so i usually cut some highs, and the 200 boost seems to give me some good punch and definition to the pitch. but as always, it depends on the bass and strings, amp, room etc...