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Tech 21 SABDDI V2 with Mids

#21
Al Kraft said:
Not to be a pest, but any news you can share? I'm truly hoping this will turn out to be an RBI experience (mostly the mid control part) in a pedal. With the focus on 5 and 6 string basses that Tech 21 mentioned for this model I am also wondering if there is a little more headroom than the last version of the BDDI.
Click to expand...

No problem at all. Finding time is tough sometimes. Anyway...
My testing is very focused. I prefer "set it and forget it". My RBI is always at 60% blend and somewhat strict settings. The RBI I have sounds "meaner" & "fuller" than other RBI's I have had. Not sure if or how that is possible, but that's what I have. That being said:
Finger style '64 AVRI Jazz bass going into a Boogie M6 at home "loud" practice, I have gotten the pedal and the RBI sounding pretty similar. No band practice yet, but eventually. The biggest differences between the two that I found are the Drive and Presence knobs. Especially the Presence. My RBI has it on just over 9 o'clock, and the pedal is close to that around 2 o'clock. Not a big deal, because they both eventually sound similar and excellent feeding the M6. More testing may prove to turn knobs some more, but that's where I am right now. I have the Mid knob a hair past noon on both units. Not really taking advantage of the new knob, but I like it just where it is for now.
I'll eventually get both units on the visual EQ to really get them matched up, but the new pedal is excellent for me. I wouldn't know if it has more headroom, but the pedal has more Drive than my RBI for sure. I actually had to dial it back to about noon to match the RBI almost 2 o'clock drive.
Again, my RBI seems different than others I've had in comparison, but this new BDDI V2 pedal is a keeper.
Cheers,
Don
 
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#22
Don,

Thanks so much for your reply and the time you took to do a little comparison. I somehow suspected that for those of us who like and use the RBI/BDDI (and especially the 4 string players) we wouldn't feel a need to make huge changes with that mid control. I think most of us know how to get some of the mids back with other techniques and basically like the inherent sound of the RBI/BDDI.

Once again I sincerely appreciate you sharing your insights.

Best regards,
-Al
 
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#26
walterw said:
well look at that!

very awesome and perfectly addresses the drawbacks of the previous gen unit.

but, since this is the internet, allow me to be the first to complain about a detail on a new box the day it comes out :whistle:

where's the "speaker sim bypass" button, ideally set to only bypass the 1/4" out?
Click to expand...

We only offered that feature on our Character Series pedal. The Bass Driver DI is first and foremost a DI with amp emulation. The amps it emulates all have the sound of the speaker in the equation. The idea is that you plug into the Bass Driver DI and send the through to your bass rig and use that as your stage monitor and send the XLR out to the board.

Coke Kane said:
The V1 blend control cuts the mids around 750 hz - 800 hz, but the mid control on V2 affects 500 hz or 1 khz, so I'm not sure that it addresses the specific mid issue or adds a whole other issue. Unless V2 cuts the mids in a different frequency...
Click to expand...

I suggest you try it for yourself. The unit was designed to offer the same midrange control that is available on the RBI but we also added a lower mid frequency for more versatility.

Coke Kane said:


The blend which adds the processed signal does three things to my ears: 1) add compression, 2) add a high and low pass filter, and 3) is a contour control that cuts the mids. See the 2:20 mark of the video above to see the blend knob in action.

So it's not only the cranking of the bass and treble knob that cuts the mids, thought that can cut mids. But with the bass and treble knobs at noon, and the blend cranked, there will be a mid cut.
Click to expand...


The Blend control mixes in the SansAmp tube and speaker emulation. When the Blend is 100% wet turning up the Bass and Treble will scoop or notch out the midrange. Reducing the Bass and Treble will put a bump in the midrange. By adjusting the amount of SansAmp and Direct sound with the added midrange control there is a lot of tone shaping possibilites.

Al Kraft said:
That makes sense to me. As I understand it the blend control simply changes the ratio of dry signal (like you'd get with a straight DI box) to the SansAmp affected portion. I believe the drive and presence controls are associated with the SansAmp functionality only, as the level, bass, and treble controls all work even with the blend at zero.

With a completely dry signal (zero blend) and the bass and treble controls at noon there really shouldn't be much of mid scoop (of course nothing is ruler flat). You can cause the mid content to be more present by turning back the treble and bass, but as soon as you start to blend in the SansAmp circuitry, you are going to start introducing a mid scoop against you're settings because that is essentially the BDDI SansAmp tonal profile.
Click to expand...

With the Blend at minimum and Bass, Treble and Mids at 12 o'clock the pedal is flat response.

DJJazzV said:
No problem at all. Finding time is tough sometimes. Anyway...
My testing is very focused. I prefer "set it and forget it". My RBI is always at 60% blend and somewhat strict settings. The RBI I have sounds "meaner" & "fuller" than other RBI's I have had. Not sure if or how that is possible, but that's what I have. That being said:
Finger style '64 AVRI Jazz bass going into a Boogie M6 at home "loud" practice, I have gotten the pedal and the RBI sounding pretty similar. No band practice yet, but eventually. The biggest differences between the two that I found are the Drive and Presence knobs. Especially the Presence. My RBI has it on just over 9 o'clock, and the pedal is close to that around 2 o'clock. Not a big deal, because they both eventually sound similar and excellent feeding the M6. More testing may prove to turn knobs some more, but that's where I am right now. I have the Mid knob a hair past noon on both units. Not really taking advantage of the new knob, but I like it just where it is for now.
I'll eventually get both units on the visual EQ to really get them matched up, but the new pedal is excellent for me. I wouldn't know if it has more headroom, but the pedal has more Drive than my RBI for sure. I actually had to dial it back to about noon to match the RBI almost 2 o'clock drive.
Again, my RBI seems different than others I've had in comparison, but this new BDDI V2 pedal is a keeper.
Cheers,
Don
Click to expand...

The taper for the Presence control has gone through several revisions over the years. The taper on the pedal is a smoother taper. The results should still sound the same with the Presence at Min and Max.
 
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#29
The original Sansamp has a mid cut and a mid notch in the tube sim section. The blend control sweeps between the tube sim section with the mid cut and notch, and the input buffer, which doesn't have any mid cuts.

The two band EQ follows the blend control. I added switches and a control to remove the mid cut and mid notch in my Behringer Sansamp knockoff. It became a far better pedal which I prefer to an unmodded Sansamp.

Tech 21 says the new pedal with the mid control, is the same circuit with the addition of the mid control, frequency switch for the mid, and the shift for the bass (for low B's). They say the rest of the pedal is the same, so the mid cut and mid notch are likely still there in the tube sim section.
 
#30
I am anxious to hear more side by side (old versus new) comparisons as well, but at face value I'm guessing that the new mid control will place the sound shaping option more in the RBI range of tones. Additionally, the RBI mid control is centered at around 1 KHz (only) and the new BDDI has a switch that let's you select 1000 Hz or 500 Hz. That along with selectable frequency points for the bass control (40 or 80 HZ) could also be of some value in certain situations with some bases.

I keep thinking that if you already like the BDDI, these changes may not be as significant for you. If you're playing 5 or 6 string bass the difference might be more worthwhile. As for the addition of the mid control with switchable frequencies, there could be a lot if utility for those who found no mid control/big mid scoop a "deal breaker" shortcoming in the original version.

At the end of the day though, I think that even with these updates most folks will either like the BDDI sound or it's just not exactly their thing. Of course that's just a guess until we get some comparisons.
 
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#32
tech21nyc said:
The idea is that you plug into the Bass Driver DI and send the through to your bass rig and use that as your stage monitor and send the XLR out to the board.
Click to expand...

It's funny that I've always been using it the other way round. I like having the full lows, compression and drive on stage and send a fuss free clean DI-signal to the soundman.

I'll take the opportunity to thank for a great product! I have one of the early versions and it has been always on while playing since that. Must be more than ten years. Still going strong. The pots are a bit crackly but so is my mother in law.
 
#34
leonard said:
It's funny that I've always been using it the other way round. I like having the full lows, compression and drive on stage and send a fuss free clean DI-signal to the soundman.

I'll take the opportunity to thank for a great product! I have one of the early versions and it has been always on while playing since that. Must be more than ten years. Still going strong. The pots are a bit crackly but so is my mother in law.
Click to expand...

We're glad you like the product. On some of the older units there were holes in the circuit board that allow you to spray some DeOxit to clean the pots. If you can't access it that way the unit needs to be taken apart which is kind of time consuming. Our bench rate is $30 an hour for that pedal and usually that's all it takes if you need to send it in. Please contact our support team if you want to send it in.

Tech 21 USA, Inc.
Tel: 973-777-6996
Fax: 973-777-9899
email: [email protected]
 
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#36
quickfix said:
I love my VT Bass DI. Will this new pedal do something different for me?

I do like Sansamp stuff. Even my wife's SansAmp Para Driver DI gets a lot of use.
Click to expand...

I only have the VT Bass V2 pedal (not Di version) to compare with my last version BDDI and PDDI. My personal take is that this new pedal will not sound inherently different than the current BDDI which is oriented towards mirroring a range of amp/cab tones including some Ampeg territory, but is really about that more modern scooped tone. Admittedly it will have some additional bass and mid tone shaping, but from what I understand the basic tone is still very true to the BDDI we all know and many of us like.

The VT Bass in all its incarnations seems to me to be much more focused on giving you the fullest range of Ampeg tones from across their product line. It can do a bit more, but to my ear it was optimized to offer Ampeg fans a lot of capability in a gig bag size package/pedal format. I find uses for both the VT Bass and the BDDI and feel they are voiced differently enough that owning both is not simply redundant. YMMV!
 
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#38
ddnidd1 said:
I wasn't certain whether the V2 does or does not have the 800 hz dip or not.

I just got off the phone with Tech 21 and it DOES have the 800 hz dip like the original BDDI pedals.
Click to expand...

When I spoke with Tech 21 a while back they also confirmed that the new BDDI was "true to its roots in terms of basic tonal profile", but that folks who liked that added flexibility the RBI provided relative to a mid-range control should really enjoy the more flexible mid-range capability (choice of two center frequency points) on the new BDDI V2.
 

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