The Great Bass Preamp/DI Comparison

[jacoby75]

The market is screaming for the VTBP-201s in a pedal form factor. The Demeter Tube DI is cool, but it's no pre-amp . . . I've since jumped ship for Broughton stuff and rock the pedal preamps and his P-15.

Yes, this. From your lips to @Azure Skies' ears.

 

[PeterH]

I'm having a crisis of faith moment. I don't know what to do. I have a Broughton Tube DI, the Arkham Oracle, and the Grace ALiX. I know it's all subjective, but I'm debating selling all the tubes off and having the ALiX be my DI, and some newer smaller tube preamps in-front of the ALiX to give any "tube tone" from there.

@scubaduba, how is the DI in the ALiX? Does it colour any tone or am I going to have to shell for an RNDI/Telefunken/Lightningboy?

 

[Low Down Brown]

@scubaduba, how is the DI in the ALiX? Does it colour any tone or am I going to have to shell for an RNDI/Telefunken/Lightningboy?

Curious about this too. ALiX is on my radar....

 

[tedsalt]

I'm having a crisis of faith moment. I don't know what to do. I have a Broughton Tube DI, the Arkham Oracle, and the Grace ALiX. I know it's all subjective, but I'm debating selling all the tubes off and having the ALiX be my DI, and some newer smaller tube preamps in-front of the ALiX to give any "tube tone" from there.

@scubaduba, how is the DI in the ALiX? Does it colour any tone or am I going to have to shell for an RNDI/Telefunken/Lightningboy?

I guess you have no way to test out the ALiX? I've been playing twice a month for the church livestream, with my booring ole pedalboard.

I think you need one of each of those

Strike that. I think Scuba said the ALiX has a good transformer in it, so you're probably good to go! He did also mention clean, so probably no colour? But a 3d vibe or something, not sure if that's a colour.

 

[Lowendtech]

I'm having a crisis of faith moment. I don't know what to do. I have a Broughton Tube DI, the Arkham Oracle, and the Grace ALiX. I know it's all subjective, but I'm debating selling all the tubes off and having the ALiX be my DI, and some newer smaller tube preamps in-front of the ALiX to give any "tube tone" from there.

@scubaduba, how is the DI in the ALiX? Does it colour any tone or am I going to have to shell for an RNDI/Telefunken/Lightningboy?

This morning when I had a peek, Mike had 38 2020's left for sale.

 

[PeterH]

I guess you have no way to test out the ALiX? I've been playing twice a month for the church livestream, with my booring ole pedalboard.

I think you need one of each of those

Strike that. I think Scuba said the ALiX has a good transformer in it, so you're probably good to go! He did also mention clean, so probably no colour? But a 3d vibe or something, not sure if that's a colour.

As of right now, I can't test the DI out on the ALiX. Perhaps next week.

This morning when I had a peek, Mike had 38 2020's left for sale.

I, uh... actually have a 2020 on the way, when he ships out. I think I'm looking for an excuse to get an RNDI/Telefunken

 

[tedsalt]

As of right now, I can't test the DI out on the ALiX. Perhaps next week.



I, uh... actually have a 2020 on the way, when he ships out. I think I'm looking for an excuse to get an RNDI/Telefunken

So, if you have the ALiX which I think has a clean DI, and you have a 2020 transformer coming you can put somewhere before the ALiX, isn't that kind of like a RNDI with its transformer? Kinda?

I still think you need a RNDI and a Telefunken, just to be safe

Or maybe another 2020

 

[fast slapper]

Overthinking the transformers....speakers, be it ear buds or line arrays, all add a much bigger dose of harmonic content than most audio transformers.

If you want your transformer to add color get a Behringer.

 

[Low Down Brown]

The struggle is real...

 

[pisces_bass]

Thanks again for the information and opinions shared on this thread. My current GAS list:
Night Owl Edison
GR Pure Bass Drive
ISP Beta Bass

None of these were on my radar 6 months ago

 

[PeterH]

Thanks again for the information and opinions shared on this thread. My current GAS list:
Night Owl Edison
GR Pure Bass Drive
ISP Beta Bass

None of these were on my radar 6 months ago

Oh for god's sake, you had to remind me about the Night Owl! That thing sounds incredible!

 

[tedsalt]

Oh for god's sake, you had to remind me about the Night Owl! That thing sounds incredible!

And it has a bypass. This solves the clean / not quite as clean dilemma. I sometimes think about adding one of these just for that purpose.

 

[Rocksolid]

I shouldn't have resubscribed to this thread again. GAS is bad enough normally, but with no gigs, we all sit at home obsessing over our tone rather than gigging!!

 

[Zbysek]

Oh for god's sake, you had to remind me about the Night Owl! That thing sounds incredible!

Is this what you speak of?

https://www.nightowl.industries/edison-preamp

 

[Zbysek]

Running two feeds, a true DRY DI bass feed along with a mic'd cabinet OR a digital IR cab sim is problematic due to: A) with a close mic'd cabinet, there is micro delay (<1msec) due to the distance of the microphone from the speaker; B) with a digital IR, inherent latency (1msec-4msec or more depending on the IR loader used) due to processing computations. In either case, you'd need to have a mixing console with a micro delay (or phase reversal switch) on the dry DI channel so that you don't have phase/comb filtering problems.

Thank you for your post-it's very informative.

Please, correct me if I am wrong: my understanding is that phase reversal shift is a standard feature on many (most) mixing consoles...so it's not such a big deal… unless the sound tech forgets to press it (is unaware of its existence)...or am I missing something here?

 

[JKos]

Please, correct me if I am wrong: my understanding is that phase reversal shift is a standard feature on many (most) mixing consoles...

Phase reversal doesn't fix different delays of a given signal being mixed. Two different issues.

A time delay causes perfect "phase reversal" only at very exact frequencies which are determined by the amount of delay.

- John

 

[Zbysek]

Phase reversal doesn't fix different delays of a given signal being mixed. Two different issues.

A time delay causes perfect "phase reversal" only at very exact frequencies which are determined by the amount of delay.

- John

Thank you for the clarification.

Am I correct in thinking that time delay should only occur if one of the signals is either run through digital device (such as IR) or if one of the signals takes it's source in microphone?

In other words: time delay should not occur if I send one signal from clean DI (analog) and the other signal from wet DI (let's say after analog distortion)? Thank you.

 

[JKos]

@Zbysek ,
While analog pedals don't cause "time delay," they do cause phase shift as a function of frequency. Even the simplest RC filter causes phase shift. This is part of why sometimes mixing separate chains works out great and other times it doesn't, even if basic polarity is accounted for.

- John

 

[Zbysek]

@Zbysek ,
While analog pedals don't cause "time delay," they do cause phase shift as a function of frequency. Even the simplest RC filter causes phase shift. This is part of why sometimes mixing separate chains works out great and other times it doesn't, even if basic polarity is accounted for.

- John

I appreciate that. But I thought it can be "corrected" by phase reversal function...which is available on most mixers (see my post No. 2096).

Again, thank you for taking the time to clarify...

 

[JKos]

But I thought it can be "corrected" by phase reversal function...

Phase shift and polarity are two different things. A phase shift of 180° is "polarity reversal."
But if a device phase shifts 100 Hz by 27°, 400 Hz by 121°, and 1000 Hz by 90°, you can't "fix" that with phase reversal.

- John