TAB Funkenwerk Tube DI/preamp...
Direct Box
Here's what it sounds like, both basses are through the DI only.
Direct Box
Here's what it sounds like, both basses are through the DI only.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
The Great Bass Preamp/DI Comparison
- Thread starter chadhargis
- Start date
Wow!! I bet that is pure goodness!
As I'm anxiously awaiting my Noble to be delivered, I have re-arranged my pedal board to get ready for it. I've got a unbalanced 1/4" coming out of my volume pedal (last thing before the DI) and it's plugged straight into my mixer. Through all this preamp testing and knob twisting I've forgotten what a plain old uneffected bass sounds like. It's a little flat, but not awful, and all my basses have preamps in them except one and if I do some shaping there it sounds pretty damn nice.
I'm hoping the Noble is as good as everyone says it is. My board is back to an EQ, Compressor, H9, and HPF....all it's missing is a killer DI.
Any recommendations on a pre/DI:
-around <$200 used/demo/blem
-able to run off phantom power (when not using in pedal board)
-usable preamp in pedal board (overdrive not important as the MT500 has VMT and B3K.
- good EQ
I was thinking this is shaking down to the Tone Hammer and the LR Baggs Stadium Bass.
Seems like reviews on Tone Hammer are all good when you are not dealing with the AGS circuit.
The LR Baggs has a compressor circuit which might be all I ever need. Running out of power outputs on my power supply in board. People seem to like the subtle distortion effect.
thx
-around <$200 used/demo/blem
-able to run off phantom power (when not using in pedal board)
-usable preamp in pedal board (overdrive not important as the MT500 has VMT and B3K.
- good EQ
I was thinking this is shaking down to the Tone Hammer and the LR Baggs Stadium Bass.
Seems like reviews on Tone Hammer are all good when you are not dealing with the AGS circuit.
The LR Baggs has a compressor circuit which might be all I ever need. Running out of power outputs on my power supply in board. People seem to like the subtle distortion effect.
thx
The Tone Hammer is excellent. A very solid choice that will run off phantom power. But there is nothing "magic" about it. It is basically an OBP-3 preamp in a box. Having owned the Tone Hammer for a long time and gigged with it a bunch, it's a really good piece of kit. If I were to go back with an EQ type preamp/DI, that could be phantom powered, I'd go with the Tech 21 Q/Strip. I was really really surprised by that pedal. It's awesome and it has HPF and LPF to boot.
That Tech 21 Q Strip looks interesting. Looks like it would work well for Upright Bass. I always preferred parametric EQs. Corrective EQ and tone sculpting EQ are very different. Its interesting that the mid band #1 goes all the way down to 40 hz, meaning you could cut/boost low bass suing the mid. That has to be a lower freq than the bass control. the HPF at 40 hz should make the amp function and sound better. This preamp is not bass specific but might be more of what I need. You liked the over quality of the signal you were getting out of it?
I love the Q/Strip and I hate to sell it, but I bought a Noble DI (BIG $$$) so I'm divesting myself of all my other pedals. I had planned on keeping the Q/Strip and the FlyRig because they are both awesome.
With the Q/Strip you get a shelving EQ for "Low" and for "High". The "Mid" controls really are mislabeled as they can be low, mid, or treble depending on the frequency setting. I got a great tone out of the Q/Strip. You can listen to the sound clip I made earlier in this thread.
With the Q/Strip you get a shelving EQ for "Low" and for "High". The "Mid" controls really are mislabeled as they can be low, mid, or treble depending on the frequency setting. I got a great tone out of the Q/Strip. You can listen to the sound clip I made earlier in this thread.
Noble DI Initial Impressions
Look what USPS Claus bought today!
***FULL DISCLAIMER*** I'm excited about this preamp. I've wanted one for years, and to finally pull the trigger really excites me. But I'm going to be very objective in my testing of this sucker.
That said....OMFG! As soon as I hooked it up EVERYTHING sounder bigger, fuller, more alive. That was with the EQ set flat. I boosted the bass just a bit and left the highs flat....just MASSIVE tone. Folks, this thing is really impressive. If you've read this entire thread, you know I've been searching for my sound for a long time and have tried several different things. But nothing, and I mean nothing I've ever tried even comes close to the Noble. Now, is it placebo effect because I dropped nearly a grand on this thing....maybe. But honestly, I don't think it is. The signal coming out of the thing dimed the meters on my mixer and I had to turn the gain way down. So it's a very strong DI.
I'm going to play some more, get it cabled in nicely, and do some recording with it and I'll post up a clip.
Stay tuned!
Look what USPS Claus bought today!
***FULL DISCLAIMER*** I'm excited about this preamp. I've wanted one for years, and to finally pull the trigger really excites me. But I'm going to be very objective in my testing of this sucker.
That said....OMFG! As soon as I hooked it up EVERYTHING sounder bigger, fuller, more alive. That was with the EQ set flat. I boosted the bass just a bit and left the highs flat....just MASSIVE tone. Folks, this thing is really impressive. If you've read this entire thread, you know I've been searching for my sound for a long time and have tried several different things. But nothing, and I mean nothing I've ever tried even comes close to the Noble. Now, is it placebo effect because I dropped nearly a grand on this thing....maybe. But honestly, I don't think it is. The signal coming out of the thing dimed the meters on my mixer and I had to turn the gain way down. So it's a very strong DI.
I'm going to play some more, get it cabled in nicely, and do some recording with it and I'll post up a clip.
Stay tuned!
Last edited:
Im really intrested in the Nobel. Big $ at this moment and cannot justify. Currently using a Basswitch and a Sadowsky SBP 1. Also use an Aguilar db924, their is no DI on that one but it sounds great witj my P bass.
I have been following this thread from the beginning. I diched all my pedals except my Markbass compressore. Love the tube compressor. I was intrested in the Lebass but i dont really like the look. ( i know weird huh?) The TH was cool but that AG circuit....
At this point Im looking at tube preamps. I do really love the Basswitch, great Eq and just a bad ass pre with all the tools you need. The Sadowsky is just a killer pre and kicks everything into steroid mode. I like my Bass passive. I do have a modded up Carvin lb75 with a Sadowsky preamp and Nordstrand pups.
That said I am a preamp junkie and this thread is giving me major GAS.
You and me both!
But I'm a tech junkie to boot. I had a nice simple board. A tuner, comp, a volume pedal, a Tone Hammer....then I got a looper, and an octaver, and a fuzz pedal, etc. So in my brilliance, I bought the H9 to handle all my effects, and oooh.....it had MIDI....so I got a MIDI preamp (Le Bass) and a MIDI amp sim (Torpedo CAB), and a MIDI EQ (Source Audio EQ), and a MIDI controller, and a bigger board to hold them all........ahhhh! I got so tired of tweaking and getting good tone, but spending more time tweaking made it better and I kept tweaking until I'd end up back where I started. It was really fatiguing.
So I went back simple. Kept the H9 and it's an awesome unit that does about everything, including being my tuner. I kept the volume pedal because yeah, I do swells and I like using the pedal over the volume knob on the bass. The EQ I kept to basically match levels into the compressor from all my basses. They are all different in output from my passive Mercalli, to my 9v Lakland, to my 18v FrankenFretless. The compressor was an MXR, then a Keeley, now a G-Lab. The Thumpinator is just a HPF...but it is a great piece of kit. So know I run the EQ flat and just use the programming function to set levels. The compressor is set to only lightly compress unless you kick in channels B or C in which it squeezes more. The H9 stays off most of the time in true bypass mode. The Noble is nearly flat. Not a lot to tweak. And the sound is fantastic.
I'm telling you, the Noble is not snake oil. It's not a minor difference. It's a HUGE difference. Worth a grand? Um...at this point I'd say yes. I've spent more than a grand on a nice sounding bass, and to me, the Noble is a bigger difference in tone than even buying a nice bass gives you. It really has something magic. That big 120v AC plug in the side of it hots those tubes up way better than any 12v DC power supply could. Because I no longer need to replace my power supply (I have a Ciocks DC-5 and was going to a DC-7, aka PowerMax) I basically saved $200 off the cost of the Noble. I just had to get a Y splitter for the power cord going to the Ciocks under my board.
Noble Review
I've spent some time with the Noble and I have to say, it's all that I've heard it is. I recorded a clip below which is the sound of the Noble by itself. Nothing else on my board was engaged. It sounds good. But the amazing part is what it does when you do some tone shaping prior to the Noble input. When I turn on the compressor, the tone is just full and lush. It sounds great. If I play my active bass and bump the low end, it's clean and deep without being muddy or boomy. It seems whatever you toss at it, it just makes it better. I have a lot of time with the Le Bass, and I can tell you that thing sounds good and you can hear the tubey goodness in it....but the Noble makes you FEEL the tubey goodness. It's just unreal. I did bump the low end up because I love a fat tone, but even totally flat it sounds really good. I listened to a lot of YouTube vids on the Noble and they all sounded sort of...meh....not special. But pumped straight into my ears, there is a massive difference. So far this thing ranks very high on my list of kit I'll never be without (unless I need bail money or something).
Noble Sound Clip
Reverend Mercalli 5 (passive bass)
Both pickups full up
Tone full up
I've spent some time with the Noble and I have to say, it's all that I've heard it is. I recorded a clip below which is the sound of the Noble by itself. Nothing else on my board was engaged. It sounds good. But the amazing part is what it does when you do some tone shaping prior to the Noble input. When I turn on the compressor, the tone is just full and lush. It sounds great. If I play my active bass and bump the low end, it's clean and deep without being muddy or boomy. It seems whatever you toss at it, it just makes it better. I have a lot of time with the Le Bass, and I can tell you that thing sounds good and you can hear the tubey goodness in it....but the Noble makes you FEEL the tubey goodness. It's just unreal. I did bump the low end up because I love a fat tone, but even totally flat it sounds really good. I listened to a lot of YouTube vids on the Noble and they all sounded sort of...meh....not special. But pumped straight into my ears, there is a massive difference. So far this thing ranks very high on my list of kit I'll never be without (unless I need bail money or something).
Noble Sound Clip
Reverend Mercalli 5 (passive bass)
Both pickups full up
Tone full up
Played the Noble live for the first time today and was very pleased, as was the sound guy who described it as "smooth". He said the tube harmonics were there for sure and it sounded great. The good thing about being in Nashville versus some other places is that the sound guys here are really, really good. They have precision ears and typically give me great feedback.
Bass sounded so full, fat, and smooth. Just the way I like it. No string clank, not brittle highs, just big fat round booty.
Here's a few clips of today's services. The signal path is:
Reverend Mercalli 5 (passive, vol & tone full up), Source Audio EQ (set flat), G-Labs BC-1 Compressor, [sfx] micro Thumpinator (HPF), Noble DI with slight bass and treble boost from flat, XLR to board.
Bass sounded so full, fat, and smooth. Just the way I like it. No string clank, not brittle highs, just big fat round booty.
Here's a few clips of today's services. The signal path is:
Reverend Mercalli 5 (passive, vol & tone full up), Source Audio EQ (set flat), G-Labs BC-1 Compressor, [sfx] micro Thumpinator (HPF), Noble DI with slight bass and treble boost from flat, XLR to board.
That Noble really does sound great. Don't see how someone couldn't like that. All that gooey, tubey goodness.
Indeed!
I think the thing I like most is that it doesn't pretend to be anything. It's not trying to emulate something else.
Wow! What a thread! This is beautiful. So I’m kinda new to the forums here, have read thru various threads over the years from Googling various bits of gear here and there.
Finally actually joined since I’ve had almost as many request to play bass as I have guitar, guitar being my first instrument. I guess I just had to get over that mental hump of thinking of my self as a guitarist playing bass, and thinking of myself as a bass player.
All that to say I’ve recently been in the process of building out my bass rig as well. Similarly to Chris I play in worship settings a lot which is basically cover work. My day gig, well, I’m also an audio engineer, and teach live sound and lighting classes at a local community college. So all of these different things have “informed” my gear decisions and things like that.
First confession, I have guzzled the Tech 21 Kool-aid. Used a REDDI at church for a while, and, I dunno, it was ok. Thought it sounded great at the time, but then someone brought in a Sans Amp DI, and I didn’t look back.
Last December I took a chance and got my own VT Bass DI. Love it. I could play with it for hours. Except I’m married, and have a 2 year old and a 2 month old so they get kinda weird if I disappear to the basement too long. But that’s also the great thing about this DI, for me- I can pump it into a headphone amp after they go to bed and it’s great. I can get that same tone into my in ear monitors at church.
Fast forward a little bit, kid 2 is on the way so I had to disassemble my studio because we needed a guest room, because the guest room was becoming little dude’s room. So I sold my 32 channel audio console (really overkill for a 10 X 10 room!) and I picked up an Ashly MX-406 rack mount, six channel, mixer off of Reverb. And a Q-Strip.
My original plan was to use the Q-Strip in my guitar rig, but naturally was gonna try it with my bass too, and that’s nothing super fancy, just a MIM P-Bass with the Fender Original P-Bass pickups in it. Tried it out. Oh man, so much clean smoothness. I could almost- and the keyword is almost- get a super smooth J Bass tone dialed out of this thing. But here’s where the real magic happened.
Two weeks before my last gig I caught an ear infection and my right eardrum ruptured. By my best estimate I lost everything above 12kHz in that ear. Talked to doc, said I could play still, but don’t put anything in my ear. Great. We use IEMs at church.
So while practicing at home that week, I used my over the ear headphones to practice and get things dialed.
For my bass rig that weekend I ran my P-Bass in the Q-Strip, got it dialed until it just had a nice thick round sound. Super clean, but pushed the low “mids” a bit (used low mid knob but was probably boosting between 80 and 100 Hz) Engaged the low and high pass filters, then ran that into my Ashly mixer.
Then I ran the Q-Strip’s direct out into my VT Bass DI. Dialed up a fairly SVT type sound, but made it a good bit grittier than I normally would. It sounded pretty bad by itself. It was a bit more midrangey than I would normally use too.
BUT by blending the two, with the VT just under the Q I had this nice grit to keep me from blending with the sub synth pad sounds, but had this nice clean ooomph behind it. I liked it so much I bought a second Q-Strip, which happened to be Chris’. So I asked what he thought about it, and he told me about this and his evaluations. So for me, parallel processing is where it’s at. And I think I want a Le Bass now because of all this.
Next trick is to try a rack mount compressor on the channel inserts in the Ashly.
Finally actually joined since I’ve had almost as many request to play bass as I have guitar, guitar being my first instrument. I guess I just had to get over that mental hump of thinking of my self as a guitarist playing bass, and thinking of myself as a bass player.
All that to say I’ve recently been in the process of building out my bass rig as well. Similarly to Chris I play in worship settings a lot which is basically cover work. My day gig, well, I’m also an audio engineer, and teach live sound and lighting classes at a local community college. So all of these different things have “informed” my gear decisions and things like that.
First confession, I have guzzled the Tech 21 Kool-aid. Used a REDDI at church for a while, and, I dunno, it was ok. Thought it sounded great at the time, but then someone brought in a Sans Amp DI, and I didn’t look back.
Last December I took a chance and got my own VT Bass DI. Love it. I could play with it for hours. Except I’m married, and have a 2 year old and a 2 month old so they get kinda weird if I disappear to the basement too long. But that’s also the great thing about this DI, for me- I can pump it into a headphone amp after they go to bed and it’s great. I can get that same tone into my in ear monitors at church.
Fast forward a little bit, kid 2 is on the way so I had to disassemble my studio because we needed a guest room, because the guest room was becoming little dude’s room. So I sold my 32 channel audio console (really overkill for a 10 X 10 room!) and I picked up an Ashly MX-406 rack mount, six channel, mixer off of Reverb. And a Q-Strip.
My original plan was to use the Q-Strip in my guitar rig, but naturally was gonna try it with my bass too, and that’s nothing super fancy, just a MIM P-Bass with the Fender Original P-Bass pickups in it. Tried it out. Oh man, so much clean smoothness. I could almost- and the keyword is almost- get a super smooth J Bass tone dialed out of this thing. But here’s where the real magic happened.
Two weeks before my last gig I caught an ear infection and my right eardrum ruptured. By my best estimate I lost everything above 12kHz in that ear. Talked to doc, said I could play still, but don’t put anything in my ear. Great. We use IEMs at church.
So while practicing at home that week, I used my over the ear headphones to practice and get things dialed.
For my bass rig that weekend I ran my P-Bass in the Q-Strip, got it dialed until it just had a nice thick round sound. Super clean, but pushed the low “mids” a bit (used low mid knob but was probably boosting between 80 and 100 Hz) Engaged the low and high pass filters, then ran that into my Ashly mixer.
Then I ran the Q-Strip’s direct out into my VT Bass DI. Dialed up a fairly SVT type sound, but made it a good bit grittier than I normally would. It sounded pretty bad by itself. It was a bit more midrangey than I would normally use too.
BUT by blending the two, with the VT just under the Q I had this nice grit to keep me from blending with the sub synth pad sounds, but had this nice clean ooomph behind it. I liked it so much I bought a second Q-Strip, which happened to be Chris’. So I asked what he thought about it, and he told me about this and his evaluations. So for me, parallel processing is where it’s at. And I think I want a Le Bass now because of all this.
Next trick is to try a rack mount compressor on the channel inserts in the Ashly.
The Q/Strip is really cool. If I weren't so happy with the Noble I'd probably be using the Q. Tone is a very personal thing, and for me, the SVT sound just wasn't tickling my fancy. The Q/Strip was clean and clear. The Noble is just a different level of tone. Hard to describe, but it's what I've been searching for.
Last edited:
