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The Great Bass Preamp/DI Comparison
- Thread starter chadhargis
- Start date
I've read through this thread, and the gas pains are killing me. Right now I'm running a rotaing cast of dirt pedals into a pb1 rack pre with a rane peq17 (love the hpf and lpf), and an ashley clx51 compressor in the loop into 2 greenboy 12/6 cubes powered by a crown MA2402. Love the cabs and power, and don't hate what I've got going on, but somehow I convinced myself I needed a Noble preamp, but the cost has forced me into more research. After considering all the options, and my desire to have some overdrive on tap, and price considerations, I'm really wanting to ditch all my rack gear and get the olympic mkIII. The only nit pick i have is the cab sim doesn't affect the 1/4 out, and I'd like that as an option to send that cab sim signal to the GB cabs. I guess i could come out of the balanced di and split the signal so the same thing is going to FOH and my cabs. Really I love to find a used MKII and have a seperate cab sim pedal, and or a para eq pedal with high and lpf. Damn time to sell some gear for fundage.
If you’re looking for overdrive..you’re going to love the Olympic...
They ( Shiftline) are very responsive if you’re on Facebook...
The tube saturation on the Olympic sounds very natural, I usually keep the gain around 11/13 o'clock and manage the amount of grit with dynamics. My P has low output and with the gain cranked I get a mid gain OD, with higher output basses you can get a lot more gain.
I’m definitely in the low OD camp and not really one for “distortion”. The SLOIII gets a wonderful, touch responsive grit if you want it. About 10:00 is the magic spot for me.
Or, if I want clean tube, 9:00 is the sweet spot.
I wish this thing had +/- EQ on it, and not the tone stack it employs. That’s about the only negative for me. YMMV, IMO, etc etc. I DO like the high cut, though. Smooths things out without mud.
As long as I used the SLO for home practice (SLO>XLR out>mixer>headphones/active monitors or SLO>headphones) I found an "overall" setting that worked very well with both cab sims and never touched the EQ that much.
Yesterday I tested my SLO at rehersals for the first time using SLO>power amp>Barefaced Super Midget and I gotta say that the EQ seems to work differently. While it can appear a little bit "limited" using cab sims, it's very versatile using a real cabinet. I found myself cutting (and NOT boosting) frequencies during rehersals and I was pleasantly surprised by the tone.
1/4'' out into a power amp allows you to crank the master volume on the pedal, which increases tube saturation A LOT. Do some tests it you haven't done it yet, you'll find the EQ pretty powerful.
Yesterday I tested my SLO at rehersals for the first time using SLO>power amp>Barefaced Super Midget and I gotta say that the EQ seems to work differently. While it can appear a little bit "limited" using cab sims, it's very versatile using a real cabinet. I found myself cutting (and NOT boosting) frequencies during rehersals and I was pleasantly surprised by the tone.
1/4'' out into a power amp allows you to crank the master volume on the pedal, which increases tube saturation A LOT. Do some tests it you haven't done it yet, you'll find the EQ pretty powerful.
I'll try that. Most of my gigs are IEM.
So far I have not really used the EQ on the pedal. I tend to cut lows/highs via a H/LPF, cut around 250-ish and boost around 1k-ish via an external EQ pedal or at the board. Just works for my bass and my ear.
Actually, using the cab sims, I don't really need anything beyond the H/LPF. But it's good to have options and it's fun to experiment with additional EQing. You never know...
EDIT: Oops! Thought I was posting in the SLOIII thread! I'll leave this here anyway.....Carry on!
HPF and LPF is the best thing I’ve discovered since I began playing.
Slightly more extreme than that is actually flat. At least using the mathematical model posted in the SLO3 Thread #316, it's around B=1, M=10, T=0. Understanding the EQ completely can take some effort, but an easy way to get close is to think about it like this: the baseline is B=10, M=10, T=10 and gives you a mid-scooped profile, and it's cut only. So to flatten it out you have to cut bass and treble.
Without an actual reference it's really hard to understand where "1" is, honestly. Plus, I really don't understand the mathematical model behind the "flat" setting. I just thought that everything on 10 is your instrument tone and you can just cut the frequencies you don't need.
This seem way more complicated than that.
This seem way more complicated than that.
The model a circuit simulation of the actual EQ circuit the SLO3 is based on. The important thing is not the model or finding "1" exactly, more just understanding that if you want a flat output you basically need the bass and treble cut completely out and the mids up at 10 to add all the gain back in. But playing with the simulator can really help you understand what's happening in the EQ section. In my opinion every SLO3 owner would gain a lot from noodling around with it for a few minutes.
Thanks. So using this tool here.. Invalid Link Removed
Selecting FENDER...you can see bringing the bass and treble
all the way down and mids up we get a pretty flat response. Virtually impossible to boost mids.
I also have a Barber Linden EQ so using the JAMES curves .
The Linden together with the SLO, its still not easy to boost mids,
To boost mids, 'if needed' will require more eq options.
JC
Selecting FENDER...you can see bringing the bass and treble
all the way down and mids up we get a pretty flat response. Virtually impossible to boost mids.
I also have a Barber Linden EQ so using the JAMES curves .
The Linden together with the SLO, its still not easy to boost mids,
To boost mids, 'if needed' will require more eq options.
JC
This is correct. I run an Empress ParaEQ in the loop at the moment. I basically set the SLO to flat and then tone-shape elsewhere. I do really wish that the next rev has some way to boost the mids.
I actually found myself cutting mids both at home and at rehersals. That's probably because I play a passive P which is mid heavy by nature, I don't know.
I have a yamaha pb1 rack pre with the same fender tone stack eq, and it took me a little time to adjust to how it works and sounds. Knowing that flat is mids all the way up and bass and treble all the way down, you can acheive a mid cut by leaving the mid turned all the way up, and bring the bass and treble up little bits at at time to taste. The interesting thing about doing it like this, is by adjusting only the bass and treble knobs you can shift the frequency of the mid cut. Also I found that bringing the mid knob down also lowers the output of the pre. YMMV, but if you try adjusting from the true flat positions of 0 /max/0, and only bring up bass and treble to taste, you may find tones otherwise hidden by cutting the mid knob from max.
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