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The Great Bass Preamp/DI Comparison

#4,501
I continue to follow this thread with interest (as well as @scubaduba 's poll thread with the recordings). But, the part I am having troubles sorting out is that we are discussing and evaluating gear for at least 3 distinctly different signal chains: 1) preamp feeding a power amp driven backline rig; 2) preamp feeding a recording console / device; and 3) preamp feeding an FOH board for silent stage performance.

One might think that these three different signal chains should serve the same master. But, so far, I am NOT finding that what works best for one necessarily works best for the others.

To begin with, NO preamp / DI I have yet experienced stands up to the dedicated preamp / amp options available for #1. This is probably my largest source of consternation so far. I would dearly love to simply have a great preamp / DI board to use for live work with either backline or no backline situations. But, my dedicated rack and hybrid amps continue to be far more satisfying into my bass cabs. I'm a keep looking / listening; but, that one is no contest still at this point.

Regarding #3, I've had WAY more issues from a practical perspective with what the various "sound engineers" do with the signal I'm feeding them, than with the details of the signal I'm sending. To the point that I continue to just use the relatively inexpensive Mesa preamp/DI I got a number of years back for a lot of gigs, just because the sound engineer is going to pretty much completely jerk it around in most cases anyhow. I suppose if I had the luxury of working with the SAME sound engineering staff with sufficient time to really dial things in, then I might become more discriminating about what I am sending. Right now, I'm still in the mode of send something that is reasonably simple and hope for the best.

I do a whole lot less of #2 than it seems a lot of players on here; because it seems like most of the assessments are pretty directly aimed at #2. If I were to do a bunch of studio time, then I would greatly value a lot of the hard work in this thread and Scuba's thread. But, I don't tend to spend a lot of time in the studio. And since I can't directly connect performance evaluated by #2 with the other signal chain issues I'm up against, it's hard to know what is useful.

My bottom line is that I'm waiting for that preamp/DI pedal that can go toe to toe with my rack preamps and also does great with at least one of the other signal chains. We've got a lot of nice new gear options; and I'm a fan of the progress; but, still waiting for that silver bullet to appear.

Thanks to all for your hard work and posting the interesting info.
 
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#4,502
Dave Hill said:
Sometimes what sounds great solo'd isn't the best for a mix. IME leaner, flat-ish tones work the best,
Click to expand...

Yep! My experience exactly. That is why I normally post demos in a mix. Bass isn't a solo instrument (for most of us), so listening to it solo doesn't really give you a good idea of how well it blends in with the rest of the band. How well it fills the sonic landscape without stepping on drums, keys, lower guitar register, vocals, etc.

Even my mix demos aren't perfect because I have to EQ the bass out, which removes the kick drum too. I like a big fat bottom end as much as anyone, but sometimes what I end up liking more is low mids. Keeps things from getting muddy and boomy.
 
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#4,503
chadhargis said:
Even my mix demos aren't perfect because I have to EQ the bass out, which removes the kick drum too. I like a big fat bottom end as much as anyone, but sometimes what I end up liking more is low mids. Keeps things from getting muddy and boomy.
Click to expand...
Yes, this. When I had the Trickfish Minnow, I mostly left the bass knob alone and pumped the low mids. That's what really made me cut through and fill out the sound. (In my headphones . . . at home . . . while bedroom jamming . . . stupid Covid).
 
#4,505
bucephylus said:
I continue to follow this thread with interest (as well as @scubaduba 's poll thread with the recordings). But, the part I am having troubles sorting out is that we are discussing and evaluating gear for at least 3 distinctly different signal chains: 1) preamp feeding a power amp driven backline rig; 2) preamp feeding a recording console / device; and 3) preamp feeding an FOH board for silent stage performance.

One might think that these three different signal chains should serve the same master. But, so far, I am NOT finding that what works best for one necessarily works best for the others.

To begin with, NO preamp / DI I have yet experienced stands up to the dedicated preamp / amp options available for #1. This is probably my largest source of consternation so far. I would dearly love to simply have a great preamp / DI board to use for live work with either backline or no backline situations. But, my dedicated rack and hybrid amps continue to be far more satisfying into my bass cabs. I'm a keep looking / listening; but, that one is no contest still at this point.

Regarding #3, I've had WAY more issues from a practical perspective with what the various "sound engineers" do with the signal I'm feeding them, than with the details of the signal I'm sending. To the point that I continue to just use the relatively inexpensive Mesa preamp/DI I got a number of years back for a lot of gigs, just because the sound engineer is going to pretty much completely jerk it around in most cases anyhow. I suppose if I had the luxury of working with the SAME sound engineering staff with sufficient time to really dial things in, then I might become more discriminating about what I am sending. Right now, I'm still in the mode of send something that is reasonably simple and hope for the best.

I do a whole lot less of #2 than it seems a lot of players on here; because it seems like most of the assessments are pretty directly aimed at #2. If I were to do a bunch of studio time, then I would greatly value a lot of the hard work in this thread and Scuba's thread. But, I don't tend to spend a lot of time in the studio. And since I can't directly connect performance evaluated by #2 with the other signal chain issues I'm up against, it's hard to know what is useful.

My bottom line is that I'm waiting for that preamp/DI pedal that can go toe to toe with my rack preamps and also does great with at least one of the other signal chains. We've got a lot of nice new gear options; and I'm a fan of the progress; but, still waiting for that silver bullet to appear.

Thanks to all for your hard work and posting the interesting info.
Click to expand...

Lots of good points and things to think about in this post. I do very little recording. I have a decent interface (Focusrite Solo) for the little recording I do and for headphone practice. I have a little Genzler combo amp for my occasional jazz or musical type gig. Most of my playing is silent stage at church (weekly) and with a cover band that obviously isn't playing much these days but does about 24 gigs a year. I want my DI/IEM sound as "real" as I can get it. The addition of the LA-1A tube compressor REALLY helped. At this point, I don't even use a DI. I run from the 600 ohm out on the LA-1A to the board. I do feel like a dedicated DI would let the LA-1A shine a little more and let me access the boost function.

IDK, you listen to the pricy board/cheap board clip, and in context, you really can't tell a big difference. And really, with small, light heads like many of us have, one could easily use their head as a preamp/DI. Really, my little Genzler MG350 has a great DI and preamp. Run my LA-1A into it and I'd be good to go. No need for a $1,000 preamp/DI.
 
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#4,506
Mike sent me one of these to test: The TI Box

https://www.lightningboyaudio.com/tibox.html

ti-box-web2_orig.jpg
 
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#4,507
tedsalt said:
Unless it's Sunday morning at church, which is all I've been playing for quite awhile. Then I typically like a fuller, girthier, authoritative tone.
Click to expand...
I still send the same P-15 set at 10-10-10 (o'clock) to the board/IEMs at church. We have an awesome Meyer PA and when the bass comes through, it's pretty massive. Lol
We typically have great A1s and I trust them.
 
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#4,510
monsterthompson said:
I've had the Hilbish Sol Invictus for a couple of days now, and I've plugged in every bass but my fretless J/MM (P, Ric, Spector 5, Dingwall BEAD-Bird). The 5 string and BEAD sound great in the lower notes.

I'm getting a sense of where the sweet spots are and how everything interacts. The three band EQ sections are active and if you dial all three knobs (h/m/l) to zero then it will functionally mute the output.

There are some decent clean tones available with the gain set at 9 o'clock or lower, but to need to crank the Level for that channel and the Master. I find cutting some mid and low while boosting the high will get a decent articulate sound and even some clank.

Between 9 and noon there's warmth with dynamic sensitivity. It's that sound that almost doesn't sound distorted until you play a clean tone next to it, or dig in hard, or strike a chord.

Up above noon gets into heavy dirty and fuzzy territory. I'm still finding settings I like here. I've stumbled on a few that are interesting. What's tricky is dialing in a clean + dirty blend with both channels on. The clean + mild dirt seems to come easily. The heavier sounds need a bit more tweaking, but I'm getting there.

Being able to split the A and B signals is handy. It lets you do things like run a clean signal direct and a dirty signal through an effects chain. This was something I was quite interested in.

The line level signal is certainly stronger than the instrument level. I haven't tried the TRS balanced jack yet.

The build quality is nice. The knobs turn easily but stay where you put them. The channel switching doesn't create any clicks or pops. The signal isn't noisy. The art looks good. I don't seem to care that it's not a tube device. It sounds like what it's supposed to sound like. If you like Red Fang, this is a box worth considering.

I'll work on recording something soon, but it's supposed to be fairly warm this weekend, making my living room studio a tad unpleasant.
Click to expand...

I've been watching this pedal for a while as I'm a big fan of the Sunn Beta tone, your experiences with it seem very encouraging. Especially the part about the sensitivity at lower gain levels. I really dig the grittiness of the drive on the betas but that just-barely-broken-up tone that kinda wakes up the harmonics, that would be my use case for this pedal 95% of the time.
 
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#4,511
ZachM said:
I've been watching this pedal for a while as I'm a big fan of the Sunn Beta tone, your experiences with it seem very encouraging. Especially the part about the sensitivity at lower gain levels. I really dig the grittiness of the drive on the betas but that just-barely-broken-up tone that kinda wakes up the harmonics, that would be my use case for this pedal 95% of the time.
Click to expand...

I'm enjoying it. If my playing was a little better, I'd have some clips up. I worked on a few things yesterday, including running a desktop analog synth through it. It is quite nice. It does't need the Edison, but the pairing works well. I've one considered going to the full rack-mount Beta Pre so I could run the two inputs with Ric-O-Sound on my 4003, or simply have two independent channels.

The distortion is really the selling point. It sounds good, and unlike other boxes I've tried. From what I can tell it is close enough to the Beta, but I've never played the original. That slight breakup it does is nice. It has dynamic sensitivity, and it responds to volume and tone knobs on the bass.

It is a niche device, and good at what it does. The multiple outputs are proving to be handy for recording. I can't complain.
 
#4,512
Nice, it does really look like something that would work great for my purposes.

Re: the EQ on these sunn amps, that's always been a cool feature. The Coliseum 300 also has those active EQ controls, and it had easily my favorite selection of EQ ranges on any amp I've used, as well as a really decent one knob compression circuit. If someone made a pedal version of that I'd be all over it!
 
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#4,515
chadhargis said:
Yep! My experience exactly. That is why I normally post demos in a mix. Bass isn't a solo instrument (for most of us), so listening to it solo doesn't really give you a good idea of how well it blends in with the rest of the band. How well it fills the sonic landscape without stepping on drums, keys, lower guitar register, vocals, etc.

Even my mix demos aren't perfect because I have to EQ the bass out, which removes the kick drum too. I like a big fat bottom end as much as anyone, but sometimes what I end up liking more is low mids. Keeps things from getting muddy and boomy.
Click to expand...

This exactly. Listening to all the clips with and without music in the Sweetwater DI Demo I posted a while back confirmed this for me. I love the sound of many of the high end DIs individually, but in the mix if they smoothed out the tone too much I missed the attack on the front of the note.
 
#4,517
ZachM said:
Nice, it does really look like something that would work great for my purposes.

Re: the EQ on these sunn amps, that's always been a cool feature. The Coliseum 300 also has those active EQ controls, and it had easily my favorite selection of EQ ranges on any amp I've used, as well as a really decent one knob compression circuit. If someone made a pedal version of that I'd be all over it!
Click to expand...

So I hacked this together tonight with my Ric 4003 and the Sol Invictus. It is an intentional attempt at a rougher, lo-fi sound, so don't expect clean, pure DI sounds. This is a lower gain setting on Channel A (~10 o'clock) and slightly higher on Channel B (~12 o'clock). There's some EQ variation on the channels. Each went via the independent instrument-level outs to the DAW, where Channel B got a Darkglass VST cab sim, and the A and B were blended.

I'm also running a synth through the Sol Invictus (and some Empress Delay & Reverb).

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
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#4,518
chadhargis said:
Boutique vs Budget Board Showdown

In the Boutique corner...weighing in at god knows what...but it's heavy....the boutique board...

Signal path is as follows:
JHS Buffered Splitter
Southhampton All Things Equal Buffer
Effectrode LA-1A Compressor with matched Mullard tubes
Arkham Oracle Preamp with high gain Mullard tube
[sfx]MicroThumpinator
Rupert Neve DI
Allen & Heath Mixer - Channel 1
GarageBand

Powered by an Eventide Powermax (Ciocks DC-7)

And in the Budget corner...weighing in as light as a feather, fitting on a small Pedaltrain Nano board. No pedal costing more than $160 (all but one were $150 or less)...

Signal path is as follows:
JHS Buffered Splitter
Nightowl Edison Tube pre with whatever tube came in it
Becos Compiq Mini Compressor
[sfx]microThumpinator
Nux Preamp
Allen & Heath Mixer - Channel 2
GarageBand

Powered by the MXR Mini Iso Brick

The Tracks

I was feeling 70's nostalgic tonight, so I went with America's "Tin Man" which has a nice little bass line.

Both tracks were recorded simultaneously to different channels using my Bluesman Vintage passive PJ. So it's the same bass...same everything. There is no EQ or other post processing done to the tracks (other than the song track where I dramatically rolled out everything under 500hz to remove as much of the bass in the track as I could). And yes...I play a big fat clam at the end of the song and didn't feel like punching in a fix...so I left it.

Here's the clips:

Boutique Board

Budget Board

And since I know many of you like the bass only....here are the bass only tracks:

Boutique Board - Bass Only

Budget Board - Bass Only

So you can spend $1000+ on a preamp and a compressor or you can spend about $300. Can your audience tell the difference?

Pic for settings reference:
View attachment 3956720
Click to expand...

Thanks for the great comparison - I think it really shows that you can go either way and get a great result. Although I cleary like the boutique board better - more dynamics, more bloom and it sounds as if the bass reaches lower. The budget board sounds narrow in direct comparison.

One other thing: dropbox can heavily compress audio when you are using the website player, so for a true comparison make sure to download and listen "locally", not in the web interface. Same goes for google drive although not as heavily.
 
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#4,519
I ordered a Nano+ and it should arrive later today. I'll remove my SLO from my Metro 16 and rearrange everything without including any preamp. It will be tuner, comp, octave, dirt, chorus, delay/verb and filter.
Since I like to use 3 different preamps depending on the situation I think this "modular" approach would be more practical for both playing and recording.
I'll try to test the new Shiftline power amps asap and use the SLO more often for both recording and silent practice.
 
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#4,520
chadhargis said:
Yep! My experience exactly. That is why I normally post demos in a mix. Bass isn't a solo instrument (for most of us), so listening to it solo doesn't really give you a good idea of how well it blends in with the rest of the band. How well it fills the sonic landscape without stepping on drums, keys, lower guitar register, vocals, etc.

Even my mix demos aren't perfect because I have to EQ the bass out, which removes the kick drum too. I like a big fat bottom end as much as anyone, but sometimes what I end up liking more is low mids. Keeps things from getting muddy and boomy.
Click to expand...

I'll add that every musical situation you find yourself in—heck, even playing the same songs with the same people in the sane environment night after night—is different. No one size fits all.

IMO all that's needed is to send a "good quality" (no hum or unwanted distortion) full range signal to the FOH. But then the FOH engineer had to know what to do with it! Soooooo...I guess I just blew my own theory out of the water....

And new gear is fun. So there's that, too.
 
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