HPF only but I love my Fdeck HPF-Pre:
12db slope @35Hz and another 12db sweepable.
In the same spirit as the Broughton RFE (I want one), I also love my DSM OmniCabSim despite its size.
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The Great Bass Preamp/DI Comparison
- Thread starter chadhargis
- Start date
12db slope @35Hz and another 12db sweepable.
In the same spirit as the Broughton RFE (I want one), I also love my DSM OmniCabSim despite its size.
I know right? Watched a couple of yT vids on it today. My only question is about achieving unity with drive.
On of my local bass buds, Adam Nitti, uses that preamp and likes it. But then again, Adam is a freakin' beast on bass and could probably make a washtub bass and a 1980's Radio Shack cassette recorder sound great.
I found the same issue with the Vintage Ultra and Alpha Omega Ultra. A pet peeve for sure, but not a total deal breaker for me personally though. I have other on/off drive options on my board, so I would use the drive channels on the preamps if I needed a little "always on" grit. That said, I'm currently running a Q Strip as my final preamp, so that probably says something...
5sg.
I found the same issue with the Vintage Ultra and Alpha Omega Ultra. A pet peeve for sure, but not a total deal breaker for me personally though. I have other on/off drive options on my board, so I would use the drive channels on the preamps if I needed a little "always on" grit. That said, I'm currently running a Q Strip as my final preamp, so that probably says something...
5sg.
I have separate drive pedals because nearly every preamp I've tried has some disparity in the drive circuit. I typically use any onboard drive as a tone shaper. Set it to be very discreet and just leave it on. That's what I did with the Tone Hammer. Just gave my tone a little texture.
Exactly! And that's also the reason I still have the Tone Hammer. Way too good to get rid of!
5sg.
I have generally gone with separate (generally) clean preamps like the Noble, SLO, Messenger, etc, and then had a slew of other dirt options on my board to pair - usually the YYZ and MBD-2, but I have tried a ton of others as well. That works best for me. There is still a lot of appeal to having a tuner, 4-band EQ, and Drive all in one if I can get there. That would shrink my board dramatically if I was happy with the drive.
Has the Trickfish Minnow been compared with other preamp/DI pedals?
Makes me think a SLO would work for me. Simple, tube, XLR out and can be powered by my DC-7.
jacoby75
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- Mar 11, 2010
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The SLO is very highly regarded around these here parts. I still might try one myself some day.
My .02 on the SLO....buy it!
Of all the preamps I've had, none were as good all around as the SLO. The SLO sounds great. As good as a Shaw, Oracle, Noble?? No. But it's 95% as good. It's a nuance you can only hear outside a mix with reference headphones. You think anyone in row 12 looking at social media on their phone will notice? The EQ sounds good. Is it as flexible as the Q/Strip or a pre with sweepable mids? No. But you will find that the tone you get is good so who cares. The form factor is amazing. Small for a preamp, but AMAZINGLY small for a tube preamp. Not only is it small, but it's packed with features. Aux in, headphone out, micro SD card slot, switchable cab sims, and no goofy software to use any of it. It even has an FX loop. Topping things off...it runs off of standard old 12v DC. Granted it has high amperage requirements, but nothing a current doubler cable can't fix.
There is simply no downside to the SLO. There are better sounding preamps, but they are as big as a Mack truck, won't run off a standard DC pedal power supply, don't have XLR out (requiring a separate DI), etc. I love my Oracle. It's really a great sounding preamp. It replaced my SLO. It sounds better...by a small margin. But I paid the price by having to purchase a RNDI and split the 110v plug to my PowerMax so I can run 110v AC to the Oracle. Small things, and it's done now, but if I had it to do over, I'd probably have just kept the SLO. The more pieces of gear in your chain, the more potential issues.
I went with the PowerMax since it was a bit cheaper and basically the same as the DC-7 minus the 24v output.
jacoby75
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I finally bit the bullet and picked up a used DC7. I'm looking forward to finally adequately powering my pedals without using a bunch of splitters and voltage doublers, and a noisy one spot. Should be quite the experience.
Its good....VERY good! The EQ is something to get used to (classic tone stack) but its a solidly built and sounding unit! The included IR's sound great but the other ones offered do as well. Plus, if you want more range before the tube break-up occurs, you can swap out the 12AX7 for a 12AY7 with great results.
You hit on something here that was very important for me. When I switched to the DC7 it was convenient to power everything but much more noticeable was that I went from constantly fighting noise to complete silence from the power supply!
jacoby75
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- Mar 11, 2010
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- Endorsing Artist: Mike Lull Custom Guitars, DR Strings
Yeah, I never really had a terrible noise problem with the One Spot on my small board. But now mixing a bunch of pedals with different voltages has become problematic. The voltage doublers are handy, but noisy it seems. I once tried a voltage doubler on a Broughton Bug Drive (tube overdrive pedal) and it made this awful squeal that continued to go up in pitch like the thing was going to take off. On the big board, I was using an MXR Iso-Brick, which seemed to work great. But even with that, I had so many pedals that I had to use a daisy chain out of one output and a couple of splitters. I really like the flexibility of the DC7, and the ability to easily add other power blocks to it.
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