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The Great Bass Preamp/DI Comparison

#1,689
Bassworship1 said:


I currently have a Trickfish Minnow for sale like new in the classifieds. Here is a demo using just it for the Church Broadcast clip here. Only using the Trickfish and Roscoe bass with bass set flat.
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The one that says, "No longer available"?
Edit: Sorry. Now I see it's moved over to the amps thread.
 
#1,693
bucephylus said:
Scuba, you’ve had quite the preamp adventures. Many thanks for sharing.

Where does the SLO stand in your hierarchy now?
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That's another good one. For the price and feature set it is awesome. If price isn't an issue and you don't need the XLR out and you don't need much at all in the way of obvious breakup and you don't need cab sims I think the Oracle has the edge for tone.

But all of this is subjective. One man's junk is another man's treasure so YMMV.

The advice you get here might be worth what you pay for it. :D
 
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#1,694
jacoby75 said:
Hey @scubaduba , I'm considering selling a few things and cashing in a portion of my government cheese on one of the more expensive tube preamp pedals. Currently, I'm debating between the SLO and the Oracle. I run a direct only pedalboard, passive basses usually, and I like the tubey, vintage tone, but not necessarily overdriven. Sometimes, I like that "barely there hair" thing, but I have other pedals for that, should it be necessary. The Broughton P15 sounds phenomenal, but it's a bit more than I want to or can spend, is almost never available because people snatch them up so fast, and is certainly not pedalboard friendly.

Which would you recommend? I know the Oracle was your most recent favorite of the two. But it's a bit pricier, is not as pedalboard friendly (at least not for the small pedalboard that I sometimes use), and doesn't have a cab sim. How necessary do you think the cab sim of the SLO is? Have you ever used either direct with any kind of overdrive or distortion? Do you think a cab sim is necessary? Currently, I use either a CAL Grizzly and the Broughton HPF/LPF as my cab sim of sorts, when needed, but haven't used the Grizzly in a live setting yet to know whether it actually sounds as good as it does in my headphones or not.
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Oh yes, I've used both direct. And we are talking in a high tech auditorium environment seating nearly 3,000 with arrays and subs and full instrumentation (drums, piano, keys, acoustic guitar, 2 electric guitars, and percussion), click track, and IEM'S. I used the SLO especially for a couple of years. I think the differences between the SLO and Oracle would be quite minimal to a casual listener UNLESS you dial in more gain with the SLO. Then it becomes far more aggressive sounding than the Oracle.

Anything with gain you put ahead of the SLO is going to cause it to breakup faster. The Oracle never really gets all that dirty. Cab sims do help when using OD unless you have some sort of low pass filter after the OD.
 
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#1,695
chadhargis said:
I owned a Noble and loved it. The simplistic EQ and lack of bells and whistles is what I loved most about it.

I sold the Noble and got a Tube Injection and I loved it. But it was very big and took up lots of space. I went to the SLO and while it doesn’t sound quite as good, it runs on 12v, has can sims, and is small. In a live mix through a PA no one is going to hear the difference. I haven’t found anything that is as small, light, and feature packed that is as good as the SLO.
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True. The SLO is quite impressive.
 
#1,696
scubaduba said:
Oh yes, I've used both direct. And we are talking in a high tech auditorium environment seating nearly 3,000 with arrays and subs and full instrumentation (drums, piano, keys, acoustic guitar, 2 electric guitars, and percussion), click track, and IEM'S. I used the SLO especially for a couple of years. I think the differences between the SLO and Oracle would be quite minimal to a casual listener UNLESS you dial in more gain with the SLO. Then it becomes far more aggressive sounding than the Oracle.

Anything with gain you put ahead of the SLO is going to cause it to breakup faster. The Oracle never really gets all that dirty. Cab sims do help when using OD unless you have some sort of low pass filter after the OD.
Click to expand...

Hey Scuba,

Regarding the breakup of the SLO, is this assuming it carries the factory installed 12AX7?

Did your substitution of a 12AY7 tube help much with getting more clean tone? I realise you'll sacrifice gain range with that though.

I've currently slotted a 5751 into mine to try to find some middle ground and it seems get me at least partly there.....
 
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#1,697
Yes my comments reflected the stock 12ax7. A 5751 would probably be barely indistinguishable from the stock tube. I guess I noticed maybe a slight difference, but not much. The 12ay7 definitely made a difference in reducing the gain. At the same time the pedal became a little more, well, sterile sounding. So I eventually went back to the 12ax7 which brought the life back. I just had to keep the gain at 9:00 or less.

Honestly, the limited clean gain is what encouraged me to start testing other tube options like the Shaw, Noble, Oracle, and Suncoast F2p. Honestly, the Suncoast is pretty impressive too.
 
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