Using sansamp BDDI AND mackie mdb-p1 at same time

[fathom66]

Got a question… I’ve been in this setup for years regarding my pedalboard for my live setup…. Amp—- sansamp—-distortion pedal—- wah (loop switch ) compressor—- tuner—-bass….

I normally use the sansamp to boost my tone for the amp and use the XLR out to the mixer….

Now during practice I forgot my sansamp and my drummer had a mackie mdb-p1 passive di box…. Now while I love my sans amp sound into my amp… I loved the growl of the mackie in the mixer…

the question: is it possible to use both at same time? If so, how do I set this up on my board to keep both?

 

[BrentSimons]

Got a question… I’ve been in this setup for years regarding my pedalboard for my live setup…. Amp—- sansamp—-distortion pedal—- wah (loop switch ) compressor—- tuner—-bass….

I normally use the sansamp to boost my tone for the amp and use the XLR out to the mixer….

Now during practice I forgot my sansamp and my drummer had a mackie mdb-p1 passive di box…. Now while I love my sans amp sound into my amp… I loved the growl of the mackie in the mixer…

the question: is it possible to use both at same time? If so, how do I set this up on my board to keep both?

Hi,
I think you could use the parallel out on the Sansamp and send that signal to the Mackie? Then you could have two XLR s going to the front of house and then still an effected out if the Sansamp going to your amp. Lots of possibilities with those two units!
Hope this helps!
Brent

 

[fathom66]

Ok so you’re saying use that parallel output and put into the input of my mackie and use THAT XLR out to the mixer… the other effects that I use will still send the signal from the mackie into front of house… while at the same time… I can use the “regular” output to my amp? I’ve always wondered how the parallel output worked and that makes sense if it preserves my onstage tone with the samsamp! Thank you for this!

 

[BrentSimons]

Ok so you’re saying use that parallel output and put into the input of my mackie and use THAT XLR out to the mixer… the other effects that I use will still send the signal from the mackie into front of house… while at the same time… I can use the “regular” output to my amp? I’ve always wondered how the parallel output worked and that makes sense if it preserves my onstage tone with the samsamp! Thank you for this!

Exactly my Friend! That is the exact purpose of the parallel and regular outputs. You could even send an XLR from the Bass Driver to the front of the house as well if you wanted AND still have the reg out going to your amp and the parallel going to the Mackie DI. That Bass Driver is a versatile little bugger !

 

[Seth DuSith]

Hi,
I think you could use the parallel out on the Sansamp and send that signal to the Mackie? Then you could have two XLR s going to the front of house and then still an effected out if the Sansamp going to your amp. Lots of possibilities with those two units!
Hope this helps!
Brent

This is what I do with my Joyo. Use the Parallel out for a second preamp, both going into the mixer (well in my case, a bass amp with two inputs, but it'd work with a mixer too). You can get a killer sound that way

 

[groovaholic]

I loved the growl of the mackie in the mixer

You've already gotten good advice about connecting it all.

My only thing to add is that the growl of the Mackie passive DI is just the natural sound of your bass coming through.
If that sound struck you as more growly, you may be cutting too many mids with your SansAmp.

There are a couple ways to address that - depending on which version of the SansAmp you have.
If you have the V2, there is a midrange pot.
On the earlier versions, you would just reduce your bass and treble and increase the output a bit.

On either version, you could also try reducing your blend control to let more of your unaffected signal through.

 

[Deleted member 271037]

You can use the parallell output on the sansamp of course but in my opinion the best way to do what you describe would be to insert the Mackie DI box after whatever effects you want in the DI signal. Send the balanced XLR output on the Mackie DI to mixer. Then send the thru output on the Mackie DI to the Sansamp (plus any effect pedal you want ONLY in the amp). This would also give you a failsafe if anything downstream from the Mackie DI fails during a gig.

I would like to point out two things though:

1) The Mackie DI is designed to be a clean, transparent DI box. It does not add any growl. The growl you're hearing must come from NOT using the Sansamp.

2) The Sansamp has a built in cab sim. If you're running the Sansamp into an amp you're acutally running an amp+cab sim into an actual amp+cab. If you like this tone, great. Personally I've never liked the tone I get when running an amp+cab sim into a real amp+cab. It sounds kinda hollow and washed out to me. Personally I think it makes more sense to send the BDDI directly to the mixer and use the parallell output on the BDDI to send a signal without the BDDI's amp+speaker sim to your amp. But do whatever works for YOU of course.

If you've got a great sounding amp you can completely ditch the BDDI too of course. Then you can send a clean DI signal to the mixer and blend with your amp. A clean DI signal blends much nicer with a mic'ed amp than an amp+cab sim (like the BDDI) in my opinion.

 

[fathom66]

Thanks everyone. This really helps. I know the mackie doesn’t add the “growl” I spoke of but I did like the cleaner tone through my drummers PA… I never really get to hear the FOH sound from my BDDI first hand but on different live recordings it sounded pretty good…like I said I’ve ran this way for years but I did like the difference I heard with the mackie this time around. I still dig my on-stage sound with my BDDI through the amp. Thank you for the advice and gonna do some experimenting this weekend. Good thing is I can yank the mackie out if it’s not what I thought it was with my regular setup.