The day I let that line of thinking determine my choice of gear is the day I give up playing altogether.
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What's so special about a Noble preamp?
- Thread starter BassDad1964
- Start date
You could say the same thing for just about any piece of gear. Even the "Is it a J or P" tests on YouTube have a low success rate.
Yep. I want to enjoy playing and the better I sound to myself (and the better the feel of how my bass responds to my touch) the happier I am. Past a certain point (sounding good/right for the band out front) it doesn’t matter to me if no one else can perceive those smaller details (which might be very subtle). Telling me the audience won’t notice the difference is largely moot as far as I’m concerned.
I’m no preamp connoisseur, but I bought one mostly because of the hype and the small size. If it’s something I would keep and use all the time as the centerpiece of a lifelong passion/pastime, the price is not a dealbreaker.
It was fine, but not mind-blowing, IMO. I sold it after about a year and went back to using a PF-20T even though it’s like 10 times the weight and size. Just my personal preference.
It was fine, but not mind-blowing, IMO. I sold it after about a year and went back to using a PF-20T even though it’s like 10 times the weight and size. Just my personal preference.
That's kinda sorta how it went for me with the REDDI. It was certainly cool and warm and "ampy" and all that, but I didn't like the REDDI sound for everything I was doing. For me putting the $ towards another nice mic pre for my setup was a better outlay of cash - I get much more use out of that. And the studios I'd usually go to had really nice front end. Now if money were no object I'd have 'em all . . .
There’s always a guy who says “no one can tell in a live mix, no one will care about your Noble”blah blah. And that is a valid point, but it’s also not the right mentality for developing the best tone either. Just sounds lazy to me.
That said, if you are a weekend warrior playing local bars, then I don’t think you need a Noble preamp and I can see why you say no one will care in the audience. They won’t most likely, and they probably care more about getting laid/hammered than whatever you are doing anyway.
It’s a niche piece of gear targeted towards hired gun/studio players. It allows you to show up to a studio and get the tone you want with zero fuss and then do fly dates or gigs with no amp, plug in direct to a board and still get a fat tube sound.
I love it for those reasons. I also spend a lot of time in the studio and I hear a lot of things that bother me in a bass sound when I’m trying to mix or get my sound mixed how I want. To make a mix that sounds like a record, you really have to dial in the details or it won’t gel. That’s not going to matter to a lot of people here, and that’s fine. Details matter in the studio, and they all add up to something that the average person will say sounds “professional”.
Best thing I can tell you is I have done remote sessions years before covid. Allows me to work with guys in other countries and play on records I never would have. The producers aren’t there to see my chain, they just use the results. When I got the Noble and sent over WAVs with it, I had multiple producers reach out to me and ask what changed - why does it sound so thick/warm and still crisp and can I please keep doing whatever I am doing?
So yeah, people with ears CAN hear it. And while it doesn’t mean much to an audience, they are not trained to hear these details. That’s not their job. Your job as an artist is to create the best tone possible coming out of your instrument that suits your personal aesthetic. And that changes over time while you evolve as a player and your ears get better. Once you get to hired gun status, you will have an audience who will care - it’s the bands and management teams hiring you and they listen rather closely before bringing you on.
Do you need a Noble for that? No. Are other tube DI alternatives out there that do a great job? I am 100% sure there are. Does the audience care? That’s a moot point since many of us play to different audiences.
That said, if you are a weekend warrior playing local bars, then I don’t think you need a Noble preamp and I can see why you say no one will care in the audience. They won’t most likely, and they probably care more about getting laid/hammered than whatever you are doing anyway.
It’s a niche piece of gear targeted towards hired gun/studio players. It allows you to show up to a studio and get the tone you want with zero fuss and then do fly dates or gigs with no amp, plug in direct to a board and still get a fat tube sound.
I love it for those reasons. I also spend a lot of time in the studio and I hear a lot of things that bother me in a bass sound when I’m trying to mix or get my sound mixed how I want. To make a mix that sounds like a record, you really have to dial in the details or it won’t gel. That’s not going to matter to a lot of people here, and that’s fine. Details matter in the studio, and they all add up to something that the average person will say sounds “professional”.
Best thing I can tell you is I have done remote sessions years before covid. Allows me to work with guys in other countries and play on records I never would have. The producers aren’t there to see my chain, they just use the results. When I got the Noble and sent over WAVs with it, I had multiple producers reach out to me and ask what changed - why does it sound so thick/warm and still crisp and can I please keep doing whatever I am doing?
So yeah, people with ears CAN hear it. And while it doesn’t mean much to an audience, they are not trained to hear these details. That’s not their job. Your job as an artist is to create the best tone possible coming out of your instrument that suits your personal aesthetic. And that changes over time while you evolve as a player and your ears get better. Once you get to hired gun status, you will have an audience who will care - it’s the bands and management teams hiring you and they listen rather closely before bringing you on.
Do you need a Noble for that? No. Are other tube DI alternatives out there that do a great job? I am 100% sure there are. Does the audience care? That’s a moot point since many of us play to different audiences.
Same here - been playing on albums, tv scores, etc remote for the last decade. Grammy-winning, top producers in some cases. They don't ask what I'm using. They expect you to deliver a quality track. But they will let you know if they're really digging it. (hopefully they'll let you know when they're not and why, but sometimes you may just not get called again
. In my case since I record a lot of instruments in addition to bass, my focus is on a versatile pro-studio level front end (fortunately, for my budget's sake, it only has to a couple inputs!) So I spend it on mic pres, etc. But if I was mostly just tracking bass, I'd have something like a Noble on hand.
The thing about good tone is it's like good editing while reading a newspaper. If the editing is done well, the audience doesn't notice the editing, they just read the paper and the information gets across.
Sloppy editing/copy-editing and the reader starts to notice the poor flow of logic, or information that's dropped out (never leave a reader with a question they have unanswered), or riddled with typos... The reader will notice and appropriately use the paper for bum fodder.
Good/Poor editing — that's akin to a quality sound.
Too much treble and the audience notices an ice-pick in their ears, or too much bass and the audience can't put their finger on it if asked, but your muddy tone "just doesn't sound as good as the other band that was on".
Add in some digital artifacts with your digitally-simulated tube pedal/octave pedal/chorus et al, and it's just like the typos — some people won't notice, some will and not care and some audience members will find it particularly grating.
Strike the balance where you want, but there's a point where the diminishing returns becomes too great.
You can toy with which Muff to put on your board for your own pleasure, but will the audience notice you've got a Green Russian Clone on your live board, and left your vintage NOS EHX Green Russian at home for safe-keeping and recording? Whatever your preference in preamps...
Do your job, get as great of tone as you possibly can (to your ears) and no, most of the audience won't notice it consciously...
However, the audience DOES notice when your tone is a pile of steaming methane-emitting fertiliser.
Sloppy editing/copy-editing and the reader starts to notice the poor flow of logic, or information that's dropped out (never leave a reader with a question they have unanswered), or riddled with typos... The reader will notice and appropriately use the paper for bum fodder.
Good/Poor editing — that's akin to a quality sound.
Too much treble and the audience notices an ice-pick in their ears, or too much bass and the audience can't put their finger on it if asked, but your muddy tone "just doesn't sound as good as the other band that was on".
Add in some digital artifacts with your digitally-simulated tube pedal/octave pedal/chorus et al, and it's just like the typos — some people won't notice, some will and not care and some audience members will find it particularly grating.
Strike the balance where you want, but there's a point where the diminishing returns becomes too great.
You can toy with which Muff to put on your board for your own pleasure, but will the audience notice you've got a Green Russian Clone on your live board, and left your vintage NOS EHX Green Russian at home for safe-keeping and recording? Whatever your preference in preamps...
Do your job, get as great of tone as you possibly can (to your ears) and no, most of the audience won't notice it consciously...
However, the audience DOES notice when your tone is a pile of steaming methane-emitting fertiliser.
I pulled up a review/demo of the Noble box and it was a UK site. fellow played a P-bass with 5-year old flats and an Active Jazz with old round wounds. The P-bass sounded really good through it. He couldn't make that Active Jazz sound good through it no matter what he did. And he went on and on about the two tubes it uses for warmth and that's why it commands a higher price tag because it has "REAL analog, old school, tubes". Hmmm...I can buy 12ax7 tubes for about $10 and in fact I did that to replace the one in my Eden amp once in the 11-years I've had it. Trust me, the tubes are NOT the magic. The design using the tubes is the magic.
He should have used a passive Jazz bass for his demo and I hope it would have been much better. The active one sucked using it. My WTDI (DI with built-in Eden WT preamp and adjustable compressor) for ~$149 does a far better job and even though it doesn't have a tube in it, it still has the same warmth that my big Eden amp gets out of it's tube. That's because it does use the Golden Ear Chip (THAT-4301) to emulate the tube among other things. My WTDI also allows me to add a touch of boost in the low mids at 500Hz which gives my passive Jazz great definition and presence in the mix and produces great recordings when going straight to the board.
So, honestly it's all about how it sounds. From the single video I saw, I came away thinking that Precision bass sounded great with it and that Active Jazz sounded like crap. He gave good examples of all the different settings you could use with it too, both on the bass and on the Noble itself. It was nicely done. Just wish he'd used a passive Jazz. Bad news is that there are no music stores where you can try it out. They only sell direct. So, once you've spent your $1,000, you've spent it and you can't hear it until you buy it.
He should have used a passive Jazz bass for his demo and I hope it would have been much better. The active one sucked using it. My WTDI (DI with built-in Eden WT preamp and adjustable compressor) for ~$149 does a far better job and even though it doesn't have a tube in it, it still has the same warmth that my big Eden amp gets out of it's tube. That's because it does use the Golden Ear Chip (THAT-4301) to emulate the tube among other things. My WTDI also allows me to add a touch of boost in the low mids at 500Hz which gives my passive Jazz great definition and presence in the mix and produces great recordings when going straight to the board.
So, honestly it's all about how it sounds. From the single video I saw, I came away thinking that Precision bass sounded great with it and that Active Jazz sounded like crap. He gave good examples of all the different settings you could use with it too, both on the bass and on the Noble itself. It was nicely done. Just wish he'd used a passive Jazz. Bad news is that there are no music stores where you can try it out. They only sell direct. So, once you've spent your $1,000, you've spent it and you can't hear it until you buy it.
You can sell it for no loss. I use a Sadowsky with mine and it sounds good to me. (Opinions vary, of course)
Not just tube di's....there's a lot of digital and analog options. I use the Darkglass Microtubes B7K ultra v2. It is completely adaptable and also features an aux in, headphone out, and cab sim all built in. For half the price of a Noble it does what I want it to do in the studio, the hotel room, the practice space etc....
I am a Noble owner, and I know it's par for the course for people to defend their investments, but without hesitation I can say that this box has enhanced my workflow immensely. Passive P, active Sadowsky or Stingray, or even re-amped synths, the tonal center of the Noble is where I want to live. It delivers every damn time. Could I get the same results from a cheaper solution? Perhaps, but I haven't found it yet.
The amount of time it has saved in fiddling with post production before I send off tracks has paid for itself ten fold. Like others have said, the differences may be subtle, but it's enough to save me from adding extra EQ or saturation. It just works and I don't have to think about it anymore. Record, comp, send. Done.
The amount of time it has saved in fiddling with post production before I send off tracks has paid for itself ten fold. Like others have said, the differences may be subtle, but it's enough to save me from adding extra EQ or saturation. It just works and I don't have to think about it anymore. Record, comp, send. Done.
Hi @RichSnyder. Of course the "sounds good to me" is absolutely the reason to buy and use it.
Are they that far back-ordered that folks will pay the same price for a used one as a new one? I ran into that before with a Fly-Reel manufacturer, Stan Bogdan. He made all of his classic fly-reels by hand including machining the screws for it. He had a 3-year backlog and people who were willing to sell one of his used reels could get about 25% more than one could order a new one for because they could get it now! Plus, he had a nasty habit of putting you at the end of the list if you called up and hassled him about how long it was taking to get your reel made. He was a one-man operation.
I've seen some listed here that were above the selling price on noble.com, whether they sold at that price I have no idea.
I’m interested how units like the Noble stack up against a line 6 Pod Go or HX Stomp? I’ve been tracking bass with a Focusrite ISA 1 pre for years, which is super clean going in to Pro Tools, then tweaking it in the box, mostly with combinations of Amplitube SVX and Waves compressors. I recently got a Pod Go and started getting decent results. I’m not sure how faithful Line 6 emulations really are, but the bass pres on it sound really good. If I was going to spend money on something like a noble it would have to be the holy grail.
Is it essential to include rhetorical questions when writing about the Noble? No.
But is it a helpful linguistic device to describe its tubey goodness? I'd say yes, it appears so.
But is it a helpful linguistic device to describe its tubey goodness? I'd say yes, it appears so.
For my pedalboard rig, I use an HX Stomp running the Ampeg SVT normal amp and one of the Shiftline 810 cab IRs - sounds like a decent representation of an SVT rig to my ears. While I don't have a Noble, I can tell you that running the HX Stomp through a REDDI took it to a whole different level in tone.
Line 6 HX Stomp
From this post on on @JKos has some settings within 0.1 dB from 20 Hz to 8.7 kHz of the Noble preamp DI with bass and treble knobs at 9 o'clock. If you want to check that out.
I, too, am using PF-20T when I want to sound "tubey"... It can be used with or without a load...so I use it with or without a cab.
For situations where there is not much time for sound check, I bought Sushi Box Space Heater in order to have one tube preamp on my pedalboard. I will see whether I like it or not when lockdown ends and we start doing gigs again. If it does not live to my expectations, I might look at other tube DIs/preamps... I am interested in Khan VTDI...but might consider Noble as well...
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