The Preamp DI Thread

Bridgehouse

crunchman said:

Bridgehouse said:

crunchman said:

Bridgehouse said

What sort of sound are you after on bass? The behringer adds a little bit of colour but mostly it’s just a good EQ and boost with some balance

Just a nice solid low end old school P bass type thing ideally.

The BDI21 does that well. And it’s EQ will let you dial in a decent range of sounds as well. For the money I would give it a go - if nothing else it’s a brilliant back up if your amp fails so you can DI to the PA

Thanks.

I do like the look of some the more expensive ones you listed above, but for the amount of use it would get, I'm not sure it would be worth it.  I can get a decent recorded sound using an Ampeg profile on the Kemper.

To be honest, I could get away with the BDI21 into my k10.2 for gigging most of the time. The only thing it doesn’t do is that nice warm thick and “brown” valve amp sound. It does however do a good solid P bass sound that sits perfectly well in the mix. 

As its my main gigging setup I can justify a few hundred quid for one with a valve in it. 

Bridgehouse

After a minor hiccup with a poorly first one, the new PF20T came this morning.

This one is quiet as a mouse. Well it is with gain and vol on zero. There's no crackle on this one and it's just got that familiar dull hum...

Plugged in a P bass and set gain to 1.00 and vol to about a quarter. 

Crikey gosh/flip me/blummin' Nora/shit the bed etc. 

It sounds remarkable like.. like.. is there a b15 in the room? Cor.

mart

Glad the new PF20T arrived and works. Did you see you can now get the PF-50T for £430?

Bridgehouse

mart said:

Glad the new PF20T arrived and works. Did you see you can now get the PF-50T for £430?

I did - and I was tempted.. but it would be overkill as the 20T is purely for studio based recording fun! (I need a mic for it now tho.. so I can do a transformer DI and mic'd cab blend)

mart

Bridgehouse said:

mart said:

Glad the new PF20T arrived and works. Did you see you can now get the PF-50T for £430?

I did - and I was tempted.. but it would be overkill as the 20T is purely for studio based recording fun! (I need a mic for it now tho.. so I can do a transformer DI and mic'd cab blend)

But if you got the 50 you could use it for gigs. And sell me the 20 for a song.

Bridgehouse

mart said:

Bridgehouse said:

mart said:

Glad the new PF20T arrived and works. Did you see you can now get the PF-50T for £430?

I did - and I was tempted.. but it would be overkill as the 20T is purely for studio based recording fun! (I need a mic for it now tho.. so I can do a transformer DI and mic'd cab blend)

But if you got the 50 you could use it for gigs. And sell me the 20 for a song.

Nice try

Dunno about gigging a 50 tho - might be overkill when 9 times out of 10 I DI to FOH

Bridgehouse

(plus I have a working one now - knowing my luck I'd get a 50 and it wouldn't work)

mart

Bridgehouse said:

mart said:

Bridgehouse said:

mart said:

Glad the new PF20T arrived and works. Did you see you can now get the PF-50T for £430?

I did - and I was tempted.. but it would be overkill as the 20T is purely for studio based recording fun! (I need a mic for it now tho.. so I can do a transformer DI and mic'd cab blend)

But if you got the 50 you could use it for gigs. And sell me the 20 for a song.

Nice try

Dunno about gigging a 50 tho - might be overkill when 9 times out of 10 I DI to FOH

Gosh, I don't know how you saw through my cunning plan. Oh well, back to the drawing board. 

Besides, must resist - I do not need yet another bass amp.

Bridgehouse

mart said:

Bridgehouse said:

mart said:

Bridgehouse said:

mart said:

Glad the new PF20T arrived and works. Did you see you can now get the PF-50T for £430?

I did - and I was tempted.. but it would be overkill as the 20T is purely for studio based recording fun! (I need a mic for it now tho.. so I can do a transformer DI and mic'd cab blend)

But if you got the 50 you could use it for gigs. And sell me the 20 for a song.

Nice try

Dunno about gigging a 50 tho - might be overkill when 9 times out of 10 I DI to FOH

Gosh, I don't know how you saw through my cunning plan. Oh well, back to the drawing board. 

Besides, must resist - I do not need yet another bass amp.

At £299 mate I reckon you'll kick yourself if they discontinue them and you don't get one.

Despite my minor hiccup it really is very very good...

mart

Bridgehouse said:

mart said:

Bridgehouse said:

mart said:

Bridgehouse said:

mart said:

Glad the new PF20T arrived and works. Did you see you can now get the PF-50T for £430?

I did - and I was tempted.. but it would be overkill as the 20T is purely for studio based recording fun! (I need a mic for it now tho.. so I can do a transformer DI and mic'd cab blend)

But if you got the 50 you could use it for gigs. And sell me the 20 for a song.

Nice try

Dunno about gigging a 50 tho - might be overkill when 9 times out of 10 I DI to FOH

Gosh, I don't know how you saw through my cunning plan. Oh well, back to the drawing board. 

Besides, must resist - I do not need yet another bass amp.

At £299 mate I reckon you'll kick yourself if they discontinue them and you don't get one.

Despite my minor hiccup it really is very very good...

You're not helping.
Tell me again how great the Behringer DI box is and how I don't need an ampeg to get that sound.

Bridgehouse

@mart - Lol, I doubt I could persuade you of that...

The Dave Hall Amps preamp DI pedal gets about 95% of the way there though for £150..

Thing is, the Transformer DI out on the PF20T is so good that I'd say that function alone is worth the entry ticket - it's basically an all valve preamp/DI pedal on steroids.

mart

Bridgehouse said:

@mart - Lol, I doubt I could persuade you of that...

The Dave Hall Amps preamp DI pedal gets about 95% of the way there though for £150..

Thing is, the Transformer DI out on the PF20T is so good that I'd say that function alone is worth the entry ticket - it's basically an all valve preamp/DI pedal on steroids.

Darn you, I’ve gone and been suckered into buying the 20. If I get your old one with the crackly sound I will not be amused. So now do not, repeat, do not, tell me any good things about the BDI.

Bridgehouse

mart said:

Bridgehouse said:

@mart - Lol, I doubt I could persuade you of that...

The Dave Hall Amps preamp DI pedal gets about 95% of the way there though for £150..

Thing is, the Transformer DI out on the PF20T is so good that I'd say that function alone is worth the entry ticket - it's basically an all valve preamp/DI pedal on steroids.

Darn you, I’ve gone and been suckered into buying the 20. If I get your old one with the crackly sound I will not be amused. So now do not, repeat, do not, tell me any good things about the BDI.

You will not be disappointed with the 20. Not at all. No DI pedal will do what it does. Many on talkbass says it’s a more authentic vintage Ampeg sound than the 50 - and as such I reckon it’ll be a future classic.

mart

Bridgehouse said:
....

You will not be disappointed with the 20. Not at all. No DI pedal will do what it does. Many on talkbass says it’s a more authentic vintage Ampeg sound than the 50 - and as such I reckon it’ll be a future classic.

That’s what I’m hoping. Meanwhile I just need to think of excuses for the rest of the family. Let’s just hope they don’t  know how many bass amps I’ve got already. (I’m pretty sure I don’t know, so they oughtn’t to).

crunchman

Just ordered the Behringer pedal with the 15% discount on Feebay.

Bridgehouse

crunchman said:

Just ordered the Behringer pedal with the 15% discount on Feebay.

Good call!

Bridgehouse

I’m thinking about the Hartke bass attack or the Eden WTDi fora bit of variance - anyone think one would be a better choice than the other?

Bridgehouse

The Dave Hall Preamp got it's first outing at the weekend for a gig.

It did a fab job and sounded really really authoritative - it's got that distinct valve tone to it (having a valve in it!) and it definitely adds to the sound - much preferred it to the other preamps I've gigged with so it's staying on the board at the moment. I'd say a veritable bargain at £150 new.

steamabacus

I've been reading through this thread as I'm on the lookout for a cheap bass DI/preamp for recording direct into the desk at home. In the past I've used a Trace Acoustic TAC1 dual band compressor (the 'acoustic' version of the old bass pedal/amp circuit - maybe even identical inside if internet wisdom is anything to go by) for tracking and then processing the bass in Amplitube (my computer is too ancient to handle running Amplitube while tracking). The TAC1 has developed some noise issues so I'm looking for something to replace it for DI'ing into a desk without spending too much (will only get used occasionally).

My first thought was the Behringer BDI21 mentioned above although I'm slightly worried about noise floor - the plastic Behringer bass EQ and bass limiter pedals I used to own had an unacceptably high level of background hiss. How is the BDI21 in this regard?

While looking on Thomann I discovered another candidate - the Harley Benton Custom Line Bass DI-Expander

Looks to be well-featured, has some good reviews on-site (taken with a pinch of salt) and would serve me very well. Currently listed at £70.27.

Does anyone on here have any experience of this pedal? (Or, maybe, a Joyo equivalent?)

Bridgehouse

@steamabacus - the BDI21 is notoriously good compared to other Behringer stuff - seems they lucked out on this one.

The HB one above is also well regarded and similar to the MXR-80 IIRC but cheaper. Don't know about noise floor on it tho. Would be worth looking at the Dr J Sparrow (about £60) - I have one and it's good - not the most dynamic pedal, but does the job well enough. Low noise floor for me would be the very super-clean MXR-80 pedal, which is pretty much seen as the go-to pedal for clean noiseless DI