The Bass Channel is doing a Bass PreAmp Shootout with a large number of preamps. I thought this was such a cool idea that I’m starting a new thread for it. Each time a new one comes out I’ll post a link here.
If you enjoy the videos, you can use the links below to go to YouTube.
Give them a like and vote for the one you like.
Ooh. They should have started with SansAmp BDDI vs Behringer BDI-21
EHX Battalion is in Round One up against an EHX Metaphors. Will definitely watch that one.
This is gonna be a great chance to watch a lot of preamps. FWIW the tone I am doing right now on my board is very close to being like running both of these (the B7K and the BDDI) at the same time, with my Battalion and my BDI-21.
I’ve owned a SCR-DI and so I am a bit biased but I would say the Ampeg wins for pure tone color (it sounds great) but the MXR sounds good too and its distortion is way, way better.
Specifically, the Ampeg just sounds worse in general with the Scrambler engaged, even lightly; the MXR still sounds just fine with its distortion engaged.
One thing I would add to their shootout - I really did like the tone coloring from my SCR-DI a lot. It is not a neutral preamp; it sounds like a generic Ampeg preamp. If that is what someone is looking for, they should give it a go.
Pretty clear that it’s much more versatile than the Metaphors. I guess it would come down to if you really loved the Metaphors distortion, but frankly, I think the Batallion does it way better in that vid.
They screwed up the levels in the compressor test though.
I liked the SpectraDrive drive/distortion toneprints in this video more than I liked them in other online videos. But the Hartke colored the tone in ways I actually liked better.
TC’s darkglass clone toneprint didn’t really sound much like a darkglass (I can get closer with the battalion+BDI-21) but still sounded ok.
The SpectraDrive had a very clean, transparent preamp. If that’s what you want, cool.
Wow. They all sound awesome. I think I like the X7 better than the AO (possible affinity bias there, I love my Microtubes X and they sound similar); the EBS definitely was great and surprisingly rich, and the Le Bass sounded the tubiest for obvious reasons but surprisingly not as punchy as I expected. Could be with tweaks though, complex pedal.
EBS impressed me a lot actually.
Also, the Yamaha Sheehan Signature Attitude sounded awesome. I mean, $3k, sure.
