Hi there,
I would like to add a touch of overdrive to my sound. I go through an empress compressor, but de tone coloring doesn’t do what I want.
I am thinking of 2 options :
either add an OD pedal (probably the Darkglass vintage microtubes)
or use the drive of the tech21 sansamp
Thing is that with the sansamp it’s gonna be everything or nothing, i.e. drive and preamp or nothing (no switch just for the drive) … is that a limiter ? WDYT ? Any advice ?
I am a bit confused on that !
Happy bass day and thanks in advance
Laurent
So your setup is your amp for monitoring, and a PA for FoH sound?
Rule of thumb the more drive/distortion you use the more important it is to have cabinet/cabsim in your signal chain. The cab(sim) rolls off the harsh/fizzy high frequencies from the distortion.
The sansamp has a cabsim* included, and you could go out of the sansamp straight to the board since it has a cabsim. You wouldn’t need to go through both preamps, although there’s nothing wrong with that if you like how it sounds. That’s the way I’d go between your options.
Some darkglass pedals have cabsims, but the vintage microtubes doesn’t. Usually amp DI doesn’t have a cabsim either, so this wouldn’t be my choice from those options.
Play around with the Sansamp and see if it gives you the sound you hear in your head.
If not, then listen to some comparison videos on youtube and see what else is out there to see if you can find what you’re looking for.
Or, buy used so you can try things out for yourself. That way you can resell what you don’t like and not be out any money. Or, at least, not as much money as if buying new.
As for not having a switch to turn the distortion on/off. That’s a personal choice. If you need that for what you’re doing, then get a separate overdrive, like the Vintage Microtubes.
First of all, hell yes.
I can’t believe that this isn’t the first thing that every bassist does. It was certainly the first thing I did!
I agree with this one!
The Sansamp will - hopefully - keep the low end in.
If you were just playing at home, you could do anything you wanted and it would work great.
But if you’re playing with other folks and you’re using an amp, it can be harder to turn on the distortion and have the sound stay beefy.
Any overdrive that has a blend option - where you can control how much of the dry, pure-bass signal, would be my advice if the Sansamp doesn’t do the trick.
I am getting a second hand neat sansamp next week. Will try exactly that. And look for a second hand Darkglass vintage microtubes
Thanks everyone !
Happy bass day
I tried a few DG pedals for overdrive…got this Saturday…other than a compressor I may never need another pedal again…not cheap but has aux-in/ headphones/ DI/ 8x15 cab sim/ and Showman / Bassmaster amp emulation…and yea a real nice OD that can be blended. The settings you see are for Mo-Town sound
I got the Walrus Audio Ages pedal and love it! It has five different gain stages, a “Dry” knob to blend in your dry signal, and a dedicated “Bass” knob that preserves low end, which many drives tend to cut.
