Preamp

Hey guys just bought my first preamp pedal and was wondering if I should still use the tone controls on my amp or just use the pedal

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Hello, and welcome to the slow workou-- err, the forum!

My guess is, it depends on your needs. If you use the pedal with two amps (for instance, a practice amp and a gig amp), you might set your amps as neutral as possible, and use your pedal to control tone.
Alternatively, you might set your amp on a setting you like, so that when you bypass the pedal, you get a working sound… and then, you can use your pedal to change this as the need arises.

Essentially, you’ve now got more options. It may take you some time to sort out what suits your needs best.

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Welcome aboard @spencerberryman,
Enjoy the ride.
Cheers Brian

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Welcome @spencerberryman!

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Hi @spencerberryman. Welcome.
Your post reminded me of a similar question I had about the where to control things from
Amp vs. Bass Setup

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hey @spencerberryman . the short answer is that you do what you want :grin: and my advice would be to try the different controls on the preamp, amp and bass itself to ear and feel the difference and how all that work together, and hopefully see what works best for you.

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Let’s give this ol’ thread a bump.

I now have two preamps, the Tech21 Sansamp SH1 and the Harley Benton Bass Expander DI. Of course, they’re two very different beasts, and after a few weeks of using both I have the following observations.

My SH1 just LOVES my P-clone with flats (well, duh, Steve Harris, right?!). However getting it to play nice with my JJ Peavey with SS rounds is more finicky.
However, the HB works absolutely marvelously with the JJ. I can’t wait to try it with the HH Frankenjazz, whenever I get it finished.

However, I have a fairly electrically noisy environment, and there is a lot of hiss. So, to counteract it, I bought an XLR to jack cable to plug this into my amp or DAI thinking it’ll quieten down the noise. However, with the normal setting, it is noisy AF, and with the ground lift engaged, the noise is mostly gone, but the sound is greatly deadened.

Please help this noob!

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Do you get the same hiss on both basses on both preamps? Meaning, in all combinations of basses and preamps.

For starters my two preamps (VT BassDI & DG B7K) both make me happy too and I also find different basses work better with one or the other based on what tone I’m going for.

So hiss…
Preamps will drive his depending on preamp and settings alone.
They could amplify any noise coming in from your bass too. Esp if boosting treble or adding distortion. Or boost noise in a bum cable. So thought to say. Swap things around and see if you can isolate.
I had my Aerodyne Jazz hissing like nuts through the zoom and this cheap little Joyo amp this week. Took it back to music room and normal setup. No hiss. Sometimes el cheap things can enhance hiss too I guess.

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So, the XLR ports are loud in both preamps unless I flip the ground lift. I didn’t notice too much difference between the basses, but that’s not to say that it’s not there. I think there is a slight bridge grounding issue in both basses, because the noise is less when I touch the strings. These basses will both be getting surgery at one point, so I’ll fix that as and when. However, the XLR is really noisy.

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That’s a good point, John. I have one cable I suspect of being a noisemaker. One of the jacks crinkles when moved around. I’ll check that.

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This could be external too. I had to connect my pedalboard to my DAI via lifted XLR for a while because I had a ground loop. Shuffling equipment resolved it eventually and I could go back to an instrument cable.

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Do you have a proper grounding to the wall? Cheap power strip?
My jazz bass issue I blame on the cheap joyo amp vs the bass as it’s fine downstairs with my normal stuff but same issue as you when on the cheap amp (that has no third ground prong).

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