Yeah, I am not seriously looking at pre amps right now @howard , and prob won’t get this one, It just looked interesting and wanted opinions on it.
I also agree about the Comp being up front, But I could see it interesting to play wit compressing the sound a 2nd time, at the end. Again, sounds like something to play with, but not necessary, and might end up being a not so good thing.
That brings me to other questions about pedals and pedal chain, but I think I will start a thread for that, because it would derail this thread.
I’m gonna hold you responsible if it disappoints me.
I just ordered the B1X Four.
It’ll double as a volume swell pedal for the Telecaster that @Gio likes so much. I’ve used that in the past to create backdrops (occasionally stealing chords from Allan’s repertoire)… using only the neck element, turning the highs down all the way, and arpeggiating my way through them. I’ve restrung the Tele with d’addario .09 and I intend to have a go at it again.
The fact that the OD/distortion effects aren’t that great doesn’t bother me one bit – I hate these for bass anyway. I only intend to use the dynamic effects and the modeling effects (and maybe the amp and cab simulations, who knows).
@howard posted some documents somewhere on how to use the B1Four, but apparently that’s in another thread. In fact, reading those docs was what pushed me over the edge.
@peterhuppertz it doesn’t come with a power cord, so you’ll want to order one for it, otherwise it just eats up batteries.
You’ll also want to order one of these so you can switch it on and off when not using it:
Oh, ok, got ya. I am still struggling with that brand new ESP Ltd Bass being sold for $400.
The longer that one is there, the weaker I get.
And @howard. , I watched a review for the TC Electronics dynacomp DI box. I think it would be a DI box in front of the chain when you are going to send a clean signal out elsewhere, like the mixing board.
Then it is actually a really cool chorus and driver with so many sound shaping possibilities. Still not getting one, but I understand the use of comp in the DI, cuz in that case it’s ok at the front of the chain.
Course, that’s if you are ever going to send a clean signal, and IDK if I ever will, or if I will anytime soon enuf to get one now.
While you could use it to send a clean signal to a mixer, then none of your effects would go to the mixer, which is never what I would want as an only DI out (i.e. unless I had another DI with effects going to the mixer too.) YMMV.
Its distortion toneprints may or may not sound good. The ones I heard in reviews were ok but did not really wow me.
It does have a nice clean EQ, doesn’t seem to add much tonally to the sound at all, which is nice when that’s what you want. And if you are using it as an all in one box the compressor might be useful, or for some special effects you might want to compress everything, but in general - the DI out is going at the end of the effects chain for me.
As a concrete example, the DI on my Battalion is currently unused as it is mid-chain; the I use the DI out on my BDI-21 to go to my DAI (which I also kind of use as a mixer), because it’s at the end.
Again, it’s all YMMV, but honestly - there’s a lot of awesome preamp pedals out there. A lot. The SpectraDrive is a nice tempting all in one pedal with a bunch of different downloadable distortions and compressions, but there’s lots of others with different features. Including other distortion pedals that do what the SpectraDrive does, but IMO much better.
For example:
Anyway, I think the SpectraDrive looks like a nice preamp with some cool features. But there’s a lot of choices
I mean, if you want to talk features:
etc
not cheap though. Just an illustration that there’s a lot to check out out there.
From my board, I have my Battalion sitting right in the middle, and I’m using neither its DI out nor its compressor at the moment.
It’s another one to check out. I really like it anyway.
I agree @howard that it wouldn’t work for home studio as I posted earlier, for the reasons you listed, I was only sort of answering the question you posted previously as to why they would put Compression as a feature on a DI.
As I stated, I am not going to be sending clean signal to a soundboard at a venue or in a studio anytime soon, if ever, so might not be that useful, but the idea of a customizable copy pedal is interesting.
The demos I heard, I liked a lot.
All that said, beyond the Behringer BDI-21, because of price and performance (sans amp clone) I have no immediate plans to get any other preamp / DI units. But. Enjoy talking about them with you guys who have much more knowledge about them then I.
It definitely looks like a cool pedal. But it’s in the price range where it has some serious competition as well
I almost got one, actually. I ended up getting a BH250 instead, which I returned (defective) and started doing more looking, and discovered all these other awesome preamps.
Another thing that bugs me about it is I was not super impressed by its distortions that I heard in reviews. They weren’t bad but didn’t really strike me as much better than the Zoom.
On the other hand, despite my misgivings about where it would sit in my chain, the compressor on it is supposedly pretty good - it’s based on the SpectraComp which people seem to like a lot.
That was something I was going to ask, then figured I would look it up, then never did, was, does the spectra comp (comp only, not the preamp combo) have the tone print feature?
Even if it doesn’t, I am sure the next version would, and if it does, I think it would be a good compression pedal option, for me at least, cuz I liked the sound in the review of the preamp by the Wiz.
And thank you 1000x over @howard for that Compressor review site. I now realize I already have his 2 nd highest rated “cheap” compressor, so although the spectra comp sounds cool, I won’t be getting another compressor anytime soon. I ordered that cheap kokko one on my last order, which has not shipped from amazon yet, so I am going to cancel it, and re-order without it.
I have the Behringer Limiter / Enhancer which is a direct copy of the Boss LMB-3, which is his 2nd on the list. I knew the Limiter functioned as a compressor for the most part, just was not thinking I was getting full value of a compressor with it. Great to know, cuz I really did like the performance of that pedal. It is great to play thru by itself.
