Sansamp tech 21 bass driver..wanna like it

[Igotsoul4u]

i bought one after buying into the hype and didn't find it to be at all usable. It came in handy if I had to go direct when playing live but my great river DI kills for recording situations as does the avalon u5 and many others. I ended up selling it. I also agree it sounded a bit compressed. I kind of think it might be decent for a metal sounded. People talk about it like its professional gear, but its sort of prosumer IMO. I love sansamp and was really let down by the bass driver pedal. I wonder if the RBI has a better sound.

[wwittman]

Try clicking off the effect and JUST using it as a DI... although I'm not a fan of DI bass guitar generally, it's actually one of the better ones.

[NoPro]

Wow!!im so glad I'm not alone on this...I thought it was just me. Definitely gonna sell or trade for something else. One of those fairly regretful purchases...I mean it's just so mediocre and nasty. I was hoping that wasn't the case for 199. It's cool. Thanks!

[wxyz]

Used as a DI into a Neve is a standard

[Tennis]

I didn't like it either, sold it. The best I can say about it is that I've heard it sound pretty good in mixes where the balance was off, and there was a lot of room left for the bass. So overall not a good mix, but the bass sounded pretty strong along with an over the top beefy snare, everything else sounded weak. There is a studio in town that kinda has this as their staple sound, especially for tracking bands that don't have it together and have crappy equipement. But yea, you are not going to get that bass sound you love in modern rock albums from this box. I think most of the top dogs are mic'ing cabs (powered by tube heads) and sometimes mixing in a little DI.

The best rock bass sound I ever got was mic'ing an 8x10 ampeg cab powered by a 300watt tube ampeg head, mic'ed with an original little blondie (API pre), playing a stadard P-bass with quarter-pounder pick-ups. Totally unexpected what that little mic can do, but the recording did have a great growl, which sounded stellar. Another big factor was the musician, who was using a pick and playing really hard, but still very controlled. I believe I compressed a little on the way in with an RNLA, and then in the box there was a little more to just glue it to the ground. I tracked a DI but didn't need it. There may have been a low eq bump in the box with a neve type eq.

IMO, the main ingredients for rock bass are a tube head, a good bass speaker, quarter pounder pickups, new strings, and agressive but controlled playing. Mic wise, I happen to throw the little blondie up first that time, but any of the staples will work (senn421, LDC, sm57 maybe) you just have to mess with the placement, some like closer to the middle and some like way on the outside, aswell as distance to the speaker can vary. Cheers

[MaximumAdams]

When I was tracking my bass lines for an album I'm working on, there was one of those at the studio, as well as a bass big muff. Tried both through my rig (Ampeg SVT-VR + Ampeg 8x10 cab) in the studio. It was a bit of fun for a minute or two, but after playing with both for a while I just ended up using my joe satriani signature vox ice9 pedal. It's for guitar, but it's a gem with bass.
Oddly enough, my singer used the bass big muff on his guitar parts which sounded pretty sweet too...

But yeah, try the ice9

[MaximumAdams]

Originally Posted by Tennis

I didn't like it either, sold it. The best I can say about it is that I've heard it sound pretty good in mixes where the balance was off, and there was a lot of room left for the bass. So overall not a good mix, but the bass sounded pretty strong along with an over the top beefy snare, everything else sounded weak. There is a studio in town that kinda has this as their staple sound, especially for tracking bands that don't have it together and have crappy equipement. But yea, you are not going to get that bass sound you love in modern rock albums from this box. I think most of the top dogs are mic'ing cabs (powered by tube heads) and sometimes mixing in a little DI.

The best rock bass sound I ever got was mic'ing an 8x10 ampeg cab powered by a 300watt tube ampeg head, mic'ed with an original little blondie (API pre), playing a stadard P-bass with quarter-pounder pick-ups. Totally unexpected what that little mic can do, but the recording did have a great growl, which sounded stellar. Another big factor was the musician, who was using a pick and playing really hard, but still very controlled. I believe I compressed a little on the way in with an RNLA, and then in the box there was a little more to just glue it to the ground. I tracked a DI but didn't need it. There may have been a low eq bump in the box with a neve type eq.

IMO, the main ingredients for rock bass are a tube head, a good bass speaker, quarter pounder pickups, new strings, and agressive but controlled playing. Mic wise, I happen to throw the little blondie up first that time, but any of the staples will work (senn421, LDC, sm57 maybe) you just have to mess with the placement, some like closer to the middle and some like way on the outside, aswell as distance to the speaker can vary. Cheers

Yeah, totally agree with you.

[NoPro]

Originally Posted by MaximumAdams

Yeah, totally agree with you.

Ditto. Amp and mic maybe some di has been the best. Pushing real air through is the sheeznit. Just get lazy.

[popmann]

I like it, but the rack is more flexible. A Great River DI DOES kill it...not sure why you would expect it not to. I never use mine as "the" bass track-always as a second track, either recorded simultaneously or reamped at mix time to add the attack and growl/dirt needed for a bass to sit properly and still be articulate in a mix.

Also, if you have a cheap bass, it actually will kill the GR...or any other nice articulate DI--because it will fatten and smush. Which makes it the savior of guitarists with some cheap Mexi Jbass...and not as useful to people with nice sounding basses that they want to capture the nuances that make them so nice.

[MaximumAdams]

Originally Posted by popmann

Also, if you have a cheap bass, it actually will kill the GR...or any other nice articulate DI--because it will fatten and smush. Which makes it the savior of guitarists with some cheap Mexi Jbass...and not as useful to people with nice sounding basses that they want to capture the nuances t hat make them so nice.

Not sure about all the cheap basses out there, I use two squire jazz basses, the classic vibes, and they sound nicer than every other bass I've owned.
I am of course willing to accept this may be a complete fluke
I do highly recommend the ice 9 though. I went to the shop and told them to plug in every distortion/driver/fuzz/etc in there and sat down for hours picking every one appart till I found something that didn't eat my lows...
For some reason a guitar pedal had the goods for the bass!

[Tennis]

I think the biggest issue with squire is their reputation. Not that I've heard tons of bad things, but just that I can imagine telling a musician in the studio to try the squire (maybe it will sound a little better than his generic bass), and I can already see the look in their eyes thinking "a squire?, please those are crap". This preconceived notion will keep him from actually listening to the darn thing. Sad, but it happens.

Back in the day our bass player was playing with an old squire p-bass he found at a pawn shop. This thing actually said Fender on it, and then a little smaller it said squire. He never got completments on his bass guitar and tone until he rubbed the "squire" logo off the headstock.

[Tech21NYC]

It depends what you are trying to accomplish with the pedal. It was designed to be an "amp emulated" bass specific DI. Meaning you would plug into the Bass Driver DI and send the Parallel out to your bass amp and then send the amp emulated signal to the mixing board.

You need to decide if you want the sound of a vintage tube amp vs your bass guitars pickups. If you don't want the amp emulation, you can turn the blend counterclockwise and this will turn off the SansAmp circuitry. The drive and presence controls only work when the blend is turned clockwise. With the blend counterclockwise and the bass and treble at around noon the signal will be flat.

The reason for the blend control is that a standard studio recording practice would be to use a bass amp like the vintage Ampeg B15 and mic it. They would then take a straight DI of your bass and blend that along with the amp sound for a composite tone. The Bass Driver DI gives you that facility in a pedal.

If you have never played your bass through a vintage tube amp, you may not be used to the distortion characteristics of the pedal. My suggestion would be to set the Bass Driver DI with the blend counterclockwise and start with a fairly low drive setting. Set the drive around 9-10 o'clock then turn up the blend to about 11 o'clock and see if it works for you. You have quite a bit of options, you just need to decide what you are trying to do first.

[gregl]

Interesting- I've had one for 10 years and often get compliments on the bass tracks done with it.

[Ephi82]

Originally Posted by Tech21NYC

It depends what you are trying to accomplish with the pedal. It was designed to be an "amp emulated" bass specific DI. Meaning you would plug into the Bass Driver DI and send the Parallel out to your bass amp and then send the amp emulated signal to the mixing board.

You need to decide if you want the sound of a vintage tube amp vs your bass guitars pickups. If you don't want the amp emulation, you can turn the blend counterclockwise and this will turn off the SansAmp circuitry. The drive and presence controls only work when the blend is turned clockwise. With the blend counterclockwise and the bass and treble at around noon the signal will be flat.

The reason for the blend control is that a standard studio recording practice would be to use a bass amp like the vintage Ampeg B15 and mic it. They would then take a straight DI of your bass and blend that along with the amp sound for a composite tone. The Bass Driver DI gives you that facility in a pedal.

If you have never played your bass through a vintage tube amp, you may not be used to the distortion characteristics of the pedal. My suggestion would be to set the Bass Driver DI with the blend counterclockwise and start with a fairly low drive setting. Set the drive around 9-10 o'clock then turn up the blend to about 11 o'clock and see if it works for you. You have quite a bit of options, you just need to decide what you are trying to do first.

I have the Bass Driver DI and I have liked it, but what seems to be missing is the sound of the speaker moving air? if its an amp emulation, I would expect that it would sound like an amp in the room, moving air? Any tips on how to bring more of this out?

I really like the AMP SVT and the Bassman recommended settings. You do have to remember that a Bassman sounded pretty compressed and distorted. You have to get the track in a mix to appreciate it.