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Sansamp Bass DI
I once read an article where some big boy engineer guy who had
his name on a a couple number one hits back in the mid 80s
stayed busy for years based entirely off a bass sound he nailed
on some Peter Gabriel song. He said that everyone wanted him to
engineer their recordings because they wanted that bass sound.
The ironic thing about the situation is the engineer admits now
that he did nothing different on that bass sound than he had on
the numerous other records he had done. Of course, no one cared
much about the bass sound on the other records. It turns out
that the only change in the equation was the song and the
player. The engineer said that this one particular bass player
just sounds that damn good. He has magic hands and no one else
comes close.
This takes me to my review of the Sansamp Bass DI. I bought this
pedal about the same time I bought my first microphone, so I've
had it for years and years. Before I get into it's tone, I must
say that bass is something that totally eludes me. Maybe it's
just my guitar player instinct, but I never seam to record a
bass sound that impresses me all that much. I'm not sure what
the problem is, but more than likely the answer to my question
was in the first two paragraphs of this article.
I wanted to blame my recording gear such as the Sansamp Bass DI
for me not achieving a bass sound that I really liked. However,
I'm starting to think that this is not the case. I read the
forums where the big dogs hang out. Someone once asked about the
Sansamp Bass DI. I was amazed at how many people truly loved it.
I'm talking about engineers who had 20 platinum records on their
wall. These guys usually refute anything that's not $3,000 but
it seamed that no one had anything negative to say about the
Sansamp Bass DI. Impressive.
So I sat down one day to play with my Sansamp. To be honest, I
never played with the knobs too much on this pedal. I guess it's
a little ridiculous, but I just haven't learned what truly
sounds good on a bass. I think the biggest problem with my bass
sounds (besides the variety of bass players) has been the
quality of the basses. Almost every bass that I record with a DI
has this over the top, unusable low end that just sounds like
crap. While a few bass sounds do make the subs in the car go to
town, I find that most of the time, the bass sound is up above
the subwoofer level. It's in the low mids region.
I've been experimenting with knocking out a ton of the lows with
the Sansamp and I'm getting closer to what I'm looking for. The
tone controls on the Sansamp really do seam to do something
cool. They do offer a lot of flexibility. I find it easier in my
brain to twist a few knobs on a pedal to extreme settings ( if
necessary) than I do using a parametric eq plugin.
So for me, I can't give the Sansamp a tremendous review.
Honestly, I can't give a review at all right now. I've not hit
the bass sound that I'm looking for, but I'm going to keep
trying until I find it. I'm not sure that the Sansamp is the
cause or the blame for the this.
With that being said, the best bass sound I've ever gotten was
done with a very good bass player with a very good bass. We ran
him straight into a Vintech 1272 preamp and it did sound
excellent. For whatever reason the Vintech preamp did sound much
better than the Presonus M80 I was using. The difference was
night and day. It's very possible that the preamp you use the
Sansamp DI with could make a huge difference in tone. I think
the big engineers like it because it has all the knobs right
there so they can fool with them as they choose.
About the author:
Not sure what recording software to
buy? Check out recordingreview.com
Written by: Brandon Drury
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