Tube pre for 100
Oh sonic sultans, wise and mysteryious wizards of wav files, please to divine the answer to my question. What tube preamp would you recommend(in the $0 to $200 range) that I may achieve smooth full bass guitar and a kick drum that you can feel in your chest!
I think you’d want to be looking at your mic selection and placement first. What are you using? I’d suggest an ATM25, d112 or on a budget a PG52, any/either/or will work well on kick or bass. I’m a fan of my UltraGI for DI’ing bass too.
Thanks for the info, I am using an audio technica pro 25 on the kick drum and an sm57 on cabinets with a Behringer eurorack. I also have an MXL condenser mic (the $69.95 special) The soundcard is M-Audio Delta 66
How about a bellari mp105 with the Black Lion mod? 
Willy’s totally correct, of course, and you won’t get a good sound wihtout a good sounding drum, either.
Thanks everyone! I’m still researching, keep em comin!!!
Ditto on the SansAmp Bass DI - instant (near) perfect bass tone.
change your drum heads front and back .
tune your drum to E—note lowest one
use a key board or bass guitar for tuneing (i use a key board )
use sure pg drum mic , use #64 fx on the euro beringer mixer
only a little fx
set your input meter in the yellow for bass drum
sounds good! love this forum
A hearty third on the SansAmp Bass DI.
The sound is very high quality, it is built like a tank, and the customer service is personal and second to none. They really impressed me.
dave
Ditto the SansAmp Bass DI, it sounds pretty good, especially if you run a decent hardware comp after it.
[edit] I’ve had good success running both the wet and dry outputs to their own hardware comps and recording them both. Then FX/mix to suite.
I’m going to pile-on regarding the Sansamp Bass DI. You just can’t get the kind of bass tone you want by plugging directly into a preamp DI.
OK,
I have recorded bass direct to my soundcraft board using a Paia Tube Head (starved plate tube box I built from a kit years ago that does get a bit noisy at very high gain settings). I got some very decent sounds but probably not good enough to rave about.
The Sansamp looks like it may be cool, something for me to check out. Can anyone tell me if it is capable of producing the sort of pipe organ deep sounds that come out of an Ampeg B15 Portaflex tube amp. The B15 was my first bass amp and is one of my personal benchmarks, even if I am no longer capable of lifting one.
Peace,
TrackGrrrl
Waddaya think about the Behringer Bass V-amp? fits in my budget and also has goodies for guitar (I play Bass and 6 string)
Trackgrrl, you already know that the answer to that is “no.”
You did the Paia Tube Head kit? How’s it sound on guitar? I thought it was high voltage? 
| Quote (TrackGrrrl @ May 17 2005,18:31) |
| The Sansamp looks like it may be cool, something for me to check out. Can anyone tell me if it is capable of producing the sort of pipe organ deep sounds that come out of an Ampeg B15 Portaflex tube amp. |
It sounds more like a tube SVT that's properly mic'd. One nice thing about them is you can get one on e-Bay and then turn it for what you paid if you don't like it...
Darnit TomS,
I keep hoping. I don’t know if I can capture that sound well with a mic (or two…) at home. I know I can’t do it without pissing off the neighbors. Getting that sound live is a real problem without breaking ones back. Never mind that anyone who gigs with a 40 year old amp without bringing backup has gotta be crazy.
Heck I would like to do it all with a DI - record and go live or at least back up a live rig. Sansamp and Behri both deserve some investigation IMO.
I built the Tube Head years ago but have not used it that much for guitar so far. Mostly for bass and to sweeten the sound of some synths. I need to change some resistors in the input section so that it is set up properly for instrument level signals. I’m pretty sure it is currently set up for line level. It is easy to figure out the new values but I think PAIA includes that info in the instructions too (have to pull the file…). There are also some mods available that may help with the noise that tends to come in at high gain.
The Tube Head uses a simple voltage multiplier circuit to generate a bias supply rail of 45 volts. They have the schematic online here: http://paia.com/tubehsch.pdf
I like the stuff I have from PAIA, especially the FatMan synth. It is a bit limited until you add an LFO, which is not part of the standard circuit but I still like it a lot. The problem is that even for an experienced tech the kits are time consuming to build - the parts are not sorted so you have to sort out a bunch of resistors and caps. Also, they use single sided circuit boards which means you have to cut and solder a bunch of jumpers to the board before you begin to install any components. Still, they can be a good rainy day project if you have the time, plus they are easy to mod - not like all this surface mount mass produced stuff.
Peace,
TrackGrrrl
Cool. I’m not the most expereinced fellow on the block, but the sansamp things never quite have “it” if you know what I mean. On the other hand, they come soooo very close that most audience folks wouldn’t know the difference.
The fellow who owns paia seems like a really nice guy - a while back I emailed him with some questions about the mic preamp kit, and he was very, very helpful. Oddly enough, I have really throught hard about getting the fatman synth, just because it seems so cool, and everything I have now is digital (including my “vintage” CZ-1000 ). Well, maybe sometime… 
| Quote (TomS @ May 18 2005,18:54) |
| Cool. I'm not the most expereinced fellow on the block, but the sansamp things never quite have "it" if you know what I mean. |
No, a SansAmp isn't the grail, but it's easy to get decent tracks out of it that lay well in a mix.
I'd be extremely surprised if anyone wouldn't pick a Sans over a starved plate hybrid pre in a blind A/B.
Heck, I have pure tube pre's running at 300V and I grab the Sans before I grab one of those for bass tracking...