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Tech 21 VT bass DI strange behavior?? VTDI


GisserD
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I just purchased a Tech 21 VT bass Di 2nd hand from eBay. Plugged it in last night and noticed some strange behavior on the blend knob.

I was hoping some of you who also have the pedal can help me sus out if I've bought a lemon.

1. Pedal on, drive at 9 0 clock, With all other at noon, except the blend knob which I turn fully counter clockwise, which should be removing the preamp circuit by my reckoning? My tone is audibly clipping. Badly!
Is my bass output too hot?
But as soon as I turn the blend up past 9 o clock (adding some preamp) it stops.

2. Again control at noon except the drive at maximum, and blend at minimum, I would expect to hear no drive. Yet it sounds like a wasp in a can over my normal tone.

I'm using a cort A5 custom into the VTDI into an Eden wt800/410

Thanks in advance

Edited by GisserD
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If the drive is at 12 o'clock you could well be getting preamp drive. Don't assume that all on 12 is a neutral setting, esp as the character knob gets above about 2 o'clock. The high end of the character knob is designed to be very gain-y in a distortion/fuzz box kinda way.

The attached photo shows my settings and that just starts to give me a bit of amp style grit as I really dig in. You'll see that us with bot drive and character around 10 o'clock... Have you got the sheet with the sample settings to try out with the pedal? They might be a good place to start...

Ps oops, normally the blend is full not at 10 o'clock too...

Edited by TrevorR
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Sorry, I misread the OP rather. Whether the pedal is on or not the gain and level act as input and output gain. However, at about 9 o'clock I wouldn't expect to hear clipping. And increasing drive should increase not decrease it. That does sound like odd behaviour. You might want to complain via eBay and seek a refund/return...

Edited by TrevorR
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so I had a little investigation last night and actually solved one of the issues. I had a suspicions that my bass output was too hot, so I lowered my pickups....

to my surprise it solved the first issue of clipping with minimum blend and drive at 9 o clock. so I was clearly over cooking the input? is the Cort A5 known o have hot pickups?

however, with a higher gain and minimum blend, I still experience the wasp in a can issue.

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This second issue might be normal. I did read a while ago that some people were turning blend all the way to 0 but could still hear some drive. When i read these comments it was just after it came out, and i would have assumed it was fixed by now, but maybe not.
Maybe you have an earlier version, or they just didnt do anything about it. Ill check mine later, just to see if it also does it. Cant say ive ever had the blend on anything other than 100% though.

Edited by dave_bass5
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[quote name='GisserD' timestamp='1443779645' post='2877580']
Is the Cort A5 known o have hot pickups?
[/quote]
Not sure of the pickups specifically but the pre-amp in my old A6 had an awful lot of boost (and cut) available. Have you tried it in passive mode?

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The VT Bass DI is a DI. Normally you would plug into the VT Bass DI "first" and send the un-effected parallel out to your bass amp and use it as you normally do and send the XLR out of the VT Bass DI to the mixer.

You "can" use it as a stomp box as well but you need to make sure everything is gain staged properly. Do you have the 1/4" output set for instrument level? If it's set for the 10dB boost you could be overloading your amp's preamp. Try using the pedal by itself into either your amp's aux in or post efx return so you can bypass your amp's preamp. That's the best way to hear what the pedal can do and then try putting it in front of your amp once you get a handle on it.

As for the cross talk or bleed through with the Blend control at minimum, some early units had this issue and there was a component change in later units to fix this. If you pedal in still in the warranty period this could be sent in for a warranty repair.

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