Tech21NYC

37 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Thanks for your post which was super helpful. It's already changed my view to having the cab sim as a 'default on' with Tech 21 pedals (and also explains why @dannybuoy was finding it was giving him a better sound!)

Was my guesstimate of the cab sim bump curve on the VTDI about right i.e. if 22Hz is the 3dB drop point, is it providing around a 6dB boost at the 50-60Hz bump point and then back down to 3dB at around 90Hz?

Also interested in understanding a bit more from you as to why an analogue pedal is likely to work better than a digital pedal through trad guitar and bass cabs?

The speaker emulation in our products is designed to provide a smooth EQ response without all the peaks, notches and nodes that can happen when using multiple microphones. Don't get bogged down in the numbers. An EQ curve that may look great on a computer screen may not translate if you are playing on a small stage with a low ceiling in a crowded club with a hard hitting drummer, a guitarist using a loud amp and 412 cab etc. The physics of your environment will always dictate the sound.

I play a lot of acoustic gigs when I'm not playing with my band. Just acoustic guitar an vocals. No matter how much I try to analyze the EQ settings for my acoustic preamp through my studio monitors and head phones, it all goes out the window when I get to the gig and plug it all in.

"Also interested in understanding a bit more from you as to why an analogue pedal is likely to work better than a digital pedal through trad guitar and bass cabs?"

It's more about the difference between a speaker cab impulse response and an analog sim. Whether a pedal is digital or analog it doesn't make a difference. It comes down to the type of speaker sim they choose to use.

The cab (or in our case the cab emulation) plays a big part in the overall tonality. It is the final tone shaping in a traditional guitar/bass amp design. There is a difference between a real instrument playing music and a white noise signal in test equipment. Our designer always designs by "ear" and the use of software like the FFT allows us to make sure that the final designs are accurate to the prototypes.

I find with our gear I almost always prefer to keep the speaker sim engaged as that is how the pedal is voiced. Because the sims are analog ,they work very well through traditional guitar and bass cabs. Any tonal issues with the sim usually has to do with your amp's preamp section. That usually happens with any sort of Drive pedal.

Bypassing the cab sim is more of a benefit with amp modelers because the Impulse response technology not only captures the EQ very accurately but also time and phase elements that may not translate well through a traditional speaker cab.

My reply was worded incorrectly. So much for multitasking.  22Hz was the 3dB drop point. The bump is around 50-60Hz. Keep in mind that we are running white noise to test with the FFT. The point being is that no matter what, we could get the response back to flat even with the Drive level up. The Bite switch is the stock VT sound. It works better for higher Drive settings. You want to trim out some low end to make higher gain sounds more focused. What happens when the pedal is really overdriven is that you hear more upper harmonic content and that tends to mask the low end. 

On 25/08/2021 at 11:11, Al Krow said:

 

Good to hear -although I see that you're having a clear out of some very decent pedals!

 

The VTDI is excellent, but there is unquestionably a loss of low end on the effected portion of the signal, so having a clean blend on that is pretty essential IMO. 

Maybe something is up with your setup. The VT Bass DI can be dialed in for flat response with the Blend fully on. When the speaker sim is engaged there is actually a bump in the low end at around 22Hz. 

Funny, I've tested some of these units myself and both versions can be set flat. I'm not sure what else to say. The pedal in bypass mode is flat and when engaged with all controls at Noon and with the Blend off is flat. Once you get into the realm of tube amp emulation "flat response" becomes a moot point. SVT's aren't known for being flat response amps. People dial them in and drive them into distortion because they sound great that way.

We make products that produce intentional distortion. The very definition of distortion contradicts flat response in an audio signal path. We've sold thousands of these over the years and players use them in all sorts of ways with great results. If it's not the product for you and you don't like our other offerings that's cool.

It can be dialed in flat. You need to turn the Blend off. It sort of defeats the point of the product. I was trying to figure out if you didn't like the sound of it when using into an amp, into a mixer or both. This is why I suggested you might like some of our other DI's. The VT Bass DI can be dialed in pretty close to flat with the Blend up as long as you are using fairly low Drive settings.

12 hours ago, Judo Chop said:

Well my two day old V2 keeps losing power when I connect the parallel out or 1/4 out to my amp or interface, LED starts to dim and sound slowly cuts out as soon as either of these are plugged in. Seems to work fine when just using the XLR output by itself.

That's when using phantom power from my interface or a seperate power supply, it won't work at all with a battery.

 

That sounds odd. When trying the pedal with a battery was it disconnected from DC and phantom power? If it's new and won't work off a battery you should exchange it for a different one. All our pedals are tested before they leave the factory and the battery test is one of the tests that gets performed. 

When running off phantom power did you try a different channel and or XLR cable? 

13 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

It's used all over the place depending on what I am doing.

Every which way the midscoop gets dialed out.

Dunno where you got this idea.

Read the wrong post, sorry. On the older v1 Bass Driver the Bass and Treble controls affect the midrange. Turning both controls up decreases the midrange and turning both down increases the midrange. Both versions can be set flat with the Blend off. In the end it depends what you are plugging into and also the type of bass being used etc. As I said, we do have other products with more midrange control that may be more suitable for your application.  You never mentioned what you were using the pedal with. Into an amp, mixer etc?

19 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

Yeah I own both BDDI and Deluxe, I recommend them often. Great stuff at reasonable prices. Live customer service on the internet. Great for avoiding soundguy conniptions.

Still my BDDI needs help on account of less mids coming out than went in. That's not an obsession with flat.

The OP asked.

So it's not appropriate to put me down and suggest turning it off.

I was not trying to put you down. The flat response thing doesn't make sense with a pedal that is designed as an amp emulator. As I said it can be set flat if you want to bypass the SansAmp portion of the circuit. 

What are you running the pedal into? The pedal was designed as a DI. 

Usually the issue with the midrange content is when players use the pedal into an amp. If you are using it as a stompbox in front of the amp it helps to take a different approach. Most bass amps have an inherent mid-scoop which will be exacerbated by the Bass Driver DI's tone. The workaround is to either set the host amp for flat response (if possible) or plug the pedal into your amp's effects return so you can bypass your amp's preamp section. We also make the Para Driver DI, VT Bass DI and some other pedals that have more midrange control if the Bass Driver DI is not the tone you're looking for. The fact that you are running the Blend so low indicates that maybe tube emulation is not something you're a big fan of which is cool. You might be better off with our Q\Strip if you just want EQ control.

On 09/07/2021 at 16:02, Downunderwonder said:

That would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Only on internet forums is there this preoccupation with flat response. Flat response means there is no change in sound. So put the pedal in bypass and you can use it as a regular DI. If you turn off the Blend control and set the tone controls at their midpoint the unit is also flat and becomes an active DI with EQ. The SansAmp section is only the Drive and Presence controls. The Bass Driver DI is an amp emulator /DI. It's supposed to sound like a vintage tube amp and includes tube amp and speaker emulation which are not supposed to be flat. You can't have distortion and flat response.

The unit has the Blend control which enables you to mix in your unprocessed signal along with the Tube amp emulation. This goes back to the old studio technique of mic'ing a bass amp in the studio while also running a direct signal to the console. The two signal are mixed together to give you a composite sound. Because most live sound techs like to DI the bass amp (vs mic'ing) the bass Driver DI was developed to give you a better DI tone than can be easily achieved with a standard DI box or your amp's DI out.

If you want "flat" put the pedal in bypass.

Using the Bass Driver DI as with any other pedal it all depends on what you are playing through. Our sample settings in the manual are all done straight into a mixer with various bass guitars. When you plug into an amplifier, the amplifier's preamp and speaker system will have a big influence on the overall sound. We recommend setting your amp for a flat or neutral response or running into your amp's effects loop return to bypass your preamp to get the best results.

The Bass Driver DI is not a typical distortion pedal though many use it that way. It depends what you are trying to accomplish. The original design goal was for you to plug your bass into the Bass Driver DI and send the parallel output to our bass amp and use your amp for your stage sound and monitor. The XLR of the Bass Driver would be sent to the mixer for the optimal DI tone. With most bass amps you can do a pre-eq DI which is the sound of your bass guitar's pickups (boring and lackluster) or do a post EQ. It's limited. There are numerous ways to use the pedal.

The toggle switch can be used to combine the channels. On the newer units there is a mix output on the Drive channel. If you only use that one output the channels are automatically combined.

6 hours ago, Jakester said:

The Octafilter on mine was definitely borked - lots of bitcrush-style noise on anything other than a light touch. TBH I loved the idea, but in practice just didn't work for me.

We've had people send in their units for repair with the same complaint and they were working correctly. The newer version does have a different taper for the controls that makes it easier to adjust that section. 

5 hours ago, sirmuppet said:

Here's a question for you. How does the Bass driver and VT bass on the fly rig V2 compare to the stand alone pedals? Exactly the same tone? I know from using the BDDI v1 & v2 that the v2 with the added mid control sounded very different and could be down to me not finding the right mid setting the v1 would have been defaulted to. 

The basic Bass Driver tone shape is there. There is no Blend control like the standalone pedal. The addition of the midrange control on the Bass Driver v2 in conjunction with the Bass and Treble works differently than the v1 version. Some settings will be identical some won't. The Bass Driver sound on the Bass Fly Rig v2 is more like the v2 Bass Driver. 

4 hours ago, Skybone said:

Looks good. Still no headphone out though.

The headphone feature for the most part has been problematic to end users and us. We have had end users send in their units for repair only to find they had the headphone button engaged when using  the unit with an amp or mixer. 

Octave pedals work best when connected directly to the instrument. You don't want them in the effects loop or before a distortion or chorus. Like any multi-effects pedal, if you have a specific pedal that you can't do without, you may need to incorporate that with the Bass Fly Rig. The Octafilter section is better understood if you hear it in context with the effects it was patterned after. (see below) If you don't need those effects don't use them. It's still a great deal if you were to price out the pedal with individual effects. A compressor, VT Bass DI, Bass Driver, Chorus and Tuner. 

There was never anything broken on the Octafilter section. Many players didn't understand it but it was never broken. We did change the taper of the controls to make it easier to use. 

The VT Bass DI is based on Ampeg style tones. It is also a DI box. The YYZ is a stripped down stompbox version of our GED-2112.

Aside from wattage differences, the VT 1969 has two discrete channels and also has the ability to mix the two and also a switchable mute. The VT Bass 500 has the Bite, mid shift,  blend and headphone functions.

We do still have bags for the VT Bass 500 that you can purchase. I would check with our distributor to see if they have some locally.

We do have some cabs left here but that doesn't help much...Maybe try our distributor:

ROCKY ROAD DISTRIBUTION LTD
Tel:   + 44 (0) 1494 535333
Fax:  + 44 (0) 8701 360067
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.rocky-rd.com

The Bass Driver/RBI like many of our SansAmps can be set clean. Because they are emulating the sound of a vintage tube amp many demos focus on the more over driven sounds. The reason we have the Blend up all the way in many sample settings is simple, vintage tube amps have no Blend control. The Blend control was part of the original design conception and goes back to how bass guitar used to be recorded in a studio setting. The bass guitar would go to a DI and the direct signal went to the board and the through of the DI went to a mic'd bass amp and both signals were "blended" at the board. It was a composite sound. In most settings whether live or in the studio the bass is DI'd these days.

Your clean sound with our SansAmps will depend upon how much headroom you are playing with. With less headroom you will tend to play harder and hit the circuit harder. If you want no amp emulation you can turn the Blend all the way off and now you have a DI with EQ.

At the moment we are no longer producing any Deluxe pedals. We have no plans to make another Leeds at the present. For product suggestions I recommend posting on our Facebook page. The Leeds is a really cool pedal. I still have mine and use it regularly for both bass and lead guitar. They do pop up used from time to time.

You should never assume that it is safe to power any pedal with an incorrect power supply. We get so many pedals in for repair that have been damaged by using the improper power supply. When in doubt check your owners manual or contact the manufacturer.

22 minutes ago, MGBrown said:

I just love watching that guy on the vids. Tim? What's his story?

I don't know him personally but everyone tells me he's a great guy that really loves to play the bass. It comes across in the videos he does.

On 27/03/2020 at 14:54, dave_bass5 said:

Ok, this is really pushing me in the right direction now.

Am i right in thinking the pedal doesn’t have amp sims as such, and that the presets In the manual are just EQ variations to simulate the named rig?

 

The pedal is an analog amp emulator. It is an actual circuit that mimics a real tube amp's behavior. This is not the same as a modeler that uses algorithms. Basically there is one very flexible circuit that has an all analog signal path and uses a microprocessor to store the presets. The presets are a good place to start but once you understand the pedal it's easy enough to tweak. Personally I always have it set in "Performance Mode" and dial in my sounds and save to those 3 slots.

If you have an interest in the technical side of things there is absolutely nothing wrong with learning about it. Our designer and owner as well as our chief engineer are both guitar and bass players. As someone that deals with the end user on a regular basis, my point is about the internet in general where people with little understanding of the science read some information (many times misinformation) and have no idea what it really means or how it applies. They go down this rabbit hole of research and analysis, taking measurements etc. only to get to a gig and struggle with the physics of the environment and wonder why the aforementioned seemed to fail them.