JoeEvans

Strings can potentially make more of a difference to the sound of a bass than any amp or pedal, so if paying £50 over the odds makes your instrument sound amazing, it might seem cheap at the price compared to a £400 preamp or £2k amp...

In my early teens I heard a cassette copy of 'Green Bullfrog' and the bass playing on that was probably the single thing that most drove me to start playing the bass. 'Walk a mile in my shoes' in particular is just a pure exuberant blast. I only much later found out that it was Chas Hodges of Chas'n'Dave, which was unexpected to say the least. I haven't listened to it in years though, tastes move on...

It's hard to shift them but on the other hand, the sale of one CD generates about the same profit as having 1,377,339 people listen to the album on Spotify.

You can't help but suspect that the luthier had an otherwise nice batch of timber that had got ruined by woodworm, and decided to make the best of the situation...

Stunning bass!

I think a unique bass that someone has carefully assembled has another kind of mojo.

There are some gorgeous basses in this thread! I don't know why but I find a nice bitsa bass much more appealing than an equally nice off the shelf one...

Aguilar's website seems to suggest that the AG preamp pedals are super transparent, whereas the Tone Hammer aims for valve amp character, does that sound about right?

Ooh that's interesting. Thanks!

I'm after something that will work for just DI but which I will probably also use with an amp. Warm, clean or nearly clean sound, nice solid low end. Ultimately I suppose the kind of sound I used to get from a large, cranked-up Trace Elliot, in a package that weighs about 50kg less... But I'm also more broadly interested to know what's out there and to hear some user experiences, I find it hard to hear subtle tonal differences in YouTube review videos ...

I've tried a few that were good at adding eq, drive etc but seemed pretty transparent in themselves. I want something which adds a bit of warmth and solidity ideally, but just interested to hear people's experiences about what's out there.

I think I'm just interested to hear about any preamp pedals that successfully give a specific character to a clean-ish sound. Obviously lots of them promise that, but which pedals have you plugged in and heard a definite, useful, specific tone?

Which preamp pedals would you say have a distinctive tone, even with fairly neutral settings and clean sound? A bit like the channel strips from certain older mixing desks, which imparted their own vibe to whatever went through them, so much so that they now get stripped out of the old desks, mounted in racks and sold as high-end mic preamps.

Is anyone using a Trace Elliot Transit B preamp? Any thoughts if so?

I think there's a pretty broad zone of solid, playable basses that are better than basic cheapies without being stunning deluxe coffee tables. Something like a Reverend would be at the lower end of the zone, good enough for any actual musical function but under a grand new. For £1500 you get pretty much anything in that zone if you're happy to go secondhand.