krispn

Weighty?

Sweet really interested in hearing some thoughts after hands on experience. It does sound like the things I enjoy in a preamp.

I know exactly what you mean. There’s a way of designing a tube based preamp in conjunction with transformers which just sits right, sounds right and feels right to play. For many of us a compressor adds to that but at its fundamental core tone there’s a magic from transformers which is more present, deeply analogue and has a saturation and fatness which is very different to tubes. I’ve checked out the United D.I. on you tube and it’s a solid unit. We really should meet up and chat tone some day 🙂 The BR15 does a lovely thing but it’s not everyone’s ideal sound. It’s a classic sound but quite specific. I respect your choice and applaud it!

Many years ago I bought a Read Purity preamp and it sounded amazing. It’s not the tube sound people might think it has a clean more hi-fi type sound and I eventually gravitated to transformer based colouration. This for me is where it’s at. I still like tubes but transformer based colouration is what I’ve grown to appreciate.

Ooh I stand corrected it has deep dive functionality. It's officially multi fx unit

I think what it is essentially is a programmable bass driver DI. It’s repackaged, now digital and they’ve stuck a couple of extra features from the fly rig. Might be a better choice for someone who likes the T21 brand/sound and wants a simple throw in the gig bag unit. Looks pretty easy to use over a multi fx, no menu diving, mobile phone apps and all the stuff folks here and on TB complain about with some of these multi fx units. Too much to get your head around and they then get let in a drawer for 2 yrs or you’ve got something with the processing power to fly a fleet of 1960’s spacecraft and mange the control room too! Perhaps just a T21 diehard wanting midi integration of that classic sound? It’s not being branded or sold as multi fx if I’m reading the website correctly it’s a BDDI with added features rather than a very poorly realised T21 multi fx unit. Oh and it looks cool as… big and chunky, black, sturdy casing. Plus brands need to keep ‘innovating’ cause we all love to talk about gear on here 🙂

Caveat I’m not really that sure I know what I’m taking about she it comes to individual component costs etc but I have a couple of LBA 2020s transformers which add an audible impact and I think were about £90 but to buy the actual individual component form LBA is about $70 on average depending on the transformer. I digress. I get the discussion on price. Custom transformer are expense to make probably more expensive than sticking a tube in a pedal for the sake of it having tubes in it. There’s two custom TX’ers in this unit. The classic (very satisfying) clicky/stepped knobs like in studio gear are more expensive. I’d dare say the components are more expensive in this unit as well and from what I’ve learned so far it’s been made to be a high quality unit. A Behringer/TC rat clone is about £23 but a Jam Rattler is £229… I’ve not noticed the same kinda chat on Jam pedal threads going on about the cost. It’s been done again on the recent origin thread - Bassrig versus an affordable multifx and it’s a natural enough discussion to have. Price versus value etc. but it’s been done to death. A Caveman BP1 is about £750 and one could argue the Mantle has more features so comparatively it’s ’better value’ in this price range for this type of unit versus the Rat clones mentioned. Someone mentioned it’s cheaper than a Noble and having the transformers it might be a better suited unit for a wider range of players and more reliable as there’s no tubes involved -no additional cost down the line replacing tubes! Its got a well thought out EQ which does make sense and feels very studio-y! Not for everyone maybe but I like the LPF and HPF design. If you’re not into spending £750 on a bass let alone a pedal this was never for you. All opinions are ‘valid’ and I don’t really enjoy posting on these types of discussion as it’s all a bit pointless. I have a tube preamp which has 4 tubes, a custom Cinemag transformer, three band eq and I’d say it’s a far better ‘value’ unit than a Noble, ‘more versatile’, sounds great and isn’t the one trick pony (but what a lovely trick) the Noble is. I’d love to play through the Mantle and I wonder how the feel of it would be compared to a NAM capture of it. We’ll see them appear soon enough I’d say.