Rack Mount Valve / Pre

[Chris Horton]

Hi ,

My current bass rig/ setup is an Epiani UL 502 amp with a series 1 UL 410 cab and i play a 73 P bass and a Stingray 5

I love this rig as it is very clear/punchy sounding , but sometimes i would like to get a bit more walm/valve tome out of my speakers.

I was looking into maybe getting a rackmout valve/pre amp that could be mounted alongside my amp.

Has anyone done a similar thing?
Can anyone recomend gear that they have used or any items that may be worth looking at ?

Thanks in advance
Chris

[Dood]

Hi Chris,

Yes, I have done this many-a-time with more gear than common sense! I've also owned an Epifani UL-610 and a good few 'D-Class' amplifiers too so I have an idea what you are after. One thing to mention that I think is sometimes misunderstood, is that you don't *have* to buy a valve preamp to 'warm up' the tone a bit. I think a lot of it is in our crazy GAS filled minds that the valve has mysterious magical properties, when in actual fact it's possible to get the same tonal results from non-valve gear. To what extent you chase tonal nirvana is totally up to you and I am certainly not poo-pooing the other benefits (or indeed disadvantages included) of using valves. I have to say, I really like the sound of the preamp in the Hartke LH heads. It's said to be an Alembic / Fender tonestack clone. It's dead simple and brilliant. Though it's not designed to 'do dirty' and has tones of headroom and no need for a gain control.

So there's preamps that *will* do valve dirt and ones that will remain cleaner and warmer. You also have the option of 'tube rolling', where you'll be able to swap valves out of whatever preamp you get to change the tone and gain structure. (It could get fun and expensive in the search for that rare Mullard Box valve, or an original Telefunken!!)

ok, here's a brief list of all the valve loaded preamps I have owned (I can recall right now) - All are tonally different and I have to say, I liked pretty much all of them!

Trace Elliot V-Type - another based on the Alembic / Fender design. I have to say, this one was awesome. Stupidly sold it. Hats off to Trace, built with the very best components and a great tone.
Ampeg SVP-Pro - 90's black face. Upgrade the stock valves straight away! - It has been documented that these models were a bit on the noisey side, but really good quality valves help no end.
Ampeg SVP-Pro - Hammerite face. Yup, loved this one! Upgraded the valves to Harma Diamond STR drive tested. Again, great improvement and both SVPs allow you to drive the signal hard and make it grind!
Ampeh SVP-BSP - Billy Sheehan's signature preamp - has a seperate distortion channel that can be mixed with the clean channel. The valve supplies the signal to both halves of the preamp, but does NOT provide the distortion aspect. The clean channel is great - though the controls are more subtle than say the SVP-Pro
Warwick Quadruplet - bit of a rare preamp now. Actually contains a power amp valve to enable you to simulate driving a full valve amp hard, but the output is still at line level. I thnk this could possibly interest you! Tonally, there's tons of options on this beast. The additional power amp section did make the 'feel' of the amp different. - I say different becasue some will love it, some won't. - but it's all about valve compression!

I've also played through the BBE T-Max (includes the Alembic / Fender topology) which is a great preamp. OBBM posted a message in the past to say that he'd had his preamp modified because 'hot output' basses drive the input section a little too hard.

Looking at your rig, I can understand why you might fancy a bit more warmth (which I will read as 'low mids'). The Epi cabs are said to have more upper mids in their inherent tone. The 502 is clean clean clean clean! - Just like a channel strip and I feel that the stingray pickup is giving you lots of upper mid and treble bite, but they have less 'pronounced' bottom, in comparison to say a P bass pickup with the same output level. You could possible have a go at winding down the UL's tweeter a bit and if you can, boost some of the lower mids in your tone, say between 100hz and 400hz. That will make things sound a bit more 'buttery' and 'warmer'.

Do you notice a big difference in perceived 'warmth' between the P Bass and Stingray?

Finally, if you decide not to go for a rack, there's a few - well , quite a few valve preamp pedals out there - and a few 'simulator' type pedals too that could be worth checking out.

EBS Valvedrive, EBS MicroBass, Hartke Attack, Sansamp BDDI, Sansamp ParaDriver (I like!), DHA valve pedals just a few off the top of my head!

I hope this helps - I've rambled for a bit, so feel free to dissect my post!

[Chris Horton]

Thanks dood for your very helpful insight. You seem very clued up about this subject.

This area can be a bit of a mine field

My previous bass rig was an Orange AD200 mk 2 with a 410 & 115 cabs.
I miss the creamy sound of the Orange amp but love the sound ( clarity/punch/defination) of the Epifani . The fact that the Epifani can be lifted without the help of a small crane was a good selling point also

I find that my two bass guitars sound very different to each other. One is active and the other is passive.
I find my stingray 5 very "tight" sounding, but also a little creamy at the same time . I guess that is because of the humbucker pickup.

In comparison to my Stingray 5 Piezo , I find my stock 73 P bass to sound a little wooly around the edges. It has the normal precision tone and Mid range thump.

Also . . . . . . .the two bass guitars sound very different if you plug them into either the active/passive channel on my amp.

I shall have a play around with the settings on my amp and check out your recomendations ,

Great comments , thanks very very muchley

Edited October 19, 2010 by Chris Horton

[Dood]

No problem Chris, a pleasure to natter about gear always! Let me know how you get on and we'll see where it takes us on the gear journey!

[BassBod]

Well, the Dood did indeed. Just to add, I've got an Alembic (F2B) which is a simple re-build of a Fender Dual Showman front end - doesn't really do dirty, but it does clean so well its not true! Your bass, but musical is how I hear it. I often use mine with a Euphonic Audio head, but just as a power amp (bypassing the internal preamp).

May be worth trying the Hartke head to see how you get on with the passive eq?

[Bigwan]

From your description a v-type pre would be the answer, but they're not easy to come by.

[Stag]

I would say the V-Type would be the way forward as well...

...I was after a BSP for ages - they dont turn up very often sadly. And when they do they tend to have US power transformers. So I gave up and bought an SVT 5, which basically is the BSP with another amp in it. lol

[tayste_2000]

My Trace TVT9 has about the most tubes you'll get in a preamp, loads of warmth and ever gain sound imaginable

[Chris Horton]

Thanks for the great comments everyone, very helpfull.

I'm gunna have a play about with the settings on my amp and see where we go from there.