Portable preamp / DI for Bass, Electric and Acoustic?

[mattyb]

I'm having thoughts about re-doing my rig to make gigging easier and set up/tear down quicker! Previously I've been playing exclusively bass, running my P into a pedalboard (tuner, comp, octave, envelope, overdrive) which then goes to an Avalon U5 and into my amp and cab.

The majority of my sound is coming from the U5 as a tone shaping device - which is perfect, sounds exactly how I want it to but it is one more piece of equipment to carry and I'd love to have all my tone shaping based solely on my pedalboard. On top of that, I'm now playing acoustic guitar and electric gutiar almost as often as bass, so I'd like to have one set up that I don't feel like I have to change for each gig.

The overdrive, octave and filter are basically decorations and are all on the chop so that has freed up pedal space. I've love to be able to get a pedalboard mounted U5 but sadly they don't exist. My research has led me to a Tech 21 Paradriver - I've heard it sounds very good for bass and acoustic but I'm wondering would I be left wanting for that huge warm sound the U5 provides? I'm also thinking that with its drive control, could it double up as a boost when I play electric guitar to add some hair to a clean amp?

Perhaps I'm being to ambitious here! Does anyone have any other suggestions for something that would do what I want? Maybe a JHS Colour box?

[sifi2112]

I have a 3Leaf Enabler as a preamp on my pedalboard tho haven't tried it much with guitar as yet but it's very transparent.

[uncle psychosis]

The Zoom B3 has an emulation of the U5 on it. I really like how it sounds compared to the real thing but it sounds good to me. You could then use the other effects on the B3 too.