Live D.I options, what do I need to know?

[pburrows]

I’m getting panicky about selling my last barefaced cab in preparation for going amp less. I love my rig but think it’s time to go helix. 

[EBS_freak]

29 minutes ago, pburrows said:

I’m getting panicky about selling my last barefaced cab in preparation for going amp less. I love my rig but think it’s time to go helix. 

Well that escalated quickly 

"and another one"

[pburrows]

21 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Well that escalated quickly 

"and another one"

Lol yeah. I’ve been looking at it very closely over the last few months. Truth is we re playing quite big gigs now and my rig (trace head + 2 x BF cabs) is just to loud on stage. It’s got a lovely sound but it’s too much for monitoring. I’ve already sold all my fx pedals. The one issue I’ve got is gigging while I make to move over to amp less 😎

[Baker69]

On 08/02/2018 at 09:46, NancyJohnson said:

You do have the option with a Sansamp of switching between line and instrument for the XLR output which will alter the XLR output strength and ideally the Sansamp should be at the end of your signal chain.  You can always tweak the level down as well (it's not always about getting the hottest signal possible into the desk).

I've never been a fan of sticking any pre-stage into the front of an amp either.  Your Trace gear will have it's own tonal characteristics (and from memory the whole SMX fascia it pretty much there to shape and filter what hits the poweramp side of the head).  All you're doing is loading the Sansamp pre-stage output on top of the Trace pre-stage, so things will get muddy.  Neither the Trace or Sansamp operate on a true bypass format, so both units will work together and generally not for the best. 

There's an argument that for best results, the Sansamp should just go into the effects return on any amp (just use the 1/4" output jack), thus bypassing the pre-stage.  (You may need to put a jack plug, or one of this mini-jack to 1/4" headphone connectors, into one of the amplifier's front inputs to facilitate this.)  This way the Sansamp will control your entire tone. I know there's a lot of controls that will become obsolete, but try it, you might be surprised.

Yeah, I’ve got a Sansamp it’s the VT Bass DI model and it works extremely well through my Ashdown rig, as you say go into the Return socket on the amp to bypass the TE’s own preamp and (with mine anyway) plug a 1/4” headphone adaptor into the front input socket. Use the XLR on the Sansamp to the desk not the TE’s XLR out. 

Superb sound, I used to hate hearing the sound of my bass through the PA but it sounds really good now. So now I have a really good on stage sound plus I have confidence that a good sound is going out front.

As it’s a Trace Elliott I would turn off the Pre Shape button as this will affect the sound.

[dannybuoy]

On 08/02/2018 at 09:19, pburrows said:

Dudes. My band now seem to be playing mainly larger venues now and don't really do pubs and smaller venues. This means that I am relying on DI to the house PA. Generally this is fine, I use the XLR out from my Trace Amp. I use a Sans Amp to handle a EQ and a bit of drive. What I'd really like is to be able to send a reliable overdriven tone to the PA. I recently tried to do this from my Sans Amp but it wasn't working correctly, I could hear it clipping.

Any thoughts on what direction I could take? Eg different DI box, rackmounted?

Cheers

Going back to basics and forgetting the extended and complexity of the Helix for a second - if you were getting unintended clipping from the Sansamp, surely you just need to play with the gain structure to stop this. Either reduce the volume on the pedal, adjust the line/inst level switch on the pedal (unless yours is the old version that didn't have these switches), or play with the pad and trim controls on the desk.

The Sansamp BDDI or VTDI are great little units, far simpler and cheaper to boot. No reason why you can't get a great stage sound from them. If you have an audio interface you can actually download a full 15 day trial of the Helix in plug-in format. I tried this out last night and I realise I've only scratched the surface so far but I tried all the amp models out and would prefer to use my VTDI than purchase a Helix to use as a bass amp modeller.

[NancyJohnson]

1 hour ago, Baker69 said:

Yeah, I’ve got a Sansamp it’s the VT Bass DI model and it works extremely well through my Ashdown rig, as you say go into the Return socket on the amp to bypass the TE’s own preamp and (with mine anyway) plug a 1/4” headphone adaptor into the front input socket. Use the XLR on the Sansamp to the desk not the TE’s XLR out. 

Superb sound, I used to hate hearing the sound of my bass through the PA but it sounds really good now. So now I have a really good on stage sound plus I have confidence that a good sound is going out front.

As it’s a Trace Elliott I would turn off the Pre Shape button as this will affect the sound.

I know there's probably not a right or wrong way to use BDDIs or VTBASS type stompboxes, but personally I've never had the desire to simply lump one into the front of any head.  I played with a guitarist one time who got a pretty acceptable tone by playing a Les Paul into a Fender Twin Reverb.  For some insane reason he started building this huuuuge pedalboard with several distortion/fuzz pedals on it...he just couldn't grasp the concept of how coloured his tone became when he piled output from a distortion pedal on top of an already distorted amp tone; he'd look at you like a lost puppy.  'Clean?  Wny would I want to have my amp running clean?'  He threw thousands at gear and eventually wised up that the Les Paul/Twin Reverb was the best tone he'd ever had.

Sigh.