Told to buy new basses

[SteveXFR]

2 hours ago, Crawford13 said:

Good decision, another route to go, instead of the tone capsule, you could use any of the darkglass pedals as a preamp. There is the harmonic booster which is closest to a clean preamp like the tone capsule but with more tonal variety. 

Would that cause any issues having three preamps in my signal chain? 

There would be one in the bass, one on my pedal board and one in my amp 

[Frank Blank]

28 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

Would that cause any issues having three preamps in my signal chain?

Be careful you don't cross the Preamp Horizon and become a singularity.

[MartinB]

If all of the pre-amps are trying to boost the incoming signal, then you're going to run out of headroom somewhere. You'll probably have to experiment to see what gets the best sound, e.g.
High output from bass --> pedal at unity output (same volume when switched on/off) --> low gain on amp (or "active" input/switch)
Low output from bass --> pedal boosts the output --> low gain on amp
Low output from bass --> pedal at unity output --> high gain on amp
Or each of them doing a little bit of signal boosting, etc.

[bearhart74]

On 03/05/2021 at 11:54, SteveXFR said:

Is it normal for other band members to tell you what bass you need to buy? 

How would you react to being told to buy a £2500 bass?

The only response is "Are you my mom?"

[Crawford13]

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

Would that cause any issues having three preamps in my signal chain? 

There would be one in the bass, one on my pedal board and one in my amp 

I guess the truth here is yes, like had already been mentioned you could run out of headroom. But the other truth is that the tone capsule is also a preamp just not in pedal form so would have the same effect. 

[uk_lefty]

2 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

Would that cause any issues having three preamps in my signal chain? 

There would be one in the bass, one on my pedal board and one in my amp 

You don't have to use each preamp. Not sure about your amp but I can bypass my amps EQ and I used to do this when using an active Sire bass and amp sims on a Boss pedal board. 

[SteveXFR]

Does a effects loop bypass the preamp? 

[Crawford13]

6 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

Does a effects loop bypass the preamp? 

With most amps yes, you can go in through the effects return. However on some amps it will also bypass the volume control meaning you have to control the volume before it gets to the amp. 

[mcnach]

Multiple preamps are ok, and a lot of us use them (onboard, in the amplifier, some on pedals...). Just be sensible. You can boost the hell out of each of them, but you probably won't like the result. 

[Crawford13]

3 minutes ago, mcnach said:

Multiple preamps are ok, and a lot of us use them (onboard, in the amplifier, some on pedals...). Just be sensible. You can boost the hell out of each of them, but you probably won't like the result. 

Very good point here. Think of it like gain staging. Start with the onboard preamp pretty close to flat, then make the EQ and drive adjustments along the signal chain. This will give you the opportunity to go from pretty clean to filthy as you like. Also same with how present your mids are.