Sansamp advice

[JPJ]

So about a year ago I finally succumbed and added a Sansamp to my meagre board. Playing my Lakland P through this I get an awesome tone using the suggested ‘Fat Tube’ settings but I’ve noticed that whilst the tone is great on the E & A up to about the fifth fret, once I venture further south the tone thins out and I feel like I disappear if you know what I mean? So I am tentatively looking for suggestions of alternatives that will still give me that ‘just about to break up’ grind but across the whole fretboard. What do you suggest?

[Lozz196]

I’ve currently got the v2 Sansamp, which isn’t as scooped in the sound and has a mid control as well. I find to get a weightier sound on the higher notes/thinner strings that backing off of the blend, treble and presence, then increasing the gain gets this. The gain seems to add in high end as well as thickness so I end up with the same eq, just a thicker version.

[warwickhunt]

I know you use the TC Plethora mate, do you find this issue when running the compressor?  

 

[JPJ]

45 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

I know you use the TC Plethora mate, do you find this issue when running the compressor?  

 

Yes, and tonight’s job is to play around with the TonePrint editor to see if that’s the cause or not. Trouble is its pretty hard to replicate at home volumes 

[Sibob]

2 hours ago, JPJ said:

So about a year ago I finally succumbed and added a Sansamp to my meagre board. Playing my Lakland P through this I get an awesome tone using the suggested ‘Fat Tube’ settings but I’ve noticed that whilst the tone is great on the E & A up to about the fifth fret, once I venture further south the tone thins out and I feel like I disappear if you know what I mean? So I am tentatively looking for suggestions of alternatives that will still give me that ‘just about to break up’ grind but across the whole fretboard. What do you suggest?

I think with a lot of the Sansamp suggested settings, they’re set to full on the blend control (ie no clean bass sound). I know that the key with the original Sansamp to get the mids working for you again (which kind sounds like the issue here) is to start to bring that blend control in, tried that?

 

Si

[Downunderwonder]

When I use a BDDI it's got an EQ pedal as well.

[JPJ]

16 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

I’ve currently got the v2 Sansamp, which isn’t as scooped in the sound and has a mid control as well. I find to get a weightier sound on the higher notes/thinner strings that backing off of the blend, treble and presence, then increasing the gain gets this. The gain seems to add in high end as well as thickness so I end up with the same eq, just a thicker version.

So from home experimentation last night I backed off the blend and upped the gain and it helped but the biggest improvement came from playing around with the multi-band compression settings in the Plethora. Reducing the ratio on the ‘mid’ band seems to have resolved the issue at home levels at least.

[Tech21NYC]

The sample settings for the Bass Driver DI were done with a vintage Fender bass directly into a mixer and near field monitors. The Blend is usually set to 100% since the SansAmp emulates vintage tube amps that have no blend control. What you are plugging the Bass Driver into will have an impact on the final sound. It's best to use the Bass Driver into a flat response platform when you first use it so you can hear and understand how it works. Running through other effects or a bass amp with its own EQ curve will negate the sample settings and the way the pedal is supposed to work.

 

The unit does have a midrange scoop by design and backing off the Blend or increasing the midrange can help if you require more mids. We also offer the ParaDriver and VT Bass DI's for players that want more control over the midrange content. 

[JPJ]

5 hours ago, Tech21NYC said:

The sample settings for the Bass Driver DI were done with a vintage Fender bass directly into a mixer and near field monitors. The Blend is usually set to 100% since the SansAmp emulates vintage tube amps that have no blend control. What you are plugging the Bass Driver into will have an impact on the final sound. It's best to use the Bass Driver into a flat response platform when you first use it so you can hear and understand how it works. Running through other effects or a bass amp with its own EQ curve will negate the sample settings and the way the pedal is supposed to work.

 

The unit does have a midrange scoop by design and backing off the Blend or increasing the midrange can help if you require more mids. We also offer the ParaDriver and VT Bass DI's for players that want more control over the midrange content. 

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I must confess that I tend to run my amp eq ‘flat’ although each amp obviously has its own baked in tone. I think I’ve identified that the source of the issue was actually the compression I was running in front of the Sansamp. More experimentation to follow, but thanks again for the explanation. 

[JPJ]

15 hours ago, JPJ said:

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I must confess that I tend to run my amp eq ‘flat’ although each amp obviously has its own baked in tone. I think I’ve identified that the source of the issue was actually the compression I was running in front of the Sansamp. More experimentation to follow, but thanks again for the explanation. 

So after an evening deep diving into multi-band compression and much experimentation I think I have come up with two patches for the Hypergravity compressor in my Plethora X3 that support both my fretted and fretless playing. The Sansamp turned out to just need a tweak of additional mid to work alongside the new compression settings. Next gig isn’t for a few weeks but I will get a chance to test the new patches in rehearsal this Saturday. Got to say the TonePrint editor is massively tweakable and its possible to go down the rabbit hole if you are not careful.