BDDI and modulation - examples?

[PatrolOfStroll]

Good afternoon everybody!

Yesterday, I took delivery of my first physical effects unit, and it's the venerable, dare I say LEGENDARY, SansAmp Bass Driver DI (v2). Playing around with it using phantom power, I'm extremely pleased. It's every bit as good as people say, to me, and I immediately feel that "impossible to get a bad sound out of it" quality that people ascribe to it. I can get such a huge range of tones out of it by playing with the knobs, and the way that such different sounds are almost never unpleasant to me feels outright magical. It's unbelievably satisfying to find spots in the Drive knob's range where I can get a distinct difference in dirt between using fingers and using pick. I definitely think I made the right choice, between this little box of tricks and a multi-FX unit. I almost pulled the trigger on a Boss GT-1000CORE, and though that seems to be an extremely good unit, I'm glad I went this way instead. I love the simplicity and versatility of this thing and I think I would've got lost in menus and parameters on something more complicated; I would've had a much harder time truly "sculpting" a good sound.

Anyway, now that I'm situated with it and very pleased with the sound, I'm beginning to consider the other effects I may use with it once I'm a few more paycheques into my new work! I don't want a super heavy pedal set-up. I don't have a strong urge for more out-there effects, nor some of the classics of bass like touch wah or synth pedals. When I've played around with delay on bass, so far I've found it gets very messy and oppressive very quickly, and so I don't feel a draw to delay like I would if I was on six-string. I've found myself enjoying reverb most at rather subtle settings, and I realised that the settings I liked are so subtle that I can more-or-less forgo them in the name of money and future pedalboard space. I'm picturing a PT Nano board, or maybe a Nano+ at a stretch.

So, basically, what I have in mind for sounds I'd enjoy playing with is as follows:

- A tuner, probably the Pitchblack X Mini or a Polytune 3 Mini;

- An octaver or pitch-shifter of some description, an OC-5 or an EHX Pitch Fork look like good shouts;

- Fuzz, I have my eye on the EQD Hizumitas, since it looks great, has a tone filter that's calibrated in a way that seems very usable for bass, and based on demos I listen to, seems to sound great for bass in practice, too.

These can (and probably should) go in front of the BDDI no problem. But, it leaves one major favourite effect of mine in a tough spot! Like so many others, I LOVE a good bass chorus tone. And, I know this is a common dilemma, but using the XLR out from the BDDI precludes using a chorus in the "correct" conventional position of coming after a preamp (which is also the recommended approach listed by Tech 21, of course).

So, this is all a long-winded way of getting to my ultimate question! Does anybody here know of any demos that are out there that showcase the sounds of a chorus effect placed BEFORE a BDDI? This seems to be a common solution to the dilemma, to just put it in this less ideal spot and deal with it. But I haven't been able to find any examples to hear how this compromise sounds. Ideally, I'd like to hear a direct comparison of the same chorus on either side of the BDDI, but just being able to hear the sound of a chorus before would be extremely helpful, too.

The other obvious solution would be to just use 1/4" Out from the BDDI into a chorus, and have a separate DI box afterwards, rather than using the BDDI's XLR. It incurs a little more cost and potentially a little more board space. Though, for the timebeing, I'm not even going to be using any setup somewhere where I should expect I will truly need DI Out... but I get a bit neurotic about wanting my setup to be "complete"!

Rambling over. Thanks for reading, friends. Feel free to chime in if you have any experience of your own even if it's not with a demo example at hand, I'll be thankful for any sort of help and opining.

Edited July 22, 2023 by PatrolOfStroll

[Bassman68]

They’re a great pedal aren’t they BDDI’s? 
I nearly got one myself when I wanted to upgrade from my Behringer copy, I found myself in the position of needing a preamp & DI instead of backline as the band I’m in use IEM’s..

I used a multi-fx for a while as I needed some effects but not loads, so wanted to build a small pedal board.

I settled on an EBS microbass3 because not only did it have a tuner/compression/overdrive, it also had an FX loop allowing me to patch other effects in.

For the vast majority of the time all I needed was a touch of chorus on certain songs to go with what was already provided by the preamp, I did have my OC2 octaver there as well for a while but found I didn’t use it that much, so the space on my PT nano+ was utilised by my wireless receiver instead, giving me a very compact travel rig.

 

Since then, I have been building a larger pedal board to house all the other effects pedals I have acquired over the years & have found a home for said Behringer BDI at the end of the effects chain, as an overall DI to send Front of house, should I ever use a bigger board at gigs, My chorus/modulation effects come after tuner/comp/drive chain & I haven’t heard any issues with having the pre-amp last?
Thinking about it, when using backline amps, my pedals have always gone inline from bass to amp so chorus has always been pre-EQ, and then DI’d from amp…Never heard any issues in my time?

Only option to that has been when recording & have had chorus applied to the already recorded bass-line, never noticed a big difference?

[Rusco]

On 22/07/2023 at 12:28, PatrolOfStroll said:

Good afternoon everybody!

Yesterday, I took delivery of my first physical effects unit, and it's the venerable, dare I say LEGENDARY, SansAmp Bass Driver DI (v2). Playing around with it using phantom power, I'm extremely pleased. It's every bit as good as people say, to me, and I immediately feel that "impossible to get a bad sound out of it" quality that people ascribe to it. I can get such a huge range of tones out of it by playing with the knobs, and the way that such different sounds are almost never unpleasant to me feels outright magical. It's unbelievably satisfying to find spots in the Drive knob's range where I can get a distinct difference in dirt between using fingers and using pick. I definitely think I made the right choice, between this little box of tricks and a multi-FX unit. I almost pulled the trigger on a Boss GT-1000CORE, and though that seems to be an extremely good unit, I'm glad I went this way instead. I love the simplicity and versatility of this thing and I think I would've got lost in menus and parameters on something more complicated; I would've had a much harder time truly "sculpting" a good sound.

Anyway, now that I'm situated with it and very pleased with the sound, I'm beginning to consider the other effects I may use with it once I'm a few more paycheques into my new work! I don't want a super heavy pedal set-up. I don't have a strong urge for more out-there effects, nor some of the classics of bass like touch wah or synth pedals. When I've played around with delay on bass, so far I've found it gets very messy and oppressive very quickly, and so I don't feel a draw to delay like I would if I was on six-string. I've found myself enjoying reverb most at rather subtle settings, and I realised that the settings I liked are so subtle that I can more-or-less forgo them in the name of money and future pedalboard space. I'm picturing a PT Nano board, or maybe a Nano+ at a stretch.

So, basically, what I have in mind for sounds I'd enjoy playing with is as follows:

- A tuner, probably the Pitchblack X Mini or a Polytune 3 Mini;

- An octaver or pitch-shifter of some description, an OC-5 or an EHX Pitch Fork look like good shouts;

- Fuzz, I have my eye on the EQD Hizumitas, since it looks great, has a tone filter that's calibrated in a way that seems very usable for bass, and based on demos I listen to, seems to sound great for bass in practice, too.

These can (and probably should) go in front of the BDDI no problem. But, it leaves one major favourite effect of mine in a tough spot! Like so many others, I LOVE a good bass chorus tone. And, I know this is a common dilemma, but using the XLR out from the BDDI precludes using a chorus in the "correct" conventional position of coming after a preamp (which is also the recommended approach listed by Tech 21, of course).

So, this is all a long-winded way of getting to my ultimate question! Does anybody here know of any demos that are out there that showcase the sounds of a chorus effect placed BEFORE a BDDI? This seems to be a common solution to the dilemma, to just put it in this less ideal spot and deal with it. But I haven't been able to find any examples to hear how this compromise sounds. Ideally, I'd like to hear a direct comparison of the same chorus on either side of the BDDI, but just being able to hear the sound of a chorus before would be extremely helpful, too.

The other obvious solution would be to just use 1/4" Out from the BDDI into a chorus, and have a separate DI box afterwards, rather than using the BDDI's XLR. It incurs a little more cost and potentially a little more board space. Though, for the timebeing, I'm not even going to be using any setup somewhere where I should expect I will truly need DI Out... but I get a bit neurotic about wanting my setup to be "complete"!

Rambling over. Thanks for reading, friends. Feel free to chime in if you have any experience of your own even if it's not with a demo example at hand, I'll be thankful for any sort of help and opining.

 

I recently bought a BDDI too, wish I done it before, a great and icon pedal! I also put together a small PT Nano + based board which includes a TC Corona Chorus mini.

My chain is PolyTune mini -> Spectra Comp -> SubNUp mini -> Moorer FOG -> Corona Chorus mini -> BDDI.. even with all the mini pedals it's a very tight fit. I may change the order, I'm having issues with the FOG but that's another thread.

 

BDDI had to go last so everything came out of the XLR. I played around with positioning before fixing the board down and found no obvious compromises and could always dial in a chorus sound, and any other, I liked (subjective I know). I actually preferred the BDDI last as it gave a unified effect over all of the others. I don't know of any demos but that was my experience and all good.