bass amp DI out question.

[Chickenwings]

I just ordered a Hartke LH500. 500 watts with a tube preamp, 3 band eq and a built in limiter.
It has a direct out.
My question is...will it make my sansamp bass driver pedal redundant for direct live and/or direct recording applications?

[crguti]

Re: bass amp DI out question.

I had an Hartke HA3500 sometime ago. It had a noisy fan but a nice loud clean sound. My BDDI was always on in front, it just makes it sound better.
You could mix the direct out of the BDDI with the Hartke for a powerful sound.

[Chickenwings]

Re: bass amp DI out question.

yeh the BDDI does sound epic thru a PA on its own. I guess im wondering what will work best live with the amp..using the sansamp xlr out and the parallel into the amp, or the 1/4 direct into the amp, or maybe 1/4 direct with the mix on zero into the amp and just use it as a low impedance active pre, then use the amp XLR out int the PA.....or maybe mix the two DI's and send them both to FOH...maybe use the sansamp xlr to desk and the 1/4 direct straight into the power section of the hartke....
So many options!
I guess ill have to wait till the head arrives and work out what works best or myself. If the preamp section of the amp sounds as good as the sansamp one ill be pretty stoked (and this is coming from a dyed in the wool guitar tube amp diehard).

As a noob on the bass im pretty stoked to have just been asked to work with two of my favourite musicians (a pedal steel player and a groovemonster of a drummer), ive worked with them both a lot over the years as a guitar player, so i guess i can experiment while we are jamming/rehearsing and hopefully they will cut me some slack in the learning process.

[crguti]

Re: bass amp DI out question.

don't worry yet about the direct out option. try to get the max out of the hartke and bddi, then you will be thinking about mics.
if you have a groovy dummer, get an envelope filter... that's a lot of fun.

[jtougas]

Re: bass amp DI out question.

Well, there's one important part of the equation: where the di out is in the signal chain on the Hartke - if it's pre- or post- preamp (I know my SWR head's di is pre-preamp - which I always thought was ****ing useless).

Personally, I would run straight to the bddi, xlr to the board, and 1/4" to the Hartke, and basically use the Hartke for your monitor...

[Chickenwings]

Re: bass amp DI out question.

aha! Good question! yeh the DI out on the LH500 amp is pre-eq, so i guess ill keep using the sansamp for send to FOH. on the older (HA series) hartkes you can switch between pre and post so they were more useful in that respect.
Yeh, i think your idea will be the way i end up going. I really like how the sansamp can tailor the sound to fit the room and warm up the direct bass sound, i reckon the hartke eq will just be to fit the amp sound as a monitor. I reckon between the two of them ill have a killer sound in any size room.

[crusty philtrum]

Re: bass amp DI out question.

When i used to do some FOH sound mixing, I carried my own DI boxes (passive Sennheiser transformers) and would always use them even if an amp had a DI output.

The reason was that i wanted the bass straight into the board, unaffected by the players amp settings, otherwise every time the player made a change at the amp i had to counter that at the mixing desk. Considering that bass is the hardest instrument to get sounding good in a large PA system, getting a line from the instrument before it reached it's amplifier was crucial. That way the player could adjust his amp for the stage without messing with the FOH mix.

[Chickenwings]

Re: bass amp DI out question.

cool, so ill send from the sansamp and leave it alone, and adjust stage eq with the hartke. Sweet.