Looking for punch/presence/hair. Bassrig, DCX, Sansamp etc

[ravlin]

I'm a neanderthal, but if you aren't getting punch and hair from a MM, you're probably not playing hard enough. Just dig in.

 

[Stranger Danger]

Tone Hanmer

 

[edwinhurwitz]

My Genzler Kinetix does all of it. Clean to lots of hair.

 

[BaltBass5]

This, exactly. I’ve run the PBDDI to have three settings ranging from relatively clean to good and hairy. It’s rather easy to use and has never been an issue with FOH taking the DI. I’m not exactly sure how it does it (cab sim), but even at unity gain it makes any amp feel much punchier.

As long as you are ok with the inherent baked in sound of the BDDI

 

[TaySte_2000]

The search for the right low-gain overdrive may never end. The deeper you plunge into it, the more sensitive you will become to the tiniest nuances of distortion. If you’re running into the front of your Markbass, you don’t necessarily need a full-featured preamp, an overdrive/distortion/fuzz pedal may give you what you need, and will typically be way less expensive. The possibilities are virtually endless, especially if you open yourself to the madness of stacking drives.

I won’t bore you with my current list of favourites; your needs and preferences may not intersect with mine at all. One of my favourite threads on Talkbass, on the other hand, is here, and will be entertaining at the very least.

All the best and my deepest sympathies .

Ain’t this just the truth, I’ve just ordered a JHS Punchline, I’ve got a custom Kaslender GE Fuzz with GE Boost in it coming.

I’ve bought and sold the Jive, Phat Phuk, Mojomojo more times than I care to count.

I have the Mojohand Cream Pie I favoured for many years, but sat in a box.

Everything else is too coloured, digital sound sterile, tubes are too heavy or if it does to much to the sound I don’t like it, but then it doesn’t do enough to the sound for me to take it, keep it and not consider selling it every 10 minutes.

 

[Azari]

I feel like the Sansamp SH-1 Steve Harris signature would be perfect for you. If I were to start over from scratch I’d just get that probably.

 

[FirewalZ]

I think a Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI would be a good place to start. They are relatively inexpensive, available everywhere and are an industry standard.

This…I play mostly Stingrays, I send a SansAmp the the FOH and have a Darkglass VMT on the board when I need an overdriven sound

 

[el murdoque]

For those willing to read ahead thanks!

I grew up learning bass in early 90’s. My whole goal was to get glassy high end, clean bass tone as possible. I played through SWR’s, Eden, GK(without drive), and now mark bass and settled on Musicman for its clear preamp etc. I never played with P-basses, or tube amps or SVT’s etc and never used effects.
Now I am playing in rock covers bands(70s,80’s, 90’s) and loving it… but after all these years have finally realized - the musicman is so sterile, people tell me my sound needs some “hair”, I hear terms like harmonic saturation?? I can hear it where it lacks… it just needs ompphhhh and tighter punch. Sit in the mix better without being loud or crazy distortion.
I have been using a Darkglass Microtubes pedal to maybe help with this. It did add the hair but then I realized Im hearing what I had read, it its a cool sound but more modern than what Im looking for.

I am playing 4&5 string Ernieball Stingrays into Markbass amp and 2X12
Here are some options that came up in my research.

• Origin effects DCX Bass (around $360)
• Tech 21 Geddy Lee Shape Shifter - or other sansamp pedals (around $250)
• Origin effects Bassrig pedals (around $500)

I think the later 2 are types of amp sims with the bassrig having a cab sim. The DCX being more just a drive/tone enhancer.
I dont have to have inbuilt DI which I know the cab sim on bassrig only works through XLR.
Would any of these work to fatten up/sit in mix etc? Or do I need a specific amp/cab sim pedal like the bassrig pedals?
I have watched a lot of YT videos, and I like the sound of all of them, Im more so looking to see if one would be better for my main goal.
Ps. I dont play with in ears, my rig on stage is my monitor and contributes to FOH and run DI from my markbass.
Thanks for all your help.

If spending big on a dirt pedal is not an issue, the Origin Bassrig Super Vintage is a great choice. Of course you get that whole amp in a box feature set and a baked in speaker sim on the XLR out, but you can absolutely use it as a dirt box that gives you a wide array of options. You can set your tone to send into the dirt section and you get another two band EQ for after the dirt, which is a super cool feature. It's very responsive and able to give your Markbass rig a different flavor.

The DCX bass is a great pedal, but I would not really see the kind of tonal enhancement it is capable of in its best light with a MM bass playing into a Markbass rig - YMMV, though.

Sansamps are good and you can't really go wrong with them, but the Bassrig feels like the grownup version that is a bit more sophisticated.

 

[waveman]

Wow, lots of good ideas, lots of options. I can write a long long story about my tone chases and still chasing , lol

Let's see you could try a number of things from a preamp, to OD, and as some mentioned compression. I would probably lean more toward an overdrive (with clean blend) or preamp.

One pedal I could recommend is the Zoom MS-60B as it has OD, compression, sansamp sim, and some amp sims. I am sure you can find something there to discover what works better for you.

Sansamp is the preamp pedal that sits more consistently on my board than others, it can help a sterile sounding amp sound better IMO and give just the right amount of drive. I have V1 and PBDDI. I like the three sounds I can just dial in and forget on the PBDDI. Both are very useful, if you just need one sound, the regular Sanamp BDDI V1 or V2 will be sufficient.