Nickthebass

Big vote for the Origin Effects BassRig SV - an SVT in a wee box. I use both as a preamp and my DI. Most of the demo videos will make you think it does distortion and nothing else - they’re wrong. This box is so much more than just a driven rock sound. The clean valve / edge of break up sound is great. The cab sim (on the DI only) is excellent and is a big part of the DI sound. The way it tightens the lows and rounds off the highs is great. I use mine (generally) as an always on pre-amp with the DI taking the amp and cab sound to the desk. Jack out takes the amp sound (“head” part of the circuit only - no cab sim) to back line - also with it’s own EQ to help you tune the sound for the stage without messing with the FOH signal. This is my board - normally with the EQ, comp and BassRig all on, jack out to back line and XLR to the desk. I’ve been really digging the sound of the EQ-comp-cab sim - it’s a great clean sound. I can then use the “amp” part of the circuit to give me a dirty sound without having the two be so different that they can’t work in the same mix. Just using it as a preamp is also great, I’ve got a portable, vibey sound with saturation (clean or as dirty as I want) that makes me impervious to random rehearsal room or borrowed amps! I’ve also used to do the clean / dirty thing on a small gig. Clean from the amp when needed and a little grit from the SV when needed. You don’t get the cab sim on the jack out (only on the XLR) - but there is an extra “jack out only” EQ - the two small silver knobs and switch just above the “BASSRIG” logo. I’ve managed to get these to give me a pretty decent approximation of the rounding and warming effect of the cab sim. This could work really nicely if you’re not going to use the XLR. I’m in the process of building out a “noises” board to stick into loop 2 on this small main board. Anything I throw into the BassRig sounds great - fuzz, envelopes, octavers, synths all benefit from the head, cab or both on the SV. It has taken a bit of time for me to get used to it - I felt for a little while as though I was fighting the cab sim but that was my fault. Right now the only thing I’d even think about switching it for is if Origin release a B15 flip top BassRig.

I’m in a similar space to this, although I’m not amp-less. “My sound” is controlled by my pedalboard - EQ -> compressor -> BassRig SV. Front of house gets the sound of an SVT rig which has been tweaked to be genre appropriate and has already had a band pass to remove most of the junk. The rest of the EQ and compression is pretty light. I’ve done my best to make it easy for the engineer if it sounds bad out front it’s not my fault. 😁 Also - they’ll have a job making an SVT into an 810 sound like something different! The BassRig jack out feeds the amp which can be EQ’d for the stage without comprising the FOH signal.

To each their own. That’s not my experience of the Beta. I’ve always used it as a very gentle drive and found it great. It also did lovely things to the envelope filter I had sat after it.

In which case - there's also an earlier Beta for sale (not £125). Keep your eyes on the market place - there's loads of good stuff there most of the time and also loads of great folks to deal with.

There's one of these available for sale at the minute