EBS_freak

“A dash” ?

I would imagine that the blocks in the Helix are more than configurable enough for you to cop pretty much any tone you are looking for within reason. Yes there’s a community for sharing profiles but there’s lots of opportunity for you to go alone to get your own unique tone - perhaps some of the diehard Helix fans here will be able to offer you some hands on experience or be able to get together with you to show you the art of the possible. The trouble is that if you go into a shop, the probability of finding somebody that could do a decent job of showing the unit off, especially from a bass centric point of view, is likely to be very low. Have a dig in the helix thread and see who pops up.

Don’t buy an amp just cos it says his name on the amp. Copping a tone is more than buying signature gear.

We are doing well so far... no “Guest” being added to the front of anybody’s names yet...

No - the Kemper is unique in that respect. It’s the only thing I know of that has mastered the DIY “profiling” element of modelling. If you know what flavour of preamp you are into, then that may steer you towards certain channel strips or remakes of (eg Tech 21 and JHS are just two folks that have put “famous” channel strips in a pedal type enclosure). Before you get too overboard about it though, the audience won’t be able to tell/care the difference between the two. Half the fun is seeing the subtle nuances between pres but on the gig, well it can get a little lost. If you are an IEM user however, that’s where you can really begin to appreciate the subtlety.

It all depends, some channel strips have very few things to tweak on them and have an inherent sound baked in. The reason that a lot of high end desks are so in demand is because of this. “Transparent” pres is actually a bit of weird thing to say when selling a pre - because it’s usually the colouration that is the appealing thing about a pre. On desks, it’s usually the saturation, either derived from FET or valves that gives the sound and perceived “warmth” and “fatness”. Anyway, if you want to have some options without spending on channel pres and things like Kempers, the cut down baby Helix is where I would be probably looking as a starting point. It will give you flexibility if you want to play with different tones and timbres.

It wouldn’t be a basschat thread without the following... so I’ll say it now. ”Barefaced” oh crumbs. That’s gone and done it.

Since when is gigging every weekend a measure of coolness?

Make sure you gain things properly so you don’t get distortion. Take your time to get your mix right, little changes at a time. Have fun - and feed back how you got on tomorrow!

Shall not

A channel strip is a piece of hardware in its own right. https://www.studiocare.com/ssl-xlogic-alpha-channel.html?___store=default&utm_source=GoogleShopping&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5t6k3fTW3wIVBJ7VCh2vRgnCEAQYBiABEgKpIfD_BwE It’s an either or thing.

God damn you. I coined RickenTractor!

Wouldn’t suggest you go Kemper as that was to do guitar duties and everything. Just saying go along and try channel strips as opposed to looking at just an eq that is marketed towards bass. Of course, the form factor may also be a factor in your decisions.

Like duck it is.

I like API but personally don’t like for bass.

@Kirky this video kinda sums it up though -

I think @Dood has taken it down now.

And here’s a fine example of making everything ok by just adding a smiley on the end.

What happens is that the Kemper plays a load of its techy gobbledygook through the channel strip/amp/amp and can and measures what comes out the other end. It then works out what’s happened in the middle to create the profile. When you then play through the Kemper, the Kemper recreates the bit that happens in the middle on the original setup to give you the same sound.

Hook, line and sinker.

Channel strip - basically a load of and maybe some dynamics processing that would typically be found on every channel of a mixing desk. I find them a lot more musical and useful than a lot of bass centric EQ solutions. Kemper - a box of wizardry that profiles (eg copies and emulates) the end to end sound of an amp with a speaker attached to it. But you can use it without the speaker but to clone channel strips.

Not hardware based no. As an idea, but your bass into a DAW with an API plugin and have a play to see if it gives you something that you dig on before going searching for the hardware equivalent

I’m dyslectric you richard

I dunno, I would say that there was always a bit of feist even back then. I just think the balance of personalities have changed and people misunderstand discussion and argument as hostility. Most of the time it’s just misunderstood passion.

The Grace stuff is well nice... but if you are starting to get into that calibre of gear, I would urge you to look at studio channel strips. You are kinda heading in the same direction as I went - I ended up favouring channel strips over dedicated bass pres and actually ended up buying a Kemper so I could start collecting profiles of channel strips as opposed to amps. Every time I go to a top end studio, I always take my Kemper in just in case they have anything particularly tasty I like the sound of. So yeah, Kemper with SSL, Neve, Chandler, Focusrite, Tubetech... I love it.