Post by DefJef on Nov 4, 2018 19:25:18 GMT
I'd been meaning to buy this gadget's predecessor for some time but when I saw it was discontinued and replaced by a USB version to be used as an interface I couldn't resist.
I really wanted it for vocals as a mic preamp with a limiter, giving me phantom power and some warm valviness but this evening I decided to plug it in to my Fender Champ 25SE. It gave me loads of usable drive tones as it has a ton of voices on it. Also, because it has a limiter section, that acts like a compressor and I found a load of very drivey sounds that sustained well too.
Then I wondered about putting the Behringer preamp into the fx loop. It was even better although the reverb acted in a strange way then. The limiter seemed to swallow then spit out the signal to the reverb so there was like a delay and then the reverb. It took a while to adjust the limiter so that didn't happen. Now I had the Fender's preamp eq before the Behringer which has no tone controls of it's own except a bass cut and the various preset voices and everything was very usable too.
Just for fun I tried the Behringer straight in to the fx loops return socket and, of course this meant I was bypassing the Fender's preamp altogether but, unfortunately, also the reverb. It sounded a bit like plugging in to a hi fi and I had no eq options. Just goes to show what a nice clean sound Fender amps with 6L6s have though. Like mono hi fi.
I had read that this shouldn't really work very well this way as it is not cooking the tube with high voltage in the same way that a Laney IRT Pulse does, and it may be that it doesn't do it as well. But it does do quite a bit that is useful and also cost me under £50! So this was all a very productive experiment and I now have a great overdrive tool which isn't a stomp box although I could put a loop switch stomp box in front of it to make it into one. I can see this being a very useful little gadget for recording though. Plus it still has its original function for me which was for vocals (assuming I haven't blown it up using my guitar through it by then) - or I can run my keyboard through it. Wow!
Next will come an experiment using it on the Katana to see if that helps the feel and sounds from that amp.
I really wanted it for vocals as a mic preamp with a limiter, giving me phantom power and some warm valviness but this evening I decided to plug it in to my Fender Champ 25SE. It gave me loads of usable drive tones as it has a ton of voices on it. Also, because it has a limiter section, that acts like a compressor and I found a load of very drivey sounds that sustained well too.
Then I wondered about putting the Behringer preamp into the fx loop. It was even better although the reverb acted in a strange way then. The limiter seemed to swallow then spit out the signal to the reverb so there was like a delay and then the reverb. It took a while to adjust the limiter so that didn't happen. Now I had the Fender's preamp eq before the Behringer which has no tone controls of it's own except a bass cut and the various preset voices and everything was very usable too.
Just for fun I tried the Behringer straight in to the fx loops return socket and, of course this meant I was bypassing the Fender's preamp altogether but, unfortunately, also the reverb. It sounded a bit like plugging in to a hi fi and I had no eq options. Just goes to show what a nice clean sound Fender amps with 6L6s have though. Like mono hi fi.
I had read that this shouldn't really work very well this way as it is not cooking the tube with high voltage in the same way that a Laney IRT Pulse does, and it may be that it doesn't do it as well. But it does do quite a bit that is useful and also cost me under £50! So this was all a very productive experiment and I now have a great overdrive tool which isn't a stomp box although I could put a loop switch stomp box in front of it to make it into one. I can see this being a very useful little gadget for recording though. Plus it still has its original function for me which was for vocals (assuming I haven't blown it up using my guitar through it by then) - or I can run my keyboard through it. Wow!
Next will come an experiment using it on the Katana to see if that helps the feel and sounds from that amp.