Good preamp for bass

[billstein]

Hi all. The bass player in the group would like a pre-amp. Any suggestions which one to build?

Thanks

[midwayfair]

Clean or dirty? What's he running it into (pedals and amps)? What kind of bass is he using? What style of music?

[billstein]

He plays in our worship group. A squire 4 string bass into a (Carvin?), amp. No pedals. I would think clean to start off.

[dropanchor812]

It seems like a lot of people like the Sadowsky Bass Preamp, for good clean tones.  Deadastronaut has a FET Silverface bassman development thread over at DIYSB.  I have been looking for a good tube bass preamp for a while, but I haven't found a project that really jumped out at me.  Does anybody know of any legit TUBE bass preamp designs?  I really love the sound of Verellen's Meatsmoke preamp, but I ain't dolin' out $700 for one.  Is Verellen small enough that DIY'ers would feel bad about reverse-engineering his designs?

Here's the bassman thread: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=101898.0   There's a demo at the end.

[rullywowr]

Hi all. The bass player in the group would like a pre-amp. Any suggestions which one to build?

Thanks

I have two upcoming verified PCB projects which may fit the bill. 

The first is the Canned Yam, which is the Yamaha NE-1 (Nathan East) Signature preamp:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=19437.msg202334#msg202334

The second is the "ChuggaPre" which is based off the TC Electronic Integrated Preamp. 
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=20601.0

[copachino]

i think that the Rc booster for bass itrs really cool just build one from the Quasar and its really clean and good for bass(with the mods for bass on the build doc)

[HamSandwich]

http://sound.westhost.com/project152-1.htm

A pretty extensive bass preamp. I'm about to get boards fab'd that include the input, tone controls, HPF, comp and drive sections as well as balanced outputs and a power board. Not sure how long you want to wait, but I'll have a few extra that I'm going to try to get rid of.

[davent]

It seems like a lot of people like the Sadowsky Bass Preamp, for good clean tones.  Deadastronaut has a FET Silverface bassman development thread over at DIYSB.  I have been looking for a good tube bass preamp for a while, but I haven't found a project that really jumped out at me.  Does anybody know of any legit TUBE bass preamp designs?  I really love the sound of Verellen's Meatsmoke preamp, but I ain't dolin' out $700 for one.  Is Verellen small enough that DIY'ers would feel bad about reverse-engineering his designs?

Here's the bassman thread: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=101898.0   There's a demo at the end.

Alembic F-2B?
http://moosapotamus.net/ideas/alembic-f-2b-preamp/

[dropanchor812]

http://sound.westhost.com/project152-1.htm

A pretty extensive bass preamp. I'm about to get boards fab'd that include the input, tone controls, HPF, comp and drive sections as well as balanced outputs and a power board. Not sure how long you want to wait, but I'll have a few extra that I'm going to try to get rid of.

Holy crap, that looks awesome.  Are you doing tube or no tube?  Consider me interested!

Alembic F-2B?
http://moosapotamus.net/ideas/alembic-f-2b-preamp/

I've never heard one in person, but the demos I've found online sound kinda "eh", and don't add a lot of depth.  Which doesn't surprise me since its a classic design.  I've been looking for something that will have a lower frequency range, with the bottom end around 40 Hz or lower.  Recently I got a 160w guitar amp (with a pre-out, power-in) that serves "okay" as a bass amp when I dial it in right, but it still won't get down to 40 Hz (at least to my ears).  Apparently, the design HamSandwich is sharing will do that.  That's what I like about the Verellen design too, it gets super low.  And, I would like it to be overdrivable, thus the tube preference.   

[selfdestroyer]

This might be worth looking at also, not verified but it looks easy enough to knock it out to try.

http://effectslayouts.blogspot.com/2015/01/ripthorn-fet-2b-bass-preamp.html

Cody

[HamSandwich]

Nah, no tube. Complicates things too much and in the schematic provided, it's only used to provide gain to the rest of the circuit - the gain control is after the tube. You'd have to use an external boost pedal to get any tube clipping out of it. The clipping that happens in the Westhost preamp is just diodes to ground at the end of the circuit. In this case, it would be more of a gimmick than anything useful.

I was also going to say you could just build the preamp of the blackface Bassman if you wanted tubes, but since you don't like the Alembic, you probably wouldn't like that either. I'd imagine one of those Gring Custom tube things could be mod'd for bass. I was about to look into that, but the controls that the Westhost project provides are so useful it's hard to pass up.

[HamSandwich]

This might be worth looking at also, not verified but it looks easy enough to knock it out to try.

http://effectslayouts.blogspot.com/2015/01/ripthorn-fet-2b-bass-preamp.html

Cody

I think the thing that DeadAstronaut did at DIYSB is the exact same thing as the FET2B mentioned earlier in this thread. It's really simple and sounds really good.

[dropanchor812]

Don't get me wrong, I love the skronk and throaty goodness of 60's/70's bass amp but I'm trying add lower freq's.  But... Would a six 6l6 output section cut off any additional low end I can get out of a preamp?

P.s.  Sorry to the OP for the hijack!

[karter2000]

http://sound.westhost.com/project152-1.htm

A pretty extensive bass preamp. I'm about to get boards fab'd that include the input, tone controls, HPF, comp and drive sections as well as balanced outputs and a power board. Not sure how long you want to wait, but I'll have a few extra that I'm going to try to get rid of.

I would be interested in those boards!

[billstein]

Thanks guys. These look great. HamSandwich that looks really interesting but a bit to extensive for what I'm looking for.
I think I'll try that FET2B or wait until Rully's boards are available.
Rully do you have any ETA on those boards you're going to offer?