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10 Bass Preamps To Drive Home Your Tone

10 Bass Preamps To Drive Home Your Tone

Take it to the stage or studio with these bass preamps/DIs.

There's a preamp for every flavor of bass, from clean tones to upright to overdriven grit. This list covers a wealth of options for all budgets.


​​​MXR BASS DI+​​


Fine-tune your sound on this 2-channel DI with a 3-band EQ, color switch, and noise gate.

$189 street

jimdunlop.com

WALRUS Badwater

This box features a 4-band EQ, optical compressor, and a blendable, 3-voice drive control.

$299 street

walrusaudio.com

AGUILAR Tone Hammer Preamp/Direct Box

Based on the company’s Tone Hammer amp, this box features bass and treble knobs, sweepable midrange controls, and switchable tube-like saturation.

$299 street

aguilaramp.com

RADIAL Bassbone V2

This 2-channel preamp includes two inputs plus a PZB booster and piezo input, so feel free to bring your upright on the gig for a few songs.

$399 street

Radialeng.com

TECH 21 DI-2112

Geddy Lee’s signature box is a feature-rich dual-channel affair with separate level controls, plus drive, saturation, and blend knobs.

$359 street

Tech21nyc.com

DARKGLASS Alpha Omega

Maximize your grit with this box, which is based on two blendable distortion circuits and features a 3-band EQ plus bite and growl toggles.

$349 street

Darkglass.com

AMPEG SGT-DI

Conjure classic Ampeg SVT and B15 tones with this stomp’s voice control and cab sim. A 3-band EQ plus switchable high and low boosts, plus overdrive and compression, round out the features.

$399 street

Ampeg.com

ELECTRO-HARMONIX Battalion

This affordable offering features a 4-band EQ, compression, noise gate, and three signal-flow modes.

$174 street

ehx.com

MARKBASS Mark Vintage Pre

Loaded with a glowing 12AX7, this box features a 4-band EQ, three EQ presets, aux in, and headphones out.

$399 street

markbass.it

FENDER Downtown Express

This unit features overdrive, compression, and a 3-band EQ, each with their own footswitch, plus switchable effect order.

$249 street

fender.com

- YouTube

Join PG contributor Tom Butwin as he explores all-new versions of the Framus Hootenanny 12-string and 6-string acoustics—made famous by John Lennon and now available with modern upgrades. From vintage-inspired tone to unique features, these guitars are built to spark creativity.

This Japan-made Guyatone brings back memories of hitchin’ rides around the U.S.

This oddball vintage Guyatone has a streak of Jack Kerouac’s adventurous, thumbing spirit.

The other day, I saw something I hadn’t noticed in quite some time. Driving home from work, I saw an interesting-looking fellow hitchhiking. When I was a kid, “hitchers” seemed much more common, but, then again, the world didn’t seem as dangerous as today. Heck, I can remember hitching to my uncle’s cabin in Bradford, Pennsylvania—home of Zippo lighters—and riding almost 200 miles while I sat in a spare tire in the open bed of a pickup truck! Yes, safety wasn’t a big concern for kids back in the day.

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There's a lot of musical gold inside the scales.

Intermediate

Intermediate

• Develop a deeper improvisational vocabulary.

• Combine pentatonic scales to create new colors.

• Understand the beauty of diatonic harmony.
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Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.

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Building upon the foundation of the beloved Core Collection H-535, this versatile instrument is designed to serve as a masterpiece in tone.

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