Bass players – this scenario is probably familiar: You show up at a gig, meet the sound tech, and are pointed to the direct box du jour. Sometimes you get a nice box, but equally as often, you’re handed a mystery DI that’s all dinged up and covered with a layer of duct tape.
Even though you''d rather rely on the DI output built into your amp, many sound techs avoid them because the signals tend to vary from amp to amp.
With the sound tech’s box, you might get a usable sound to the house if the tech know his stuff, but when you run from the 1/4” jack out to your amp – youch! It’s sometimes impossible to get decent tone from your beloved axe. You can chalk this up to a cheap DI, but sometimes your tone gets messed up because of passive loading on the jumper connection. With a passive bass, you’re better off with an active DI.
The frustrating part is that a DI box has a simple job to do – convert the high-impedance signal from your bass to a low-impedance signal that’s suitable for plugging into the soundboard via a mic cable.
With this DI dilemma in mind – having encountered it many times on gigs – I set out to find some bass-specific active DI boxes, ones that provide a bit more than an XLR output to the house PA and a passive link to your amp. It turns out that this is a great time for bassists seeking a reliable, high-quality solution, with lots of good choices out there.
The Goods
This article introduces you to four bass DI’s, each with a little something extra for tone shaping possibilities: the Seymour Duncan Paranormal Bass Direct Box, the MXR M-80 Bass D.I.+, the SansAmp Programmable Bass Driver DI and the Radial BassBone Tonebone. The street price of these boxes – each a high-quality unit – ranges from $140 to $230. All four should be available (or can be ordered) from your local shop or online retailer. There are others to consider, too, but I thought these four would round out a versatile group that demonstrates the range of DI''s-with-something-extra out there.
I’ve played out with some of these – and other – DI boxes. And although comparing them in different gig settings with different sound techs would be one way to go about it, I really wanted to gauge the four boxes with all things being equal.
To get the skinny on these boxes, I plugged my sunburst/maple/black-block ’74 Jazz Bass (with Fender flatwounds) into them one at a time, each run via their 1/4” output into a Workingman’s 12 combo amp. I also ran the DI signal of each into a Behringer mixer and through a pair of M-Audio studio monitors.
Bring on the Essentials
The Seymour Duncan Paranormal Bass Direct Box has the essential ingredients to get the job done. It’s a solid metal box with a big rubber pad on the bottom. With the Paranormal (my vote for the best pedal name), you get three basic sounds without turning a knob during the gig: bypassed, preamp with EQ, and slap contour.
In bypass mode, the pedal incorporates what most good pedals do – true bypass where the unaltered sound of your bass goes straight to your amp while offering a nice DI signal to the board. As expected, this worked just fine, with a high-quality switch that did its job reliably.
The preamp with EQ mode worked great, but it is especially cool if you play a passive bass – it provides the sounds of an active bass with three bands of quasi-parametric EQ (hence the “para” part of the name). All three bands (bass: 30hz, midrange: 650hz, treble: 5.2khz) have 12 db of cut and boost for plenty of tone shaping. The signal was low noise and added a nice bit of punch to the Jazz Bass with the bass control bumped up a bit.
Finally, for you slappers, the Paranormal has a switchable slap EQ curve that adds extra bottom while scooping out some of the midrange – just the thing for gigs where you play both styles and don’t want to have to tweak your EQ between songs. The slap curve goes on top of your basic EQ settings, so that you get the same basic tone and level, only now it’s slap-friendly.
On the back of the Paranormal is a little black button (unlabeled!) that lifts the ground of your DI send if there’s a ground loop causing that annoying buzz through the house sound system.
If you’re just looking for the essentials, the Paranormal offers a hefty box and sturdy knobs with useful tone shaping and a nice DI for about $140.
A couple of small caveats. First, changing the battery requires removing four screws to open the box (but you can also run off 9 volt power). Second, if the pedal isn’t turned on when you plug it in, you’ll hear a pretty big zap through your amp the first time you hit the Bypass switch. That’s easy to work around, though – just plug in both the guitar cable and the amp cable before connecting into the amp.
Take the Essentials, Add Distortion
The MXR M-80 Bass D.I.+ brings the features of the Paranormal (minus the slap contour) and adds gated distortion plus a few other handy options. Once again, the M-80 is built into a hefty metal box with sturdy knobs, as well as a three band EQ – the manual doesn’t mention the EQ center points, but whatever they are, they get the job done with a broad sweep and a musical sound.
A nice addition is a level control for the preamp’s clean sound – it could be used to add a bit of boost for solos. For example, you could run the box in bypass mode for regular playing, then switch to bring in the EQ/boost for solos or louder songs. The M-80 doesn’t stop there, though – it includes a “color” switch for a scooped sound with a big bottom end (but it’s not the kind of switch you can reach with your toe – gotta bend down).
The second half of the M-80 is its gated distortion. This is switchable with a second sturdy button on the right side. When you turn on distortion, the pedal automatically adds the color switch – that way, your distorted sound still has plenty of bottom. It also bypasses the clean volume setting but retains your EQ settings. It does have a distortion volume level, though.
Between a blend knob and a gain knob, the M-80 can put out quite a range of sounds, from a slightly dirty tone to a heavy grind. If you turn up the gain just a bit and blend in moderate distortion, you’ll get a sort of edgy sound. Crank the gain, crank the gate’s trigger, turn the blend all the way up – you’ll get a veritable chainsaw coming through your amp and into the PA.
The gate is a really cool feature, a key to making heavy distortion manageable. Essentially, because distortion is accomplished through high gain settings, you’ll get a lot of noise as distortion increases – but the gate takes care of that, silencing the noise when you stop playing. Because the gate is variable, you can set it up for varying durations of the distortion effect.
You can power the M-80 with the usual nine volt battery or wallwart. But this pedal also accepts phantom power from the PA – very handy for reliable power without the clutter of a wallwart.
One last handy feature of the M-80 is a parallel output to send your signal to a tuner. But there’s no tuner mute function to take full advantage of that link, so it’s a bit less handy.
In all, the MXR M-80 Bass D.I.+ is a nicely designed box – bulletproof, as the manual says – that includes clean logical controls and good musicality. If you’re looking for distortion, the M-80 can let you bring one less pedal to the gig, too. Expect to pay about $140 for the M-80.
Can’t Make Up Your Mind?
If you’re looking for more tailored versatility for your sounds, the SansAmp Programmable Bass Driver DI might be just the thing. It offers three footswitchable settings, plus bypass, for a total of four tones in one pedal. Unlike the first two DI pedals discussed here, each setting is discrete, rather than adding a second variation (slap contour, distortion) to a base sound.
There’s a bit more of a learning curve to the SansAmp, but not a big one really. Similar to the other boxes, you dial in your tone with the Bass, Treble, and Presence controls and get your gain or dirt with the Drive (like tube amp overdrive) and Blend (the amount of tube emulation). Unlike the other two pedals, you can actually save your settings for instant recall – just double-tap on one of three preset switches, and voila! the setting is saved.
The manual offers some 16 helpful sample settings to get you started, too. The Flip Top setting, for example, brings the drive up half way, cuts the bass and treble (to push the mids), adds a dose of presence, goes full out with tube emulation, and then brings up the level to make up for lost gain. The SVT Style, in contrast, pushes the bass a bit, cuts a bit of treble, eases up the presence and tapers off the gain just a little. There’s a big sound contrast between the two, and both are convincing emulations.
On opposite ends of the sound spectrum, settings like King’s X and Crimson push a lot of distortion via the Drive knob, while Full Range/Clean provides a useful setting for piezo pickups (and the 1 meg input impedance is fine for that, too).
With no midrange setting, you might pause a moment, but as the manual explains, you can increase midrange by reducing bass and treble, and vice-versa.
The SansAmp offers several options that provide amazing versatility. Drive a power amp? No problem. Go straight into your bass amp’s input? That’s fine, too. Bypass your amp’s EQ via the effects return? Can do! Go into the sound board without an amp? Good to go!
Some of the other pedals offer a few of these options, but the SansAmp’s gain settings plus boost button can match your pedal to all of those tasks with ease.
You might wonder at first how to keep your settings straight. After all, there is only one set of knobs, which might not match your current presets. But finding a preset is actually simple. When you turn one of the knobs, the channel light begins to blink. When you’re close to the preset position, the light blinks rapidly. As you get farther away, the blinking slows down. You know you’re in the right place when the light becomes steady.
Like the M-80, the SansAmp can be powered in three different ways – battery, wallwart, or phantom.
Two other push buttons can come in handy for adjusting output levels. First, the XLR Out Pad provides a 20 db cut to the soundboard if your signal is too hot. Next, the 1/4” Out Boost goes the other way, helping match the SansAmp’s level to your amp’s inputs.
About the only thing really lacking from the SansAmp is a tuner output. Otherwise, there are a lot of bells and whistles all packaged thoughtfully into one tough metal box.
If you’re the kind of player who needs widely varying sounds out of one bass during a gig or recording session, the SansAmp might be just the one – fat tube sounds, meaty distortions, deep dub – all at the click of a button. The SansAmp is a bit spendier than the first two pedals at about $210, but it can do some things that few others can.
A Bigamous Bassist?
If you’re not happy with just one bass at a gig – say you need a 5’er and an electric upright like I do – the Radial BassBone Tonebone is just the thing. Unlike the other pedals, the Bassbone can manage the EQ and level settings for two basses. But it can also switch one bass between two EQ settings.
This is a really versatile pedal. Channel 1 has a neutral bypass setting, but it can also be switched into either fat or scooped EQ curves. Channel 2 has High (5.6khz), Mid (470hz) and Low (75hz) EQ knobs with a good amount of cut and boost for each.
The BassBone’s Level knobs take a bit of time to understand. Unlike the SansAmp and the M-80, the BassBone’s level controls are cut only – essentially a level trim rather than variable gain. At full clockwise, the output matches that of your bass.
Also unlike the other three pedals, there is no effect bypass setting. Think of it as switching-with-EQ rather than as an on/off effect pedal and you’ll understand what the BassBone does.
Besides a tuner out, the BassBone has a switchable effects loop to keep potentially noisy pedals out of your signal chain until they’re really needed. But that same switch can be toggled to kick in a signal boost instead. (Or even both an effect and a boost at once.) It would be nice to have both possibilities available separately, but there is already a lot going on with six knobs, three sliders, two stomp switches, five jacks, an XLR output, and a power input (this unit runs only on a special 15 volt power supply – no battery option).
The effects loop is a little unusual to set up, but it’s not daunting. Rather than using send and return jacks like on most amps, the BassBone uses an insert jack to save space. Plug in a stereo 1/4” plug with two mono 1/4” plugs attached – I got one at my local music store, right off the rack. The tip plug goes to a pedal’s input jack, the ring plug goes to the pedal’s output jack (notice ring = return?).
Given the tuner output jack, I thought it was an oversight not to have a tuner mute, but the manual shows that even that is possible with a little bit of hacking. Just plug a plain 1/4” plug into the effects loop, set the Boost button to the effects loop, and there you go (the manual recommends skipping the barrel and trimming off the soldering tabs for a smaller profile).
As with the other three pedals, the BassBone is a quality device with a sturdy metal box and top-notch switches. If you play doubling gigs, this will be just your thing – it’s handy to have your levels and EQs preset rather than tweaking the amp between every bass change. The BassBone is the most expensive of these four boxes, going for about $230.
So…Which One to Pick?
The good news is that all four of these bass DI pedals are quality devices, both in construction and in sound. The big difference is the feature set. If you just need some tone shaping and a nice DI, the Seymour Duncan Paranormal is a great choice. Distortion, plus EQ, plus DI? Go for the MXR. Lots of sound shaping possibilities? That’s the SansAmp’s forte. Doubling? The BassBone – while not its only trick – is ready for the job.
So as you think ahead to the big festival gigs in spring and summer and you remember that duct-tape-special DI the sound guy gave you, keep these four pedals in mind. Any one of them can make your experience with a sound tech much more predictable, so that you can concentrate on what you’re really there for – the music!
Dan Berkowitz, the "Dean of the Blues Bass," has played electric and upright bass since the early ''70s. He plays regularly with The Tornadoes - a blues, swing and R&B outfit that performs throughout the Midwest. Dan also plays acoustic blues, jazz and the occasional pit orchestra gig. Dan can be reached at tornadobass@mchsi.com
![Jerry Cantrell Rig Rundown [2024]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/youtube.jpg?id=53714787&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
Jerry Cantrell’s forthcoming solo record, I Want Blood, is a return to beastly form for the legendary grunge guitarist. Featuring spots from Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo and Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin—two old friends who played on Cantrell’s 2002 solo release, Degradation Trip—along with Duff McKagan and more, it’s a glorious, riff-filled reunion.
Ahead of the record’s release, PG’s Perry Bean caught up with Cantrell for an updated rundown of his current touring rig. Watch the whole Rig Rundown to catch all the details, and hear some special stories about how late Alice in Chains vocalist Layne Staley encouraged Cantrell’s singing.
Brought to you by D’Addario.The Ones You Know
The G&L Rampage has been one of Cantrell’s top choices for decades, and he brings his vintage, well-used, and colorfully decorated iterations on the road along with his newer signature models. G&L announced earlier this year that they were reviving the Rampage—thanks largely to Cantrell’s impact.
Feel the Champagne
This Gibson Flying V finished in champagne sparkle is another of Cantrell’s go-to stage axes.
Amp in the Box
Cantrell tours with this rack amplifier setup, which features a Fryette Two/Ninety/Two Stereo Power Amp, a Fryette LX II Stereo Power Amp, and a Bogner Fish All Tube Preamp.
Rack 'Em Up
Save for his signature MXR Jerry Cantrell Firefly Talk Box and his Dunlop Jerry Cantrell Firefly Cry Baby Wah which stay at his feet, Cantrell keeps his pedals in a rack configuration, including a handful of MXR Smart Gates, MXR Timmy, Strymon Ola, MXR Six Band EQ, MXR Ten Band EQ, Barber Electronics Direct Drive, Boss DD-500, MXR EVH Flanger, Boss CE-5, MXR Poly Blue Octave, Ibanez TS808HW, MXR Reverb, Line 6 MM4 Modulation Modeler, and MXR Talk Box. A Custom Audio Electronics RS-T MIDI Foot Controller, manned by Cantrell’s tech, handles the behind-the-scenes switching.
As long as humans have been creating art, they have also been inventing new tools for expressing that art. From the paintbrush to the synthesizer, new technologies have driven paradigm shifts, providing artists with fresh creative avenues. Technology drives the art, as they say.
That’s certainly been the case with Line 6’s DL4 Delay Modeler. Originally conceived as a humble digital delay, the Big Green Monster has created a niche of its own, serving as ground zero for entire new genres of indie and experimental music. Since its release 25 years ago, the DL4 has enhanced the creative palettes of artists ranging from Joe Perry, Mike Campbell, Dave Grohl, and Joe Satriani to Bill Frisell, Thom Yorke, and Ed O’Brien.
Nearly a quarter century later, Line 6 has introduced the DL4 MkII. The updated version features a smaller footprint, as well as increased delay time, sampling and recording via built-in micro-SD card reader, MIDI functionality, and a host of new effects algorithms from Line 6’s legendary HX family of amp and effects processors.
Inauspicious Beginnings
In the late 1990s, fresh from making a disruptive splash with their eye-catching POD amp modeler, the fledgling startup Line 6 set their sights on creating a series of pedals that would further extend their reach into digital emulations of effects. Plans called for the DM4 distortion modeler, the MM4 modulation modeler, the FM4 filter modeler, and the DL4 delay modeler.
The DL4 would include models of classic delays like the Echoplex and Roland Space Echo, as well as Line 6’s own innovative delay algorithms. But it was the DL4’s other features that would pique the interest of adventurous musicians, including a first-of-its-kind tap-tempo function and, of course, its now-legendary looper.
Jeorge Tripps was running his own boutique pedal company, Way Huge, when he was invited to consult with Line 6 on modeling vintage pedals. A few months into the project he was offered a position with the company. “Line 6 was like college for me,” Tripps recounts. “I had worked on things on my own, but developing a product with a team was really an education. Ideas are easy, but bringing a product to fruition as a team was a whole different experience.”
The team comprised the cream of the Line 6 brain trust, including co-founders Michel Doidic and Marcus Ryle, as well as product developers Greg Westall, Jeff Slingluff, and Patrick O’Connor, engineers Nigel Redmon and Kevin Duca, industrial designer Lucien Tu, and numerous other contributors. As Tripps observes, the input of those different perspectives was critical to the project.
“Most of us were also players, and that made a difference. You can create a product that’s great from an engineer’s perspective, but when you put it the hands of an artist, they might see something completely different in it.”
Keep It Simple
Simplicity was part of the design goal of the DL4. “The idea was to create a digital pedal with analog functionality,” explains Tripps, adding that he had limited input into the design. “Much of it was already planned out by the time I joined the project. The industrial design was there. I had to figure out how to map functions to the existing hardware.”
The interface was straightforward: a 16-position mode selector knob, five knobs to adjust parameters, and four analog-style footswitches: Record/Overdub, Play/Stop, Play Once, and 1/2 Speed/Reverse. It was Tripps who suggested the fourth button be used for tap-tempo function.
The DL4 also incorporated stereo outputs, which was something of a last-minute addition. “When the DL4 first came out, very few guitarists were playing stereo rigs,” Tripps reports. “We put it in there just because it was cheap and easy to implement. Only after it was out for a while did people start discovering it.”
Tripps also played a key role in promoting the looper, which was in some ways almost an afterthought. Of course, looping itself was nothing new. The Echoplex and other tape-based delays had been around for decades. But analog delays were expensive and unwieldy for live work, and the early digital pedals didn’t have a lot of memory—certainly not enough for looping.
In fact, it was digital’s limitations that contributed to another of the DL4’s characteristic sonic features. “Technically, we couldn’t get quite 15 seconds of loop time; it was like 14 and change,” Tripps recalls. “So we decided to take that remaining few hundred milliseconds of delay time and run that through the looper.”
A Slow Build
Despite Line 6’s aggressive advertising, the DL4 and its siblings were not an immediate hit. “People didn’t really know what it was at first,” says Tripps. “It didn’t really explode until a handful of people started doing stuff with it.” Slowly and steadily, artists as varied as Dimebag Darryl, Ed O’Brien, The Edge, and Thom Yorke started squeezing whole new sonic landscapes from the diminutive box.
Minus the Bear’s David Knudson made the DL4 an integral part of the band’s sound. “At first I was mesmerized by the rad stereo sounds. Playing in a hardcore/metal band at the time, in the beginning I was using one half-stack amp. At some point down the line, I realized that as the only guitar player I should get another half-stack for the other side of the stage. Once I plugged in the DL4 to each half-stack and found the Ping Pong delay, my mind was instantly blown. The melodic guitar parts had never sounded so huge and epic. It was the beginning of an epic journey to discover what all the delays were about.”
For Joff Oddie of indie rockers Wolf Alice, the experience was equally liberating. “I actually don’t think I’d even used a delay pedal before and it blew my mind. There were sounds that I expected, and then other settings like the Sweep delay and reverse sounds, which to me sounded so otherworldly yet at the same time organic. I never gave my manager the pedal back. I hope he doesn’t read this.”
As Knudson notes, it was many years later and a happy accident in the studio that led to his discovering the DL4’s looping function. “We were recording some demos after our first LP came out and I think out of boredom I played a little tapping lead into the looper. That song would become “Fine +2 Points,” which features a re-triggered loop section in the bridge that really opened the door for me. After that little successful experiment, for our next record, Menos El Oso, I was in full-on loop and sampler mode. I realized that with multiple DL4s I could emulate some of my favorite cut-up and glitchy sounds coming out of artists like Four Tet, DJ Shadow, Caribou, and other early EDM pioneers. The one-shot function allowed me to re-trigger samples and create riffs that sounded like they should have originated on an MPC. Eight of the 11 songs on that record have sampled riffs and re-defined what guitar playing meant for me.”
Of course, looping was only part of the DL4’s broader appeal, which also offered sounds and tactile control previously unavailable on most effects pedals. “I loved how cranking the feedback knob made it go crazy,” opines Oddie, “how the time knob sounded when you wiggled it and the delays pitch shifted. Part of its charm is how incredibly tactile it is.”
“I’ve yet to find another sampler pedal that works as well as the DL4,” adds Knudson. “It’s super easy to use and so straightforward that it’s perfect for the live setting. I don’t want a bank of digital menus to scroll through, and the fact that it can get everything I need done with four buttons is perfect. If it were any more complicated I don’t think it would have been nearly as successful as it has become.”
Like most legends, the DL4 has spawned a host of imitators. Looping and sampling have become powerful tools for guitarists and other musicians, and while the DL4 may not have been the first, it’s largely seen as the big daddy of the art form.
“The DL4 didn’t really break any new ground, yet it was a major leap,” observes Tripps. “It didn’t improve on existing delays as much as it created a whole new instrument. It put a lot of power on the floor for guitarists, along with a really intuitive interface. Almost by accident, it made looping accessible for live performance.”
It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 25 years since the DL4 made its debut. Technology has obviously come a long way since then, and Line 6 has recently unveiled a new commemorative 25th Anniversary edition of the iconic pedal. The Mk II version adds to the legend without taking away the features that made it what it is. “The MkII just improves upon an already great pedal,” Knudson observes. “Honestly, one of the best things is just the smaller footprint on the pedalboard. As we know, boards are increasingly becoming competitive as to how much stuff you can squeeze on there! But I love the additional delays and reverbs. The classics are obviously my go-to choices, but I love how it has evolved and elevated with current trends with guitarists but still stayed true to form in what made it so wonderful in the first place.”
The quiet impact of the DL4 is something no one would have foreseen. Much like a band making a record, all the best laid plans won’t predict the public’s response. Will it thud like a tree in an empty forest, or be gone tomorrow like a flash in the pan? Like a hit single, only time will tell if it has the staying power to become a legend. As Tripps concludes, “It was the right combination of great minds, great ideas, and great execution, at the right time.”
Celebrating 10 years of Revv & 5 years since the release of the G2, Revv is debuting V2 circuit revisions of the G2, G3, & G4, implementing new designs for more tone in 3 little pedals, in a limited edition colorway.
The Revv Amplification 5th Anniversary G-Series V2 Lineup features:
- 3 Fresh Flavors of Boutique Canadian Tone - G-Series pedals are sonic recreations of 3 of Revv’s boutique amp channels used by Nashville session stars & metal touring artists alike.
- The Standard, Redefined - V2 circuit revisions are based on the Generator 120 MK3 Rev. B & incorporate new design elements for the most tube-like response & tone ever.
- Limited Edition - Exclusive new colorway featuring a black enclosure w/ custom graphics, embossed Revv badge, & color-coded knobs.
- Find Your Sound - The G2 is a powerful & versatile overdrive capable of everything from touch-sensitive boost to organic vintage stack tones, taken from Revv’s Green Channel.
- High Gain Clarity - The G3 utilizes Revv’s legendary Purple Channel, a tight & responsive high gain tone perfect for drop tuning & cutting through any mix.
- Fat Solo Tones - The G4 is based on Revv’s thick & saturated Red Channel, the ideal sound for chewy crunch, modern rock wall of sound, & liquid sustaining solos.
- Made in Canada - 100% analog circuit w/ top jacks, true bypass, & 2 year warranty.
Revv’s G-Series pedals have a street price of $229 & can be ordered immediately through many fine dealers worldwide.
For more information, please visit revvamplification.com.
Revv G3 Purple Channel Preamp/Overdrive/Distortion Pedal - Anniversary Edition
Huge shocker incoming: Zach Broyles made a Tube Screamer. The Mythos Envy Pro Overdrive is Zach’s take on the green apple of his eye, with some special tweaks including increased output, more drive sounds, and a low-end boost option. Does this mean he can clear out his collection of TS-9s? Of course not.
This time on Dipped in Tone, Rhett and Zach welcome Tyler Bryant, the Texas-bred and Nashville-based rocker who has made waves with his band the Shakedown, who Rhett credits as one of his favorite groups. Bryant, it turns out, is a TS-head himself, having learned to love the pedal thanks to its being found everywhere in Texas guitar circles.Bryant shares how he scraped together a band after dropping out of high school and moving to Nashville, including the rigors of 15-hour drives for 30-minute sets in a trusty Ford Expedition. He’s lived the dream (or nightmare, depending on the day) and has the wisdom to show it.
Throughout the chat, the gang covers modeling amps and why modern rock bands still need amps on stage; the ins and outs of recording-gear rabbit holes and getting great sounds; and the differences between American and European audiences. Tune in to hear it all.
