Being a long term audio guy / bass player, it's not hard to get obsessed with these bass gadgets .. recently accquired the Caveman BP1 and though it'll be fun to put it with the 1073DMP for a quick shootout, might as well the RNDI since it says Neve, then 2 of my goto preamp pedals to see how they compared to each others
Video Clip
Here comes my homemade setup:
Recording setup
Balanced line out from all boxes into RME-UFX's line-in, RNDI goes into the RME-UFX's mic pre. feeding 1k tone to match the output level on each device at +4dBu level. Line-out form UFX feeds Apogee Jam 96k into iPhone via usb-c
Settings on the 5 boxes:
- Leleh Basswitch IQ DI - Preamp channel engaged, all EQ set to flat
- Grade Design Felix - All EQ flat
- RNDI - adding about 24dB of gain on the mic pre (no additional controls)
- BAE 1073DMP - Gain at 50dB for a bit more characters, output set to 10 o'clock
- Caveman BP1 - Gain set to around 50dB position, and output level set to around 9 o'clock
Basses used:
- Passive 65' Fender Precision with Paduk fingerboard, 12yrs Labella 760M
- Active CIJ Fender Marcus Miller Jazz bass with 3yrs old DR high beam in light ga
Thoughts:
This shootout was mainly to compare the BP1 with 1073DMP , then decided to include some of my favourite goto preamp pedals .. Honestly I love them all .. and here are a few reason
Basswitch IQ DI - 2 inputs, 2 effect loop circuits (1 Series, 1 switchable Mixloop)
Grace Design Felix - 2 inputs, Takes mic in and feeds phantom power, 2 great preamps and full EQ section in 1 box
RNDI - Portable DI
BAE 1073DMP - the 1073 thing
Caveman BP1 - the 1073 flavour in a pedal form
I'm very thankful to live in an era with so many great sounding devices ...
BAE 1073DMP vs Caveman BP1
They are very similar sounding, I'm totally happy with both of them .. the BP1 is a tad more ear pleasing on the top end and is a little more refine overall out of the box , 1073dmp is a bit raw to start with(so does RNDI) and can easily to archive similar result with minimum processing ..