Third Take

A good bass sound is critical to great recordings. Compared to other instruments, like drums or acoustic guitar, it’s fairly easy to record. I’ve had decent results plugging straight into my DMP-3, setting the gain, and pressing Record. However, decent results are not always good enough. I want an tight, hot, punchy bass sound that really drives the mix. I’ve tried two different “amp simulators” in my studio for the last couple years – the SansAmp Bass Driver DI and the Behringer Bass V-AMP Pro – and I’m here to tell you which one is better.

Behringer Bass V-AMP Pro

This 2-rackspace digital monster is packed with features. It has “models” of famous bass, guitar, and keyboard amps. You can further customize with different stomp box and speaker models. It has stock presets, user presets, stereo analog outputs, S/PDIF outputs, a tuner, and everything else you could think of.

The Good: Lots of sounds, lots of options. You can program a sound you like and store it in a preset for later. It can also simulate guitar amps as well as bass amps – this makes it killer for practice, because you can plug in your instrument and headphones and practice away without waking the neighbors. You can find an okay simulation of any bass sound on the planet.

The Bad: The sound just isn’t there. No matter how hard I tweak, I can’t get it sound better than a “B+.” It never quite comes to life. Also, the bridge humbucker on my PRS is too hot for this unit. It clips the input no matter how much I turn down the input level (which is tricky, since it requires pushing two buttons at the same time, and then holding down a third button while you turn a knob).

The Verdict: It’s a cool unit for demos and practicing, but I don’t use it on serious recordings.

SansAmp Bass Driver DI
This little DI box is an analog amp simulator with a footswitch. It has a few knobs for tweaking the sound and some switches for setting up the output levels. You can power it with a 9v battery or phantom power. There’s no programmability, although Tech 21 also makes a programmable version.

The Good: This little box sounds like the real thing. There is a range of sounds accessible through the knobs, and the Blend knob will even blend the amp sound with the raw sound of your bass. This is a solid “A” sound in the studio. When a bass player came over to record, he preferred my SansAmp to a microphone on his Ampeg rig.

The Bad: No programmability, no effects.

The Verdict: This box will take your bass recordings to the next level. Just keep a digital camera nearby to document your settings.

Conclusion

I’ve had both these units for over a year. I practice with the V-AMP all the time, but the SansAmp is on every recording I make. My recommendation for making your bass recordings sound better is to get the SansAmp – though I would seriously consider the programmable version. It was more expensive when I bought mine, but now they look to be the same price.

Where to Buy

I’ve been a satisfied Zzounds customer for over 8 years. I buy most of my gear from them. Their prices can’t be beat and they usually have free shipping.
Behringer Bass V-AMP Pro
SansAmp Bass Driver DI
Tech21 SansAmp Programmable Bass Driver DI

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