Designing CLN to Mid Gain Preamp (Bass)

YourGuitarist

YourGuitarist

Active member
I've been chipping away at a bass AIB solution but I am finding that the desired post drive EQ curve changes with drive settings.

I'm experimenting with boosting tube-screamer style in front which helps but then there is a hi-mid nasal quality.

Do you find that overdrive structure affects what eq you use.

I'm using a single stage FB diode approach with asymmetry. I also have a cap parallel to clipping diodes that lower LPF as gain is increased.

Would splitting the stage into more parts help? Ik jfets are popular but I am curious how far I can get with opamp+diode style.
 
My first question, does this have a clean blend or a controllable crossover? My second is have you looked at Aion's schematic for the Empyrean bass drive from Aion? It is a clone of the Darkglass Alpha|Omicron/Omega drive. While it is a distortion it uses opamps to produce the drive. You can look at the alpha part of the distortion block as that is closer to overdrive than the omicron/omega block.
 
I should revisit that schematic. This does not have a clean blend or two band drive but it has a pre drive mid boost that measures flatter as gain is turned up. I haven't found the mid boost to be overly thinning though I do like tight bass tones so ..... It wouldn't be hard to design a two band drive with a dual gang gain pot. That'd be cool to tune the each band separate.
 
I would actually setup the crossover to control where the drive comes in on the frequency band. One of my favorite bass drives has a crossover that shifts from 50Hz to 1kHz. Everything below that split is clean and everything above is overdriven. If you want to take it a step further you can also put in a compressor that only affects the clean band to sculpt your tone even more.
 
The aion fx is doing some real weird stuff. Looks like there's all pass filters in it. Wonder why, maybe notching when summing the bands.
 
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