SansAmp: your uses?

[burn]

Do you love them? are they usable in recording for bass or guitar? I remember in a studio one time, the soundman pupt a snare track through a guitar sansamp to give it some bite. And for amp simulation, is it better/worse than those line 6 toys?

[auralman]

I'll admit to having used the thing for tracking guitar when I was feeling particularly lazy, but I always hate the way it comes out. Very one-dimensional. HOWEVER (in my best Stephen A. Smith voice) it's great during mixdown for drums - I'll send a submix out a buss through the box and dial in some crunch, then mix it in with the room tracks. Subtle, but good. Lately, I've been compressing the hell out of that sum before hitting the sansamp, overloading the input. The Sansamp doesn't like that, but I do. I've found it makes an interesting mic pre as well - used it on a conga track once for an interesting effect.

[superluminalmagus]

I like them but as auralman says, very one-dimensional. I can get about 2 sounds that I like out of the model I'm using (GT2), but I REALLY like those sounds. I use it mainly for direct recordings when its not practial to have a cranked amp - hot plate or otherwise. However, it does complement my single channel amp and I use it for extra gain on the amp sometimes.

[cgarges]

I almost never use mine for guitar. I love it on vocals, drums, bass, and a mix buss. (There was a pretty lengthy discussion about that some time last year. Do a search for "SansAmp" by "cgarges" and you'll probably find it. I don't think it was a SansAmp-related thread.) When I have recorded guitar with it, I've liked the GT-2 much better than the Classic, but the Classic rocks for all the other stuff. I just blew mine up and need to get it fixed.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[flanneljammies]

I have the Classic and I think it sounds pretty good on guitar if I put my Tube Driver in front of it. I really like how it sounds on my Baritone guitar.

[apropos of nothing]

I have the bass version and love it.

I've recently been leaving the tone controls almost flat and trying to inflect the tone on the bass itself. This has been giving me much better results. I usually leave the mix setting on about 60% ampsim, 40% dry.

I also had real good luck with using it as a second line on an acoustic guitar with a pick-up. SM-58 in front of the guitar, and the pick-up through the sansamp made a real nice blend.

Haven't tried any of the fancy run-y'r-drum-mix-through-it tricks yet. Might have to do that.

[tiger vomitt]

i use the bass DI nowadays. i had the gt2 for years. i used the gt2 mostly on metal guitars, but it was a weird project where it worked. i sold it about 3 years ago.

the BDI is great on bass naturally, very nice on vocals...i ve been plugging a green bullet mic into it and it is really cool. like if i have a 4047 up for vocals i'll stick the green bullet a few feet away thru the bass DI and mix it in later. i also used it like that on a group clap track recently.

what i like best about using these things is that it often makes EQ'ing a track unnecessary during mixing.

ive tried the RBI (bass DI but rackmount with a mid control). it sounded just a little bit better than the pedal but i went with the pedal. i didnt think it sounded $100 better

ive also used the acoustic DI, i didnt have it long, i dont know what to think of it. it was cool but weird.

tech21 is an awesome company btw. some cool people work there.

[hammertime]

I once put a harmonica through a green bullet, and then into the classic sansamp -- I can't remember the jumper settings -- one of the best harmonica tones I've ever recorded. I bought the psa-1 later, and I like it on drums and percussion, and bass, but definitely not on guitar.

[Harmony Head]

I swear by the Bass DI. I've used it on EVERY bass track i've recorded since about 1995 (about 300 projects i'd guess) plus every live bass gig i've done since then. It makes average basses sound useable, and good basses sound delicous. It's like my bass swiss army knife. Funnily, we bought the rack version recently, and while i still love it, i don't love it as much.

My studio partner loves running anything he can through all sorts of sansamp things. He has the red rack sansamp, the classic, the rack bass one and the Sansamp plug in. Funnily, as it was said before, guitars NEVER go through them though. I never really fancied any of the sansamp stuff for guitars. I do like the acoustic pre-amp, but it is a bit weird..

HH

[hammertime]

I rember reading an article by the Dust Brothers in which they said they put everything except guitars on Beck's Odelay through the sansamp.

[Zeppelin4Life]

the sansamp bass DI seems to be the standard box for recording bass DI. It does have a very tubey warm analog sound. My brother uses it on his bass, sounds great. just cant get carried away w/ it. but thats why theres a blend knob

[oobedoob]

Wild, I haven't used mine in ages. Forgot I had them.....

The last time I had great success was with Bass multed to Sansamp and Countryman into 2 channels, mixed to one track. Sansamp sounded pretty neat-o, but I needed to have the uncolored DI sound to embiggen the sound the right way....

[telepathy]

I've got one of the originals, which to my ears sounds a little less "effected" than the Classic, at least on guitars. having said that, I don't know if I'd use it for guitar tracks on a record, but it's a great way to be able to practice with decent tone when you have to run direct. great on vocals. I've been dying to try it on drums, actually.

[kayagum]

I've been using them since the original one came out. Since the universal opinion is that it's great on everything BUT guitar, I'll concentrate on my guitar uses:

* Clean sounds more better and realistic to me, particularly the "Bassman" like settings.

* I've had much better luck using pedals for overdrive and distortion, patched in front of the SansAmps. "Aggressive" pedals seem to take better (think ZVex Fuzz Factory or a hot RAT pedal vs. a Tube Screamer light overdrive). Pedals with clean blends also seem to do well (e.g. Sparkledrive, and I'm guessing my SIB Varidrive- I can get almost identical sounds out of the two).

* Compressor in *front* of the SansAmp is crucial. The SansAmps seem to miss some of the "feel"- maybe it's the sag compression, maybe it's the speaker coil, maybe it's the air or air-into-mic that's missing. To my ears, a dry SansAmp sounds like the speaker cone paper and not much else. A good guitar pedal compressor in the front can make a huge difference. My personal favorite is the Maxon CP101, but I imagine many other higher-end pedals would work well (e.g. Carl Martin). The dirtier or more squashed ones (e.g. Dynacomp) might sound better in conjunction with distortion pedals.

* If you get a weird crackle even with a clean setting with little gain, your FET circuit may be fried. My original SansAmp has already done 1 round trip to the Tech21 repair bench. I think I may have fried it with my early experiments with the ZVex Fuzz Factory- that thing can put out a brutal signal.

* The "Boogie/California" settings: think more Fender Deluxe than MesaRectifier, and you will have better success.

* Single coil vs. humbuckers. I play mostly single coils (Strats, Danelectros), but I imagine playing a humbucker through the SansAmp is a different ballgame. I personally don't like the single coil overdrive sound on it, but a humbucker or P90 might be something different. Input strength completely dictates the sound on SansAmps.

* The Bass DI is not just for bass. It's my favorite for a clean Strat. The TriAC seems to be more adjustable than the GT2, plus you can save 3 settings.

* Room reverb tends to help out a dry SansAmp signal. Heck, this might be the place to do a fun Alesis fest: think SansAmp --> Micro/NanoVerb --> MicroLimiter.

But the best use that I have found for guitar SansAmp work has been for live theater work. I've done several play runs where I had my Strat into SansAmp into the DI, and it sounds great through the house PA, with no feedback. One show, I had my SansAmp plugged into my cheapo Boss Dr. Sample just for the ring modulator (that with a slide is just downright wicked- it was for a trippy dream sequence). If you change sounds radically during a performance, maybe a POD or something digitally programmed may be better. But if you build around a stock sound, this may be the answer. Somehow, PA speakers behave very well with these units.

Hopefully, I haven't completely lost my mind (yet), but I think the SansAmp is more useful than people give credit to it. It has saved me countless times, and I still enjoy them. No, I don't work for them, but I just had to stick up for them.

[joel hamilton]

I have the bass one, the acoustic DI and one of the guitar ones (the three switches one, not the DIP switches one) and I use the DI on a send and through some tube line drivers for drum/bass center summing help. Compressed and loud, the sansamp bass DI is fun. The avalon U5 sounds better for actually recording bass though.