EHX Battalion DI

[Kerry Brown]

I haven't been that happy dialing in a live sound for playing bass in my band. I have two basses, a Tokai Hardpuncher (Pbass) and an Epiphone Thunderbird. They both sound good but weren't cutting through the mix. I use a Traynor SB110 combo amp. At 120 watts it's a little light on power. Was thinking of getting a different amp. Instead I bought an EHX Battalion DI. It is an amazing pedal. It has a built in DI, compressor, distortion, and noise gate. The distortion can be set as pre-eq, post-eq, or a mix of dry with eq and non-eq distortion. With the blend knob you can really dial in whatever distortion you are looking for. I spent a few hours yesterday trying different sounds then set it for how I thought it would be in the mix. Last night at our practice it took a couple of songs to make some minor changes then it was absolutely awesome. It cut through the mix like nobodies business. I had the volume on my amp way down from where it was before and I was easily heard in the mix. For the heavier songs the pre-eq distortion was perfect. At an upcoming gig we have a guest singer coming and she wants to sing Creep. Switching the distortion in and out for heavier/quieter sections was perfect. I'm pretty sure the Battalion will have a permanent place in my signal chain. We have a gig lined up on the 26th. I plan to use the DI out to the PA and the line out to my SB110 for a stage monitor. This gig is a house party. It is a test for some proper gigs we have lined up in March and April.

Battalion | Bass Preamp & DI - Electro-Harmonix

Flexible bass preamp and DI delivers powerful tone shaping capabilities in a rugged pedalboard-friendly package!

www.ehx.com

 

[smitty_p]

Excellent post and observations, Kerry!

Many times, cutting through the mix is best accomplished as a surgical operation and not by blunt force.

Very cool.

 

[Thatbastarddon]

Excellent score Kerry! Thank you for sharing this here! I absolutely love having the ability to have distortion in parallel/mixable to clean sound on bass…that’s the whole reason I grabbed the big bass muff deluxe. The Battalion looks as though it refines what the bass muff deluxe had to offer.