NPD

[Screamingdaisy]

I recently picked up a Darkglass Infinity. It's kind of an experiment. I'm going for a clanky rock/metal bass tone, but it's not as extreme as a lot of the stuff I see on YouTube. I need it to fit into a mix with guitars rather than overpower them, and for some reason getting a distortion sound I love has been a bit of a struggle for me..

I've been running a BDDI to FOH, then periodically hitting that with a distortion for certain songs. For the last year or so I've been using a B7K. I like a certain consistency in my live sound, and the way stepping on the B7K would change my low end kind of bugged me, so I decided to give this setup a shot.

I also recently switch from a 4 string P/J to a 5 string DC/DC. I absolutely loved my Spector P/J + BDDI sound, however I wasn't thrilled with how the DCs were sounding through the same setup/settings, so I'm somewhat motivated me to make some changes.

I'm using the Infinity in multi-band mode, so one band is high passed and fed through a B7K and sim IR, and the other is low passed, left clean and compressed, then merged back together.

Pros - the results are a lot more polished sounding, fat, and fits into the mix really nicely.

I also like that it'll let me run different configurations on each output. So, I can have remove the cab sim from one output and use that to feed a stage amp.

Cons - the results are a lot more polished sounding, so it's harder to get more extreme sounds out of it as they tend to blend in and don't stand out as much. I'm generally cool with that, others my find that to be an issue.

It also has a tube amp emulation mode that sounds like a good SVT. I wish I had a way to feed the B7K mode into the tube amp emulation mode.

I was about one step away from splitting my signal into a clean/dirty setup and doing this all analogue, but I figured I'd give this a shot first as it's a fraction of what that would cost.

 

[crushingpetal]

Thanks for the write up!

 

[Screamingdaisy]

I spent a chunk of time yesterday doing a deep dive into the Infinity, trying to understand what everything did and playing around with it in a mix (basically, I play along to tracks where I remove the lows so I can hear how things actually sound). When I played with the band the other day it was with some slightly tweaked presets, now I'm digging in to dial things in better.

For reference, I've been doing some comparing/contrasting with both a B7K Ultra and a BDDI. Presets have an exaggerated low end, and I wanted to get that under control.

First off, I was surprised that the BDDI had more midrange than the Infinity. I think a lot of that is the IR. I'm using an Ampeg 810 IR, which is pretty scooped, but it sits in the mix really well and has just enough upper mid cut to poke through in that traditionally Ampeg way. I don't know how this'll perform on stage (which is why I have a few other options loaded), but against pre-recorded tracks it sounds great.

It also has an analogue speaker sim IR... which, best I can figure out is a BDDI IR. I didn't A/B them because I forgot I loaded it in there until I typed it just now, but it's more boxy sounding and is my backup option if it turns out the 810 IRs are too scooped for FOH.

I also tried my B7K Ultra again. I used it as a preamp and used the same IR so I could compare it to the Infinity. I kinda thought/was worried I'd like the Ultra more it's analogue and I expected it to be more raw, but....

Going back to the Infinity was eye openingly better. The clarity in the lows, the separation of the mids, and I could afford to apply more distortion in the highs because it wasn't distorting the low end. I was honestly shocked, I didn't expect that much of a difference.

With the B7K Ultra, getting the low end clarity I want means not using the grunt switch (which feeds more lows pre-gain), however that means having less chunky distortion, and the chunky distortion means having blown out lows that loose clarity. The Infinity solves that issue by separating out and compressing the lows.

As good as I thought I had the B7K dialled in, the Infinity just sounded better. And, that's not to say the B7K sounded bad, it sounded good, it's just not as good (IMO) when used this way as the Infinity.

IMO/YMMV

 

[crushingpetal]

Yeah, parallel processing (processing the lows and high seprately) is a big deal. Perhaps a better comparison would be with the X7.

 

[Screamingdaisy]

Yeah, parallel processing (processing the lows and high seprately) is a big deal.

Agreed. That part is pretty eye opening. I've been doing parallel for years, but it's been clean/dirty + OD (BDDI, parallel out to SVT with mic on cab).

The BDDI obviously puts a lot of dirt on the low mids, and the dry blend is just a raw DI with no EQ or compression. And, the cab mic is just straight midrange.

Perhaps a better comparison would be with the X7.

I agree. I originally thought of this as a programmable B7K, but it's more like if a B7K and an X7 had a kid.

I might look at an X Ultra somewhere down the road as it's half the size of the Infinity, depends on how dependant I become on having multiple sounds on tap. If I find I'm mostly using one sound and hitting the Infinity with a second dirt pedal (like an A/O) then I might go that route to save space.

I'm also considering splitting this into two paths and doing it with stand alone units and having the crossover happen at FOH.

And... I'm thinking of going the extreme other direction and going full modeller... which is mostly so I can go more Justin Chancellor-ish without the giant pedalboard.

But, mostly this is just me having fun with something new and overthinking my options.