Warwick - The Bass Forum - Hellborg Preamp Tour

So is my turn now to make a review for the Hellborg Premp.
For start I want to say what I use in my rig: I use a SWR Marcus Miller Tube preamp hooked in a Hartke 3500 wich I use only as a power amp and a Hartke 410XL cabinet. I play a Fender Jazz Bass (4 strings).
My first impresion wehn I tried the Hellborg was that It was pretty god but nothing special. Not so many knobs ... I was thinking that there is not much you can do. But soon I realised how wrong I was ....

So first I tried only on my rig...NO DI ... after 30 min of playing ...my band mates&me ...we noticed that my bass sounded like I had a natural compression ...I mean every note was eaven ...crystal clear. That sound remained the same in the mix ...when I started to play with the band. I had a big smile on my face. No other device I tryed did that for me.

So in a weektime I had 3 gigs that I played with Hellborg.
1st was in a rather small pub in my hometown ...there we had to play not so loud ...(I play NeoSoul / Jazz / Funk). My sound guy was quite satisfied with my tone ...but in that venue I couldn't make a full oppinion.

Second Gig was in a bigger venue where we had a Bigger PA sistem.
During Souncheck ...after I worked my tone on Hellborg ....My sound guy said "man ...you're flat on the Mixing Console ...and It sounds great" ...

Third Gig was in Big Film Studio Hangar ...a lot of Echo ...very bad acoustic...a nightmare for a soundengineer. Well here was the first time when I felt I needed additional compression. On Backline the tone was great but on the PA System ...was not so great and my Sound man had work his ass fot my tone to be right.

After all the experience with Hellborg I think that I will replace my actual preamp ...with this baby ...and Add a standalone compressor. For me is GREAT ...Light,Versatile & Very High Quality ...

I almost forgot... I am a Fender fan...:D ...The Hellborg in the only preamp I tried that didn't changed my bass natural sound!!! I think that this is one of the most exciting feature of this Preamp.

Here is a Pic with me&him :D