Behringer V-Tone Bass BDI21

If you're playing anything but rock music live, chances are the sound tech is going to run your bass straight into the PA. Since you're left to the mercy of the equipment available at the venue, sometimes it's best to have your own DI just in case. I stumbled upon this thing and thought: It's just what I've been looking for!

It did fulfil the one expectation I had: being a device that converts unbalanced into balanced signal. The rest of the knobs seemed like an extra and after fiddling with them for a bit I realised they don't actually do much. The EQ is OK, the rest is meh.

The build quality is okay to bad. The 6.3mm jack doesn't lock the cable in and the XLR sticks out just a little bit. It's a bit annoying, but at this price point you can't expect much.

If you just need a DI, get this. If you need a pre-amp, look for something more expensive.

I?ve always been a little disappointed with my bass tone when recording at home. It just never quite had the punch I wanted it to.

I?m a guitar player, not a bass player, so I don?t have any great bass gear to play with.

I spotted the Sansamp, but for the amount of bass playing I need, I didn?t want to spend all that money to get a decent DI tone.

Then I spotted this Vtone on Thomann when I was browsing and I thought it can?t be any good for the silly low price ? but what have I got to lose.
I ordered it and it arrived within a couple of days, excellent service from Thomann again.

I have to say, for the price, I am extremely happy with it ? it does exactly what I wanted it to do.
It makes a DI bass have much more body and punch and helps me sit it perfectly in my mixes.

The drive doesn?t really seem to do a huge amount when turned to near the top end, for me anyway, but I can easily put a fuzz VST on the track if I need to.

So although not a Sansamp copy it certainly is an excellent DI modeller for recording, especially at the silly low price.

A bass player friend wants to borrow it sometime to try it through his live setup ? that will be interesting ?

This Behringer V-Tone Bass pedal is marketed as an amp modelling pedal. It can do this but also a great little DI pedal. I have found it really handy to have as backup in case there is any technical issue with my amplifier as I have the option of going straight into the PA desk from the DI.

The casing for the pedal is quite lightweight and plastic so I wouldn't recommend using as a stomp box as I can imagine that it wouldn't withstand too much heavy stomping. I tend to keep mine on top of my amp.

You can dial in a really nice low end drive with this pedal and really does add a nice warmth to your sound.

This is an amazing value pedal and I would recommend it for the value alone but it really had a lovely sound and could save your life sometime.

What I like:

--Very good signal-to-noise ratio. I was expecting such a low-priced item to be hiss prone.

--An excellent active DI and very good preamp for clean to warm sounds. Don't increase the gain too much to get distortion. It doesn't sound good distorted.

Not so great:

--Limited EQ controls, bass and treble only. A parametric Mid Frequency control would be great, and its perfectly doable even at this price point. Witness the acoustic guitar version of this preamp also made by Behringer: lower price with the Mid control.

--Harsh distorted sound when gain is pushed past 2 o'clock or thereabouts. You'll need a separate pedal for useable distortion. But I never heard distortion pedal that sounded good on bass.

I recommend it, a preamp is necessary for decent sound with electric guitars when not going through an actual amp that's being mic'ed. The price is right. I'm using it with both my basses and my electric guitars. Works great with both kinds of instruments at low- to mid-level gain settings.

This bass pedal is quite simple for the tone. You could get a tiny crunch or "way-too-much-buzz"-distortion and pretty much anywhere in between. Still, I wouldn't say the pedal was very versatile for there is a certain sweet spot for your taste but not much else. My friend thought this is good for high gain distortion, to me not so much but I like the less-distortion -crunch I can dial from it. Sort of a one-trick-pony for one user...

The XLR-output helps for recording and on stage playing for it functions as a signal splitter as well.

The footswitch seems durable as for mechanics but because the chassis and pots are plastic I'm just a bit concerned on how this would last on the road. In studio/home/rehearsal no problem.

This is a VERY good pedal for sounds and features and the price is super low. Sometimes behringer makes things even better than the one they're mimicing. For your ears this is deffinately one of those.

Highly recommended!!

Overall I'm happy with the BDI21. The sounds are good although - on my 6-string- less versatile than the sound demo's suggest. The treble and presence settings could have been boosted a bit in my opinion. Of course this will vary from bass to bass.

Overall though the sound is much better than expected from such a cheap product. It's clean with no undesired noise added in both DI mode as well as with jack cables. I have used both batteries and adapter but I haven't had need for the grounding feature yet. It's quiet as the proverbial grave between playing.

There are 2 minor things about the product, although neither was much of an issue for me:
First, the included instructions were for the GDI21. Bit sloppy, but the Behringer website has the right one available for download so it's no big deal.
Second, the knobs quite hard to turn. Perhaps that'll change with usage.
For the price of this preamp you may expect some corners cut along the manufacturing line but if this is all, I'm ok with that.

I bought this pedal (along with so many other Behringer pedals. Ha.) for my first band when we started playing. I remember that we wanted to sound a little bit better, but we couldn't afford better amplifiers or intruments at the time so we started to search in stores/internet for cheap ways to make us sound more like a band instead of a bunch of kids making noise. Fun Times.

I highly recomend you to read the review some user made saying that this pedal would "make a 20w bulb shine like a 100w one". That's true - I had a Squier Jazz Bass and wasn't satisfied with the lack of "warmth" in the sound, it felt that I was playing through a skinny instrument without any mids. This pedal just helped us out.

Well, I must say that in this price range (the pedal is like 29¤) it's a great product that really does a lot for your sound.
It kinda combines a Dual Band EQ, a Driver/Presence, a DI/Pre Amp in a pedal with analog modelation and under 30 bucks.The footswitch is made of plastic, and well, if you plan to use it on a daily basis, i doubt it will resist to the impact. No problems 'till now though.
You can use the XLR Output to direct record, as it "prepares" the sound right out of the pedal. You can use it to warm your sound with tube amp simulation. You can even use it just to backup in case something fails. It's that versatile.