Behringer V-Tone Bass BDI21 3-stars Reviews

Got one to be used as a preamp between bass and PA system in a "no-amp" environment. Kind of a one trick pony, I could find one usable sound at a time, clean or overdriven.

I upgraded mine pretty soon to a SansAmp with 3 presets and a way better sound.

Di + Distortion

A few years ago i decided that i´d like to add a little bit of distortion to my sound. Most people assume an Sansamp, but that has been to expensive as i didn´t know whether i want to keep the distortin in my setting.

I heard the BDI21 should be quite similar to the sansamp so i gave it try.

Well, the handling is okay, there is a heavy plate under the BDI to make it heavy, the rest is made out of plastic, just like the knobs. It´s hard to see where the knobs are pointing, the only mark is a little black hole at the end of the knob.

The Sound:

Well, i´ve got the the feeling that it steals all my mids, the distortion is very smooth, especially in like breaks where only the bass is playing it´s easy to get a harsh mumbling distortion but when used while the whole band is playing, i can´t get through.

So it´s a nice box if you want to try some kind of distortion, but i would not recommend it for Studio or professional use.

Not sure if it's a keeper

I wanted to experiment with a bit of sansamp-ish sound. But just for the try I wasn't into paying >200 euros, so I went for the clone of it, the Behinger BDI21. If you look it up, a lot of people will tell you the BDI is not the very same, but is close to it.

Honestly, I haven't found my tone in it yet. Maybe the whole principle does not work for me. First I discovered that the manual in the box was for the guitar version and not the bass version, so all advise and default settings were un-usable.

If active, this little box scoops the heck out of your tone. That seems to be the biggest difference to the original. There's a video on YT that explains a mi-boost patch to fill the scooped mid-range again.

the knobs are stiff to turn, so no risk of accidental changes here.

I would not want to use this box on a world tour since the enclosure seems not to be very stable.

I have not yet decided whether I keep it or not. It is in my effect rack, but bypassed most of the time. But I still experiment with it.

For the price, you cannot go wrong. It is a DI box, so even for this purpose I'd keep it.

Some nice sounds

It feels a little cheap but there are some good tones to be found. The DI is a little noisy and the switch isn't the sturdiest but I still use it in the studio from time to time and it works fine after 5 years use.